Analecta

by: N. Y. Smith

Disclaimer: Not Mine

Category: AU (very), Josh/Donna Romance, Josh POV, Angst,

Spoilers: Through Season Three

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: Contains references to 9/11/2001. Amy-free universe.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her..."

Proverbs 31:10-11 (Scofield Reference Edition)

I love my wife. She can refinish furniture while telephonically harassing politicians with a home-prepared meal on the stove and the children-and later, grandchildren-- creating mayhem around her. She's always been able to do it-even while finishing her degree from Harvard in 2009. I still taught there-compressing my schedule into three long days so I could devote the other two to the Bartlet Foundation. On the days I taught, we carpooled to Boston with Dr. Bartlet, who'd returned to practice at Boston General. Donna would attend classes while I harassed ignorant students then we'd hurry back to the mill to tuck our brood into their soft, warm beds. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we conducted the business of the Bartlet Foundation from offices in the renovated barn behind the Bartlet's farmhouse. Our emphasis on children allowed us to dabble in many issues but the nearest and dearest to our hearts were health and education-not just in the United States but in the world.

Ostensibly, the offices of the Bartlet Foundation were in Boston, but we, seemingly, never met there. We'd make reservations for the attendees of our little meetings at some of the finest hotels in that historic city but, somehow, they'd cajole the President, Mrs. Bartlet and me into dragging them back to New Hampshire. It certainly wasn't the accommodations-we once had an ex-Prime Minister of France sleeping on a cot on the mill floor and many former and future heads of state have curled up in the cabinet beds in the kids' rooms while the kids camped on the mill floor.

In the mornings, the President would amble over to the pond and drop a hook in the water, the kids following soon after. I'd lurch down the stairs and fix coffee for the President and me-no Lyman child ever needed any extra caffeine-then flop in one of the hundred-year-old chairs to read the morning paper retrieved, more often than not, by Ron Butterfield who would also drown a worm after fixing himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Donna would, while we fished, prepare a simple breakfast-fruit, local breads and jams, cereals-and set it on the table. Our guests, waked either by the aroma of the coffee or the mayhem at the mill pond, would wander downstairs, confusion contorting their faces before they joined us at the water's edge. The kids would grow bored and, either, go to school on school days or gambol (Sam's corrupted me) around the farm leaving the grownups to their grown-up discussions.

By this time Margaret would have figured out that we, yet again, we not coming to the barn and would, with exaggerated exasperation, scold us mildly before wandering to the house to help Donna while remaining close enough to perform her duties as Executive Assistant to Josh Lyman, Executive Director of the Bartlet Foundation. Clever CJ called it Mill Pond Diplomacy. Sam occasionally referred to it as Itemized Deduction Diplomacy (although they were eliminated in 2003) but trust wiseacre Toby Ziegler to coin his own wry appellation: Wormicide Diplomacy (he was, at the time, baiting a hook for Isaac while discussing child labor with a prominent Pakistani businessman). Whatever it was called, it worked: we were able to negotiate agreements that raised either the standard of living or the educational opportunities of nearly a third of the world's children-including the ones in the United States.

If they sound like halcyon days, they were. But the silver lining that was our life never completely obscured the dark cloud behind it. Time was not our ally. We'd decided early on to live as simply as possible. As much as a philosophical choice, it was a pragmatic one: Donna would need every penny we could muster to raise our family after I was gone. Every penny my Dad left me was put into trusts for the children. My salary at the Foundation was not even one-third what I'd made in Washington, so we did like most Americans: we tightened our belts. We paid off credit cards; we bought used cars for cash; we traded tutoring for produce and eggs, hunting rights for meat. I did the rubber chicken circuit when it didn't interfere with the family or Foundation. With a two-hundred-fifty-year-old mill to restore, we learned to do a lot of the work ourselves.

We learned a lot. I learned a lot. Once, we'd invited a representative from one of the Baltic Republics to discuss conditions in orphanages, but weren't making much progress. After he retired for the evening I descended the stairs to the mill floor, hoping to work out my frustration on some plastering (I know, I never imagined myself doing it, either). About midnight I heard a noise behind me and turned to find the representative standing in a plaid robe.

"Trouble sleeping, sir?" I returned to my trowel.

He watched for a moment before answering, "You're doing it wrong." He stepped up and gently took the tray and trowel from me, working the material before applying it to the bared lathing with a sure hand. "My father was a plasterer," he explained. "And his father."

"And you?"

"Many days I labored by my father's side, hating every moment." He smoothed another of my strokes. "Now I long for the simplicity," he loaded his trowel again, "the predictability of an honest craft."

"We all want simplicity and honesty, sir."

He eyed me critically. "How old is this place?"

I rubbed my hand across a weathered beam. "According to the tax records, it was built sometime in 1761.

"How did you come to own it?"

I watched his patient, efficient work. "President and Mrs. Bartlet offered it to us when we moved to New Hampshire. My wife fell in love with it-God only knows why-and we asked to buy it."

"It is a good, well-built place." He waved his trowel at the pegged posts supporting the next floor. "My home with built in 1849, but the house I grew up in was built sometime in the 1600s. There's something humbling about being a steward of history."

"Yes, sir, there is," I swept around the mill stone, watching as he took odd tools and scraps and incised a design into the wet plaster.

"You'll mill wheat, correct?"

"And corn and buckwheat." The design took form, ears and sheaves interwoven intricately.

As the sun sneaked its first furtive rays through the windows he stepped back and lay down his tools. Treading wearily up the steps he filled a mug from the coffee maker then sat carefully in one of the chairs near the pond while regarding the fishermen over the rim of his mug.

"Nobody," he began when I'd sat in the next chair, "intended for it to be this way. Nobody wants to cage up a child, Mr. Lyman." He sipped quietly. "To do anything else is so very expensive."

I watched him carefully, trying to ferret out any hint of pecuniary motive. All I saw was a man trying to do so very much with so very little. "If I could find you some help, not money but discreet help, would you be willing to accept it?"

He nodded quickly, almost shyly, before taking a seat at the pond bank. "Who will catch the biggest fish?" he asked and five hands shot into the air. Donna leaned over the back of my chair and planted a kiss on the top of my head.

"He accept?" she slid her hand down my shoulder.

I knitted my hand with hers. "Yeah."

"You did well, then."

I shook my head. "I was just around when it happened."

"All the better." She tugged me to my feet.

"All the better," I agreed and followed her to the water's edge.

Chapters - Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

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