As she lay in their bed, lying as close to him as she could Jill's thoughts turned to the seemingly never ending negotiations that Joe had initiated. She recalled the heavy schedule of virtual meetings, the debates about what to tell the world, about how much was a real threat and how much was just posturing, the to and fro of calls across the Atlantic. She stroked the warm skin under his t-shirt, her touch alert to the familiar gentle scratch of the hair across his stomach against her fingertips.
Joe had done everything he possibly could to prevent this war from beginning, he had spent months getting the allies aligned, he had met and spoken with Putin. When things were escalating he had ordered intelligence to be declassified and shared with the world, an unprecedented move in itself. He had issued statements, given interviews and prepared the public. Phrases such as 'Russian aggression' and 'eastern flank', and 'false flags', words such as 'posturing', 'sanctions', 'alliance', 'NATO' were part of the everyday lexicon now; she had heard Joe utter them so often. Just two days ago as they were dressing he had warned her that the suggestion of Russian retreat was untrue, merely a thin veil of falsehood thrown to a media thirsty for a supposed scoop. An utterance not even worthy of Joe's derision.
Joe had tried to tell them all and they had refused to listen or paid lip service. But she had listened to him, late in the evenings. Listened as he despaired because world leaders were content to live in a make believe world that Putin would never actually invade. Declaring that it wouldn't happen in the end. Putin was just making noise. But Joe was sure. He'd seen so much on so many foreign trips, read so many secret files over the years, knew the intelligence was good, he knew the people informing them, knew they were honest analysts. This exact event was one of the reasons why he had personally visited Intelligence headquarters in Foggy Bottom early in his presidency. To tell those people directly that he trusted them, he had their back, wanted their best analysis, that he couldn't make the decisions he needed to make if they weren't straight with him. In the pale light of this first morning of war in Europe it seemed this was one of the most astute visits of his early days as president.
Of course the media were incapable of recognising the visit as significant at the time. She was sure they had forgotten all about it. That day they had screamed questions about mask mandates at him and nothing about intelligence. She laughed ruefully at the irony of that one. That same media now questioned continually if Joe should be declassifying the intelligence, said he was saber rattling, some even suggested that Joe was making so much noise about the potential war that in the twisted half logic of the modern world of media, it was he was escalating the threat, not the guy who had the troops and mobile morgues amassed on the border of an independent nation, lurking there, looming over the sovereign boundary. Joe knew the State department and intelligence had been eviscerated under the former president. Morale was on the floor and the team had doubted if they would be supported by their president again. Joe told them of their worth, the critical importance of their task. Told them to believe in themselves. Well, Jill thought to herself now as she placed a gentle kiss on his shoulder, they more than proved their worth these past few months.
In the privacy of their bed she could admit that the news, when it did arrive, still came as a shock, even to her. It was difficult, no, impossible to comprehend the mind that would willingly ignore diplomacy and engage in war. A totally unjustified, wholly unprovoked and morally reprehensible war; the slaughter of innocent people. When that call finally came, the ring of the phone was like a clarion call in the darkness, a doomed foretelling of the message to be communicated to the president. The incongruity of the moment was not lost on Jill. Sleeping peacefully. Lying happily side by side with her husband, content in the very mundane but beautiful act of sharing their bed, their bodies naturally touching in the darkness, the simplicity of casting the burdens of the waking day aside to rejuvenate the mind and body through the act of sleep ripped apart by the somber ringing of the phone.
