The old lady had a knack for getting under his skin, Cameron contemplated. Her frankness, often disarming, was becoming irritatingly bold, and her brunt words at their weekly dinner just a few hours earlier had made him cringe: “To say nothing of your emotional and sexual needs which are not being met,” she had told him. “It has to affect the performance of your duties. Unless of course you pay for it, but that would not fill your emotional needs, would it?”

Surely few—if any—women talked to their sons that way.

Seeing that he was annoyed she adopted her Rose-Kennedy-esque stance. “I’ve changed your diapers, Cameron. That fact alone gives me some rights that no one else can ever have.” He had almost burst out laughing because he doubted that his mother, Grace Winfield Austin, had ever changed a diaper. Hell, if she ever had to identify the cloth diaper from his day from a line-up of tea towels, serviettes and bidet cloths, he was certain she would fail.

    There were so many people about in the Austin household as Cameron was growing up on the outskirts of Baltimore that it seemed servants had their own servants. Each of the four Austin children had a nanny who relieved Grace of the need to be involved in things as mundane as diaper changing. Not that she was not a model parent. She was close to her children from the moment they came into the world. As a child of wealth, she simply relegated the less-pleasant duties to the servants. Outgoing by nature, young Cameron made friends with all these people, something his mother encouraged. “We must treat everyone with respect, no matter their lot in life or the color of their skin,” he remembered her saying often.

           That had resulted in some ire from her own mother, Cameron’s grandmother, who considered herself at least one step above other mere mortals, and who, if she had had her way, would have forced servants to crawl on their bellies in her presence. Cameron Austin was thankful that his mother had inherited her father’s good sense, or was it the servants’ good sense? After all, she too had been raised by nannies. 

           Grace Winfield was barely twenty-one when she married George Austin, older by more than a decade and well established in the family business. In an old newspaper clipping Cameron had read, the marriage had been reported as an amazing union of wealth and was accompanied by a black-and-white photo of the intertwined Gs of the couple’s names, designed for the occasion. The monogram appeared on many of the wedding gifts which had been showcased on a long table covered with a crisp linen cloth and photographed for those who could only dream of such materialistic excess. The debate in old stuffy clubs as to which family had actually been the richest was never won. The mesh of companies which combined the accumulated fortunes of the Winfields and the Austins was today overseen by Cameron’s two younger sisters and their husbands.

           During a visit with his maternal grandmother in Philadelphia when he was about eight years of age, Cameron Austin had heard a comment that his mother was the cream of the crop. Not sure what it meant, he later asked his grandmother to explain. “Cameron, that means that you are very fortunate to be the son of a woman who is not like everyone else.”

           Today, Cameron Austin could only agree that Grace Winfield Austin was indeed a rare breed who in her mid-seventies still wielded a great deal of influence. And not solely because of her wealth. She had immense personal strength gained from a reality no amount of money could have changed. Especially when the eldest of the Austin boys, Terrence, barely out of his teens, had been killed by a drunk driver as he crossed an intersection.

           In the years that followed, Grace Austin became a model for grieving parents everywhere as she fought for tougher laws against drunk drivers. She was eventually able to influence legislation as well as societal views, and now her efforts were being aimed at broadening the meaning of driving under the influence to include all manner of drugs.

           Grieving at a very personal level, George Austin had been stoic after his son’s death, while Grace explained to her remaining children the need to surrender to a higher power. Crying was a must, she told them, but only when they were together as a family so as to be an example of courage to the outside world. She arranged for the three of them to vent, in turn, their very personal feelings about their devastating loss to a distinguished therapist. Cameron was still grateful to his mother for recognizing that those sessions had been needed, especially in his case because it had afforded him a unique opportunity to also come to terms with his America which was involved in a war he was far from convinced it had the right to wage.

           While serving in the Air National Guard, he was to be deployed for the Gulf War but his involvement was short and sweet—something that was still occasionally the butt of late-night television comedy routines—because of an emergency appendectomy.

            The whole tumult convinced Cameron that he had a role to play in being of service to his country. When he expressed his views at dinner one evening, his father was clearly disappointed that his only living son would not go into the family business. Nevertheless, he and Grace were thrilled at their son’s goal to enter politics. “You’ll be the pride of the Austins.”

           Cameron realized early that his mother’s determination had had a positive effect on his goal. “You cannot give up simply because your nomination seems out of reach, Cameron,” she told him when he was facing strong opposition in his first bid for the Maryland legislature. “It’s all part of the learning process.”

           Earlier, at their dinner, his mother had leaned on him for losing sight of his ultimate goal. Not just his goal. The whole family’s goal. Grace Winfield Austin’s goal, the one she had supported and influenced all these years. “It is a fact of life that you cannot get there if you are not married.”

           “Mother, may I point out that you did not remarry after Father died.”

           “That’s quite different, and you know it. I’m an old woman. You are a man in the prime of life with needs and a very precise goal. You owe it to your supporters who want you as Thomson’s replacement in three years.”

           Cameron was painfully aware that a widowed presidential candidate did not carry the same weight as a man with a charming wife and poised children at his side, but what woman in her right mind would marry a fifty-something man who still mourned the loss of the woman he had so loved, a woman who had been unable to give him children.

           “I know that you are not even looking, Cameron.”

           Those words had especially irritated him. What in hell did she expect? He was the Vice President of the United States. He couldn’t simply run an ad in the Washington Post or join an on-line dating service:  SWM, 6’2”, 185 lbs., black hair and eyes, considered attractive, in position of power, looking for an intelligent soul mate with whom to spend very little time; or join a Washington singles club. His options were limited.

           “Come,” Cameron said in answer to a soft knock on the door. He kept his eyes closed and his head against the back of the wide comfortable leather seat.

           “Sir, we’ve entered Canadian air space over the lake,” Lonsdale, one of the men in his secret service detail informed him. “We’ll be landing shortly.”

The pilots of Air Force II brought the plane to a stop on a runway at the Canadian Forces base just north of Lake Ontario shortly before nine-thirty in as smooth a landing as a duck touching down on the satiny surface of a calm lake. By design, it was the only aircraft in the area at that hour. It taxied to a stop and a nondescript black minivan smoothly glided to a stop as the door of the craft opened and steps were positioned. Two agents exited in the moonlit spring night ahead of the Vice President of the United States who was wearing casual khakis and a brown leather jacket. He was followed by the two other men in his detail. All four men were dressed in black suits.

           The driver of the minivan, a tall lanky man with a lined face, got out and went to shake hands with Cameron Austin. “Welcome back to Canada, Mr. Vice President.”

           “Thank you, Harold. How have you been?”

           “Just fine, sir. And you?”

           “No complaints, but I’m glad to have nothing to do but rest for the next few days.” He smiled. “You don’t think I’ll be shot, do you? With all this tension between our two countries.”

           “Of course not. It might be a different story if your President…” At that moment, Harold, a faint smile on his lips, saw fit to cut his remarks short.

           Cameron Austin chuckled. “Don’t worry, I won’t report you.”

           As the two men watched the luggage being loaded into the minivan Harold spoke a little more somberly. “To tell you the truth that war of words between Washington and Ottawa has me a little scared.”

           “It’s not going anywhere, believe me. You don’t really expect our two countries to end their diplomatic relations over this, do you? Canada and the U.S. are best of friends. Just a little annoyed at each other right now, that’s all. It’ll pass.”

           “My wife says she wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. simply decided to grab us and turn us into one giant state. Then where would we be?” Harold asked, not expecting an answer.

           About to comment, Cameron Austin turned his head at the sound of a government-issue car which came to a brusque stop a few feet from the Vice President. Two agents rushed to it. A tall man wearing the uniform of a Canadian Armed Forces colonel stepped out from the front passenger side, saluted and approached Cameron Austin.

           “Good evening, Mr. Vice President. Sorry to be late.”

           “Good evening. Late for what?”

           “To officially welcome you to Canada,” he said, extending his right hand.

           Cameron Austin remained unmoving for a few seconds before shaking the man’s hand. “We asked that there be no official notice of my visit to your country since this is strictly a personal trip.”

           “I simply wanted to let you know that we are honored to have you in our country and that the area is extremely secure.”

           Cameron Austin’s voice was friendly but firm. “Thank you, but I would be very grateful if no one outside the personnel on duty here now knew of my visit.”

           “Of course, sir,” the colonel replied.

           “Good evening,” Austin said hastily, seating himself in the front passenger seat. Harold, who had opened the door while the two men were talking, now closed it. The four agents piled into the back of the minivan and soon it was being driven away, leaving the colonel to his thoughts. The crew of Air Force II went back on board, latching the door.

           The minivan traveled the smooth two-lane paved road dotted with farm houses that would take them to their destination. Sometime later the minivan which Harold guided effortlessly on roads he knew well slowed then turned into a narrow road where a sign indicated that Green Lodge was coming up. After the short drive on a road cut from a dense forest where the moonlight could only pierce with dappled jerky spasms, the car stopped in front of a locked wooden gate. Light shone on the unmistakable logo on the right from which hung a notice that the lodge was closed.

           A young man in his early twenties appeared behind the gate flooded by the minivan’s beams. He unlocked the gate and pulled it open until the minivan had passed. Slowly Harold drove over the gravel driveway. A few seconds later the lodge, a rustic structure of rich maple syrup-stippled logs bathed in light, appeared. It had large windows facing the lake on the first floor and two other floors with dormer windows. Roomy white rattan chairs were ready to receive the weary and tired on the wide porch which spread the length of the building. A few yards to the left, the calm water of the lake shimmered lightly, and in the moonlight a corridor the color of polished silver brought the surface to life. There was a short pier with a couple of motorboats bobbing so softly as to appear still. A couple of canoes were spread upside down near the water line.

           Cameron Austin stepped out of the car and had just enough time to take a satisfying deep breath so his lungs could be renewed by the fresh country air when a man with a full head of graying hair and a pleasant face, opened the front door and approached at a fair pace despite the noticeable limp. The two men embraced warmly.

           “Welcome to Canada, Mr. Vice President.”