A petite lady with a clipboard came out of the restaurant and asked for our name. “Richardson,” I answered, without thinking. There was a moment when she looked between Wallis and me, blinking slowly, and I thought she might turn us away; she certainly seemed to be considering it. In the end, she just muttered something that sounded like ew, wrote us on her list, and moved down the line.

I contemplated whether Atlas’s article would make this open hostility from strangers increase or decrease. Since he had asked me to go on record last week, I had toggled between wanting to know nothing about the piece and wanting to dictate every last punctuation mark. I didn’t think my family could take any more scrutiny, but I was still a politician’s daughter at heart, and couldn’t help but consider all angles. Would my participation tip the scale of public opinion one way or the other? I felt cold and cynical thinking this way, but that was the game I was being forced to play. One of calculated risk. An interview with a writer I trusted to be fair could be an opportunity to pivot our family’s narrative into more sympathetic territory, remind readers of all the positive change Gregory had effected.

“I guess we need fake ID’s now,” Wallis said, grouchy now.

“A good pseudonym, at least.” I stomped my feet, trying to warm my toes inside my flats.

“How long do you think this is going to take?”

“For us be to anonymous in public again?” I didn’t have an answer to that question.

“For us to get inside this damn restaurant.”

“Hold our spot.” I walked around the line to peer inside the front windows. It was just a shoebox of a place, no more than forty people, no table holding more than six. And there, seated at the four-top in front of my nose, were my father’s former chief of staff, his former communications director, and his former executive assistant. Through holidays and graduation parties, Wallis and I had regarded these men as part of our extended family. As a child I’d had nicknames for them, been a flower girl in one of their weddings; one even taught me how to bowl. Yet none of them had reached out since the news broke. We made eye contact through the window. The expressions on their faces went through shock, appraisal, mild embarrassment, then dismissal, and it became clear to me that our relationship had been decidedly severed.

I rejoined Wallis. “We can’t eat here,” I announced.

“The food looks bad?” she asked, glancing up from her phone.

“There’s an entire table of Gregory’s former staffers. Uncle Danny is in there, Goldie, too. And I just can’t handle the awkwardness. Please, let’s go somewhere safe.”