“No, sir, I’m not,” Arch said. “But I know what it feels like to lose a child. And I know my wife and I would have given anything for just one more minute with her. And I think if I were Carrie Benvenuto’s father, I’d prefer my daughter’s fate be in God’s hands, not the hands of so-called experts.”

Vanessa had disappeared. So I went after her.

I found her on the loading dock outside the theater, clutching herself, gazing out past the lights illuminating the parking lot, watching the dark.

“Don’t say it,” she said.

“Say what?”

“That it’s just politics.”

“I would never say that,” I said. “You know I wouldn’t.”

She sighed.

“Did you ever tell him?” I asked.

“Did you?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I made a promise.”

She turned to face me.

“That’s right,” she said. “You always keep your promises, don’t you?”

“Not always,” I said.

“But you’d keep his secrets,” she said. “And mine.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Come here,” she said.

I stepped toward her. She grasped the lapels of my jacket and pulled my face close to hers. When her lips brushed against mine, I neither expected it nor was I surprised.

“You’ve thought about that, haven’t you?” she whispered.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’ve thought about it too.”

She let go of my jacket and stepped away. In the dim light of the loading dock, her eyes were without pity or anger or desire. “There’s another secret for you,” she said.

She returned in time to join Arch onstage at the conclusion of the debate, where she smiled and shook hands with Dan Baird and his wife and children.

In a little over six months, Carrie Benvenuto’s feeding tube would be removed. Two weeks later, she would die, and an autopsy would reveal that she had, in fact, been in a vegetative state. But the special election for US senator from Tennessee would be long over by then.

The exchange made the national news. Baird didn’t help himself by backing away from his original remarks in interviews. Sound bites and pull quotes are not the ideal media for complexity of thought and reasoning. Right-to-life activists descended upon Tennessee to help get out the vote. By the Friday before the election, the polls gave Arch a slim lead.