Mallory, Jake thinks.

He told the story to Mallory.

So when Jake replaces Carla at the podium, he isn’t looking out at one thousand forty-four people. Instead, he’s looking at one person: Mallory. It’s 1993; she’s twenty-four years old. She’s lying on the old blanket on the beach in her T-shirt and her cutoffs; her hair is spread out behind her as she gazes up at the night sky. When Jake starts to tell her about Jessica, she rolls onto her side, props herself up on her elbow. Her eyes are green tonight and they’re fastened on him.

She’s listening.

“When does memory start?” Jake says. “Age four? Age five? Sometime within that year, a child’s synapses connect, creating lasting memory. And it was at around this age that I realized there was something different about my twin sister, Jessica—coughing fits, hospital visits.” Jake pauses. “It was probably a year or two later that my parents explained that she had cystic fibrosis.” The room is absolutely silent. “And, yes, I did say my twin sister. We were—obviously—fraternal twins, though people would ask once in a while if we were identical.” There are a few laughs, probably from parents of twins or people who were twins themselves. “Because we were fraternal twins, our DNA was only as similar as any other two siblings’. In our case, Jessica had the CF genes and I didn’t.” Jake pauses again. “You can probably all imagine how that made me feel. If I had been able, I would have…happily, gratefully…taken the burden of the disease from her and carried it myself.” Jake’s eyes fill; the audience is blurry, but he’s in control. “That wasn’t possible, of course. But that’s why I have worked for the past seven years raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Research Foundation. I do it so no other children like me have to lose a sibling at the age of thirteen and so no other parents like my parents—who I think felt all the more helpless because they are both doctors—have to lose a child.” Jake stops to take a breath. “I’m standing before you asking for your support because my twin sister can’t.”

Jake McCloud receives a standing ovation. The CFRF dinner in Phoenix raises one and a half million dollars—over four hundred thousand dollars more than the year before.

Jake is through security at the Phoenix airport the next day when his boss, Starr Andrews, calls. Starr is seventy years old; she has been heading up the CFRF since its inception and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. She’s the best boss Jake could ask for, primarily because she gives him autonomy and lets him do his thing.

“I heard you talked about Jessica last night,” she says.

“I did,” Jake says. Another person Jake told about Jessica was Starr Andrews—at his initial interview, when he explained why he wanted the job. He’d also told Starr he would prefer to keep his personal history with the disease private. He wonders if Starr is calling to remind him of this.

“I’m proud of you,” Starr says. “You stepped out of your comfort zone. You opened up to strangers about something very personal. And you made a hell of a lot of money. So here’s my question: Would you be willing to do it again?”

Jake speaks in Cleveland and Raleigh in May. He speaks in Minneapolis and Omaha in June. He speaks in La Jolla, Jackson Hole, and Easthampton in July.

Event-based donations to CFRF are up more than 30 percent.

Does Jake brag about this to Ursula? Yes, a little bit. She’s the superstar of the couple, no one is disputing that. But Jake has come a long way from watching Montel Williams in his boxer shorts.

Before Congress adjourns for the summer, Ursula and Vincent Stengel get their welfare-reform bill passed in the House and in the Senate, a tremendous coup. The bill is a brilliant one. It manages to empower single working mothers while also saving the government a hundred and sixty million dollars.

Ursula is riding high. She and Jake rent a house on Lake Michigan, and Ursula relaxes a little. They grill on the sand; they take Bess on the dune buggies and to the water park; they attend the blueberry festival in South Haven and eat ice cream at Sherman’s.

In the middle of August, Ursula gets a phone call from Vincent Stengel. He invites her and Jake to Newport over Labor Day weekend. There’s a potential donor, a major donor, who would write checks not only to Vincent but to Ursula as well. This guy—Bayer Burkhart is his name—liked what he saw with the welfare-reform bill. He sees potential for an emerging centrist position, a perfect cocktail of the Left and the Right that he wants to foster. He wants to have a conversation, or a series of conversations, over the course of the long weekend. And in addition to all this, he has a 110-foot yacht with three staterooms, a pool, a gym, and a movie theater.

“This could be big for me,” Ursula says. “Plus it seems like fun, right? A long weekend away? You like New England.”

Jake knows he should only be surprised this hasn’t happened earlier. “Sounds great,” he says, thinking, Keep it light! Keep it light! “But Labor Day weekend doesn’t work for me.”

“Tell the CFRF to find someone else to speak, Jake, please,” Ursula says. She gives him an imploring look. “I know you’re good at it and I’m proud of you. But take a pass this once, for me?”

She thinks his conflict is work. He has been going to Nantucket every year for thirteen years and Ursula never remembers. Jake knows he should be grateful it’s not on her emotional calendar. Could he get away with telling Ursula that it is a work thing? No—he’ll be caught. “It’s not work,” he says. “It’s my trip to Nantucket.”

“Nantucket?” Ursula says. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You can skip Nantucket, Jake, come on.”

“Sorry, darling,” Jake says. “Any other weekend works, just not that one.”

“We were the ones who were invited, Jake,” Ursula says. “With Vince, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where I would eventually like to earn a seat. This guy Burkhart has billions. I need to cultivate him.”

“No one is stopping you from cultivating him,” Jake says. “But I can’t go.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” Ursula says. “Why don’t you ask Coop to switch weekends?”

“I don’t want to ask Coop,” Jake says. “I want to go to Nantucket like I always do.”

“What if I call Coop?” Ursula says.

Jake takes a breath. Is she bluffing? “Go ahead,” Jake says. “Please be the one to explain that your political career takes precedence over a tradition that I’ve maintained for thirteen years. You show Coop just how compromise in a marriage works.”

“You going to Nantucket a different weekend is a compromise,” Ursula says. “What you’re offering is…nothing.”

“I’m sorry, Ursula,” Jake says. They lock eyes and he feels certain the truth is there, written on his face: there’s another woman.

“I hope you’re happy with yourself,” Ursula says. “Robbing me of this opportunity. Robbing me of the money that could launch me to certain victory.”

“It might be better if you went alone,” Jake says. “Maybe this Bayer Burkhart is single with a penchant for powerful women.”