“Cleo . . .” Georgie exhaled, and Cleo wondered if she was going to treat her as a patient or as a sister. “That was Dad’s way of keeping score or of micromanaging. He spent a lot of time worrying about mistakes he made or different paths he could have taken.”

“Well, I hope you’re not about to tell me that he made mistakes with Mom!” Cleo was indignant. So much of what she was learning about people in the past few weeks had upended her. She didn’t know if she could bear to unearth her parents’ secrets too.

“No, not with Mom.” Georgie’s hand found Cleo’s, and she squeezed. She started to speak, then stopped, then found the words. “But maybe with me—I mean, obviously things weren’t great with us, between them and me.” She paused, lost somewhere in a memory. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why—why I was so mad at them, and why we never really clicked, and why I let that affect our relationship—yours and mine.”

“Did you?” Cleo asked.

“Not really. It would be easier to point to something, you know? Something concrete to say, ‘I had a terrible childhood,’ but I didn’t. You know that I . . . we didn’t. I just was how I was, and they were how they were . . .” She drifted again. “I guess I had more time with them, so I was able to see them more fully formed, as adults. You never got that space between childhood and the growth that comes with recognizing that your parents aren’t perfect.”

“I never felt that they were perfect!” Cleo didn’t like being put on the defensive. She didn’t like, frankly, not being the one in the room with the most knowledge about any subject, any one thing, even if that thing were her parents, and her sister knew them for a decade longer than she did.

Georgie sighed and reached her right hand around to massage her left shoulder. “I wish you and I had been closer. It was hard, with the age gap and with me always rebelling and then them gone, and we didn’t have a house to come home to. And, look, you can catalog your regrets; you can do whatever you want. You’re an adult, and you have succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.”

“Not beyond mine.” Maybe calling Georgie had been a mistake.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant you’re . . . a whirlwind, a shining star. The twins print up news stories about you; they revere what you did to that professor; they are in awe that you live in this rarified air of elected officials who determine the course of our nation.” She paused. “And I feel the same, Cleo. I feel the same. Pride. Please don’t misunderstand that.”

“Thank you.” Cleo nodded.

“What I mean is that Dad spent a lot of time cataloging these regrets, which was fine. It made him happy, I guess. But it really didn’t make him happy, actually. He used it, well, Dad was very anxious, which was probably part of our problem—he was a micromanager, and I couldn’t handle it. Now, today, he’d be diagnosed and given Lexapro or Ativan or something. But back then there was a stigma, and he’d never have even thought he was . . . off.”

“Dad wasn’t off,” Cleo protested.

“No, he wasn’t. He was wonderful,” Georgie said. “But he also had an unhealthy need to be in control, and over time, with my job, I came to believe that’s where this started. He started writing things down so he could control his regrets rather than have them control him. Because you don’t remember that—but that’s what his anxiety did. He compensated by being meticulous and extra, extra sure of everything—like with his work and, of course, with me. And that probably also explains why he thought he could fly a helicopter without any other approval.” Georgie sighed. “But anyway, you can’t beat back anxiety by working hard, and you can’t manage your teen by breathing down her neck.” Georgie fell silent. “That’s just my theory, obviously. He knew I wasn’t really like him, so he never pressed me to do it, to keep a list. But, Cleo, Dad wasn’t like you in the ways that you think.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Cleo said flatly.

“I just . . . You’ve accomplished so much, and you are fearless and you are a force, and Dad was amazing, he was, but . . . you don’t have to be him, just because he thought his way of controlling his fears and stressors could also be yours.” She sighed. “Look, I have a lot of people in my practice who use the past as a crutch.”

Cleo felt her chest spin. She loved her father; she revered her father. She didn’t want to learn that he was fallible, that his example shouldn’t be the one she strove for.

“That’s not what I’m doing, using it as a crutch,” Cleo protested. “I’m doing the opposite. I’m finally looking at my past to clear the path for the future.”

Georgie, having worked out her knot, took a sip of her tea and considered this. “Fine, but then promise me that once you have, once you’re done, you’ll let go of this list and these regrets and stop living by Dad’s rules and start living by yours.”

Georgie clasped Cleo’s arm and then stood to refill her tea. “Look, I just worry that this is weighing you down. And if you let it go, I really believe that you’ll fly.”

TWENTY-TWO

The ballroom at the Grand Hyatt, just across the way from the Smithsonian, had been transformed into a Dancing with the Stars set—spotlights, wooden floor, side area for the band. That was Cleo’s first sign that she was in over her head. She’d never watched the show—did Cleo McDougal seem like the type who had time for reality TV?—and she hadn’t really understood the scope of the situation until she stepped onto the dance floor in her black workout capris and a cotton tank top, with a disco ball hanging overhead and extremely limber professional dancers stretching into positions Cleo hadn’t realized the human body could achieve—that she grasped this wasn’t just going to be a regret, but it was going to be an all-caps REGRET. She supposed that no one ever claimed that one regret couldn’t beget another one.

The event was being heralded as a competition among Washington’s best and brightest, all in the name of fundraising for Arts East!, a nonprofit that brought arts education to at-risk children. And with all that Cleo was juggling, Cleo had forgotten to ask Arianna who else had said yes. Which was how she discovered that one Bowen Babson and one Suzanne Sonnenfeld were participating. She nearly dropped her coffee when she saw them chatting across the ballroom.

An extremely perky twentysomething with a clipboard and a headset approached.

“Senator McDougal! You’re right on time.” She checked something off on her clipboard. “We’re going to be going over the schedule and rules in a few, and then we’ll pair you up with the pros.”

“Do I get to pick my partner?” Cleo looked around and noticed a highly muscular, highly flexible man about her age who she thought could likely compensate for her lack of skills with his own. This may have been the first time in the history of Cleo McDougal’s life that she wanted to fade into the background.

“No, ma’am. We made the selections to ensure fairness.”

“Based on what?” Cleo saw Bowen take notice of her, and she glanced away. “I mean, how can you know how well any of us can dance?”

The assistant laughed like this was a preposterous question. “Oh, ma’am, dancing isn’t just about raw talent. It’s also about chemistry. We let the professionals choose.”

Cleo couldn’t imagine that any of the professionals rushed to write their names next to hers, but she realized she couldn’t upend the system. Besides, now Bowen was waving at her, and embarrassing herself on the dance floor became secondary to embarrassing herself in the moment.

He ambled over in stretchy workout clothes, and she tried to look nonchalant. She had mastered this body language when going head-to-head with her peers in committee or while delivering a speech on the Senate floor, and yet she doubted very seriously that her face was looking at all serene, at all like she had no cares in the world. She had too many cares in the world, frankly, and even the very best politician (of which she considered herself) displayed her tell from time to time.

“Hey,” he said, like the last time they’d seen each other, she hadn’t been both drunk and handsy. “I’ve been trying to reach you. How’s the kid?”

Cleo was grateful that he was pretending the bourbon-filled afternoon in Manhattan never happened. A decent portion of politics was pretending that certain events never happened: that you hadn’t said something monumentally stupid a few years back (you had) or that you hadn’t supported a bill that your constituents now rallied against (you had). So much of it was theater—not all of it but plenty, and Cleo relaxed just a bit knowing that Bowen was willing to act his way around that afternoon too.

“On the mend,” she said. “My sister’s with him today. It’s nice to have the help, honestly.”

The lights flickered, and a man in dance tights and a tank top walked to the center of the ballroom. He clapped his hands and shouted: “Can I have all the talent form a circle around me?”

“Are we the talent?” Bowen whispered.