Unlike the rest of his family, Jack had no interest in sweating under the beams of the national spotlight. He was simply trying to survive his final year at the military academy without drawing any more attention to himself. And Anthony Rollins wasn’t helping.
Jack’s roommate Javier was the only person he could confide in.
“I just don’t know how to get out of it,” Jack complained, as the two of them entered the gym to practice the obstacle course.
“Why can’t you tell them you’re uncomfortable?” Javier asked, pulling the pair of dangling ropes toward them. “Can’t you say you have stage fright or something?”
Both boys hoisted their bodies up on the ropes and began to climb.
“Fear is no excuse with them.” Jack panted as the prickly fibers of the rope dug into his palms.
“But they are your family,” Javier said.
Jack sighed, looking up at the soles of Javier’s sneakers inching along the rope above him, already two feet higher than Jack. “Yeah, that’s how I know they won’t understand.”
Javier pulled himself off of the rope, onto the wooden platform above, and nodded at Jack, just as two members of the rugby team entered the gym below.
“Hey, Hunter! Don’t look down!” one of the boys jeered.
“Yeah, it’s too bad your uncle isn’t president yet,” said the other. “Maybe he could’ve gotten you out of the ropes course.”
Jack’s anger flared, his fists tightening around the rope, but Javier shot him a discouraging look from the landing above: It’s not worth it.
It wasn’t the first time that Jack’s family had caused him trouble, and it sure wouldn’t be the last. The Hunter reputation was well known both on and off campus. They had the rare distinction of claiming an actual Revolutionary War soldier as an ancestor—the original Captain Hunter—and every generation since the 1770s had sent at least one family member into the military. Only a shattered kneecap during a high school soccer game had kept Jack’s father from enlisting, too.
Indeed, the only blemish in the Hunter family history was Jack’s own mother, who left when he was young. From the scraps of information gleaned from his family—and his own scattered memories—Jack had reasoned that his mother was always too independent, too free-spirited, for the Hunters. She may have loved Jack’s father once, perhaps even softened his edge, but his wasn’t the life she wanted. An accidental pregnancy and a hasty marriage had simply forced her into it. When she finally told him she was leaving, Jack’s father refused to give up his heir, and her lawyer was no match for the Hunters’ longtime attorney. Jack’s dad was granted full custody, Jack’s mother was granted her freedom. The last Jack heard, she was somewhere in Spain, living with a fellow expat, trying to make it as a musician. And Jack’s father made it clear that his son’s enrollment at the academy was never even a question.
The Hunters had always been respected within Virginia society and military circles—those who didn’t enlist in the army became state senators and board chairs—but Anthony and Katherine’s foray into national politics had raised the family’s profile to unforeseen heights. And though Anthony had surprised everyone by declaring his presidential candidacy before acquiring much name recognition outside his home state, the Hunters collectively vowed to help get him elected.
“I know I promised Aunt Katherine that I would go, but is it really necessary for me to be at all these rallies?” Jack asked his father on the phone that night. “I’m worried I’ll fall behind on studying,” he explained, “and I swore I would get to the gym more this semester, and—”
“This is your family, Jack. And families support each other,” his father said. “Especially ones like ours.”
Jack loved his aunt Katherine, he wanted to support her, but he never understood what she saw in Anthony, other than breeding and a strong jawline. It was Anthony who had inadvertently revealed to him that his conception was unintentional, when a young Jack had listened, from the top of the stairs, as his aunt and uncle conferred with his father, soon after his mother left. It was one of Jack’s only childhood memories that remained sharp to this day, hardening over time the more he returned to it.
“Let’s just keep this within the family for now, as quiet as possible,” Jack’s dad had insisted, unaware of his eavesdropping son. “I don’t want people talking.”
“Honestly, you’re better off without her,” said Katherine. “She was never quite . . . aligned with the rest of the family. And at least you have sweet little Jack.”