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Georgetown," he
began, after a suitable wait. "But that's not all the school offers. They
have a very good linguistics program, for example. And a quite respectable
pre-med program as well."
    Alyssa laughed.
"We both know I'd be heading for Hopkins if I wanted to be a doctor,
Father."
    He gave another
of his barely-noticeable nods. "Of course. But I want you to know that,
until you have the degree in your hand, you can always change your mind about
what to study. And even after. You can still back out of politics. You'll be
able to for years yet."
    Alyssa arched
her eyebrows even though he wasn’t looking at her and treated herself to a sip
of the scotch.
    "You don't
want me to go into politics? Come on Father. Be real."
    "Call this
the last gasp of my conscience, if you want an explanation."
    She simply
waited. Prompting him for more would only demonstrate impatience.
    “It's not a
pretty profession, Alyssa. Oh, everyone's heard about money and politics, and
the time that candidates spend grubbing for donations. But that's really not
even the point. I'm not so foolish as to think the Chambers family attained its
present wealth without a goodly number of ancestors who liked money. Chasing
cash is not what makes politics corrupt.”
    "No, what
makes politics hard on the soul is the need to abandon your ideals if you want
to win. There are two kinds of politicians: the ones with clean consciences,
and the ones in office. If you get into politics, come prepared to do anything to win. Anything. Lie? Cheat? Steal? Betray friends? Sell out supporters? The
question isn't whether you'll have to. The question is how many of them you'll
have to do in a single day."
    Her father
sighed, but she could tell he wasn't done. He took a sip of his scotch before
continuing.
    "The
practice of politics is all levers," he said. "You have to find out
how to make people do what you want. With some men it's money, with some it's
power. Everyone has one. If you want to be involved in politics, you learn to
find people’s levers and use them."
    "It’s the
art of shaping destiny. To practice it well gives you a feeling of god-like
power. There are few thrills to equal reading the newspapers and knowing that
you made all that happen.
    "But it
has a price. The price is your conscience. Before long in politics, you'll have
to decide whether there are things that are beneath you. If there are, you'll
get out. If there aren't, you'll make history. I made my choice long ago. Some
days I'm ashamed of it, other days I'm actually proud, if you can believe that.
It's a talk for another day. When I had to choose, I chose victory and destiny
over purity. The only rule is, 'Give anything for victory.' For years, I’ve
done that. Winning will take anything you value. You have to learn not to value
anything more than winning."
    She thought
back to her girlhood – running up onto the patio to tell her father something
and being ignored while he talked to someone in politics. Or the patient tone
in her mother’s voice as she said, "Your father’s working, Dear. Maybe
he’ll be here next time."
    She wanted to
say something. She wanted to ask why it was more important to shape destiny
than to spend time with his wife and daughter. She wanted to ask if maybe Mom’s
drinking would’ve been more under control if he hadn't made the decision to
value politics above his family. But in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to
ask any of that.
    "You can
still turn back, Alyssa," he said, then turned away from the window and
walked out without ever meeting her eyes.
     
    ♦
     
    By her second
year of college, Chambers had taken every political science class she could and
spent her spare time with a reading list that would have shocked her father:
The most presentable items on that list were true crime books. The worst was a
manual she'd found on bomb making. The middle ground covered everything from
espionage and surveillance techniques to guides about what