#previously unpublished

Previously unpublished photos by James Hole from the 2019 shoot for The Dubliners audiobook.

"Mommy's not coming home?"

Prompted by @laazov. Thanks, sis!

Also on AO3 and ff.net. Part 1 on tumblr here.

It was raining that day, when Grandma looked through your closet to find a black dress and socks and shoes for you and for Blake.

It was still raining when you got into the big black Secret Service cars, like the ones that took you to school, and your grandparents followed behind in their own.

And when you got to Arlington, to the big stone hall that made it seem colder outdoors, and saw the two coffins laying next to each other, the rain coming down felt -- right.

Sitting in the front, next to Blake and surrounded by grandparents, you can see and hear all the speakers over the rain. Some of Daddy's Army friends. Penny's dad. Gramps. The tears on your face match the rain falling and falling and falling and it feels like it will never stop. 

But soon the rain stops.

It's muggy and foggy when you move back to Eugene with Grandma and Grandpa and join the same class you were in before the rain, before Washington, before Daddy was Vice President.

At school, you can almost pretend everything's the same but when you come home, it's Grandma greeting you, not Mommy, and then you wish for rain again.

You go to New York every long weekend, to visit  Gramps and Granny, and often, one of your grandparents drives you (and sometimes Blake) down to DC so you can spend the day at the White House with Penny. You run and play in the hallways at the residence like before you moved back to Oregon, bothering the cooks and annoying Leo and just getting underfoot when you end up in the West Wing.

No one there really talks about Mommy and Daddy, not even Penny's dad. Mostly when you see the President in the hallway, he says things like, "Lexie, you've grown taller!" and "I thought I heard some giggles over there." And Penny's mom reminds you, "Girls, don't jump on the couches," and "Please don't dig up the South Lawn again."

And then you miss Mommy and Daddy more.

So does America, you think, because they haven't picked a new Vice President yet.

You're in New York for Christmas vacation when the phone calls comes through, from the White House to Gramps and Granny's.

You find your black dress, again, but it fits differently now, a little shorter.

A big black car comes to pick you up, again.

Penny's dad gives a short sad speech, again.

A previously unpublished photo montage of Rupert Brooke, ca. 1910s.