Page 10 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

together so I can take some pictures before we go upstairs.” She instructed us to surround Donald, who still had not gotten up from the desk.
The photographer raised her camera. “One, two, three, smile,” she said.
After the pictures had been taken, Donald stood up and pointed to a framed black-and-white photograph of my grandfather, which was propped up on a table behind the desk. “Maryanne, isn’t that a great picture of Dad?” It was the same photograph that had sat on the side table in the library of my grandparents’ house. In it, my grandfather was still a young man, with receding dark hair, a mustache, and a look of command that I had never seen falter until his dementia set in. We’d all seen it thousands of times.
“Maybe you should have a picture of Mom, too,” Maryanne suggested.
“That’s a great idea,” Donald said as though it had never occurred to him. “Somebody get me a picture of Mom.”
We spent a few more minutes in the Oval Office, taking turns sitting behind the Resolute Desk. My brother took a picture of me, and when I looked at it later, I noticed my grandfather hovering behind me like a ghost.
The White House historian joined us just outside the Oval Office, and we proceeded to the Executive Residence on the second floor for a tour to be followed by dinner. Once upstairs, we proceeded to the Lincoln Bedroom. I took a quick look inside and was surprised to see a half-eaten apple on the bedside table. As the historian told us stories about what had happened in the room through the years, Donald pointed vaguely once in a while and declared, “This place has never looked better since George Washington lived here.” The historian was too polite to point out that the house hadn’t been opened until after Washington had died. The group moved down the hall toward the Treaty Room and the Executive Dining Room.
Donald stood in the doorway, greeting people as they entered. I was one of the last to arrive. I hadn’t yet said hello, and when he saw me, he pointed at me with a surprised look on his face, then said, “I specifically asked for you to be here.” That was the kind of thing he often said to charm people, and he had a knack for tailoring his comment to the occasion, which was all the more impressive because I knew it wasn’t true. He opened his arms, and then, for the first time in my life, he hugged me.
The first thing I noticed about the Executive Dining Room was its beauty: the dark wood polished to perfection, the exquisite place settings,