Page 8 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

My room was also tasteful. But my name was plastered everywhere, on everything: TRUMP shampoo, TRUMP conditioner, TRUMP slippers, TRUMP shower cap, TRUMP shoe polish, TRUMP sewing kit, and TRUMP bathrobe. I opened the refrigerator, grabbed a split of TRUMP white wine, and poured it down my Trump throat so it could course through my Trump bloodstream and hit the pleasure center of my Trump brain.
An hour later I met my brother, Frederick Crist Trump, III, whom I’ve called Fritz since we were kids, and his wife, Lisa. Soon we were joined by the rest of our party: my aunt Maryanne, the eldest of Fred and Mary Trump’s five children and a respected federal appeals court judge; my uncle Robert, the baby of the family, who for a short time had been one of Donald’s employees in Atlantic City before leaving on bad terms in the early 1990s, and his girlfriend; my aunt Elizabeth, the middle Trump child, and her husband, Jim; my cousin David Desmond (Maryanne’s only child and the oldest Trump grandchild) and his wife; and a few of my aunts’ closest friends. The only Trump sibling who would be missing from the celebration was my father, Frederick Crist Trump, Jr., the oldest son, whom everybody had called Freddy. He had died more than thirty-five years before.
When we were finally all together, we checked in with the White House security agents outside, then piled haphazardly into the two White House vans like a JV lacrosse team. Some of the older guests had trouble negotiating the steps. Nobody was comfortable squeezing onto the bench seats. I wondered why the White House hadn’t thought to send at least one limo for my aunts.
As we pulled into the South Lawn driveway ten minutes later, two guards came out of the security hut to inspect the underside of the van before we drove through the front gate. After a short drive we stopped at a small security building adjacent to the East Wing and disembarked. We went inside one by one as our names were called, handed over our phones and bags, and walked through a metal detector.
Once inside the White House, we walked in twos and threes through the long corridors, past windows looking out on gardens and lawns, past life- sized paintings of former first ladies. I stopped in front of Hillary Clinton’s portrait and stood silently for a minute. I wondered again how this could have happened.