Her father didn’t seem to notice her distress. “Have you seen the Box before?” he asked, still organizing papers into various stacks. Something about the way he said the word made Samantha imagine it capitalized.
“I’m not sure.” The Box was the size of a briefcase, lined in embossed leather, with oiled hinges. Sam realized that her dad had unlocked it with a small golden key.
“It contains my business for the day. A lot of this is electronic now, of course.” He gestured to the tablet at his elbow. “But some of it is still printed: Cabinet minutes, reports from various federal agencies, documents that require my signature. My favorite part are the letters,” he added, reaching into the Box to extract an ordinary white envelope.
“Letters?”
“I receive hundreds of letters every day,” her dad informed her. “Every last one of them is answered, mostly by my junior secretaries. But I’ve asked them to pull two letters at random each day, and those letters I answer myself. It’s something your grandfather used to do, too.”
“Really?”
The king nodded. “I find it useful. Like a daily snapshot of what’s on Americans’ minds at any given moment.”
“People DM me. It’s kind of similar,” Sam offered.
“DM?”
“Direct message. You know, on social media.”
“Ah,” the king replied, evidently confused. “Well. It’s important for people to feel like they have a direct line to their monarch. That we are reachable, and sympathetic, and responsive. Especially since they usually write such highly personal things.”
“What kind of things do they write to you?” Samantha asked, curious.
“Everything. They want a pardon for someone imprisoned; they want to change my mind about some new policy proposal. Their local library is failing; their parent is ill; their fourth-grade classroom needs school supplies. And then, of course, there are the letters full of criticism for something I’ve done.”
“They criticize you?” Sam burst out, leaping to her dad’s defense. “Why aren’t your secretaries filtering out those letters so you don’t see them?” Reading that kind of letter seemed unnecessarily masochistic, like scrolling through the negative comments on social media. Sam had long ago learned to avoid those.
“Because I asked them not to,” her dad replied. “Samantha, criticism is a good thing. It means you’ve fought for something. The only people free from censure are people who’ve never taken a stand.”
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Sure, but that doesn’t mean you need to read strangers’ attacks on you.”
“On the contrary, I do,” he argued. “Some of our nation’s greatest moments of change were born of our family’s most vocal critics. It was Red Fox James, for instance, whose efforts led to the establishment of the Native American dukedoms. Opposition is crucial to government, like oxygen to fire. And now those voices, those movements, are coming from your generation.” The king’s eyes rested warmly on Sam. “Although, historically, the people who spark change have usually done so from outside the monarchy, not from within.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, confused.
“I’m talking about you, Sam.” A corner of her dad’s mouth lifted. “You’ve never had a problem letting your family know when we’re in the wrong.”
She let out an amused breath. “Are you actually thanking me for being a troublemaker?”
“Let’s say renegade instead,” her dad teased. “It sounds a little better.”
Sam’s smile faded as she glanced at the letter in his hands, still unopened. “How do you answer all the people who write to you?”
“With honesty and respect. If I can help with their request, I usually do—even if it means going around the official policy rules and making a private, personal donation. It’s nice to feel like I made a difference, in some small way. Especially on the days when I feel like I’ve failed to resolve the bigger issues.”
Her father tore open the envelope and smoothed its contents on the desk before him. His next words were softer, almost as if he were talking to himself. “I often wonder how it must feel, to blindly ask for help like that—to just write a letter to the king and await his answer. I wish I had someone I could turn to for guidance. But all I can do is pray.”
Hadn’t Sam been hoping to do exactly what he described—to lay all her troubles on her dad’s shoulders? She wanted him to tell her everything would be all right, the way he used to when she was little. But she knew now that those days were over.
She glanced out the window, her vision blurring. There was a divot in the window’s iron casing that her dad swore was a bullet hole from an assassination attempt on King Andrew. She tried desperately to focus on that, to keep from crying in front of him.
“Sam,” her dad started to say—but before he could finish, he dissolved into a sudden fit of coughing, and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to place over his mouth. “Sorry,” he said, wheezing through a rueful smile, “got a bit of a dry throat.”
Sam nodded mutely.
He leaned back at last, tucking the handkerchief into his pocket, then pressed his hands over the letter from the citizen, absently smoothing its creases. “I’ve been meaning to thank you. I noticed all the effort you’ve made with Teddy, helping him feel a part of the family. And your mother tells me that you helped pick out his engagement ring for Beatrice.”