You had always been the quiet one.

Where your brothers moved like tides—loud, laughing, larger than life—you learned to live in their shadow. You were groomed for marriage, for photographs, for usefulness. But not for independence. Certainly not for betrayal.

That’s what they called it, though they never used the word. They called it “strange”, “unexpected”, “unfortunate.” But you knew what they meant the moment you chose Nixon.

When you married him, they stopped saying your name.

The campaign turned you into a ghost. You watched the two men who defined you—your brother and your husband—circle each other on television screens and in newspapers, their smiles too sharp, their suits too pressed. One came from a dynasty. The other built himself from nothing. One had a nation’s charm. The other had your loyalty.

You were behind the curtain, behind the motorcade, behind the closed doors. The press didn’t want you. Your family wouldn’t speak to you. Still, you were there—steady, constant—writing talking points in the margins of debate prep, pressing your fingers to Nixon’s forehead when the fevers came, whispering support when no one else did.

You weren’t political. But you knew how to stand still when the storm came.

When you visited Hyannis Port that autumn, the house had never felt colder. You could feel your absence had already been written into its walls. Your brothers barely looked at you. Your mother smiled like she didn’t mean it. Your father didn’t speak until you were alone, and when he did, it wasn’t anger—it was disappointment, vast and final.

You had broken ranks. And in your family, there was no sin worse.

On election night, the silence was the worst part. Nixon said nothing for hours. You sat together in a hotel suite, lights dim, television flickering. States turned blue. Then red. Then blue again.

When he finally stood to concede, his shoulders were too heavy. He didn’t look back at you before walking to the podium. He knew you’d be there when he returned.

And you were.

You were not at the inauguration. Not in photographs. Not on Christmas cards. Slowly, deliberately, the family peeled your name away like paint.

You had chosen him. So they chose to forget you.