Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage (31 page)

Jim came upstairs later. At some point in the evening, I answered a phone call from Bill Clinton. I recognized his voice immediately but didn’t identify myself and only said, “Please hold on,” when he asked for Jim. I heard part of Jim’s conversation with the former president. Clinton must have congratulated him on his courage, and Jim referred to something in Clinton’s book that he said had motivated him during the announcement. Later, John Kerry called as well.

Elvie and Freddie had both tried unsuccessfully to reach my mother in Portugal and had instead left vague voice mails, in order not to alarm her. But my mother knew that something was up and had called Drumthwacket as soon as she got the messages. Jim answered the phone, but at that moment I couldn’t bear to talk to her. As much pain as I was in, telling her what had happened felt too much like delivering a blow. I just couldn’t do it. “Tell my mother I’ll call back,” I told him. He relayed the message, and I asked Elvie if she would tell my mother for me.

Later in the evening, my mother called again.

“Did you ever get my mother?” I later asked Elvie.

“Yes,” she said. Somehow Elvie, who was still at Drumthwacket, got to the phone, although I didn’t know it at the time.

“What did you tell her?” I could see that Elvie didn’t really want to repeat the conversation. It was upsetting to her, and she knew it was upsetting to me.

I persisted just a bit. “Well, how did my mother take it?”

“She’s upset but OK. I think she was relieved that she’d finally talked to someone. God knows what she thought was going on.”

“She probably thought I was dying or dead,” I said.

Jimmy Kennedy came over late that evening. Elvie and my nieces left. Freddie ordered dinner for us—me, Jim, Lori, and Jimmy. She bathed Jacqueline, and I put her to bed. I kissed my little angel and waited until she fell asleep. Then I went back into the kitchen when the food arrived. I was hungry but couldn’t eat much. I sat at the table, but I didn’t feel like I was there. I don’t recall the conversation. I just couldn’t make sense of any of it.

I finally went to bed and tried to sleep, but I tossed and turned all night. Throughout the month of this developing crisis, Jim seemed to have no sense that this was a catastrophe looming in my life and Jacqueline’s, as well as his own. There was no compassion, only self-absorption. I had given so much and worked so hard for Jim, and for goals I believed in as much as he did. Nevertheless, soon I would have no home, no husband, no marriage. And throughout all this, Jim had never once told me he was sorry.

19. FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

AFTER THE SPEECH THAT
ended my marriage and life as I knew it came Friday the Thirteenth. I had never been especially superstitious, but even if I had been I figured there wasn’t much more in the way of bad luck that could happen to me. For the first time in my life, I understood the feeling of dread and doom that prevents some people from getting out of bed at all. Jim was already up, though, dressed and about to head downstairs for more meetings. He was all business, avidly focused on the to-do list in his head, seemingly oblivious to anything else.

I looked at him and at the familiar surroundings of our bedroom, which to the uninformed eye would seem almost a shrine to our now-desecrated marriage. There was a poster-size black-and-white photograph of me in my wedding gown still on the wall and a Lladró figurine of a bride and groom on our dresser, a wedding gift from Jim’s sister Caroline. Elsewhere there was a photograph of Jacqueline as an infant, with me holding her. The whole room had been done in cool earth tones—beiges and some greens—because I had meant for it to be our refuge, a private space away from public life.

I tried to come to terms with the events of the last few days, tried to understand what had really happened and who Jim really was. Was this the man I fell in love with? The man I had married and the father of my child? It didn’t seem possible. Everything felt distant and vague, as if it were somehow happening to someone else. At the same time, it felt all too real—too close—as if the pain were now a part of me, something I couldn’t turn away from or deny. Jim’s speech of the day before kept playing a loop in my mind. I tried to shut it out, but it was no use:
adult consensual affair . . . another man . . . wrong . . . foolish . . . my own sexuality . . . allegations . . . threats . . . disclosure.
I grasped for something, anything, to keep me going, but if I found any hope in Jim’s assertion that he was going to take
total and full responsibility
for his actions, it was slipping away moment by moment, with Jim’s flurry of activity and his business-as-usual manner.

“Oh, Dina,” he said, less focused on me than on the first item he was now about to cross off his list, “I meant to tell you. You’ll have to get health insurance through your job—for yourself and for Jacqueline.”

I just stared at him.

He appeared pained, and his voice softened a bit. “You’ll just have to. I won’t have any money or any job after November fifteenth.”

And then, looking at his watch, the White Rabbit was off.

Jim had just derailed my life and Jacqueline’s, and rather than rush to assure me that he would lead us through this traumatic change that had been thrust on us, he seemed to be saying, “You’ll have to fend for yourself.” Our daughter suddenly seemed to be
my
daughter, at least when it came to taking any responsibility for her. Was this what his stance toward us would be over the next three months? Had he no notion that this was an upheaval in anyone’s life other than in his own? I felt as if I had just sustained another body blow.

Jacqueline was still asleep, and I didn’t want to talk to anybody, so I wandered out to the kitchen for coffee and then back to the bedroom. I clicked on the TV—more out of habit than anything—and turned on
Good Morning America,
today just for the comfort of the familiar voices. I noticed without paying much attention that Diane Sawyer was onscreen talking with two women, one blond, one with darker hair, about being a “straight spouse.” In those first few seconds, I had no context for what the term meant—maybe a spouse who didn’t cheat? And then, suddenly, my picture was flashed across the screen. Oh, my God, it was me, the day before, wearing that blue suit, standing silently beside Jim. That’s what a straight spouse was.
Me.

I’d been so deep inside myself as Jim had made his announcement that while I was concentrating on not falling apart, I wasn’t really thinking about what I looked like. I saw this morning that I’d been clenching my teeth and resisting tears the way one resists nausea, acutely conscious of needing to stay in control of myself and my expression. I was amazed to see that I looked as composed as I did. I was also amazed that it was my experience—not even twenty-four hours old—that had prompted this morning’s segment.

The women Diane Sawyer was talking to were “straight spouses,” a term I would now never forget, and they were revealing what it had been like for them when they first learned that their husbands were gay. That morning, I couldn’t have written my own name, much less theirs, so the names of Diane’s guests floated by me. It had never occurred to me that there were other people in my position, but of course there had to be. And here were two of them. Miraculously, they seemed able to talk about their experiences without falling apart.

I couldn’t watch, and yet I couldn’t not watch, so, in a not-very-effective compromise, I hit the “mute” button on the remote while I stared unblinkingly at the screen. I didn’t know what these women were saying, but I could see compassion, sympathy, acceptance on their faces. If they had once been angry, they no longer were, or at least they weren’t showing it. I’d been thinking that surely it wasn’t going to be possible to survive, but now here were these women wanting me, and anyone in my position, to know that I
would
be able to survive.

At some point, I wandered away from the television into my office. Each morning, news clippings from the daily papers were faxed to Jim through the fax machine in my office. Today the pile on the tray was thicker than I’d ever seen it. Over and over, I saw the headlines and photos of me standing next to Jim with Ronnie and Jack standing behind us. This was national news—international, even.

My assistant Nina arrived at the residence and hugged me. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Everyone from all over Trenton’s been calling since last night to ask about you—people from Treasury, Communications, Education, Human Services. The phone just hasn’t stopped and . . .”

She trailed off and looked at me. “How are you doing?” she asked.

I shrugged, while nodding to signal it was OK for her to continue.

“I spoke to Cindy, and there are news vans outside the hospital. When I spoke to Communications, they told me that the phone hasn’t stopped ringing there either and that there are news vans at the statehouse too.”

There was no point in either one of us settling down to work, so Nina, Freddie, and I sat around doing nothing more demanding than trying to entertain Jacqueline. My First Lady days had come to a sudden end. Scheduling meetings or appearances at events was pointless.

A little while later, the phone rang, and Freddie picked it up.

“It’s your mom, calling from Portugal,” she said, handing me the receiver.

“How are you?” my mother asked. She doesn’t cry all that easily, or at least not as easily as I do, but this morning I could hear the catch in her voice. I realized she was holding back tears because she knew that if she cried, I would cry.

“We’re coming back right away,” she said. “As soon as we can get a flight.”

“I don’t want you to do that,” I told her, and I meant it. I didn’t want them to have to deal with the media circus. I already knew that reporters were at the hospital, and if they were at the hospital, I suspected they were staked out at my parents’ home too.

“We don’t want you to be alone,” she insisted.

“I’m OK,” I said. “I’m not alone. I’ll go to therapy, and I’ll be fine.”

“Are you and Jim talking?”

“Yes.”

“How is he toward you?”

“No different.”

“He must be suffering also.”

“I know he is.”

“If you love him, do whatever you think is best.” She was saying she would support me whether I chose to stay with him or whether I chose to leave. It was all so new to her that she didn’t know what to say or how to understand the implications of hearing that her son-in-law was gay. My mother didn’t raise the issue of his sexual orientation during that conversation or for many conversations afterward. But voicing her support for any decision I would make, including staying with Jim, was brave and loving, knowing as she did that the observant Roman Catholic community—and she and my father attend mass every week—is not accepting of homosexuality.

I remained concerned about Jacqueline. Even at two and a half, she was very perceptive. She already sensed that something was out of the ordinary—she was clingy, irritable, not sleeping well, and asking for “Daddy” more frequently than usual. I wanted to mask as much as I could by removing her from the fray and putting her in situations that felt familiar to her. And the truth was that I needed to escape from Drumthwacket myself. I decided to call Elvie to tell her that we were coming over so that Jacqueline could play with her cousins.

“Don’t,” she said, the tension in her voice obvious.

“Why not?” I asked. “It’s unbearable here. I desperately need to get out. We both do.”

“There are reporters staked outside the house, Dina. Trust me. You don’t want to be here.”

I felt like a prisoner. I couldn’t even leave the house. I wanted this nightmare to be over so that I could get my life back, but I had the feeling that the nightmare was just beginning.

I checked in with Cindy, my assistant at the hospital. We knew each other very well; we’d worked together for the last eight or nine years and had had children at about the same time too. She had twins, a boy and a girl, less than a year older than Jacqueline, and we were fixtures at the children’s birthday parties.

“How’s Jacqueline doing?” she asked.

“Fine,” I told her. It wasn’t really the truth, but I just didn’t feel able to go into it. I couldn’t say much of anything, in fact. I guess I just wanted to hear her voice.

“And how are you? Lots of people have been calling and stopping by to ask about you.”

“I’m fine,” I told her, knowing she knew better.

Meanwhile Lori Kennedy, who had stayed overnight, was getting ready to go back to Rahway. Jim stopped upstairs before leaving for the statehouse. He said that it would be a good idea for all of us—him, me, Jacqueline, and the Kennedys—to get away for the weekend. He meant especially to get away from the reporters who were surrounding him like so many fruit flies.

“That’s a good idea,” I said. In the months to come, Jim and I would begin to spend less and less time together, but this was the day after a mammoth blow, and the knowledge that daily life would change, and would have to change, was understandably delayed. Besides, I knew I couldn’t survive an entire weekend cooped up in Drumthwacket.

“How about Annapolis?” he asked.

“Fine,” I answered. It seemed like I was on autopilot, with “Fine” my only response.

After Jim left, I called Jimmy Kennedy. A relative of his had just been to Annapolis and would be able to recommend some hotels. He told me not to worry about reservations, that he would take care of them.

More of my rat pack came by—first Celia, who’d been my wedding attendant, and her sister Maria. We hugged and cried.

“How could this have happened?” Celia asked. Just the question that I had repeated thousands of times in my mind.

I was glad to have them there to join Nina and Freddie. Among the four of them, they would keep Jacqueline fed, clothed, and entertained, covering for me during my helpless sieges of tears.

Meanwhile, for various reasons—including a NASCAR event—getting reservations at Annapolis was proving impossible. Calls went back and forth between Jimmy, me, and Jim’s assistant, Cathy. At first the reservations were firm, and then they weren’t, so more phone calls ensued. Then the phone rang again. This time it was Jim, and he was angry.