Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage (34 page)

At the end of the first week’s search, still in my disguise, I ventured out to have dinner with Lori and Jimmy at a restaurant near Rahway. While we sat at our table waiting for our dinner, that infamous image of Jim standing at the podium and me standing beside him in my blue suit flashed on the television screen, prompting a waiter not ten feet away to begin a discussion of Jim’s announcement with the people at another table.

“Do you believe that McGreevey bombshell?”

“Yeah, wasn’t that something?”

“I think he’s trying to mask all the corruption.”

“Well, something isn’t right. Can you imagine being his wife?”

At the word “wife,” I slunk down as low as I possibly could, while Lori and Jimmy watched me sympathetically, not knowing what in the world to say. This was exactly the kind of public exchange I had been imagining and dreading. I was sure that I’d be recognized, especially since I’d been accompanied by a state trooper, who was now sitting at the bar. Every cell in my body was yanking me toward the door, but we’d already ordered, so I forced myself to sit, chew, and swallow. Then we got out of there as quickly as possible.

During this period, I was spending too much time away from Jacqueline, and it was making me uncomfortable. But what else could I do? It was impossible to go house hunting incognito with a two-year-old, so I would leave her either with my sister-in-law or with Freddie. As a result, my anger at Jim reached a new intensity—not only had he wrecked the stability of our lives, but he was taking only an intermittent role, and no active responsibility, in the rebuilding process. If there was going to be a home for Jacqueline in three months, it was on me to make it happen.

While I was still house hunting, Jim’s sister Caroline called me to ask how I was doing. She was angry at Jim for what he’d done to me and to his family, and she told me so in no uncertain terms. It was nice to have such a close ally, especially since Caroline shared my outrage at the disruption Jim had caused in Jacqueline’s life. From the moment she learned about his affair with Golan, Caroline hadn’t been on speaking terms with Jim. Since Jim didn’t want her at the house either, Caroline asked that we visit her at her home in Delaware.

On one of these August weekends, Jim, Jacqueline, and I planned to be with the Kennedys at the beach house. So on the Saturday morning of that weekend, I packed up to go to the shore. It was rainy, though, and Jim offered it as an excuse not to go. He said he had talked to Jimmy, and he and Lori weren’t sure they could make it. But I needed to get out of Drumthwacket, and spending a weekend indoors locked up with Jim was untenable, so I told him that Jacqueline and I would be going down anyhow. In the end, Jim changed his mind, maybe because it turned out Jimmy and Lori were able to go, after all, and their presence would make him more comfortable.

Later on Saturday evening, they met us there. After dinner, Lori told me she wanted to have a talk with Jim, so the two of them went off on their own while Jimmy helped me entertain Jacqueline. I don’t know the specifics of their conversation, but when they were finished and after Jim went to bed, Lori told me that one of the things they had spoken about was what Jim would do to earn money after November 15.

A number of jobs had been suggested to him, but Lori told me he wasn’t going to take any of them and had given her all sorts of excuses as to what was wrong with each one. He also told her that he had no money. But, as I’d told her, that was incredible to me. Jim had sold his Woodbridge home within the last year, and he had to have sold it for at least $200,000. He hadn’t answered my questions about that sale when I’d first raised them months earlier, and he hadn’t answered them since. Where had all that money gone? Odd as it may sound to everybody and anybody, I just didn’t know. We had never merged our finances, and Jim, as governor, never managed his own money anyhow. Even with months of legal maneuvering, it would be difficult for me to find out.

The last week of August, I took a deep breath and returned to work. I had to prepare myself for it in advance. People meant well, but the awkward greetings, one after another after another, were intolerable.

First there was the security guard who tried his best to greet me casually as I came in. “I like your hair in a ponytail!” he said. “It makes you look a lot younger.” He appeared uncomfortable as he extracted foot from mouth. Then there was the physician who stuck his head in my office. “How’re you doing?” he said, smiling a little too broadly and then disappearing before I could answer. A director whose office was just down the hall from mine popped in on the way to her office and said, “I always have trouble finding a parking space. There’s never a place to park in that lot.” Then she looked ill at ease, recognizing that she had now informed me of one more problem I’d have to face for the first time.

On the whole, though, I was relieved to be in my office, where I could more or less bunker myself. I had hoped that being back at work would be a distraction, but I was too distracted myself. I tried to focus on my job, and for a few hours that first day I was actually able to catch up a little and get some work done, but overall it was very difficult.

Meanwhile visions of homelessness continued to haunt me, and I continued to be shocked that Jim seemed to have no urgent concern about where Jacqueline and I would wind up. Sometime during September, when I couldn’t stand his apparent indifference anymore, I posted a sign on my office door saying 67 DAYS TO HOMELESSNESS. Everyone who came in or out of the residence at Drumthwacket had to pass through my office, so everyone saw it. I updated it every day for about two weeks, until Jim ripped it down. It was an expression of rebellion. And fear.

ULTIMATELY I DECIDED ON
a house that I’d seen on my first day of house hunting. It was on a road without much traffic in a pleasant suburb not too far away from either my parents or my job. After mulling things over for a few days, I called Marty to tell him I was ready to make an offer. In the meantime, I began the process of securing a mortgage, already assured in writing that I would in fact qualify. Still, I was nervous. The real estate market was so hot that a seller could generally choose from among multiple offers, and I knew that there were others who were interested. My salary was more than decently middle class, but I was hardly wealthy. Because I’d been single until my early thirties, I was comfortable managing my own finances, but I didn’t know what would be required for a down payment, nor did I know when it would be required or, frankly, exactly where it would come from.

To get away from the tension, at least for the day, I took Jacqueline to visit Jim’s sister Caroline and her family in Delaware. Caroline and I had a good conversation while her husband, Mark, prepared dinner and Jacqueline played with her two older cousins. I thought about how lucky she was to have such a wonderful husband, and I wished I had been as fortunate.

When I returned home, Jim was already there.

I fiddled in the kitchen as he began to talk. The elation of freeing himself had dissipated and was now replaced by anxiety as he began to try to figure out his own life after November 15.

“I have to figure out what to do about a job,” he said. “It was never something I had to worry about. I always knew what I wanted to do. Now I have to figure out a new direction.”

I nodded, not saying much.

“I’ve lost everything I’ve ever worked for, and now I don’t even know where I’ll be living. What do you think about Rahway? Do you think Rahway is a good place for me to live?”

“Good as anyplace. I have to figure that out for myself and Jacqueline also.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” But amazingly, even though I had mentioned Jacqueline, he didn’t offer any suggestions or further comment. Here was this man who’d had the confidence to think he should be the one chosen to take care of every person in the whole state of New Jersey, yet he had not made a single effort to ensure that his wife and child had even a roof over their heads.

In the end, after talking at length about his concerns for his own future, Jim did ask outright if I’d found a place to live. I told him that I didn’t know. In fact, my offer hadn’t been accepted yet, so I didn’t really know for sure, but my answer wasn’t candid, and I knew it. The truth was, I didn’t want to be candid. I had been pushed so far, pulled in so many directions, that I simply didn’t feel like it.

I was scared of this new life I was going into as a soon-to-be-single parent, and a part of me longed to open up and feel the relief of confiding in him, despite the fact that he’d caused this end. I’d always felt better when Jim had soothed me by telling me not to worry, that we would find a way to deal together with whatever the problem at hand was. All too often, it was just rhetoric, I know, but it made me feel close to him, and it made me feel better. But now I didn’t want to feel close to him. I wanted to feel distant, and I wanted to feel angry. As much as I could and as soon as I could. But there was more to it. If I had opened up to Jim and allowed myself to feel the full force of my fear, I couldn’t have acted at all.

MARRIAGES DON’T DIE GRACEFULLY,
of course, and at any given moment one or the other of us might lurch in an instant from chilly distance to molten rage. So it was a relief to spend time away from Jim. If we spent time together, it was easiest to spend it with the Kennedys. We didn’t have to pretend with them, nor did we have to engage with each other.

Labor Day was now behind us, and though I was still in pain, I was also involved with trying to manage a transition I was now accepting as inevitable. Two days after I made my offer on the house, the owners accepted it, and I began looking at furnishings. Most of the furnishings at Drumthwacket belonged to the state, and a few others belonged to Jim. When I moved in with Jim after our marriage, I’d brought only my bedroom set, and when we moved from there to Drumthwacket, I’d given that away to a friend. So Jacqueline and I would be moving with almost nothing except her bedroom furniture.

Everything was so expensive. I would need to renovate, and I didn’t know how I would be able to afford that plus pay the mortgage, let alone put food on the table. But just as I’d found a way to renovate Drum-thwacket, I was determined to find a way to give my daughter a decent home.

Drumthwacket represented destruction, devastation, and betrayal to me now, and I spent as little time there as possible. On the weekends, I went to the beach house. The irony was that I spent more time at the beach after Jim’s announcement than I had during the two and a half years that preceded it. I love the beach and had always dreamed of having a home on the Jersey shore—a coast every bit as beautiful as Cape Cod, the Hamptons, or any other beach on the Atlantic Ocean. In my opinion, the beach house was the best perk of being First Lady. It was a spectacularly lovely spot on a pristine beach—nothing but dunes, beach grass, and the lulling sound of the waves. Because Jim never made time to share it with us, I often stayed home on the weekends or went with him to whatever function he had to attend. Had I known that our time would be cut short, I would have taken advantage of that tranquil spot more often. I was determined to take pleasure in it in the time that remained.

My family—including Paul, Elvie, and my nieces, as well as my friends Freddie and Mario, who would later serve as my unofficial construction manager, spent as many August and September weekends as they could at the shore with me. But it wasn’t always the reprieve I hoped for. One weekend in particular, when I was at the shore and Jim was at Drumthwacket, we had a phone conversation in which we were able to broach the subject of the new chapter each of us would be facing in our lives. Aided, perhaps, by the benefit of physical distance, we were able to discuss the future—Jacqueline, getting a house, and even the possibility that we could once again be friends. In spite of my reservations, and perhaps because of my fears, I opened up, confiding in Jim how nervous I was about being able to afford a decent house. I was immensely relieved to hear the kindness in his voice when he said that we’d figure it out together. Maybe
together
we could work out something amicable, and even have something of a friendship. Jim told me that he’d come down the next day—Sunday—and maybe take Jacqueline and her cousins to the zoo.

I went to bed that night feeling better than I had any night since the announcement. But when Jim arrived midafternoon on Sunday, something seemed to have soured in him. He had turned moody and, unaccountably, went straight to the bedroom without any explanation, without even greeting anyone. Jacqueline’s crib was in our bedroom, and she was in there taking a nap. For the next hour, while she slept, he remained in the room with her.

“What’s with him?” Paul asked.

I shrugged. “It would’ve been better if he hadn’t come.” Undoubtedly, he was uncomfortable being there because he felt—correctly—that my family did not feel welcoming toward him. Still, I felt I’d been foolish to let my guard down, however briefly.

Once Jacqueline had awakened from her nap, Jim spent some time, still in the bedroom, playing with her. After about twenty minutes, though, he came out holding her by the hand. “Here’s Mommy,” he said. “Daddy has to go now.” No mention of the zoo. Then he was gone.

Jim and I were getting a divorce, but too often he acted like it was Jacqueline he was divorcing and had to create distance from.

Presumably, the only reason Jim was coming to the shore in the first place was to see Jacqueline, and yet on the rare occasions when he did show up he would usually go to the sunroom by himself and wouldn’t interact with anyone. He often had breakfast or lunch in that room, where he’d read or spend time on the phone. Invariably he’d say that he was tired and just wanted quiet time. I thought he was careless of Jacqueline and rude, especially if my family was visiting. I never treated his family in this manner. Whenever we got together, I always spent the entire visit with them. It hurt me when he treated my family so badly, especially since they had already sacrificed so much to help raise Jacqueline while I helped him advance his political career.