Page 81 of Jackie

“You’re back early,” I say. “Too much golf?”

“Too much sun.”

I swim to the edge of the pool. He sits down on one of the lounge chairs in the shade, his legs stretched out.

“You look tired, Joe,” I say.

“I had to quit after the fifth hole,” he says with some disgust.

“Sweet Joe, even you are not invincible.” I splash at the water just enough so drops strike near his feet without hitting his shoes. “Go take a rest,” I say. “Get into your room, where it’s cool.”

“Don’t you dare call a doctor.”

“I promise.”

He pushes himself up and walks off, the usual long stride at first, but as I watch, he slows, like his body can’t quite keep up with the heat. He steps inside. Two hours later, his niece Ann looks into his bedroom to check on him, and he cannot speak or move.

—

I’m with him at the hospital every day. On Christmas Eve, Jack and I stay with him until midnight. We take Communion in the hospital chapel. Thrombosis to his left cerebral hemisphere—his right side is entirely paralyzed. He’s a shell of himself. He can barely speak. I read aloud to him. I feed him and wipe the shine of saliva from the edge of his mouth.

1962

The day after Jack’s State of the Union address, I see him in the colonnade talking to one of the new interns. Dark-haired like several of the others. She’s the one, I remember, who accompanied Jack on his trip to Nassau. As I watch, his hand finds her backside, she glances up at him from under a swoosh of her hair.

I have trouble working that afternoon. I cancel an appointment. I ask Pam to find someone to stand in for me. I go out to the garden, then change my mind. I don’t want to sit. Even the grass feels overwhelming. It’s all just too much, the whipsaw of love, then betrayal after betrayal. He doesn’t even try to hide it.

The children have gone to a friend’s house to play. I’m alone and the sky is exquisite, that unbridled ache in the light—so beautiful, that light. I feel something inside me break.

I slip my sunglasses on and walk away from the garden, away from the Residence, toward the gate, and out to the street. I can feel the burn of tears. I can sense Clint behind me, trailing. I’m grateful he knows me well enough to read my mood and keep a distance, that young man, his shadow self, staying close like some dark angel.

I know what those women are to Jack. Some habit he has, events slotted in on his schedule, another appointment to keep. But now it’s not just the women that bother me. It’s how the rumors bend the air—hushed talk in the corridors, stilted looks from the staff; they seem more gentle with me when I return from a weekend trip. That dirty rub of sympathy I hate. They all know. Do they really think I don’t? Or that I don’t care?

I need to get out from under it, the weight of the shame and the rage—his casual, ruinous lust. The anger rises in me, and the following Tuesday, as I am leading two French reporters through the restoration and the progress we’ve made, walking them from room to room, we come to where the girl they call Fiddle is working, tapping keys on her typewriter. I wave a hand and say in French, “And this is one of the young pretty women my husband is ostensibly sleeping with.” The air drops, a sharp intake of breath from the reporters, then silence. The girl’s pretty head with its pretty red mouth looks up. She clearly doesn’t speak French.

“Shall we move on?” I say brightly.

Jack hears about it, of course.

“You can’t just say things like that, Jackie, no matter how witty you’re trying to be.”

“Do you think I said it to be witty? Do you think I said something everyone doesn’t know?”

“Be reasonable.”

“If you didn’t do things like that, Jack, I wouldn’t have to say things like that, would I?”

“We’re just lucky they aren’t going to print it.”

One named Fiddle, one named Faddle

Mimi

Marilyn

Mary Meyer

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