Page 43 of Jackie

Estes Kefauver, not Jack, is selected to be Stevenson’s running mate.

“You’re disappointed,” I say to Jack in the hotel afterward as we pack. “But you didn’t really want the vice presidency, did you?”

He shakes his head. “Dad told me I was wasting it. It just burns that he was right.”

—

On the flight back to Hyannis Port, he is brooding, restless. He sits with Bobby and his closest aides, the Irish trio: Larry O’Brien, Kenny O’Donnell, Dave Powers.

“I’m going to get out of town for a while,” Jack says. “A quick trip. I’ll see if Teddy will come with me.” He’s talking to them, but this is his way of breaking news to me that I might not want to hear.

“What about the baby?” I ask later, once we’re back in the house alone.

“That’s October. It’s only August.”

“I’ll miss you,” I say.

“It’ll be a quick trip.”

He’s putting me off. He’s angry about the convention. I should let it go.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I say.

He is sifting through papers. His hands stop for a moment, gray eyes cool. “Don’t.”

A few days later, he’s gone. I leave for Newport.

—

“What was he thinking?” my mother says. “Leaving you alone only weeks before the baby’s due.”

“The convention was hard for him.”

“Well, it’s all been hard for you.”

I’m looking at a magazine of paint colors and nursery designs. Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen yellow. Maybe I should have done things differently.

“I know you think the trouble with me, Mother, is that I don’t play bridge with my bridesmaids.”

She doesn’t answer right away, then, “I don’t actually think the trouble is you.”

…

It’s my mother I cry out for that August morning when I wake to shooting pains in my lower belly that radiate down my legs. The pain is unbearable. A rush of water—pinkish, then darker.

Hours later, I surface in the hospital. Bobby sits by my bed. The room is very white, his face cut against that whiteness, concern in his eyes, the blue intensity hazed by something new. I try to pull my mind out of the heavy sleep. I notice he’s holding my hand. Something is wrong.

“Where’s my baby?”

He shakes his head. “We almost lost you.”

“The baby?”

“No,” he says. Then I know. I don’t want him to say it.

“Where’s my mother?”

“She’ll be right back.”

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