Chapter 20
The day after the baby is buried, Jack calls. They just put into port, he says, in Genoa.
“How are you, Jackie?”
It’s hard to believe he’s actually asking that question.
“Jackie? Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m going to be coming home.” He says it like he’s reading from a script, or maybe he thinks I’ll assure him, Oh, please don’t worry, Jack. Please stay and enjoy your time in the sun. I can’t quite imagine what he thinks. The air in the room feels wildly still.
“See you then,” I say.
“All right. Hey, Jackie—”
But I’m already hanging up the phone. The curved shape of the receiver in its cradle. My hand rests there. That smooth, metal-like cool.
He gets home. Everything feels horribly stilted, layers of glass between us.
“We’ll try again,” he says.
I don’t answer.
“Jackie?”
“It will have to be a very different kind of again.”
On our third anniversary, I’m still confined to bed. I haven’t cried since those days in the hospital with Bobby, but my body is a yawn of dark grief. When Ethel’s fifth child is born, I tell Jack to give the house we bought, Hickory Hill, to Bobby and Ethel. Or sell it. However he wants to handle the transaction, they should have that house, for their lovely uncomplicated marriage, its industry and Catholic sweetness and the babies that keep popping out. They should have the nursery curtains, the mobile, the crib.
He tells me his father has offered to rent something else for us in Georgetown.
“Why?” I say. “You’ll be at work or off campaigning for Stevenson. When they let me out of bed, I’m going to visit Lee.”
“But Lee is in London.”
“Yes.”
Someone tells someone there’s trouble in our marriage. Or someone takes a wild guess and hits a bit of truth. However it happens, a rumor finds its way into the papers that I’m planning to leave him and Joe’s offered me a million dollars to stay.
“Did you see that garbage?” Joe says to me.
“I thought it was a fine idea, but why one million? Let’s make it ten.”
Joe laughs. “I’m on your side, Jackie. Jack needs you.”
“For his political career?”
“And a lot more than he seems to realize.”
“Well, I hope he figures it out sooner, rather than—you know—later.”
Silence then. He waits for me to elaborate. We’re sitting in the living room of his house in Hyannis Port. It’s late afternoon. Everyone else is somewhere else.
He stretches out his legs. “You and Jack should take a trip,” he says. “The two of you, maybe around the New Year. Antigua?”
“Are you trying to placate or bribe me, dear Joe?”
He smiles. “Whichever you’d prefer.”
Your son never apologized,I want to say. He never said to me, I’m sorry for leaving when the baby was coming, I’m sorry for not coming home when she died.
“You need this marriage, don’t you?” I say. “Particularly now that plans are being laid for Jack to run.” I don’t have to say which race. There’s only one race that matters to Joe.
“This is no joke, Jackie. Divorce, or even the whiff of it, will kill his chances.”
“Then we’ll have to make this fun,” I say, “so I can be sure to survive it.” I smile. “I’ll need a small house at some point, and Jack will need new suits. He can’t get the hems so short. He can’t keep wearing those tired scuffed loafers in the evenings.”
“Did you hear what I said?” He peers at me through those thin wire-rimmed glasses. His eyes don’t dance.
“No unpleasantness, Joe. I’ve been heartbroken, and I need to climb out of it. Let’s think of things we can celebrate: Jack will have new suits, I will have a little house, and it looks like the Supreme Court is going to uphold desegregation.”
From then on, I am careful with my heart. I’ll stay in this marriage, at least for now. But I’ll keep myself slightly apart. Oddly, Jack doesn’t seem to notice. In fact, things between us seem lighter, like he’s relieved I’ve split myself and now he only has to reckon with half. How much simpler things become once I withdraw, once I’m less passionate, less present, less open and honest. Less in love. From time to time, it occurs to me with a stab of sadness that it might be precisely the less that makes me more the right kind of wife.