Chapter 27 #3
Paris, France → Orly, France → Chateau-Thierry, France → Belleau, France → Chateau-Thierry, France → Orly, France → Philadelphia, PA → Wilmington, DE
Before we left France, we did photo lines at the hotel, attended a reception to greet the US embassy staff, then flew to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery to honor the fallen of World War I. I was home in Delaware at about eight that night, ready to learn how Hunter’s trial would conclude.
June 10
Hunter’s lawyer did a solid wrap-up, and then it was time to await the verdict.
We didn’t know how long it would take, but we thought it might be hours or even days.
Once the jury withdrew to deliberate, I drove home, about fifteen minutes away, and stayed close to my phone awaiting news.
Hunter and Melissa stayed a bit closer, at the Hotel Du Pont just down the street from the courthouse.
About an hour later, we were told that the jury had suspended deliberations and gone home. They’d return the following day.
June 11
The next morning, not long after they reconvened, we were told that the jury had already reached a decision. My sister Bonny and I raced back to the courthouse in the car, but we just missed the reading of the verdict.
As we got off the elevator and turned the corner, Hunter and his lawyer were already walking out of the courtroom.
We went with them into a little holding room right off the court.
The family and the lawyers were there, and it was evident that it had not gone well.
Many of them were crying, but Hunt was amazing.
He was strong, and he praised his lawyer for doing a good job.
The lawyer appeared stunned that he had not won because he’d almost never lost a case. We hadn’t expected Hunter to be found guilty on all three counts either. I called Naomi afterward to give her the news. She answered but was so upset she couldn’t speak. It broke my heart.
I knew I had to be strong for her, to tell her how composed her dad had been for everyone after the verdict.
He spoke calmly and gratefully about how even though he’d lost the case, he felt he’d won because so many people had supported him.
I told Naomi that she was one of the people who’d been there, that she’d done a good job.
It was hard for me not to think about the role politics played in the matter going to trial in the first place.
Attorney General Merrick Garland oversaw the Justice Department in its handling of Hunter’s case.
In the end, it felt like in working so hard to be impartial, we guaranteed that Hunter would meet the worst possible legal fate.
Joe might have gone too far, in my opinion, to show that his family was being treated with complete impartiality.
At the beach house after the verdict, I stood in my kitchen and thought about an encounter at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner the prior year. The hardships of others going through more serious crises than mine helped me put my own grief into perspective.
A couple named Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, the parents of Evan Gershkovich, had come through the receiving line.
I’d seen in my briefing book that they’d be attending.
Evan was a Wall Street Journal reporter wrongly imprisoned in Russia on fake spy charges.
I wondered what it must be like to have your son falsely imprisoned in another country.
When their names were read, I saw them rush up to Joe, their eyes questioning.
Joe called over to have Secretary of State Antony Blinken join them.
Ella said that a promised letter on Evan’s behalf hadn’t been sent. Joe told Antony to make sure it got out. I stepped back from the group, feeling that I was invading a private moment in which they wanted to talk to Joe.
As they moved on, I said to Joe, “God, how do they do it? It must be so hard.”
At the WHCA dinner, a plea was made by the journalists to get Evan free, and Joe promised he wouldn’t give up—and he didn’t. Evan was one of the hostages Joe would help free mere months later.
I walked into the kitchen from the back porch, musing about how tenacious Ella had been about her son’s release—never giving up, always pushing, pushing, pushing.
At that moment, I happened to look out the window.
Standing at the back window of her house was my neighbor, another mother gazing out on the day.
Her son had died three years earlier at the age of fifteen.
The grief she must have experienced, the ache that never goes away.
I thought of what Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, said after her son was murdered in a drive-by shooting: “I don’t want you to think your heart is gonna heal.
If someone told you that, they told you an untruth. ”
Mothers and sons. A complicated relationship I knew well.
So much joy and so much pain. So many layers to break down, to rebuild, so much work to tamp down the hurt.
To me, the mother-and-son bond might be the strongest connection on earth.
Certainly it brought out my protectiveness more than anything else.
I was so glad I’d been there for Hunter and also not let my other responsibilities slip.
More than anything, I was glad that what was at once one of the most excruciating and most meaningful weeks of my life was finally over.