Jackie, page 45
…
“When may I go home?” I ask, first a nurse, then the doctor.
“When we’ve figured out your fever.”
“I’m sure I can have a fever at home.”
* * *
—
It’s deep in the lungs now, the doctor explains. I sit for a moment in silence when he tells me this.
“No more treatments, please. I want to go home.”
* * *
—
I see the children every day for the rest of that spring, as I have since January. Every night after supper, I phone Caroline’s house, good-night hugs and kisses to Tatiana and Rose.
* * *
—
No one tells you it happens like this: a funny ripple at the edges of things—a gnawing away—like a new country sliding over the familiar. Stitches coming undone.
* * *
—
How would I describe it?
It’s not what you’d expect—
The severing is a thing you can feel.
The day is made of walls, and walls are air.
You are of the air. And not.
You are the slant of evening light against a tree.
A cool breeze moving now through a cracked window, turning the page.
* * *
—
It’s not what you’d expect.
Not as you came to understand it growing older, but how you might have dreamed it as a child.
You are a thousand selves, and that other sky is here.
* * *
…
One Sunday in May, I wake up to bright light flooding in.
“Let’s take a walk in the park today, Maurice,” I say.
That afternoon, we cross Fifth Avenue with Caroline and the children.
“Isn’t it something?” I remark as we pause to let a raft of bicyclists pass. “One of the most glorious springs I can remember, and after such a terrible winter.” I lean on Maurice; the girls are ahead, Caroline pushing the stroller with baby Jack. Runners and more cyclists flow by, shreds of conversation, light on bare shins, forearms pale, a woman in yellow shorts on Rollerblades, a Frisbee tucked under her arm. The grass is just so bright.
* * *
—
I feel my breath catch—so much effort, these small steps, this distance. Maurice glances at me.
“I’m fine,” I say with a smile, and he touches my hand. We continue walking. The path splits, then merges again. A bench up ahead in the sun.
“Do you want to sit, Mom?” Caroline asks.
“Not yet. We’ll find another spot, farther on, where the girls can play.”
“We can stop here for a while, then find another spot too.”
But Tatiana and Rose have skipped ahead. They’ve made up a game—part hopscotch, part tag—their dark hair bright, little jackets swinging open and flapping behind them like cropped wings. When they’ve drifted too far ahead, their mother calls them. They pause at the sound of her voice. Dark heads bent together, they confer with each other and wait as Caroline starts toward them.
And the park is a green lake all around. The girls seem to shimmer there, at the edge of it, at the top of the rise; they are tall and straight and strong, their bodies small pillars of fire. Their mother has almost reached them. She nods. They turn then and they run.
* * *
—
It is really only this:
* * *
—
The world is alive to me because of you.
Acknowledgments
My father’s faith in me has never wavered. His love is an inspiration; his support for this novel, our family, and my creative life, beyond measure.
Kim Wright Wiley was with me in this book when it was only the flash of an idea, years before I had the voice and rolled up my sleeves to begin. I will always be grateful for our long conversations about women, art, motherhood, identity, vision, time. An incomparable writer and friend, she read each draft, each page.
Also, and essentially: gratitude to Karen Deutsch, Stephen Kiernan, Jessica Keener, Emily Franklin, Barbara Shapiro, Holly LeCraw, Drew Moran, Carolyn Foley, Elizabeth Lane, Anna Dokoza, Jane Ritson-Parsons, Derrill Hagood McDavid.
Jack, for his presence and his keen understanding of the flow between history and story on the page; Ivan, for his intuitive grasp of voice and heart. Peggy and Maureen, for their friendship and one revelatory conversation over dinner once I had a rough working draft that shifted the way I went back in to revise. Annie Philbrick, for lending me her magical house-of-no-worries in Vermont when I needed the space to write; Topher Kerr, for a singular insight in August 2022 about where the thematic and emotional might intersect.
My mother’s passion for reading, for novels, poetry, language, and stories—along with her curiosity about Jackie—inspired mine.
Arrow and Oriana—small infinities—who remind me of the power of women over the long throw of time. Carlin and Nicole, for their love and care.
Kim Witherspoon, fierce and trusted advocate, and her exceptional team at Inkwell, especially Lyndsey Blessing and William Callahan.
At Random House, inestimable thanks to Rachel Rokicki, Alison Rich, Ayelet Durantt, Michelle Jasmine, Matthew Martin, Luke Epplin, Benjamin Dreyer, Rebecca Berlant, Donna Cheng, Monica Rae Brown.
And Kate Medina—for her beautiful and generous intelligence, her guidance and friendship of twenty-five years, her integrity and grace—I am so deeply grateful.
* * *
—
Again, and always, to my boys—Jack and Ivan:
You are my wind and stars, and the reason I chose this particular story.
Sources
For readers who want to learn more, the following sources were critical to my work on this novel: Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, foreword by Caroline Kennedy, interviews with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., introduction and annotations by Michael Beschloss; America’s Queen, by Sarah Bradford; Dreaming in French, by Alice Kaplan; Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: The Untold Story, by Barbara Leaming; Mrs. Kennedy, by Barbara Leaming; The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, by Doris Kearns Goodwin; An Unfinished Life, by Robert Dallek; Mrs. Kennedy and Me, by Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin; Five Days in November, by Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin; Profiles in Courage, by John F. Kennedy; Make Gentle the Life of This World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy, by Maxwell Taylor Kennedy; Jackie as Editor, by Greg Lawrence; Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books, by William Kuhn; JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956, by Fredrik Logevall; Portrait of a President, by William Manchester; The Death of a President, by William Manchester; One Brief Shining Moment, by William Manchester; Four Days in November: The Original Coverage of the John F. Kennedy Assassination, edited by Robert B. Semple, Jr.; The Irish Brotherhood: John F. Kennedy, His Inner Circle, and the Improbable Rise to the Presidency, by Helen O’Donnell with Kenneth O’Donnell, Sr.; Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies, by J. B. West and Mary Lynn Kotz; The Eloquent Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, edited by Bill Adler; All Too Human, by Edward Klein; Camera Girl: The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony; As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Words of Her Family and Friends, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony; The Kennedy White House: Family Life and Pictures, 1961–1963, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony; Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House, by Sally Bedell Smith; The Onassis Women: An Eyewitness Account, by Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos with Phillis Karas; These Few Precious Days, by Christopher Andersen; The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, by Kate Andersen Brower; Come to the Edge: A Memoir, by Christina Haag; Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, by Donald Spoto; The Private Passion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Portrait of a Rider, by Vicky Moon; One Special Summer, by Jacqueline and Lee Bouvier; The Odyssey, by Homer translated by Robert Fagles; The Iliad, by Homer translated by Robert Fagles; The Greek Way, by Edith Hamilton; Stride Toward Freedom, by Martin Luther King, Jr.; The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers; The Firebird, by Peter Sis; The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, selected and introduced by Caroline Kennedy; A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children, by Caroline Kennedy. I also pored through vintage issues of Life magazine and Look magazine that spanned the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s as I was creating the world of this book.
Several visits to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum were invaluable, as was the online site www.jfklibrary.org. I found the transcript from the forum “The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis” particularly compelling, and it inspired several scenes in this novel and more essentially a sharper understanding of the depth and nuance of Jackie’s character and mind, along with her passion for books. The online archives of The New York Times were essential as I was drawing together a clearer sense of history and news reporting during the span of years covered by this novel. James Reston’s piece “Why America Weeps: Kennedy Victim of Violent Streak He Sought to Curb in the Nation,” published in The New York Times the day after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, was particularly inspiring. Daniel Mendelsohn’s excellent “J.F.K., Tragedy, Myth,” published in The New Yorker, was an article I read and returned to several times. Steven Levingston’s brilliant piece “John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Phone Call That Changed History,” published in Time magazine, helped shape my understanding of the conversation and events around that phone call. The Washington Post archives were also important to my research, including the piece “The Young, Tough Guys Behind the Election of John F. Kennedy,” by Vincent Bzdek, as was The Atlantic’s JFK Issue, published in the fall of 2013 and including the articles “The Legacy of John F. Kennedy,” by Alan Brinkley, and “The Man and the Myths,” by James Bennet. Multiple articles that provided insight into artist Elaine de Kooning and her portrait of Jack Kennedy include Smithsonian magazine’s “Why Elaine de Kooning’s Portrait of JFK Broke All the Rules” and “A President, Seen from Every Angle” in ARTnews. G. Wayne Miller’s “Sunset Days of Camelot: JFK’s Last September in Newport,” published in The Providence Journal, helped as I was building those scenes. The archives of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Esquire magazine were also critical—particularly, in Esquire, Norman Mailer’s several pieces on Jack and Jackie Kennedy, including “Superman Comes to the Supermart,” “An Evening with Jackie Kennedy,” “Enter Prince Jack,” and “Jackie, the Prisoner of Celebrity.” Other writings of Norman Mailer focused on JFK were helpful, including “An Open Letter to JFK from Norman Mailer,” published in 1962 in The Village Voice, and Mailer’s The Presidential Papers. The lines of poetry on this page are from Anne Carson’s poem “The Fall of Rome: A Traveller’s Guide.”
About the Author
Dawn Tripp is the author of the novel Georgia, which was a national bestseller, a finalist for the New England Book Award, and the winner of the Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature. She is the author of three previous novels: Game of Secrets, Moon Tide, and The Season of Open Water, which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction.
dawntripp.com
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Dawn Tripp, Jackie
