The Second Marriage, page 19
As she watched, Jackie stroked her swollen belly and wondered what this baby would be. Boy or girl? Calm and thoughtful like Caroline, or the life and soul of the party like John? Three was a lucky number. She felt very blessed with her family.
After he returned from Europe, Jack came to Squaw Island on the weekends, but every Sunday night his presidential limo swept him back to Washington, where the Oval Office awaited. His European tour had been a great success, he said. Ireland had claimed him as one of her own, with huge crowds lining the streets to watch the motorcade pass, and the speech he delivered while overlooking the Berlin Wall was hailed by the press as the strongest anti-Communist statement yet and a watershed in the Cold War between East and West.
Jack said that Lee had performed her social duties admirably, but, when asked, she had denied any affair with Onassis.
“See? I told you so,” Jackie replied, and Jack grunted, unconvinced.
On Wednesday, August 7, she took the children pony riding and watched their excitement as they trotted around the paddock. She was determined that they grow up to share her love of horses. Suddenly she felt a sharp cramp in her womb and turned to grab the hand of Mrs. Shaw.
“I think that might have been a contraction. But it’s six weeks early. That’s too soon.” She told herself that she mustn’t panic. John had been early, and he’d turned out just fine. But fear consumed her as she remembered that Arabella hadn’t been fine. She didn’t know how she could stand it if she lost this child.
Mrs. Shaw got her to sit down on a grassy bank, just as another contraction came. Then another. They were only a couple of minutes apart.
“Call Dr. Walsh,” Jackie said, extracting a card with his telephone number from her purse. “Ask him what I should do.”
Mrs. Shaw ran to the farmhouse to borrow their phone, and Jackie sat, clutching her belly, waving as the children rode past, teeth gritted against the next contraction.
The nanny returned five minutes later. “He wants us to go straight to Otis Air Force Base,” she said. “He’ll meet us there.”
Jackie shivered, cold despite the heat of the day.
THERE WAS A hospital on the base. Dr. Walsh was already there when they drove up, and he examined her straightaway.
“Are they false contractions?” she asked.
“No. You’re in labor, as you thought, so I’m going to operate without delay.”
“Please get Jack. I need him.” She felt shaky and tearful, and desperately in need of Jack’s reassuring solidity.
“I’ll send word,” the doctor promised.
Mrs. Shaw said she would take the children home. Jackie overheard her promising them a trip to the beach later, and some chocolate-chip cookies after their swim. She lay back, trying to breathe calmly. Dr. Walsh had delivered John. He knew what he was doing.
WHEN JACKIE CAME to after the operation, Jack was at her side.
“Where’s the baby?” she asked, noticing straightaway that he wasn’t smiling.
“It’s a boy,” he said, his voice serious. “He’s beautiful, but he’s having trouble breathing, so they’re helping him out.”
“How much trouble?” She bit her lip.
Jack hesitated a moment too long. “They want to transfer him to Boston Children’s Hospital. I asked them to fetch a chaplain first so we can christen him. Is that okay?”
“Patrick Bouvier,” Jackie whispered. Names from both sides of the family. They’d already agreed.
The christening took place as Patrick lay in an incubator at her bedside. Her arms ached to hold him, to kiss that little face, but all she could do was stretch a hand inside to stroke his fluffy brown hair and slip her finger into his palm. He didn’t open his eyes, although she sensed he was awake. He looked very sick.
“You go to Boston with him,” Jackie instructed. “Patrick needs you more than I do.” She knew she had to be strong and that she had to let Jack go.
Jack looked so upset when he left that she wondered if the doctors had told him more than they were telling her. But then, he had always been the more openly emotional of the two of them. He got tears in his eyes at the sight of little John throwing a baseball or when Caroline first read a sentence to him from her schoolbook. Jackie couldn’t remember when she had last cried, even in private. She kept a tight rein on her emotions. She had to.
JACK CALLED AFTER they arrived in Boston to say that the specialist had put Patrick in something called a hyperbaric chamber filled with oxygen, where he lay sound asleep, with drips feeding into his arms.
“He looks like a little peanut surrounded by all those machines,” he told her. “Now it’s just a question of keeping him stable and hoping his lungs start working by themselves.”
Jackie gripped the phone. “Do they think they will? Don’t leave him, Jack. I don’t want him to be alone.”
“There’s not a lot I can do, but he’s in the best of hands. The specialist is world renowned.”
All the following day, Jackie lay in bed, chewed up with anxiety, waiting for Jack’s calls. In the morning, he reported they were pleased with Patrick’s heart function and blood pressure, but by the afternoon he said they’d had to insert a breathing tube to force air in and out of his lungs. She thought of that rosebud mouth with a rubber tube strapped into it and covered her face with her hands. Poor little mite.
Lee arrived from Europe, clutching a teddy bear she’d brought as a baby gift, and was crestfallen when she heard the news. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she soothed, unconvincingly. “Look at Tina. We didn’t think she’d make it, after all those months in intensive care, but now she’s full of life.”
That evening Jackie couldn’t sleep. She had a feeling of impending doom that nothing could shift, so at 1:00 A.M. the doctor gave her a sedative to help her get some rest.
When she awoke the following morning, leaden limbed, Dr. Walsh was sitting by the bed, and she knew before he spoke.
“He didn’t make it, I’m afraid. He fought so hard, but it wasn’t to be.”
She clutched her throat, feeling as if there weren’t enough air in the room.
“He died at four this morning. I’m so sorry. Jack is on his way.”
When Jack came into the room, he was already sobbing. Jackie took his hand and pulled him toward her so that she could reach his face. She wiped his tears with her fingertips, saying, “Shush, now,” as if she were comforting one of the children after a fall. He leaned his head on her shoulder, and she felt the tears soaking her nightdress. He was shaking with grief.
Jackie felt as if her jaw were locked. She should be crying too. How strange that she wasn’t. She couldn’t react, couldn’t think straight, because none of it seemed real. It was as if it were happening to someone else entirely.
Chapter 34
Squaw Island
August 1963
Jack and Lee flew to Boston for Patrick’s funeral, but Jackie was too ill to get out of bed. She still felt numb, as if she were under anesthetic and hadn’t quite come around.
When she was well enough to return to the house on Squaw Island, Jack took a week off to join her. They sat watching John and Caroline play with the puppies, or paddling off the seashore that was just at the end of the garden. Jack had to stay near the house in case he was needed on the hotline, but Jackie didn’t want to leave anyway. She couldn’t bear to bump into anyone who might offer sympathy.
Around and around the thoughts swirled. Now she had lost two fully formed children—Arabella and Patrick—as well as the little one who never made it past the first trimester. Was it her fault? Was it because of her smoking, as Rose had rather unkindly hinted? Why was she so bad at childbearing compared to the other Kennedy women? Rose had nine, and Ethel had given birth to her eighth just a month earlier. It was as if they were taunting Jackie.
What would Patrick and Arabella have been like? What kind of lives would they have led? She wished she could believe they would find each other in heaven. That would have been comforting. But how would they even recognize each other?
Jack had to return to the White House in mid-August but Jackie stayed on as summer trailed to an end. At first she needed a wrap to sit out on the porch in the evening. Then the winds picked up, sandblasting her face when she took solitary walks along the shore. Purply gray clouds gusted in and rain came in short squalls. She couldn’t face winter: the darkness, the days trapped indoors by the weather, the children getting fractious, the dark skeletal trees against a gray sky. It was too much.
And then Lee phoned one evening. “Why don’t you come to Europe for a cruise on Aristotle’s yacht in October?” she suggested. “It’s still hot and sunny in Greece then. You’ll love it.”
“Weren’t you just there in May?” Jackie asked, surprised.
“Yeah.” Lee’s tone was airy. “He’s invited me again, and suggested I ask you. What do you think?”
It sounded enticing. Bright sunshine and blue skies, swimming in a warm sea … she had always enjoyed vacations with Lee, from the time when they spent a summer touring Europe together in 1951. They moved at the same pace, had the same interests. “I’ll have to ask Jack,” she said. “I’ll get back to you.”
“What’s she doing issuing invitations in Onassis’s name?” Jack responded immediately. “I told you they were having an affair.”
Jackie shook her head, dismissing it, although a doubt had crept into her mind. “I could use a change of scene, Jack. Once I’m there I could assess the situation and report back.”
Still Jack hesitated over the course of a week, and she knew his advisors were rallying against it. It could put him in a compromising position, raising conflict-of-interest issues. It didn’t look good for Jackie to be vacationing with a man who had been charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, even though he had been found guilty only of a lesser charge. But on the other hand, he wanted to cheer her up.
“You haven’t smiled since Patrick died,” he told her. “You barely talk. You sit, still and inscrutable, and I can’t reach you. So if this trip will help you to feel better, then you should go. But we’ll send chaperones along, people who are beyond reproach. And Stas must be there too.”
“Thank you,” Jackie said, bowing her head. “It means a lot.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Tell Lee that if she plans to marry Onassis, there is to be no announcement till after the ’64 election and he mustn’t set foot in the U.S. before then. Warn her I won’t be responsible for my actions if she costs me a second term.”
“It won’t come to that,” Jackie promised. “I’ll talk to her.”
Chapter 35
The Mediterranean
August 1963
“I’m having dinner with Stas in Monte Carlo this evening,” Ari told Maria, “and he’s bringing Lee. Would you like to come?”
Maria couldn’t imagine how she would cope with seeing Lee face-to-face without clawing her eyes out. “Do you have to go?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so. He’s a director of my airline, and we have matters to discuss.”
“In that case, I’ll come.” She certainly wasn’t going to let him see Lee without her.
Maria dressed with care, in a new black-and-white asymmetric evening gown, which she accessorized with diamonds. They arrived early at the Hôtel de Paris and Ari ordered champagne for their table, which was on the top-floor roof terrace, with a view of the Mediterranean. It was a sultry evening, but large fans cooled the wealthy clientele.
When Lee and Stas arrived, Maria rose to greet them with cheek kisses, but, as soon as Lee sat down, Maria’s eye was caught by the bracelet jangling on her wrist. She was almost positive it was the Cartier bangle from Ari’s drawer. She felt sick. What had that note said? To my dearest, my sweetest love?
The men were talking about an incident on an Olympic flight that day. Lee sat back and lit a cigarette, regarding Maria’s dress with a critical expression.
“Who designed your gown?” she asked.
“Biki of Milan,” Maria replied. “She’s a friend who makes a lot of clothes for me.”
“Rah–lly,” Lee drawled, with a disparaging sniff.
Maria couldn’t let her get away with that, so she hit back. “Are you on holiday without your children again? They’re so young, they must scarcely recognize you.”
She knew from the sharp intake of breath that she had scored a bull’s-eye. The atmosphere between them was barely civil for the rest of the evening.
“You eat bread, I see,” Lee remarked. “How very brave of you not to worry about your figure.”
“I’m careful not to drink too much alcohol,” Maria replied. “There’s nothing quite so undignified as a drunk woman.” She looked meaningfully at Lee’s wineglass, which was nearly empty again, minutes after a waiter had topped it up.
Stas seemed puzzled by all the veiled barbs and hostile glances, but Ari knew what was going on. Maria suspected he was secretly enjoying it.
As soon as they got back to the Christina, she hurried down to his suite to check the drawer. The Cartier box was still there but empty. He had given the bracelet to Lee. How could he? She slammed the drawer shut. Should she confront him? Admit she’d been snooping? Jealousy was an unattractive, destructive quality. It was better to take the high road. She was the woman he chose to be with, after all.
She didn’t mention the bracelet but, from then on, insecurity raged whenever Ari made a trip ashore. She tried to sound nonchalant as she asked whom he was dining with and which friends he planned to see. If she could have had him tailed twenty-four hours a day, she would have, but that was no way to conduct a love affair.
IN MID-SEPTEMBER, ARI, announced, “I’ve invited Mrs. Kennedy for a cruise to help her recover after the loss of her baby.”
Maria had felt sympathetic when she read of the death of the Kennedy baby. She knew all too well what it was like to lose a child straight after its birth, because Omero still haunted her thoughts. But she was instantly wary about the cruise.
“Who’s coming with her?” she asked, trying to keep her tone from sounding inquisitorial.
Ari listed the guests: “American congressman Franklin Roosevelt Jr. and his wife; Princess Irene Galitzine and her husband; Stas and Lee; my sister, Artemis, and her husband …” He’d slipped Lee’s name into the middle, as if trying to gloss over her presence.
“And what dates are they coming?”
“We sail on the fourth of October, from Athens.”
Maria tapped her fingernail on the tabletop. “I told you I have to be in Paris during the first week of October. I’m meeting Zeffirelli to discuss a production of Tosca.”
“Of course you are!” he exclaimed, clapping his forehead as if he had only just remembered. Maria was not fooled for a moment. “But perhaps it’s just as well,” he continued. “You haven’t met the First Lady and she will not be in the mood for socializing with strangers. I understand she is a very private person.”
“She hasn’t met Artemis either, has she? She’s a stranger to her.”
“Artemis will stay out of her way, as will I. I don’t plan to impose myself on the party. In fact, I offered to let them borrow the Christina and cruise without me, but Mrs. Kennedy insisted I should be there.” He shrugged, as if to say, What else could I do?
“Perhaps I will join you on the tenth,” Maria persevered. “You could send the helicopter to collect me from Athens.”
“It’s probably best not to, my love,” he said. “Give Mrs. Kennedy her privacy and I’ll fly to meet you in Paris as soon as they leave.”
“What about Princess Lee?” she asked, her tone hardening.
“What if she strolls into your cabin in her skimpy bikini? Will you be able to resist this time?”
He pulled her toward him, kissing her with tenderness. “I will resist,” he said, then drew his head back so she could see the flecks of gold in his irises. “I promise I will send her packing.”
She turned away so he would not see the emotion on her face. She hated Lee now, with her affected, breathy voice and the expensive clothes draped over that bony frame. What was she good for? She didn’t have any talents, except betrayal.
Chapter 36
The Mediterranean
October 1963
Jackie felt so ill during the eleven-hour flight from New York to Athens that she had to ask a stewardess for an oxygen mask. Her whole body felt broken, every bone and joint aching, and her head fuzzy with exhaustion. Franklin Roosevelt Jr. and his wife, Sue, were worried and offered to call a doctor when they landed, but Jackie refused. She just wanted to get there. A chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce was waiting to collect them at the airport, and they were whisked to Piraeus and straight onto the Onassis yacht, which towered over the others in the port.
As they boarded, she saw that the railings were decorated with roses and gladioli, and a lavish cocktail party was underway, with a live band and a barman in black tie mixing cocktails in a shaker. Jackie was not in the mood. She made her excuses and slipped down to her cabin, where she climbed into bed and slept for fourteen hours straight. The sheets were finely woven, the mattress sublime, and the wood-paneled walls seemed to hold the warmth of summer.
On waking the next morning, she pressed a bell set in the wall, and a maid appeared, who took her order for orange juice, tea, and toast. Through a porthole, she could see white sun glinting off the turquoise Aegean Sea, and there was not a cloud in the sky. Jackie felt stiff from sleeping so long, but she could also feel the release of some of the tension she had been holding in her body since Patrick died. The change of scene helped.
That first day, she lay in the sun, an unopened book by her side, and every now and then she dove off a diving board into the sea, which was as warm as bathwater. They docked in Istanbul that evening, but she did not feel like going ashore and ate dinner alone before an early night.
