American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld

“Do you really want to watch this?” I ask. Charlie usually stays away from television news, believing the vast majority of producers and reporters have a liberal bias. Fox, obviously, gives him the most favorable coverage, but even with them, he gets fidgety after a couple minutes.

  “Just don’t act like your betrayal isn’t the topic on everyone’s lips tonight.” Charlie raises the remote control and clicks off the TV. “If you think that, you’re kidding yourself.”

  “Aren’t you at least happy that Edgar Franklin has gone home?”

  “You mean because you sold me out and gave him what he’d come for?”

  I sit on the brocade-covered bench at the end of our bed (the bed frame is French walnut, acquired by Theodore and Edith Roosevelt; the mattress is a custom-fitted Simmons Beautyrest World Class with memory foam and pillow top). Charlie is still standing behind one of the wingback chairs eight or nine feet away from me.

  “I love you,” I say.

  “Maybe you should sleep in the other room.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “You want us to kiss and make up, and then what will you do tomorrow, join Greenpeace? I still don’t know what the hell got into you.”

  “Charlie, talking to Colonel Franklin wasn’t out of character for me. He’s a father, and his son died, and the fact that the White House was ignoring him made me very uncomfortable.”

  “Then you should have said something to me, or to Hank, or to—”

  “I did say something to you! Or I tried to, but you might recall that as recently as this morning, when you brought over the newspapers, you’d only give them to me if I didn’t mention him.”

  “So I left you with no choice but to slam my foreign policy?” His expression is skeptical. He is wearing the charcoal suit, white shirt, and red tie from earlier—neither of us, it turns out, changed for the gala, though by now he has unbuttoned the top button of the shirt and loosened the tie. Perhaps I’m a pushover, but I’ve always found this to be an endearing style in any man and especially in my husband. He says, “You ever think the time has come for you to forgive me for being elected president?”

  We watch each other, and I say nothing. Then—a lump has formed in my throat—I say, “The reason I didn’t want you to be president is that I was afraid it would turn out like this.”

  “Like what? You mean you and me?”

  I shake my head. “Not us. Just the—the responsibility. How much is at stake when you decide something.” This is a way we never talk, Charlie and I. We speak of when he is giving a speech where, when he is traveling where, or when I am. We discuss in small, momentary ways how the State of the Union went, whether an airplane flight was bumpy, if his cold is any better. It would be crushing, I think, for us to analyze the enormity of our lives now, their meaning and repercussions, yet surely it is this very reticence, our workaday manner of communicating, one foot in front of the other, that has landed us in a place we wouldn’t thinkingly have gone. This has been Charlie’s presidency: episodes of experience, choices he’s made based on the input of advisers reluctant to tell him anything he doesn’t want to hear; he has prayed, but I’ve often worried that the voice of guidance he’s heard has been not God’s but Hank’s, or possibly Charlie’s own, echoing back at him.

  But he doesn’t see it this way. He looks incredulous as he says, “Do you think I’m not aware of the responsibility of being leader of the free world every minute of every day? Lindy, if at this point it’s news to you that the president is under tremendous pressure, then I don’t know where you’ve been for the last six and a half years.”

  “But aren’t you—” I pause, start again. “Don’t you feel guilty?”

  He stares at me. “For what?”

  “A lot of the soldiers who are dying are younger than Ella. They’re younger, but some are married, they have kids of their own. Or they come back, and what if you’re twenty-six years old and both your legs were blown off and you never had a college education? We met a fellow like that at Walter Reed, remember? What’s he supposed to do now?”

  Charlie’s nostrils flare even more than usual. He is—it’s unmistakable—disgusted. “Did you attend some peacenik workshop in Chicago today? Lindy, grow up. Freedom has a price, and you know what? A lot of people consider it an honor to pay it.”

  “Sweetheart, I’m not trying to bait you—I’m not a journalist at a press conference. Can’t we talk sincerely?”

  “About what?” His face is scrunched up in a sneer, his eyes squinty. “I don’t know where this is coming from, but frankly, I don’t need it from you, of all people.”

  Isn’t he right in a way, that it’s far too late to change the rules? Our predecessors—Democrats—were known for being a team of sorts. “Two for the price of one” was a campaign slogan, and the first lady had an accomplished law career behind her. But he was adulterous, and she was ultimately a divisive figure among both men and women (Jadey professed to hate her, though I secretly always admired her), and when Charlie ran largely in contrast to that administration, the differences between me and her were not a political creation; they were real. I moved the first lady’s office back from the West Wing to the East Wing, I have until today avoided controversy, I have not tried to convince my husband of much of anything. Isn’t it indeed unfair, then, to start confronting Charlie with my opinions and criticisms? And isn’t it cowardly, aren’t the consequences too serious, not to?

  I say, “One time, this was probably twenty years ago, I was with Jadey at the country club, and I was reading an article in the paper about a man who was sick with hepatitis C and cirrhosis and couldn’t afford his medication. The article was just incredibly sad. I looked up from reading it, and people were, you know, splashing in the pool, Jadey and I were lying on those recliners, and I asked her if she ever felt like she should be leading an entirely different life.”

  Almost imperceptibly, Charlie’s face softens; his nostrils shrink, they are no longer at full flare.

  “I guess I wonder if I should have been an entirely different first lady,” I say. “Yes, I realize it’s been six years, but I finally feel like, Oh, this is how it works. When I was a librarian, every time I read a new book to the children, it was only after the class was finished that I knew how I should have led the discussion, what the activities should have been. It was as if I knew how to do it right in the future from having done it wrong.”

  “Lindy—” He folds his arms across his chest. “You’re a great first lady. Your approval ratings are sky-high.”

  “Those numbers don’t mean anything.”

  He shrugs. “You’re preaching to the choir on that front, but come on—America loves you. The applause you got tonight—”

  “You don’t have to tell me how great I am,” I say.

  “Really? Because I’d be thrilled if you’d do that for me.” For the first time since we entered our bedroom, he grins—not a thousand-watt grin, but still a real one.

  I glance at the fireplace, where porcelain vases that once belonged to Dolly Madison flank the TV, then I look again at my husband. “On the plane today, I was thinking about how, after Andrew Imhof died, from then on, anything in my life that wasn’t bad felt like a pardon. Especially meeting you, marrying you—I wasn’t sure if I deserved to be so lucky. And when you wanted to run for governor and president, even though I had such doubts, I didn’t put my foot down because I thought it wasn’t my right. Who am I to tell other people, including you, how to live? I’m not such a paragon of perfection.” I pause; I have gotten to the part that’s harder to say, where I incriminate not just myself but him as well. Slowly, I say, “But if you’ve made certain choices and I’ve stood by, aren’t I responsible, too, indirectly? If you look at it like that, then the car accident pales in comparison to the deaths since the war started. I almost couldn’t survive the guilt of killing one person and now how many thousands—and not just Americans but—”

  “This is crazy talk!” Charlie strid
es toward me, he pulls me up from the bench, and he places his palms on either side of my head, gazing at me intently. He seems fierce, fiercely determined, but not hostile. “You’re being nuts, do you hear me? There are casualties under every president, every single one without exception. You’re so good-hearted that you feel personally responsible, but Lindy, it has nothing to do with you. When it comes to spreading democracy, yeah, there’s some collateral damage, and that might sound callous, but the casualties so far, no matter how you tally them, it’s nowhere close to Vietnam or World War II—this doesn’t hold a candle. And believe me, those wars had their critics, too, but no one looks back and thinks, Yeah, we really should have let Hitler go ahead and rule Europe. You’re in the thick of things, and that’s why it’s hard to maintain perspective—I struggle, too—but future generations will thank us. They will, Lindy. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  Did I bare my soul to him of all people—not to Jessica or Jadey or even to my father-in-law—precisely so that he could comfort me with passionate disagreement? Who would be more assured of, more invested in, my blamelessness than Charlie? In a similar fashion, I once allowed him to convince me that dating him against Dena’s wishes was no big deal.

  He says, “They got to you today, didn’t they? The witch doctor and Mr. Sympathy, they gave you hell because you’re too nice to put them in their place. But just because they talk a good game doesn’t mean they’re right.”

  Oh, Charlie. Oh, my dear and cherished husband in your white shirt and your loosened red tie, standing before me warm and fervent and familiar, my husband whose every expression and gesture and inch of skin are known to me, my partner in the strange circumstances of our lives, the man whom I have endlessly wished to make happy, endlessly been amused by, endlessly loved—do you not imagine I know all too well that just because people talk a good game doesn’t mean they’re right?

  I have often felt, observing the world, like a solitary person in a small cottage looking out a window at a vast dark forest. Since I was a little girl, I have lived inside this cottage, sheltered by its roof and walls. I have known of people suffering—I have not been blind to them in the way that privilege allows, the way my own husband and now my daughter are blind. It is a statement of fact and not a judgment to say Charlie and Ella’s minds aren’t oriented in that direction; in a way, it absolves them, whereas the unlucky have knocked on the door of my consciousness, they have emerged from the forest and knocked many times over the course of my life, and I have only occasionally allowed them entry. I’ve done more than nothing and much less than I could have. I have laid inside, beneath a quilt on a comfortable couch, in a kind of reverie, and when I heard the unlucky outside my cottage, sometimes I passed them coins or scraps of food, and sometimes I ignored them altogether; if I ignored them, they had no choice but to walk back into the woods, and when they grew weak or got lost or were circled by wolves, I pretended I couldn’t hear them calling my name. In my twenties, when I was a teacher and a librarian working with children from poor families, I thought it was the beginning, that my contributions to society would increase and continue, but in fact that was my deepest involvement; in the years since, I have only extended myself from higher and higher perches, in increasingly perfunctory ways, with more cameras to chronicle my virtue.

  I could have lived a different life, but I lived this one. And perhaps it is not a coincidence that I married a man who would neither fault me nor even be aware of my failings. I married a man to whom I would compare favorably because if I have done little, he has done less, or perhaps more; if I have caused harm accidentally and indirectly, he has done so with qualmless intent and total confidence.

  The tears that have been welling in my eyes over the course of the conversation spill out at last, and Charlie wipes them with the pads of his thumbs. He leans in and kisses my right eyebrow. He murmurs, “Come on, baby.” If he hasn’t yet forgiven me completely, then it’s only a matter of time; he will forgive me so long as my behavior today remains an anomaly. He says, “Lindy, both of us—we’re instruments of God’s will.”

  HAVE I MADE terrible mistakes?

  In bed beside me, my husband sleeps, his breathing deep and steady. Before I awakened, I was dreaming of Andrew Imhof, the old dream: the two of us standing in different places, with different groups of people, in a large and badly lit room, my constant awareness of him. But in tonight’s dream, there was a startling change: After decades of elusion, we find each other. What happiness! We both are shy, we both are young, we make our way toward each other awkwardly but with a shared understanding, a certainty. He is strong and sweet and golden, and I am wearing a red dress that I never in reality owned. We don’t say much because it’s not necessary. And then—a miracle—we kiss, we are kissing. This is all I ever wanted, to come back to you, to be held by you, for what existed between us not to be cut short, and especially not at my hand. Your lips are soft and tentative, without the pushy sureness of a husband’s tongue. It is enough, just this—your hand at the small of my back, the heat of your chest beneath your shirt, our faces close together, and a cloak of privacy surrounding us. Could I have been your wife after all, might we have made a life together on your parents’ farm or one of our own? Once, on that extended visit back to Riley, I decided not, but now that we’re together, our compatibility makes me think of course we could have. We can talk to each other, we make each other laugh, there is between us a common sensibility, a wordless affection whose subtext is a single question: What took us so long?

  And then I awakened, a sixty-one-year-old woman in a big, grand, shadowy bedroom in Washington, D.C., the wife of the president of the United States. Can Charlie and I not also talk to each other, do we not make each other laugh, is there not between us a common sensibility? It isn’t necessary for me to insist to myself that I love Charlie; I know that I do. But that dewy certainty I felt for Andrew, the lightness of our lives then—it is long gone. I have never experienced it with anyone else.

  I didn’t vote for Charlie for president. I did vote for him both times for governor, but when he ran for president, I didn’t want the upheaval or the burdens, and I also believed sincerely that his opponent would do a better job. He had more experience, a more nuanced view of the issues; he was a lifelong public servant rather than an intermittent dabbler. I wondered, exiting the voting booth in 2000 and again in 2004, if my expression might give away my actions, but my vote was apparently so inevitable that no one ever asked me about it, no reporter or campaign staffer. I suppose it would have been disrespectful. In the photo taken of us that morning in 2000, Charlie and I pause outside the curtained booths at the elementary school in Madison, simultaneously holding hands and waving. What does the photo show, I’ve wondered since—my treachery or his? During the periods when I’ve been the most frustrated by our lives, or by what is happening in this country, I’ve looked outside at the cars and pedestrians our motorcades pass, and I’ve thought, All I did is marry him. You are the ones who gave him power. At other times, I have felt both a sense of regret for deceiving him and an oppressive awareness of my complicity in his elections.

  Did I betray Charlie, or did I act on principle? Has he betrayed the American people, or has he acted on principle? Perhaps the answer is all of the above. If the many novels I’ve read are an accurate indicator, I have to assume there are betrayals in most marriages. The goal, I suppose, is not to allow any that are larger than the strength of the partnership.

  While I don’t imagine that I’ll ever be able to reveal to Charlie this particular betrayal, the future is difficult to predict, and perhaps there will come a time when even having voted for his opponent might seem an amusing anecdote. I doubt it, but it’s possible. For now I will say nothing; amid the glaring exposure, there must remain secrets that are mine alone.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In researching the life of a first lady, I relied on many books, articles, and websites. I drew particular inspiration from the facts and ins
ights of The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush, by Ann Gerhart. I also must acknowledge my debt to four other books: Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady, by Ronald Kessler; Ambling into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush, by Frank Bruni; Living History, by Hillary Rodham Clinton; and For Love of Politics: Inside the Clinton White House, by Sally Bedell Smith. I am grateful to all these authors and would encourage anyone interested in nonfiction accounts of life on the campaign trail or in the White House to seek out their work.

  In addition, my gratitude and affection go to my editor, Laura Ford, my publicist, Jynne Martin, and my agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. I’m lucky to have many other advocates and allies in publishing, including Gina Centrello, Jennifer Hershey, Tom Perry, Sanyu Dillon, Sally Marvin, Avideh Bashirrad, Janet Wygal, Victoria Wong, Robbin Schiff, Amanda Ice, Suzanne Gluck, Tracy Fisher, Raffaella DeAngelis, Michelle Feehan, Lisa Grubka, and Alicia Gordon. For her years of steadfast support, there will always be a place in my heart for Shana Kelly.

  For being smart and supportive, I thank my early readers: Susanna Daniel, Cammie McGovern, Samuel Park, Brian Weinberg, Shauna Seliy, Emily Miller, Jennifer Weiner, Lewis Robinson, Katie Brandi, and Susan Marrs.

  For helping me figure out particular details, I thank James R. Ketchum, Marisa Luzzatto, Katie Riley, Jo Sittenfeld, Ellen Battistelli, Darren Speece, Jennie Cole, Joe Litvin, Marc Miller, Chris Thomforde, Susan Brown, Marcie Roahen, Susan Schultz, Jeanne Stewart, John Stewart, Sr., John Stewart, Jr., Mikey Stewart, Nick Stanton, and once again, Susanna Daniel. Any errors in the book of either fact or judgment are my own.

  As always, I thank my parents and siblings for being my parents and siblings, and I’m especially appreciative to my father for his feedback and input. Finally, I thank Matt Carlson, who read each section as I finished it and encouraged me to keep writing because he wanted to find out what would happen next.