Living History Unknown (best books to read fiction .txt) 📖

away on vacation, but I was desperate to get out of Washington. Chelsea had wanted to go back to Martha’s Vineyard, where good friends were waiting. So Bill, Chelsea and I left for the island the following afternoon. Buddy, the dog, came along to keep Bill company. He was the only member of our family who was still willing to.

Just before we left, Marsha Berry, my imperturbable press secretary made a statement on my behalf. “Clearly, this is not the best day in Mrs. Clinton’s life. This is a time when she relies on her strong religious faith.”

By the time we settled into our borrowed house, the adrenaline of the crisis had worn off, and I was left with nothing but profound sadness, disappointment and unresolved anger.

I could barely speak to Bill, and when I did, it was a tirade. I read. I walked on the beach. He slept downstairs. I slept upstairs. Days were easier than nights. Where do you turn when your best friend, the one who always helps you through hard times, is the one who wounded you? I felt unbearably lonely, and I could tell Bill did too. He kept trying to explain and apologize. But I wasn’t ready to be in the same room with him, let alone forgive him. I would have to go deep inside myself and my faith to discover any remaining belief in our marriage, to find some path to understanding. At this point, I really didn’t know what I was going to do.

Shortly after we arrived, Bill returned briefly to the White House to oversee the Cruise missile strikes against one of Osama bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan. The United States had waited to launch until there was confirmation from intelligence sources that bin Laden and his top aides were at the target sites. The missiles missed him, apparently just by a matter of hours. In the annals of damned-if-you-door-don’t situations, this was a classic. In spite of clear evidence that bin Laden was responsible for the embassy bombings, Bill was criticized for ordering the attack. He was accused of doing it to divert attention from his own troubles and the growing talk of impeachment by both Republicans and commentators, who still didn’t understand the dangers presented by terrorism in general and bin Laden and al Qaeda in particular.

Bill returned to a house thick with silence. Chelsea spent most of her time with our friends Jill and Ken Iscol and their son, Zack. They offered their home and hearts for my confused and hurting daughter. It was excruciating for Bill and me to be locked up together, but it was hard to get out. The media had staked out the island and were ready to descend as soon as we appeared in public. I was in no mood for socializing, but I was touched by how our friends rallied around us. Vernon and Ann Jordan were sympathetic, of course. Katharine Graham, who had had her own experience with the agony of infidelity, made a point of inviting me to lunch. And then Walter Cronkite called and coaxed the three of us to come out on his boat for a sail.

We didn’t want to go at first. But Walter and his wife, Betsy, had a comforting attitude about the people who were calling for Bill’s head and criticizing me for putting up with him. “This is just unbelievable,” Walter said. “Why don’t these people get a life?

You know, I’ve lived long enough to know that good marriages go through tough times.

None of us is perfect. Let’s go sailing!”

We took him up on his offer. Although I was too numb at that point to say I relaxed, it was refreshing to be out on the open water. And the Cronkites’ kind concern lifted my spirits.

Maurice Templesman, who came to Martha’s Vineyard every summer, was also wonderful to me. I had gotten to know him even better since Jackie’s death, and he visited us in the White House. He called and asked if I would come by. We met on his yacht one evening and watched the lights of boats coming into the harbor at Menemsha. He talked for a while about Jackie, whom he missed terribly, and told me he understood how hard her life had been at times.

“I know that your husband really loves you,” he said. “And I hope you can forgive him.”

Maurice didn’t want to infringe on my privacy, and he offered his advice gently. I accepted it with gratitude. After we talked, it was an immense relief just to sit quietly by the water in the company of a good friend.

I looked up at the night sky and its bright wash of stars, just as I had as a child in Park Ridge, while lying on a blanket with my mother. I thought about how the constellations hadn’t changed since the first sailors set out to explore the world, using the positions of the stars to find their way back home. I have found my way through a lifetime of uncharted territory with good fortune and abiding faith to keep me on course. This time I needed all the help I could get.

I was thankful for the support and counsel I received during this time, particularly from Don Jones, my youth minister, who had become a lifelong friend. Don reminded me of a classic sermon by the theologian Paul Tillich, “You Are Accepted,” which Don had once read to our youth group in Park Ridge. Its premise is how sin and grace exist through life in constant interplay; neither is possible without the other. The mystery of grace is that you cannot look for it. “Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness,”

Tillich wrote. “It happens; or it does not happen.”

Grace happens. Until it did, my main job was to put one foot in front of the other and get through another day.

IMPEACHMENT

By the end of August, there was detente, if not peace, in