Paris: A Love Story Read Free Page A

Michael Mullen in his impressive uniform, and his wife, Debbie, gave us a lift to our Georgetown house. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs carried Richard’s clothes in whatlooked like a garbage bag. Samantha and her husband, Cass Sunstein, arrived with Thai food. We wept and drank and laughed for the rest of the long night, and told the stories we will be telling forever. None of us believed he was gone—least of all me. I don’t remember feeling anything at all.

CHAPTER THREE
    I awoke from a drugged few hours of sleep the next morning with the same question I would ask every morning for the next few months. Did I dream this? But the worse I feel, the more decisive I tend to be. So I announced to my children and siblings, We’re packing up the house. I don’t want to come back to this place. So, still in our pajamas, using the bubble wrap and boxes provided by Richard’s assistants, we set to work.
    An hour or so into our packing, President Bill Clinton dropped by, unannounced. Settling into an easy chair and, with his legendary gift for consoling the stricken on full display, he spun tales of the man he called “Holbrooke.” I loved the one of Richard coming to “interview” him in Little Rock to see if he was fit to run for president. Or the one of “Holbrooke” telling him exactly where to sit at various Balkan conferences for maximum impact. “Seating or negotiating—he always had a plan,” the president said. “Smartest man I ever met,” he said, as his eyes filled with unshed tears. And then, just as suddenly as he arrived, Clinton glanced at his watch and said, “Look at the time!” and then announced, “I have to go to Haiti,” and off he went.
    We resumed packing. By day’s end, I pulled the door of the N Street house shut behind me for the last time. It had been our sanctuary and we had been happy there. I forced myself to turn around. The familiar lemon-yellow door pulled me back up the front stairs. I looked up and down the tranquil Georgetown street, as I did each morning when I stepped out to get the newspapers. I want to feel this now, I told myself. I want to remember. It was dark and cold when we headed for Union Station and back to New York.

CHAPTER FOUR
    My family got me through Christmas. My sister and brother, my two children and nephews never left me for a single day or night. My sister cooked Hungarian dishes she learned from our mother and grandmother, while my brother played the piano. My children, grieving still for their father who died four years before, understood what I was going through: shock, alternating with high spirits at having the people I most loved near me. Sleepless nights left me groggy and weepy all day. Somehow, the snow that kept falling, wrapping the world in shades of gray and muffling the noisy city, helped. So did my nephew Mathieu’s newborn, Lucien. We bought a sleigh and took turns pulling him in Central Park. Hours spent digging our car out from under fresh mountains of snow were a welcome distraction. Mostly we did what families whose lives have suddenly been upended do: we talked about past Christmases, with Richard, with Mama and Papa, and with my children’s father, Peter. The Missing.
    •   •   •
    After the Christmas holidays, I returned to Washington for Richard’s memorial at the Kennedy Center. One week beforehis death, he and I had crossed the same red-carpeted lobby to attend Washington’s most glamorous annual event, the Kennedy Center Honors. The capital’s entire establishment turns out for this, Washington’s equivalent of the Oscars. Holding hands, we greeted senators and cabinet members. Suddenly Richard noticed the bulky silhouette of a man standing alone, the space around him cleared. The capital’s way of marking a nonperson. C’mon, Richard said, pulling me toward Congressman Charles Rangel. “Hey, Charlie,” Richard said to the freshly disgraced congressman facing ethics charges. “Let me introduce my wife,