With Patience and Fortitude: A Memoir (23 page)

As devastated as Anthony was by the diagnosis, he seemed far more concerned about making it to the wedding—and not spoiling the day for us—than he was about his cancer diagnosis. Later, as we were leaving the hospital, he told us, “I want you both to get the family on the phone and tell them what the situation is, and then I don’t want to talk about it again all weekend.”

But before we could leave the hospital and make those calls, Anthony had to have blood tests. They’d scheduled a minor procedure for the day after the wedding to clear a blocked bile duct, which was why he’d turned yellow. They had to clear up the jaundice before they could do the big surgery, which was scheduled for two weeks later, just after we returned from our honeymoon.

F
rom the doctor’s office we had to go to another part of the hospital for Anthony’s blood tests, but Kim and I wanted to speak privately with the doctor about the prognosis. We didn’t want to ask in front of Anthony. So we suggested to Anthony that he rest for a few minutes while we went out into the hallway with the doctor. The doctor didn’t hedge about what a difficult cancer this was, but he wasn’t willing to give us a specific amount of time. He said, “You really can’t say at this point. We just have to wait until after the surgery to know.” And he added, “I’m sorry.”

We went back in and got Anthony and walked slowly—Anthony was very weak—through a maze of hallways to the other part of the hospital. Halfway there it dawned on me that I hadn’t been back to Sloan since I was sixteen, when my mother had been a patient there. I let Anthony and Kim get ahead of me, because I was feeling overwhelmed and didn’t want Anthony to see me upset. I ducked into a small corner of the hallway and began crying uncontrollably.

Looking back, I can see that the experience of being at Sloan with Anthony triggered those old feelings of powerlessness and terror that I had experienced the first time it was clear my mother was going to die. Now here I was about to lose someone I loved all over again, and there was nothing I could do about it. In that moment I was no longer a forty-five-year-old woman who was about to marry the love of her life. I was no longer the second-most-powerful elected official in New York City. I was a sixteen-year-old girl terrified of having to live without one of the most important people in her life.

Kim, who had no idea that I wasn’t directly behind her, continued on to the waiting room and got Anthony settled before coming to look for me. After retracing her steps, she found me huddled in a corner near a storage closet, sobbing. She put her arm around me and asked what was going on, and all I could say through the tears was “I’m so sorry.” Here she was already dealing with her own pain over the likelihood that she was going to lose her brother, and on top of it she had to deal with me, in a puddle of tears in a very public place.

Gasping for breath, I told Kim how sorry I was for breaking down. She asked, “What’s wrong, other than the obvious?” I had a hard time talking but managed to say, “I haven’t been in this hospital in thirty years, not since my mother died, and I can’t believe I’m here the day before our wedding.” And then I began to really sob.

She gently guided me to the nearest ladies’ room, where we’d have some privacy. She was very sweet and helped me pull myself back from 1982, when I lost my mother, to the present day. She said she hadn’t realized that I’d not been back to Sloan-Kettering since then and added, “I could never imagine walking into St. Barnabas in Livingston, New Jersey, the day before my wedding.” That’s the hospital where Kim’s mother had died when she was seventeen. She said, “You’re going through so much. You need to stay here. I’ll go back and deal with Anthony.”

I didn’t want Kim to have to go back alone, so I dried my eyes, and we joined Anthony in the waiting room. When we walked in, we noticed a bunch of people reading
AM New York
with that huge picture of me on the cover. Anthony had already noticed and had a big smile on his face.

Reflecting back on that morning, I feel terrible about breaking down.
I
should have been the one comforting
Kim
. But once it occurred to me where I was after all these years, there was nothing I could do to stop the tears. That morning I thought I’d had everything under control. All the wedding preparations were complete. I’d stepped in to make sure Anthony was taken care of: I’d found the specialists, talked to the doctors, made the appointments, everything. I was concerned about Kim. I was worried about Anthony. But I hadn’t stopped to think about—and steel myself for—the impact all of this might have on me in light of what I’d lived through earlier in my life.

B
ut dark sometimes yields to light, and it did that day. That evening we had the wedding rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner. By the time we got to the venue, I had pulled myself together. When I practiced walking down the aisle with my father, I was crying again, but this time it was tears of joy.

From the rehearsal, we all went to a tiny restaurant, Piccolo Angelo, in the West Village, which is owned by this lovely family. We were about forty in all in a space that could hold maybe forty maximum. It was very cozy, loud, and festive, and the delicious Italian food kept flowing from the kitchen.

Then our goddaughter Olivia sang. She’d already been on the news because her mom was making our wedding cake, and when one of the local news stations in New York went down to interview her mom, Olivia was in the bakery, and the reporter said, “I’ve heard about you. You’re the one who’s going to sing at the wedding. Will you tell me what you’re going to sing?” She said, “I can’t tell you that.” So he said, “Will you sing anything?” And so she sang an a cappella version of “Danny Boy.”

Three-quarters of the way through dinner, when we were talking about Olivia being on the news, Kim asked Olivia if she’d sing “Danny Boy” for us. Kim said, “It’s beautiful, just let her sing it.” So she sang it, and it knocked us all out. And sure enough, my dad was crying, but everyone was crying, including the owner of the restaurant, so he certainly wasn’t alone.

Afterward Kim asked me if I wanted to say something, and I choked up again—because I was so happy. But through my tears I managed to say that in my wildest dreams I never thought I’d have a wedding day, that I never thought I’d get to be the beautiful bride.

Then Kim talked, and she said, “I just want to thank all of you. We have such an amazing family now officially comprised of our Italian and Irish contingents.” Then she added, “I don’t mean to be overblown about this, but we’re going to change the world tomorrow in some small way. If some gay child or some parent of a gay child sees this, then we will change their world for the better. What an amazing thing that will be. So as the person who didn’t want a big wedding, the thought of making some teenager like me feel that much better, earlier, well, that’s a wonderful thing.”

At the end of the evening, someone put a Dean Martin song on, and we all danced the tarantella, which is a traditional Italian dance. There wasn’t room, but before the song was over, we were all up on our feet laughing and dancing. It was the happy ending to a day that started so sadly, and the perfect way to kick off our wedding weekend.

C
HAPTER
15

Wedding Day

T
he morning of the wedding we got up with the sun so we could exchange gifts before we changed out of our pajamas. We settled in on the sofa with our mugs of coffee, and Kim gave me her gift. Inside the small, perfectly wrapped box was a beautiful rose gold watch that was inscribed “For all time 5/19/12.” She knew that my mother had left me a number of rose gold pieces, so a rose gold watch would be a welcome reminder of her. She also knew that I needed a good watch and that I’d see it every day and think of her and be reminded that she wasn’t going anywhere despite my worries.

My present for Kim came in a big plywood box that had been impossible to wrap, so I gave it to her just as it was. I knew she would have no idea what it was. The gallery where she had first seen it years before was out of business. Eight years earlier, around the time we bought the beach house, we had passed by a gallery in Asbury Park and seen a Bruce Springsteen photograph in the window. It was a black-and-white picture from 1982 of Bruce in a pickup truck in Brewster, New York. Kim is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan and loved the photograph, but at the time we had recently bought the shore house, and she felt the photograph was too expensive, so she didn’t buy it. Over the years, whenever we drove by the gallery, Kim would always comment about how she regretted not buying it. And then the gallery closed.

Luckily I’d saved the owner’s card, so when I decided to try to hunt down the photograph, I had someplace to start.

With my friend Wayne’s help, I found the gallery owner in Arizona. She had sold the photograph to a friend in New Mexico, but when I explained what it was for, she persuaded the friend to sell it back to her, and she sold it to me.

You should have seen the expression on Kim’s face when she opened the box. She would be the first to tell you she was blown away that I’d tracked it down for her. I think that she would have been surprised even if I hadn’t had to go hunting for it, but she said that my putting that much effort into tracking it down made it feel all the more special.

After the exchange of wedding gifts, we changed into our workout clothes and headed out for the nine a.m. spinning class at SoulCycle in Tribeca. We thought it would be fun to take friends and family, who were willing to go, to what had become our favorite exercise place. Exercise was relatively new to me. I had never liked to do it, never. I knew it was important, but after playing sports in high school, I had not exercised regularly again until about two years ago. That was around the time I was looking to lose weight, and my friend Annie, who was crazy for spinning, suggested I take a class. So once when Kim and I went away for a weekend, the place we were staying had a spinning class, and we both tried it and kind of liked it and started going to SoulCycle a couple of times a week. The short, intense classes fit into my work schedule, and I liked doing something where I simply had to follow instructions. And it’s something Kim and I enjoy doing together. Also, the music is very loud, so if you’re screaming in pain (which I often am) no one can hear you. And as I came to discover, in addition to helping me lose weight and stay fit, the exercise has helped take the edge off my occasional anxiety and gives me a sense of relief.

I
t’s funny; a reporter recently called and asked to spend time with me doing what I do. He suggested we go out for drinks. My communications director, Jamie, explained that that’s not really what I do, so he suggested joining me for a spinning class and then breakfast, which we did. Later he told Jamie, “I give [Christine] a lot of credit, because you’re basically just standing there in your underwear with all these people, and they’re all potential voters.” But
everybody
is standing there in underwear, so to me it’s not a big deal. And if anyone recognizes me and comes up to me, they generally want to say something nice, even if I’m drenched in sweat.

Kicking off our wedding day with a family-and-friends spinning class was something we both wanted to do. There’s something special about the experience of that kind of class, where you’re sort of working in a pack. We thought it would be a great way to bring our family and friends together and launch the day with great music and positive energy.

We rented one of the Tribeca spinning rooms, which holds about thirty people, and sent out invitations to those we thought would be interested, and they wound up filling the whole class. The ever-popular Danny was our instructor. Kim made suggestions for the music list with some wedding songs and other songs that are fun to spin to. When we got there, everyone was wearing a specially made T-shirt that said
KC
AND
CQ
,
SOUL
MATES
and the date. It was an amazing celebration and a great way to kick off our wedding day.

Afterward we took some group pictures and then went to Moonstruck, our local diner, where we’d reserved a table in the back room for lunch. We lost some of the group who were worn out from the workout, but the rest enjoyed a cannoli wedding cake that Moonstruck had made in our honor, which was really sweet of them.

W
e then went over to the Dream Hotel, several blocks south of where we live, which is where our family and friends from out of town were staying. We’d taken a couple of rooms for people to get their makeup and hair done and we’d booked a room for ourselves so we could stay there overnight.

Getting our hair and makeup right took some effort. We’d had a few practice runs in advance, because we wanted to feel good about how we looked and didn’t want to have to try to figure it out on our wedding day for the first time because that would be too stressful. Between the two of us, I was easier. Not that I’m easy when it comes to being satisfied with how I look, but Kim is definitely not a big hair and makeup gal, while I’ve had to get comfortable with hair and makeup because of my work.

For my hair, our hairdresser, Dave, had an idea that was a little “too-too.” Then he did something else where I liked one side and not the other. Then he reworked it again, and it was totally there. Getting Kim’s hair right was stressful because we had a hard time getting to something either one of us thought was right. One version was a little choppy and spiky. The next was a little too New Jersey housewifey (big and poofy). Kim was remarkably patient, especially for someone who hates to be fussed over, and we eventually got there, and everyone agreed that she looked gorgeous!

We were honored to have Bobbi Brown do our makeup for our big day. Bobbi wisely reminded us that since we were going to have the wedding pictures forever, we probably shouldn’t do anything that suggested a particular moment in time, because over time it would look dated. And since the pictures are actually supposed to be pictures of
us,
we shouldn’t do something we’d never do. She said we should think of it as just a fancy version of ourselves. Bobbi was very aware that Kim did not want to have too much makeup on. So before she did anything, she’d say, “I’d like to put a little extra x, y, or z on . . .” She was supersweet about it, and Kim was a trouper.