American Wife (34 page)

I'm sure there are rules to follow—but knowing Chris, if there's a way around them, he's figured it out.

VISITORS

Where do the biggest movie star of his generation and a revered director (and great actor in his own right) stay when they are visiting someone?

Would you believe the local Holiday Inn?

Hoping to forge a better connection to Chris, Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper came to see me and the rest of the family in early spring of 2014, before they started filming
American Sniper
. The unpretentiousness of their visit and their genuine goodwill floored me. It was a great omen for the movie.

Bubba and I picked them up at the local airport and brought them home; within minutes Bubba had Bradley out in the back playing soccer. Meanwhile, Clint and I talked inside. He reminded me of my grandfather with his courtly manners and gracious ways. He was very funny, with a quiet, quick wit and dry sense of humor. After dinner—it was an oryx Chris had killed shortly before he died—Bradley took Bubba to the Dairy Queen for dessert.

Even in small-town Texas, he couldn't quite get away without being recognized, and when someone asked for his photo, he stepped aside to pose. Bubba folded his arms across his chest and scanned the area much as his dad would have: on overwatch.

I guess I didn't really understand how unusual the situation was until later, when I dropped them off at the Holiday Inn. I watched them walk into the lobby and disappear.

That's Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper! Awesome!

The next morning, I went over to pick them up. I'd spent the night thinking of more things I should tell them—everything about Chris I thought they needed to know.

It was all too much.

“I don't know how to tell you everything,” I confessed to Bradley as he got into the car. I started to cry. “There's so many things and we have such a short amount of time.”

“Just being here is all we need,” he said. “I'm not an impersonator. I'm just here to feel Chris's life—I feel him here with me right now.”

Bradley put me at ease and I calmed down. Back at the house, he and Clint became almost like family. Little bits of their personality came out as well—and I saw a glimmer of Clint's famous Dirty Harry character later on in the day when I had to leave to go to Bubba's basketball game.

They'd talked about coming with me—which frankly would have created an impossible circus. But I did give them the option. As they stood trying to make up their minds, I snapped into anxious mom mode.

“All right,” I told them both. “You're welcome to come. But if you're coming, we're leaving now.”

I guess my tone was a little too strident.

“So you want to get tough with me, huh, lady?” said Clint in his best Dirty Harry voice as he raised his eyebrow.

It's amazing how threatening a simple facial tic can be.

I left them home to study some of Chris's replica guns and gear. Our town already had its ample share of lawmen.

When they were first casting for my part in the movie, the producers asked if I had any suggestions.

“I'll tell you what I don't want,” I said. “I don't want someone in their early twenties who's never had any heartbreak or gone through anything difficult.”

I heard later that Clint thought he'd have a hard time casting me. I hope that was because I'm such a complex but soulful person, though you never know.

When he settled on Sienna Miller, he hit it on the head. The first time I talked to her, it felt like I was speaking to an old girlfriend. She
got
everything. Whether I explained how it felt the first time Chris kissed me, or how it felt when he held me, she completely understood. She's a woman with deep empathy as well as a great actor.

My part—
her part
—in the movie isn't very big, but it's important, and I felt it was in good hands. She knows what it's like to be a mom, and she knows how it feels to worry about someone and to live through situations you can't control.

Still, I remained nervous: What if, despite all their efforts, they didn't manage to convey what Chris was all about? The director, the actors, they were all at the top of their field, but that was no guarantee that they could pull it off.

One thing the prep for the movie made me realize: Chris and I had gone through a lot in our short time on earth. We'd known war, we'd known the joys of birth—and the tremendous hurt of death. Hard times, defaults, large checks, big taxes, and fame. We'd run the gamut.

And we'd been in love the whole time. The last month of his life was the best of our marriage. The year leading up to it was the best we'd ever had, outside of our first. We'd started on a high level and moved up.

How many people can say that?

I'm not saying the good times would have gone on forever. I'm sure there would have been difficulties and other trials, dark clouds. But to have had those moments of seemingly perfect love and happiness—I was truly blessed.

JESSE

That was my life—veering from high to low, from appreciation and acceptance back to depression, from something less than jubilation to something more than grief. I mounted a great show for casual friends; those close to me, like Stewart, saw the ongoing toll not only of Chris's loss but the work it took to maintain the façade of happiness.

Still, I knew there were better days ahead. I knew if I could push far enough away—get through enough mud—I might achieve something close to peace. Or at least I hoped that. My road veered left and right, up and down, but surely there must be a point where it would straighten out. Maybe that would be a Road to Damascus moment—a point when, like Paul, I would understand everything and be relieved of the worst of the pain.

Summer came. Jesse loomed.

If there were to be a moment when my burdens could be lifted, then the trial presented the best chance. I was confident, as Chris had been. We would put on all the witnesses we could find, either in person or by deposition. I felt the evidence was strongly in my husband's favor; we had a persuasive case. I was sure all would be well in the end.

Jesse's lawyers called me as their first witness, which I guess was a surprise. Maybe it was meant to lessen the sympathy for a “widow.” But that comes with the territory.

I think if Chris had been there, he would have sat back in his chair, cool and calm. I think the jurors would have seen that, and been very much influenced by his confidence.

But of course he couldn't be there.

No, he was. With me, and on video. He'd been deposed months before he died, and parts of that testimony were played at the trial, as were excerpts from some of the news shows he'd been on.

Watching them was painful in so many ways.

How can anyone attack this man?

How can anyone think this man was lying about anything?

I lost my composure only once, putting my head down as grief overcame me. I recovered quickly.

A parade of witnesses—SEALs and non-SEALs (some of them fans of Jesse Ventura)—testified either in person or by deposition to parts of Chris's version of events. There had been words, a conflict, a punch. The other side claimed nothing at all had happened. Nothing.

And that the primary reason people bought the book was because of Jesse's name, which wasn't even in the book.

I was listening and thinking: This is perfect. The jury is going to hear this and see it is at odds with the testimony. They'll have to find in favor of my husband.

The judge gave the jury instructions, and they went off to deliberate.

And deliberate.

And deliberate.

When I first headed to Minnesota, I thought I would go home to Oregon each weekend to see my kids, who were staying with my parents. But I ended up so drained by the first week of testimony that I realized those quick visits would have been too much, both for them and for me. So I stayed in St. Paul. Work didn't stop at four or five o'clock when the jury was sent home. I'd go back to the hotel with the attorneys and help if they needed something, or just discuss different aspects with them. It was where I felt I had to be.

After the closing statements, we felt that the verdict might come pretty soon. I was thinking in terms of hours if not minutes.

But then it didn't.

I kept missing my kids, and finally, on the third day, it was too much. I booked a plane to go see them.

Meanwhile, the jury continued to deliberate behind closed doors. Finally, it became clear that they couldn't reach a unanimous verdict. We decided to accept a split vote to break the deadlock; the alternative would have been another trial.

It goes without saying, I thought the vote would be heavily in our favor. The facts of the trial, as far as I could see, were clear. If anything, I was baffled that anyone could be holding out. Eleven people testified that they saw or heard things that supported Chris's account. The accounts differed slightly, which of course makes sense: no two people ever remember things that happened six years later the same. People describe the battle of Fallujah differently, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a battle of Fallujah.

So I was very confident. But God has a purpose for everything.

Tuesday, July 29, some three weeks after the trail had started, I was back in Oregon with the kids and my mom when the lawyers texted me, saying they should have the verdict within ten minutes.

I waited.

Finally my cell phone rang. It was the legal team on a conference call.

We had lost. The vote was 8-2 against.

I was stunned. I don't think I breathed, let alone spoke, for nearly a minute.

The lawyers told me the terms. The jury had ruled in favor of Jesse on the defamation case, awarding him $500,000. This was covered by the publisher's insurer. But adding insult to injury, the jury had awarded Jesse $1.3 million for unjust enrichment, which the insurer said it would not cover.

Tears came to my eyes. Paying off the verdict would take all that we had made from the book, and more. My mom was standing nearby. “Where are your car keys?” I asked her. I was still on the phone with the lawyers.

She gave them to me. I tapped Angel on the head. “I'll be back, honey.”

As I walked out to the driveway, I thanked the lawyers and hung up. Then I drove straight to a grocery store and bought a pack of cigarettes, even though I hadn't touched a cigarette for five days. I stood outside and smoked.

I don't know how many.

“All right. On to the next,” I said finally, crushing the cigarette and heading back to my parents' house.

I did not talk to the media after the trial, since I knew I was likely to appeal. And truthfully, what could I say that would make any difference?

I gave a very brief statement through the lawyers, and otherwise turned down opportunities to provide my side of the argument. It hurt, even if from a legal point of view it was the right thing to do. Since then, I have tried to ignore not just what Jesse says but also what other people say in general about the situation. It's not worth my time or my emotions.

But it's hard to ignore everything. And sometimes it's important to know what people are saying about you, if only because it gets back to your friends, who then start to wonder.

At the end of the day, more than enough witnesses came forward to support what Chris had said. Why the jury chose not to believe them or Chris—I can only shake my head. Would the result have been different if the trial had been held anywhere other than St. Paul, where Ventura's portrait hangs in the state capitol? The experience has been an interesting introduction to our legal system, not to mention the world of haters and their hangers-on.

What did cheer me, though, was the outpouring of support and even outrage after the trial. Many people still believed in Chris, no matter what the jury said.

Thank God. He'd lived his life as an honest and open man. Unfortunately, the jury never got a chance to look him in the eye and realize that.

The decision on whether to appeal was a fraught one.

I prayed about it a lot. I looked through the Bible for various phrases, without really arriving at a good decision.

Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and go—but this didn't feel like just a business issue. There were principles involved, primarily doing the right thing by Chris.

Late at night, I was sitting on my back patio talking with a friend.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked.

She answered with a question of her own. “Taya, what do you always say?”

“Stand up for what you believe in?”

“Right.”

“But we might lose.”

“Then remember what Chris said when going up against someone:
You may win, but you will remember you fought me.”

I realized that making the decision didn't mean that I had to win. The important thing was to stand up for what I believed in. If people were going to try to abuse Chris, they were going to have to fight me. They might win, but they'd go away with scars.

My lawyers filed post-trial briefs immediately after the verdict came down explaining that the amount of the unjust enrichment award exceeded the Estate's total net royalties on the book. Between money due to Scott, the agent, and Jim, we received maybe half the royalty earnings. And we still had to pay taxes and expenses for everything from stamps to lawyers, and you see that conjectures about revenues were wildly optimistic.

Because the case is under appeal, I cannot comment in depth about it. Many have suggested that the attorneys could have been more aggressive in countering statements and claims they felt were misleading. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20. We will see what the future holds.

I wonder sometimes if, between negative campaigning and social media and plain old gossip, our society has just gone too far to the negative. You have to make a personal decision not to spread bad news about people
—
and it can be a tough decision when you
'
re involved in a fight. Holding back from criticizing people who are attacking you is very, very difficult. Trust me
—
even writing this book my tongue is bleeding.