Staying True (17 page)

I knew he was in the Capitol the week after he left us at the beach, and I also know a few of his close friends went to be with him to berate him for thinking of going to see his mistress. Mark’s old friends Jim Wheeler and Chad Walldorf went straight to Columbia to spend the night with Mark and to try to convince him not to see Belen again. Jim lives in Florida, and he flew to meet Mark, and Chad drove two hours to do so. Each loyal friend acted out of wanting to see Mark make the right decisions. They were trying, as had I, to hold him accountable to the values he had espoused and to the man they knew him to be. They thought they’d made some headway: Each called to tell me that they believed Mark understood the pain and problems he had caused and that they believed him when he said he wouldn’t see her again.

Cubby Culbertson—the old friend who left his own family and work for two days to babysit Mark in New York—also proved to be a dear friend to Mark during this time as he repeatedly counseled him to follow the moral code outlined in the Bible and to get his heart pointed in the right direction. In the fateful June press conference, Mark would refer to Cubby as a “spiritual giant,” and I know that Mark regretted letting these friends down. Mark had people in his camp willing to go to great lengths to keep him focused in the right direction, and he didn’t listen to a single one. I’m still a little awestruck at Mark’s inability to listen to all these good, honest, and devoted friends. Moreover, that Mark seemed to have lost track of their worth to him shows how disconnected he had become.

But when he went missing, thoughts that he was with his lover in Argentina or elsewhere dominated my mind. Those suspicions were the subject of phone calls with friends and members of his staff who had scraps of information that suggested he’d traveled to the Appalachian Trail. As a gut response, I worried otherwise or that if he was there, perhaps he was not alone. And while I had an impulse to cover for him, to perpetuate his lies to protect our children, in truth, I didn’t know for certain what he was doing.

So, when the reporter asked me if I knew where my husband was, I answered truthfully that I had no idea. I have heard since from people who read that quote, which was published in newspapers all over the country, that they wondered what my tone of voice was when I delivered that remark. In my memory, my tone was even, unremarkable. I didn’t want to set off any alarms. One of my favorite Bible verses is Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt.” I said that Mark had a book contract and that he had been distracted. I didn’t tell the reporter the
nature
of that distraction, of course. I simply said Mark and I had agreed he needed time to get his head straight and that he hoped to write. I so wish he actually had been writing.

I have always told the boys that lies come from fear, from cowardice. During the campaigns when they would be upset because Mark’s political opponents were trying anything they could to knock Mark down, Mark and I would tell them that the truth gives you a backbone, a reason to stand tall and the means to do so. This was a message I felt deeply. Perhaps the only thing dealt with less than honestly and openly in my childhood was fear. When Mom was sick, our parents tried to make it seem like her cancer was not a big deal. We all knew her sister had just died of the same cancer. Despite what our parents told us, we kids were all afraid. That denial, and the fear underneath it, distorted our family in ways I think none of us appreciated until much later.

I recently asked my sister Gier why she never stood up for me or took my side in a certain disagreement I had with my mother during our turbulent teen years. Ever the peacemaker, Gier explained that she wanted to take my side, but she was afraid Mom was going to die and she didn’t want to do anything to upset her.

Her logic makes perfect sense to me now, as a woman who has matured to appreciate the many shades of gray that come with conflicting loyalties. I adore Gier in a way that is only deepened by understanding that childhood struggle she was engaged in to keep her mom alive. We were not raised in a way or in a time or place where we could sit together and express our fears about losing our mom. If Mom was going to deny her illness with a big smile on her face, a splash of lipstick, and a pretty silk scarf, who were we to drag her into the living room and force her to confront it? We were children, children who carried so much inside that we didn’t know how to express. I know how uncomfortable it made all of us to hold what was essentially a lie inside our hearts and to cover over that fear with all sorts of justifications and fantasies that were as extreme as the reality.

My mother never let the challenges of life divert her from her main goals. As children, we had no idea how she suffered and what terrors kept her awake at night. Now that I am an adult who has dealt repeatedly with comparatively minor skin cancers of my own, I have such profound admiration for my mother’s persevering spirit. As the only survivor of an experimental cancer treatment program twenty years ago, she is an inspiration to me today because of her positive spirit. She was a warrior in the face of certain death. Mom wants to do the things that make her feel alive and give her days meaning. She never wanted to appear as if she was just about to die. She has her sights set on living as long as she can and enjoying every minute. I can see now how she didn’t want to worry us, and as an adult I can respect that approach.

When the crisis of Mark’s infidelity hit our family, however, without question I knew I would handle it in a different way for our children. I would face it head on, openly and honestly.

When Mark left the beach to “get his head straight” we had still not told the boys any specifics about the nature of the tension between Mark and me. Before he went missing I knew I needed to reveal more to them about our circumstances, despite the advice of many who admonished me not to talk to the boys, not to burden them. My goal was honesty, but not brutal honesty. The message was brutal enough without me adding my pain. Was it possible, given everything I was feeling, to be both truthful and kind? Of course I would be kind to the boys and respectful of their love for their father. I had to find a way to explain things to them that would allow them to continue to love their dad and not force them to hate him out of loyalty to me or a desire to protect me.

When I sat the boys down, I explained to them that I had discovered in January that their dad was having an affair.

“Did they have sex?” asked Bolton.

“Yes, that’s what an affair is about,” I said.

I told them they didn’t know the woman and they had nothing to do with causing the affair nor could they have prevented it. It was not their fault. I also told them that I loved their dad and was hopeful that he would keep his word as he had looked me in the eyes and said “I will not see her” when he left.

“Mom, that would be a pretty big lie if he sees her,” Blake said.

“Yes,” I agreed, “it would be a very big lie.”

I assured the boys that I would never leave them and that they shouldn’t worry about a thing because I would work to provide whatever they might need in the future. I was a little teary when discussing this painful personal subject with them, but I also felt as if a weight had been lifted after I shared this secret with my precious sons. No child should have to learn such things, but I wanted them to be well prepared in case the story got out; I didn’t want them to learn about Mark’s affair from the television or the public. We prayed together for Mark, for the choices he would make.

A few days later when I had reason to believe Mark was with his lover, I decided to sit down with the boys again and to tell them her name was Belen Chapur and that she lived in Argentina. The children thought of the notes Mark had recently sent each of them.

“That’s it. His notes were good-bye,” Blake said.

I was crushed by the hurt they must have felt at learning of his betrayal, and also by their thinking he might abandon them. Then with such clairvoyance Bolton exclaimed, “Oh my gosh. This is going to be worse than Eliot Spitzer!”

Yes
, I thought,
unfortunately it will be
.

It broke my heart to call Marshall in the Turks and Caicos, where he was working a brief summer job, and to tell him the same things over the phone, just before his seventeenth birthday. I wanted to be with him to give him a big hug, but I made sure someone there kept a close eye on him. I was thankful in a way that he would miss the coming circus at home. In another way, though, I missed him deeply and I know his brothers did too. We were facing this as a family and taking strength from each other as we confronted our situation and our feelings honestly. What a mix of feelings we had. We had the shame of the betrayal and the coming public humiliation, but we also had our faith, our love of Mark and our family. I could see the gray of the confusion of conflicting emotions as clearly as I could see some part of it as black and white.

If there is any overriding message from this summer that I wanted our boys to remember it was that you may choose your sin but you cannot choose the consequences. Actions and sin do have consequences. The full consequences of the choices Mark made are still being discovered. I hope, though, that my boys have learned that dishonesty rarely serves one well, and it is always better to “walk in the truth.”

I have long understood the concept that things may not be right with my circumstances but “it is well with my soul.” Horatio Spafford, the man who wrote that song, had an even greater challenge to face than I did. All four of his daughters drowned in the Atlantic Ocean on a ship coming home from France. One of the lines in that song is “When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well, with my soul.’” My circumstances were less tragic, but obviously not great. But I too had a peace in my soul. With Mark gone, with him no longer beseeching me for permission to betray me further, I could listen without disturbances to the strong voice of my true spirit. I felt a peace that came from knowing that I had acted in the best manner I knew possible in this marriage, I had loved to the best of my ability. It is well with my soul. But I would be completely well if I could forgive Mark fully and move on freely. If he was with her again after this clear restriction, could I?

In the governor’s mansion, Landon occasionally dressed the bust of Ibra Blackwood in a blue wig, swim goggles, and a hat for the amusement of our visitors. Governor Blackwood is beloved for pardoning all the inmates on his mansion staff one Christmas long ago. So the story goes, he hung small envelopes with certificates of pardon bearing the name of each of the inmates on the Christmas tree in the large drawing room. How I wish the simple act of forgiveness in everyday life was as easy as hanging an ornament on a tree.

Of course, it was easy for Governor Blackwood to pardon those inmates; whatever they had done had happened to someone else, a family or an individual who even years later might still be struggling to forgive the person who caused that crime. When someone errs against us or causes harm, it is in our basic nature to fight back or to right a wrong. Watch any two children at play together long enough and you are bound to see one snatch a toy or stick from the other. The response is immediate. The wronged child grabs the toy back or screams and bops the other child over the head. Rarely is forgiveness instinctive. Forgiveness has to be learned, and even practiced, until it is easier to be truly and fully given. I had practiced it plenty, and if Mark was with his mistress again, my ability to do so would be tested further.

In a way, being in the political life has helped. Holding a grudge takes time and energy. When I thought back to that letter to the editor I wrote during Mark’s first campaign for Congress, I marveled at the amount of energy I expended on something that, if it were to happen today, wouldn’t inspire a response at all. I’ve grown to ignore the lies printed about my husband or about me and I no longer try to right such perceived wrongs. I found that if I kept matters unresolved or bottled up, I was more engaged with that person than if I had forgiven them. I didn’t want to spend the little time I had engaged in grudges. The more I let go, the freer I felt.

Yet I was not at all free from the kind of hurt Mark had inflicted. He had lied right to my face and gone to see his lover. He had deceived me, disregarded my emotions, my needs, my desires, my basic integrity. And this lie hurt the boys immensely, in ways unfathomable to me on so many levels. I walked the beach and reminded myself daily and joyfully of who I was and how I had been blessed. Yes I was truly blessed. I could feel that part. While I felt a genuine impulse to forgive, this time I knew it would not be easy and would take time and effort.

Every time I attend mass, the congregation asks aloud to be forgiven as we recite the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others who trespass against us.” We seek forgiveness from above, while we simultaneously are grantors of forgiveness to those around us. Matthew 7:4–5 says, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” I would be a hypocrite in my own eyes and in the eyes of the Lord for asking for forgiveness for my sins while judging Mark as unforgivable. The ultimate judgment is not mine; it is in the Lord’s hands.

So too, it is the Lord who is responsible for making things right in this world. Mark had become so self-absorbed that he was lost. He had become so focused on his will and his desire that he was blinded to his actions and their consequences in a connected world. I understood that if Mark acted sinfully, it was not up to me to make him right or to punish him for his behavior. Mark was in charge of his behavior and, though I understood many of the trials he has faced, I reminded myself that I couldn’t presume to know the challenges he has within.