1400069106Secret

by Unknown

  He seemed to want to tell me everything about himself, but he was also cautious about not coming on too strong.

  One evening Dick arrived at my apartment armed with pots, pans, and all the ingredients, including spices, to prepare dinner for us. A guy who cooks is good, I thought—actually, better than good. As he worked on the meal, he sheepishly explained a hidden self-interest in all his effort. He had gone on the South Beach Diet to lose a few pounds to impress me and wanted to make sure he stuck to the diet’s guidelines.

  Recalling what I wrote about cooking together at the end of my online dating profile, I began to suspect that I had met an uncanny match in Dick.

  Despite all the time we spent together, it wasn’t a whirlwind courtship. It was cautious, polite, perhaps even languorous. We had been dating nine months before Dick invited me to his country home in the Berkshires of Massachusetts in a tiny town named Alford (no relation, just coincidence). Dick had made titanic preparations for that weekend in early May 2004, intent on showing me a great time in a part of the world he loved. It was also my sixty-first birthday.

  He orchestrated everything: sights, events, shops, meals, wines, even the videos we would watch at night. By the second day I was not only exhausted but distressed. I felt that Dick was so absorbed in dazzling me that he forgot about how I was feeling. We weren’t connecting. We were checking off a list of weekend things to do but not sharing the most simple emotional and physical contact—which is all I really wanted. Everything else was “nice to have,” not “must have.”

  Over breakfast I described my concerns.

  I was stunned by his response. He didn’t just raise his voice. He went on an angry, red-faced tirade, lashing out at me for not appreciating all the effort he had made, mocking me for being so negative.

  I was familiar with this kind of rage and bullying from my marriage. But this time I wasn’t going to put up with it. I would rather be alone than compromise on what I wanted in a relationship. I had made mistakes and I had learned from them, and I was simply not going to repeat them.

  So I packed my bag and took the next train home. I sat immobile all the way to New York, alternating between staring straight ahead and breaking down in tears. Mercifully, it was still early in the day and the car was empty; there were no passengers who had to endure my sobbing.

  I was certain that things were over between Dick and me. But he called a week later, which impelled me to write him a letter using the convenient phrasing that I was “sad our relationship didn’t work out.” Then I took it further and explained what had been missing from the weekend. It was simple: Even though we were having a nice time, Dick was operating at a remove from me.

  At the most basic level, I needed to hear from him how he felt about being with me. He could have done that with a word, a touch, a glance, a joke. But he didn’t. And it upset me. I was through with those kinds of relationships.

  After he read my letter, he called again, claiming that he wanted to know exactly how I defined a healthy relationship. This touchy-feely stuff was all new to him, and he wanted to do better. We agreed to discuss it over coffee at the Starbucks on Eighty-seventh Street and Lexington Avenue. He was sitting at a window table when I arrived. I was eager to see him, but also cautious. I didn’t hug or kiss him before I sat down. Again, I described what I expected from him when he was with me. I was trying to be clear about my needs for emotional and physical affection and the kind of simple, loving, spontaneous attention that defined a strong, intimate partnership for me. I could give that to him, but I expected it back in return. More than anything, I expected complete honesty from him. That didn’t mean he had to overshare about every detail. It simply meant that in the space that held us together, there would be no secrets.

  Anything less would be dishonest. I had spent my entire life misguidedly cradling a secret and letting it close off, one by one, the doors to my heart. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

  I could tell by his anguished expression that Dick was struggling with my explanation. No one, he admitted, had ever talked to him this way. But I was heartened by it as well. Struggling meant he was listening.

  We parted with no promise to see each other again. I walked north back to my apartment, replaying my words and feeling satisfied that I had taken control and asserted my feelings about a relationship with a man on my terms.

  Dick got on the subway at Eighty-sixth Street, heading south for a summer solstice party at the other end of Manhattan. Then he did the most remarkable thing. At the next stop, he got out of the subway and ran up the stairs to the street. He was trying to remember everything I said and wanted to write it down. But he didn’t have a pen. He bought one on the street and recorded his notes on scraps of paper in his pocket.

  I think I sensed that as I walked back to my apartment. I had finally met a man who didn’t belittle my needs, who dignified them by being open to the possibility of change in himself.

  We started seeing each other again soon after. If there was an “electric” moment when we both knew we had found “the one” in each other, it had to be sitting on the park bench at Ninetieth Street and Fifth Avenue, beneath the statue of Fred Lebow, my late boss and the founder of the New York Road Runners Club. We both knew Fred. The statue depicts Fred looking at his watch, timing a runner. But Dick and I were thinking the same thing—that Fred was really telling us, “It’s about time.”

  On October 2, 2005, Dick and I were married in Alford, Massachusetts. I was sixty-three, he was sixty-seven. We gave up our apartments in New York and now live in retirement in a small house in the country. We share a life that is filled with long walks and bike rides, cooking and gardening, culture and travel, lots of family and friends, and a love that keeps growing.

  Our marriage is what I like to call a “mundane adventure.” We find a way to take the common rituals of everyday life and somehow brighten them up.

  Even the simple requirements of living on a fixed income have their moments.

  We have a weekly ritual we call “Fridays” when Dick and I review every penny we spent the previous week—from the $26 to fill up the gas tank to the $10.50

  matinee at the Triplex to $307.25 for an insurance premium. We add up the totals, split it fifty-fifty, and reimburse the week’s big spender to break even.

  Occasionally, one of us will highlight an item that only one of us needed or enjoyed—and deduct it from the total. It’s a small gesture, but it reminds me that even in our household budgeting sessions we have found a way of giving each other a gift.

  I no longer have to bring Dick up to speed on how to act in a relationship with me. Quite often, he’s the one offering me sweet teachable moments. One morning he was making breakfast for us, sliding strips of bacon into a brand-new skillet. I mentioned that he had the heat too high.

  He calmly turned around and said, “Mimi, sometimes I need to make my own mistakes.”

  He was right, of course.

  Another time, again over breakfast, two years into our marriage, Dick stared into my eyes and in a deadpan tone as dry as desert sand said, “Mimi, when I married you I thought I had won the perfect woman. But now that I’ve been living with you for a few years, I realize you have a lot of issues and faults.” I had to reciprocate. I took Dick’s hands and said, “I know what you mean.

  When we first met, I thought you had a lot of deep-seated issues. I didn’t know if this thing of ours would work. But now that we’ve been together for a while, I have to admit it: You’re perfect!”

  We laughed. Neither of us is perfect, but we’re perfect together.

  I know I’m gushing over my husband and my marriage, but I do so as an object lesson in how we find happiness when we least expect it—if we know how to look for it and to fight for it. I say this because I think I deserve as much credit for my current healthy state of mind as anyone. I didn’t just meet a man who loved me. I met a man who led me to understand myself.

  In early 2011, Dick and I h
ad rented a house in West Palm Beach, Florida, to escape a brutal winter in Alford. Our friend Mark was visiting one weekend when Dick noticed that a professional golf tournament was being played twenty minutes away in Boca Raton—and to his delight, admission was free. How could the three of us pass this up?

  We jumped in the car and headed to the tournament. Dick was behind the wheel. As we neared the event, there was some confusion about where to park.

  Dick passed one parking lot and then another and then another, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was taking us farther and farther away from the tournament entrance. Mark turned to me and asked, “Doesn’t this drive you crazy?”

  “Not at all,” I told him, “I don’t let little things like this ruin my day. Being happy is more important than being right about where to park.”

  “That’s very enlightened,” he said.

  I realized he was right—and saw how far I’d come. What seemed so simple to achieve now—happiness in the moment and with a fine man—appeared like personal enlightenment to an outside observer.

  I’m no longer the passive, silent wife and mother. I have a voice. And part of being happy is using that voice to speak up for yourself at the moments when your emotional well-being is at risk, and staying quiet when it doesn’t matter. If Dick wanted to fumble around the neighborhood, looking for a parking spot miles from the golf course, what did it really matter in the grand scheme of things? There would be a shuttle bus to take us to the gate. We would be together the whole time.

  I know I’m happy. But what’s even more amazing is that the positive spirit I feel on the inside shows on the outside. My sister Deb sees it most plainly—and with the greatest satisfaction. Dick and I were driving around Bainbridge Island in Seattle with Deb and her husband, Perry. The car was filled with good vibes and silly laughter. We were having a great time when Deb exclaimed, “Oh, Dick, it’s wonderful that you are with Mimi. It’s so much fun to be with the two of you.

  You deserve the coin.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. “What coin?” I asked.

  Deb explained that sometime during the late 1990s, she was driving in Northern California when I called her on her cellphone from New York for some much-needed sisterly support. We had these coast-to-coast talks often and they always cheered me up. On this occasion I was more teary-eyed and sad than usual, wondering if I would ever be really happy. Deb pulled off the road into a deserted parking lot so we could talk more. After we hung up, she stepped out of the car to stretch her legs and there on the ground, shining in the sunlight, was a Kennedy half-dollar coin. She picked it up and told herself, “I’m keeping this coin to give to the man who makes my sister happy.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “You never told me this.” Two days after we returned from Seattle, a package arrived for Dick. It was a small heart-shaped box, and in it was a Kennedy half-dollar. Deb’s note said:

  “Dear Dick. Enclosed as promised. Thank you for making Mimi so happy.” I rarely think of JFK today. But now it’s by personal choice, not by someone’s edict. However, I still tear up when I see a picture of him, and sometimes there’s a catch in my voice when I talk about him. The memories of my time with him mix with images of his horrific death and with the emotional trauma I went through the day he died, and I’m hurtled back to being that nineteen-year-old woman again. That will probably never change.

  I want to talk to that young woman, but I’m not sure I have anything profound to say or even if she would listen to me. I’m not sure that I could counsel her properly on what to do with her secret about JFK, or how to take control of her own story. I’m not sure that revealing it to family and friends would have changed her life or saved her marriage or released her from her emotional shell or brought her decades of uninterrupted contentment. It might have altered the course of her life. It might not.

  I’ve always wondered if the years of confusion and doubt were worth it. To that question I can only answer a resounding yes. Because they made me who I am today. I am proof that if we’re lucky, we emerge from our mistakes as wiser, stronger, better people—and if we’re extremely lucky, happier people.

  I think back to that pivotal moment over coffee when I outlined to Dick what I was looking for in a relationship. What I remember most clearly is how intently he was listening to me. When someone listens to you, they may not realize it but they’re giving you a great gift: They’re making room for your voice. That’s what the contentment in my marriage has given me: a voice. That’s why I’m able to write these words, and this book.

  In January 2009, Dick and I traveled to Washington, D.C., to visit JFK’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery. I’d never seen the site before and was curious to see what emotions and memories a visit might inspire. Well, curious and afraid, too.

  It was eight degrees without the windchill as we trudged through the snow to the modest grave site at the bottom of a hill below the grand Greek revival Arlington House, the city of Washington spread out before us. JFK’s flat headstone rests next to that of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Even if it hadn’t been so bone-chillingly cold, I wouldn’t have lingered at his grave. As I contemplated the scene, I felt like an intruder. The Kennedy legacy had hovered over my life in a silent, pernicious way for a long time, but I had never really been part of the story. As I say, I was a footnote to a footnote. And as I stood there, snuggling up to my husband to keep warm, my arm tucked under his, I was perfectly fine with that.

  Just before leaving, I silently mouthed the words “Thank you” in gratitude and amazement at how my secret, the source of so much of my pain, turned out to be my life’s redeeming force. Without the secret and its public revelation, I would never have met Dick, or found the life I have today. Whatever memories I had of JFK were in the past, where they belonged and where they would stay.

  The only thing that mattered was that, at long last, I was at peace.

  That’s a secret I am happy to let go of and share.

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt thanks to the following:

  My agent and friend, Mark Reiter, for helping me transform my story into a book.

  My support squad of friends: Marnie Pillsbury, Wendy Foulke, Kirk Huffard, K.

  C. Hyland, and Joan Ellis, for sharing their memories; Mary Hilliard, for her fabulous photograph.

  My siblings: Deb Beardsley, Buffy Havard, Josh Beardsley, and Jim Beardsley, for their unconditional support.

  My daughters: Lisa Alpaugh and Jenny Axelman, for standing by me and accepting that this was the story I needed to tell.

  Colette Linnihan, for her guidance and expertise in helping me to understand.

  Jude Elliot Mead and Rebecca Busselle, for their early encouragement; and Linda Bird Francke, for her time and contribution.

  My teammates at Random House: Susan Mercandetti, for giving this book a home; Susan Kamil and Andy Ward, for the most intense and thoughtful scrutiny an author’s words could ever receive; and Ben Steinberg and Kaela Myers, for their positive attitudes and prompt attention that never failed me.

  My beloved husband, Dick Alford, for endless rereadings, making me laugh, soothing my tears, and welcoming me with open arms no matter what. I am so happy to be sharing the rest of my life with you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MIMI ALFORD lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, Dick.

  Together they have seven grandchildren. This is her first book.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Unknown, 1400069106Secret