I fold my arms. “Hmm, I don’t steal road signs, but otherwise I think I do the job for you. I’m your surrogate. There’s an impetuous man hiding in you, and that’s why you got me the hot rod, even though it cost so much money; it’s why you call it the red devil. You have a crush on this car!”
He chuckles. “I do like the car.”
We sit and watch the golden glow of the sun’s last light, the crows spiraling and the hawks gliding high above the trees. I am somber, thinking about how it has taken me three decades to come to terms with the nature of the husband whose nature I deliberately chose.
I think of all the hard work ahead of us, the mindfulness, the concentration, the biting edge of angry exchanges as we change.
The language of love, so different for each of us and for each of us so hard to grasp, to translate. The discipline it will take to understand the nuances, the shades of our desire, to recognize and truly feel our divergent expressions of intimacy.
I know that Bob, no matter what his age, no matter how distant he was raised to be, craves love as much as I do and that he needs me to love him—not in my way, but in his. My mission is to find the oblique paths to his heart. Which offerings, which gifts, will relieve his pressure, will please him, will bring out the depth of his feelings.
I must recognize his own gifts to me. He may not speak the words I expect or want, but I will know that what means little to me often means everything to him.
When he arrives home in the evenings, I will never again dismiss or, being busy, pretend not to hear him call, “Where’s Lucinda?” This is his way of locating his love by locating me; he seeks only to be beside me. I will expand my definition of love, watch for the things I once ignored: the glow of acceptance in his eyes; the electricity of his touch as he intentionally brushes against me; the shiver of pleasure I could feel when he runs the tips of his fingers down my hand.
And if, in the end, I myself should need more from him, now I am certain it’s only for the asking.
* * *
I have a strange sense of rising into the air, as I did when I was a child, praying. One day, here on this soil, you will be taken to a place inside me where death cannot reach you. I feel the deepness and the timelessness of our love, the certainty that it expands beyond our physical selves, that it exists outside us, a current coursing through the lives of the ones who love us. We pass its spiritual power on to them. It will be there when we are gone.
* * *
“Maxwelton braes are bonnie!” Bob has suddenly broken into song with the Scottish ballad I love most. His rich baritone has a completely new vibrato, and never has he sung so in tune, his voice soaring, a new voice that has left behind the two or three good notes he had before: “Where early fa’s the dew!”
As his chest expands, as he lifts his chin and lets forth the almighty “A-a-a-n … nie Laurie,” the highest and grandest of sounds in the ballad, goose bumps come up on my arm. His voice is so heartrending and his delivery so amusing I want to cry.
Now he takes up “Loch Lomond,” and I warble a descant. We drive past the perfect rectangular fields, hay brown, sage, burnt umber; the apple trees, some of them shedding their leaves. Ahead, by the barn, we see Josh talking to Rowan, a jaunty Jamaican who’s one of my favorite orchard workers. They’re smiling, and we slow up to wave to them. As we pass, I can just hear Rowan saying, “There goes Romeo and Juliet.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank the people who gave their time and energy to help shape this memoir: Sarah Crichton believed in the book from the start and expertly guided it through the thorny thickets of revisions, more revisions, final revisions, and at last, production and publication; Rob Weisbach, superb agent and editor, gently coaxed me to think more deeply about relationships, to locate the reality behind the reality; Lila Meade, my editorial assistant, worked tirelessly until she virtually lived the book; Laura Pancucci made me see truth where there was illusion and feelings where there were just facts.
Elaine Markson, my former agent and a beautiful person, took me through three decades of writing and publishing. Ruth Gibson illuminated my understanding of spirituality.
Blair Brown Hoyt, editor, Jill Comins, therapist, and Pat Bryne Cosentino, poet, shared their talent and friendship. The wonderful writers Fran Klagsbrun, Hilma Wolitzer, and Wendy Gimbel helped me usher the book into the world.
Carolyn Hessel, head of the Jewish Book Council, has given me confidence and endless support.
The inimitable Ida Van Lindt, my husband’s secretary, provided me with much material, as did the lightning-quick Marilyn Bauza.
Susan Morgenthau, my much-loved daughter-in-law, who is a trustee of the New York Public Library, gave me welcome insight, as did Holly Hollingsworth, my opera comrade.
Laurie Lowenthal, Sarah Morgenthau, Ellie Hirschhorn, Sage Sevilla, and Henry Morgenthau III provided me with introductions and inspiration. Pierre Romain, film producer, advised me on any number of issues.
Victor Temkin talked to me many times and at length about Bob, as did Pat Dugan and Peter Kougasian.
Chris O’Connor, Marina and Steve Kaufman, Soma Golden Behr, Alex Hoyt, Andrew Meade, and Howard Stein were there to give me ideas and moral support. Emily Strasser and Robyn Yzelman helped with the nuts and bolts.
My gratitude to the patient and indefatigable FSG team: Laury Frieber, the excellent lawyer; Lottchen Shivers, my publicist; Jenny Carrow and Maureen Bishop of the art department; Susan Goldfarb and Nina Frieman in production; Jonathan Lippincott, the designer; and Marsha Sasmor, Sarah Crichton’s invaluable editorial assistant.
I owe a special thanks to the two men who influenced me, coming as they did from a different time and a different place: William Gifford, the first professor who convinced me that my passion for words could tease out my ability, and Edward Hoagland, the nature writer, who taught me my first valuable lesson as a writer: always keep a journal in your pocket.
INDEX
The index that appears in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Abate, Catherine
Abdel-Rahman, Omar
Abedi, Agha Hasan
A Coney Island of the Mind (Ferlinghetti)
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud
Alcott, Louisa May
Alpert, Jane
al-Qaeda
Alsop, Joseph
America First Committee
American Agriculturist
Amherst College
An American Tragedy (Dreiser)
Anarchist Club
Anderson, Gene
Arafat, Yasser
Arens, Moshe
Arnold, Marty
Asch, Sidney
Astor, Brooke
Baez, Joan
Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI)
Bauer, USS
Beame, Abe
Bechtel Corporation
Begin, Menachem
Belfast
Black Panthers
Bloomberg, Michael
Blum, John Morton
Blum, Jack
Bondi, Andre
Bondi, Lea
Boston Globe
Bradley, Ed
Breasted, Mary
Brokaw, Tom
Brookings Institution
Brown, Tina
Buckley, Charlie
Buckley, Sen. James L.
Buckley, William F.
Burroughs, William
Cabey, Darrell
Cambodia
Cambridge (Mass.)
Cardozo, Benjamin Nathan
Carey, Gov. Hugh
Carlisle, Kitty
Carroll, Mickey
Carter, Jimmy
Castleman, Dan
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Cherry Lane Theatre
Chomsky, No
am
Children’s Hour, The (Hellman)
Churchill, Winston
Clinton, Bill
Clinton, Hillary
Coffin, William Sloane
Cohn, Roy
Cole, USS
Comins, Jill
Commentary
Communist Manifesto, The, (Marx and Engels)
Conboy, Ken
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Connor, Christine
Cooke, Alistair
Cooke, Lawrence
Cornell University
Corrigan, Mairead
Credit Suisse
Crewdson, John
Crowley, Candy
Cuomo, Gov. Andrew
Cuomo, Gov. Mario
Curley, James Michael
Cunningham, Michael
Daily Beast, The
Dan, Uri
Deerfield Academy
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
DeLuca, Giorgio
Democratic Committee Women’s Division
Derry (Northern Ireland)
De Sapio, Carmine
Diana, Princess of Wales
Doyle, Mark
Dreiser, Theodore
Dugan, Pat
Dylan, Bob
Eichmann, Adolf
Eitan, Rafi
Ellison, Nancy
Emerson, Gloria
est
Fairstein, Linda
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Feldman, Justin
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
Fleischer, Ellen
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Ford, Gerald
Fortas, Abe
Fosburgh, Lacey
Fraiman, Arnold
Franklin National Bank
Franks, Lorraine; and cancer treatments
Franks, Lucinda: association with radicals; and breast cancer; childhood; first pregnancy of; and Hillary Clinton interview; hired by New York Times; in London; at MacDowell Colony; and marital strain; in Northern Ireland; and Pulitzer Prize; quits New York Times; radicalism of; relationship with father; relationship with mother; relationship with Uncle Billy; at Seabrook protest; at Vassar; and Watergate reporting; and writer’s block; writes book about father
Franks, Penelope (Penny)
Franks, Thomas; death of; and wartime experience
Freeh, Louis
Fresh Air Fund
Friedan, Betty
Friedman, Karen
Friedman, Stanley M.
Furstenberg, Diane Von, see Von Furstenberg, Diane
Gage, Nicholas
Gelb, Arthur
Gelb, Barbara
Georgiou, Renos
Georgiou, Steve
Germany Is Our Problem
Gestalt
Gifford, Bill
Gill, Jim
Gimbel, Wendy
Ginsberg, Allen
Giuliani, Rudolph
Goetz, Bernhard
Goldberg, Arthur
Goldsworthy, Andy
Good Eggs
Graiver, David
Grand, Anne Morgethau, see Morgenthau, Anne
Grand, Hilary
Grand, Noah
Grand, Paul
Greenfield, Jimmy
Gribetz, Judah
Guardian Angels
Haig, Alexander
Haines, George
Hanauer, Linda
Harris, Ben
Harry F. Bauer, USS
Harvard University
Haskell, Molly
Hays, Rep. Wayne
Healey, Jim
Hearst, Patty
Hellman, Lillian
Hepburn, Katherine
Hersey, John
Herzog, Chaim
High, Stanley
Hirsch, Marcelle Puthon, see Morgenthau, Marcelle Puthon Hirsch
Hirschhorn, Elizabeth
Hitler, Adolf
Hoffman, Abbie
Hoffman, Nicholas von, see von Hoffman, Nicholas
Hoyt, Blair
Hull, Cordell
Hunter-Gault, Charlayne
Hylton, Renia; death of
Innocence Project
Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Ivins, Molly
Izvestia
Jensen, Greg
Jensen, Irona
John Birch Society
John Paul II, Pope
Johnson, Rob
Johnson, Lyndon
Junior League
Kahan Commission
Kahane, Meir
Kaufman, Marina
Kaufman, Steve
Kelly, Ray
Kennedy, Edward
Kennedy, Jacqueline, see Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy
Kennedy, John F.
Kennedy, John F., Jr.
Kennedy, Robert
Kerry, Sen. John
Kimes, Kenneth
Kimes, Sante
Kindler, Jim
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
King, Stanley
Kissinger, Henry
Koch, Ed
Kollek, Teddy
Kougasian, Peter
Kozlowski
Kropotkin, Pyotr
Lahey Clinic
Lang, Dan
Lang, Margie
Lansdale, USS
Lauder, Ronald
Law & Order (TV show)
Lawe, USS
Lee, Hanmin
Lehman, Herbert
Lehman, Irving
Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher
Lelyveld, Joe
Lend-Lease Act
Leneman, Nan
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich
Lewis, C. S.
Leopold Museum
Leval, Pierre
Leval, Susana
Levin, Gerald
Levin, Jonathan
Lewinsky, Monica
Lewis, Anthony
Liman, Arthur
Lipton, Martin
Little Women (Alcott)
Lloyd’s of London
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Rossner)
Lowey, Nita M.
Lukas, J. Anthony
Madoff, Bernard
MacDowell Colony
Mailer, Norman
Malamud, Bernard
Malkin, Peter
Marcuse, Herbert
Marshall, Tony
Mason, C. Vernon
Maybe (Hellman)
Meade, Lila
Meir, Golda
Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Messinger, Ruth
Milford, Nancy
Millett, Kate
Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh
Mollo, Sil
Montebello, Philippe de
Morgenthau Diaries (Blum)
Morgenthau, Amy Elinor; assessment of father
Morgenthau, Anne; relationship with Franks; and father’s marriage to Franks
Morgenthau, Barbara; and father’s marriage to Franks; and mother’s death; relationship with Franks
Morgenthau, Bobby; and father’s marriage to Franks; relationship with Franks; weds Susan Moore
Morgenthau, Elinor (daughter)
Morgenthau, Elinor (mother)
Morgenthau, Harry
Morgenthau, Henry
Morgenthau, Henry, Jr.
Morgenthau, Henry III
Morgenthau, Jenny; and father’s marriage to Franks; and relationship with Franks
Morgenthau, Joan
Morgenthau, Joshua Franks; and family farm
Morgenthau, Martha
Morgenthau, Martha Pattridge; and cancer
Morgenthau, Marcelle Puthon Hirsch
Morgenthau Plan
Morgenthau, Robert: appointed U.S. Attorney; and BCCI case; and Bernhard Goetz case; boat trip with Franks; and Brooke Astor elder abuse case; and Central Park jogger case; childhood of; dates Franks; on death penalty; and “DNA footprint” case; elected district attorney of New York County; family disapproval of relationship with Franks; and f
amily farm; fired by Nixon; first date with Franks; first marriage; Greece trip with Franks; hearing problems; honeymoon with Franks; on Israel; Israel trips with Franks; marital strain; meets Franks; gubernatorial campaigns; on immigration reform; and Judge Lawrence Cooke case; and Kimes murder case; and Mafia; and melanoma; and Museum of Jewish Heritage; and Nazi stolen art cases; Portugal trip with Franks; and post-traumatic stress disorder; and rape law reform; reelection campaigns; relationship with father; relationship with mother; retires; on Ronald Reagan; and Roy Cohn investigation; and September 11 attacks; and service in World War II; as source for Franks’s reporting; weds Franks; with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and white-collar crime
Morgenthau, Susan Moore
Morrissey, Francis X.
Mostly Morgenthaus (H. Morgenthau III)
Moscow, John
Museum of Jewish Heritage
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
My Father’s Secret War (Franks)
Nemerov, Howard
Nerissa (housekeeper)
Newfield, Jack
Newsweek
New York Daily News
New Yorker, The
New York Observer
New York Times
Nidal, Abu
Nixon, Richard; and Watergate
Norton, Larry
Nosair, El Sayyid
nuclear power, protests against
Oakes, John
Oakes, Margery
Obama, Barack
Oates, Joyce Carol
O’Connor, John Cardinal
Office of Civilian Defense
Oggi
Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy
Oughton, Diana
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
Pancucci, Laura
Pataki, Gov. George
Paterson, Gov. David
Patman, Wright
Patterson, Hon. Robert
Paul Hamilton, USS
Pius XII, Pope
Plimpton, Mrs. Francis T. P.
Plimpton, George
Power, Katherine Ann
Powers, Thomas
Raines, Howell
Rangel, Alma
Rangel, Rep. Charlie
Ray, Elizabeth
Reagan, Nancy
Reagan, Ronald
Redford, Robert
Reeves, Richard
Renta, Annette de la
Reyes, Matias
Robinson, Edward G.
Roche, Kevin
Rockefeller, David
Rockefeller, Nelson
Rolling Stone
Rollnick, Bill
Roosevelt, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Elliott
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, Jr.
Rosenthal, Abe
Ross, Steve
Rossner, Judith
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