Saving Graces - Elizabeth Edwards [120]
The last days of the primary campaign were spent in Georgia. On primary day there was, as usual, little to do to influence the voting. Midday, Cate and I were looking out the hotel window when Jenni Engebretsen and Jennifer Palmieri came in to get us for lunch. Look, we said, there’s an Eatzi’s. Instead of getting bad food in Styrofoam containers, we could get good food in Styrofoam containers. How far is it? Well, it looks like a couple of blocks, I said. And it did look like a couple of blocks when viewed from the fortieth floor. Cate said, You can come if you want, but we are definitely going. That’s what we’d do if Dad wasn’t running; that’s what we’re doing now. The walk there wasn’t too bad. But then we bought lunch, or over-bought, and four overdressed women had to haul bags of food along a broad thoroughfare back to the hotel.
The distance to Eatzi’s was like the campaign: everything seemed closer; everything seemed within grasp when it really wasn’t. On Super Tuesday, when the exit poll numbers from the various states started coming in, John and I were standing in a room at Georgia State University. John turned to me and said, It’s over. I didn’t say anything. He said again, It’s over, making sure that I was getting the message. This is over. I didn’t say no, but I couldn’t say yes. It was his decision to run, it was his decision to stop running. I just wasn’t very good at giving up hope. Having said the words aloud to me, he came close to saying them when he took the stage that night. And his near-concession went out to Minnesota shortly before the Minnesota caucuses began. John finished second there, too, and we got on a plane and flew back to Raleigh.
The plane ride back to Raleigh—David, Jennifer, Hunter, Miles, Jim Andrews, John, Cate, and I—was, oddly, magic. The campaign was over, we all knew, but it didn’t matter. We were together, we were laughing; it was as if a weight had been lifted. We had had fun, we’d given it our best, we had made a difference, really. It didn’t seem like we had just lost a presidential primary. That came two days later, that came in the quiet of the aftermath.
The next morning we spoke to the staff, first me, then John, and when his voice cracked, so did the room. And then we all went to Broughton High School, Wade and Cate’s school, for the last rally. Here we were in front of all our friends, people who had stood with us through so very much for so very long. We tried to make it a celebration, and I think for some it was, but it was hard to look across that room, peppered with young people, their heads down, their cheeks streaked, and not wonder what if. All the near misses, Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Wisconsin…what if?
After we left Raleigh, the campaign office was cleared. Nick went home to Liz and his children. JRob to a new job. Rebecca, Sharon, Skye, Georgie, off to the next war. Boxes of memories were packed and posters came down, and the young people who had powered that engine went home or went on vacation. All of the people who had gotten strength from one another, working beside one another when it looked bad—and it looked bad much longer than it looked good—were scattered, and they couldn’t lean on one another now. And those, I think, were the worst times. Because we weren’t together.
But it wasn’t long until we were together again. John started calling supporters right away, thanking them for coming with him and for staying with him. The magic returned when once again we had meetings at the house on P Street. If you can imagine family meetings at the dinner table, that is what they were. Sometimes contentious, always lively, but most importantly there was—and is—a circle of trust and comfort. We may have been