Saving Graces - Elizabeth Edwards [147]
We got in the car, and I turned to Hargrave. Did you see her? Yes. She gave me this pin, I said, fastening the pin on my lapel. She looked strong, didn’t she? I mean except for the hair, she looked strong. Yes, Hargrave answered, she did. And then we were quiet.
The next day was even less pressure, except for being on Larry King’s show opposite Jeb Bush. That night the advance team, Jim McGreevy, Cooper Ray, and Henry Stern, brought champagne and bath soaks for us, and, although I don’t drink much, I drank a glass with them and our troop, and I was happy and tired, sitting there reliving the campaign in my flannel pajamas.
Then it was the end. The last day, the final get-out-the-vote effort in Cedar Rapids, the last television broadcast from Des Moines—after my meltdown in the stylist’s chair. The beginnings of a celebration as the first votes came in and we flew to Boston. And then, as soon as I arrived, it was a flurry, police cars with sirens—we never used them—leading us at breakneck speed to the Boston hotel, then straight up to the tiny studio the campaign had set up there. At first, I didn’t see Ted Koppel. He stood quietly in the corner until I took a breath, and then he said, “Just want to shake your hand,” and he wished me well. He was hearing the same numbers I was hearing.
When I knew it looked bad, I wanted John. I was exhausted from the day, ending as it did with several hours in the remote chair doing radio. No one knew when John would arrive. The Internet connection in our room wasn’t working; even the television was on the fritz. The world was changing quickly, and I was in an information-free zone. Ryan fixed everything in the room and then receded. I managed to hug him before he backed out of the room. He’d been there before, in 2000, when things started to fall apart in the Gore campaign. He went to his room, wanting to stay away from everyone, but Jack walked into the room, climbed up beside him, and watched television with him. He just sat there, the way Jack does, his hand on your arm, or his leg thrown across yours. I think Ryan knew then that John and I were going to be all right. Yes, we had to endure this final awful march, and yes, there was the cancer. But we also had this: this boy, these children. We’d be fine.
John finally came, exhausted but not yet empty. He wanted to fight. Hargrave got Nancy and Jay and my niece Laura and brought them to my room—they did not have the identification pins the Secret Service used to determine who was supposed to be on our closed floor. I talked to them and to Cate, who had gotten back to the hotel after representing us all afternoon at Boston events. As John talked on the speakerphone in the main room, I took Cate to the next room, a little dark room we didn’t use, but a good place to tell her what would happen the next day. At that point I didn’t know yet that there would be a concession speech. I only knew that tomorrow I would certainly be told that I had breast cancer. And then my brother and sister came in, with my niece Laura, and I told them too. I speak to my brother and sister once a week, maybe more—less, certainly, during the campaign—and though we are all in our fifties and live thousands of miles apart, I know when Jay quits smoking and I know when he starts again, I know when Nancy gets her hair cut or what the doctor said in her last visit. We cannot disconnect. And we don’t want to. They wanted to come with us to the hospital, to be there with us. I couldn’t let them; it would be too much. So we just held each other until we were so blasted tired we couldn’t, and Jay and Nancy went back to their rooms, each leaning down to hug John before they did, each whispering to him, Take care of her.
CHAPTER 14
WASHINGTON
The