Chapter Text
I tried to make a home out of you, but doors lead to trap doors, a stairway leads to nothing. Unknown women wander the hallways at night. Where do you go when you go quiet? You come home at 3AM and lie to me. What are you hiding?
The past and the future merge to meet us here. What luck. What a fucking curse.
January 21st, 1998
She's not a fool.
When Bill woke her this morning, the look in his eye took her right back to 1987.
"Hillary."
She felt his weight settle on the edge of the bed, felt his hand on her shoulder. "Hill, honey," he squeezed her shoulder gently. "I need to talk to you."
"Hmm..?" she mumbled, pulled out of a deep sleep.
She turned her face towards his voice and opened her eyes, blinking away the sleep and the dreams. ( What does a woman in your position dream about - the president’s wife? She had been asked. Chelsea running on soft green Arkansas lawns in bare feet and cotton dresses; humid Southern summers and lemonade in frosty, dripping glasses; her husband's broad shoulders, his strong arms around her; heads thrown back in laughter, white crescents of teeth exposed; sex. “Oh, the usual things,” she’d answered cordially, retreating behind her walls. Some things were private. As many as possible, which was little enough.)
Without her contact lenses, everything was a blur - she furrowed her brows, squinting, trying to register Bill’s face in the dim light of the bedroom. Their bedroom.
"Hmm, what is it? What's wrong?" Her tongue felt heavy, her voice husky. She could usually fall asleep and wake on a dime, but last night she hadn't gone to bed until past two in the morning, had been preparing for a speech at Goucher College in the coming afternoon. She had cloistered herself in an office with a few aides and her speechwriter, rehearsing and rewriting until the words flowed just right. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. She’d stay up all night if she needed to, to make things perfect.
Darkness filtered through the gaps in the curtains. She reached over to the bedside table, pawing for her glasses. Bill beat her to it, opened them with slender fingers, and helped to gently guide them over her ears and settle them on the bridge of her nose. She blinked again, adjusting to her newfound sight. The clock next to the bed read 4:30AM.
"There's something in today's papers that you should know about," he said, watching her face, registering her expressions - the pink creases on her cheek and temple where her face had been resting on the pillow, her dark eyebrows knitted with concern, lips pressed together. He leaned over her, steeling himself. She looked back - could smell his skin, saw that his clothes looked rumpled, his cheeks rough with stubble. He hadn’t showered yet this morning. They were always studying each other. Sometimes it felt like he saw right through her. Sometimes, like he couldn’t see her at all.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, propping herself up on her elbows. She caught his roaming eyes with her own, hit him with the full force of her gaze. “What happened?”
She was awake now. She could flip it like a switch when she needed to, when she smelled danger.
The words fell out of him, halting at first, but slowly warming up, seductive as a snake charmer spinning his narrative for her. An intern, Ken Starr, rumours and allegations. He didn’t do it, the things they were going to accuse him of in the paper - just more lies from the right wing operatives trying to hamstring his presidency, accusing him of another improper sexual relationship. In the White House. Cheater. Cheater cheater cheater. But he was innocent this time.
It’s not that she didn’t believe him. Not exactly. But when you are married to a man who has had his hands on other women, whose palms have pressed into their flesh and hair, whose fingertips have brushed their lips, those other women, dozens or more… something breaks. Something becomes stained inside of you, a reminder, nagging and biting.
It’s not that she didn’t believe him. It’s not that she didn’t want ( need ) to believe him. She ached to open her throat and swallow the story he gave her. The sweet taste of honesty was already on her tongue like honey, settling in her stomach, drugging her, dragging her under. Let him be telling the truth. Please, God, let him be telling the truth.
“We’ll handle it. We always do.” She set her jaw, her clockwork mind already calculating the work ahead of them, weighing the risks and rewards, the various methods to fight back. Their weapons. She would be his strength against all that assailed him - his rock, his fighter. He needed her to stand with him against the Republicans, against the women crawling from the woodwork, all the people throwing stones.
The women in the woodwork. She had built rooms in the house of her mind to store the memories of those women. They were packed away, blonde hair and thick lips, thighs and breasts, eyelids pearlescent like the smooth inside of a seashell, stowed in boxes within rooms within the walls of that house in her mind. Packed away in the past, He loves me, he loves me not . Not forgotten, just behind walls. And those walls provided enough structure - just barely enough - to believe him, this time.
But doubt eats away at you like termites.
They had booked the Excelsior hotel for the announcement. Bill Clinton, William Jefferson Clinton , son of Arkansas, golden boy, would enter the '88 race to become President of the United States of America. A swell of support was rising beneath him among Democrats. Since Cuomo's announcement that he wasn’t going to run, a space opened for the blue-eyed, fresh-faced young Southern charmer to make a bid for it. He was a natural, warm and gregarious, with a brilliant and pragmatic firecracker for a wife at his side. Such a promising young political couple, ripe fresh faces greatly needed in stodgy Washington - a beacon of hope for their generation, the Baby Boomers, the anti-Vietnam kids, ready to transform the system from the inside.
It was a hot August evening, two nights before the announcement. Dusk settled around the governor’s mansion, cicadas singing their summer song in the trees. Hillary was at the kitchen table coloring with Chelsea when there was a knock at the door. She heard voices in the foyer - Bill, a state trooper, another woman.
“Evening, Bill,” a woman spoke in greeting. Hillary registered Betsey Wright’s voice, Bill’s chief of staff. Their voices quieted as they moved out of the foyer. Hillary returned her attention to her daughter. She was involved in most conversations with her husband and his staff, but she had so little time with Chelsea these days... Bill would call her in if he needed her.
“Those are beautiful colors, Chelsea,” she said. “What are you drawing?”
They chatted back and forth, Hillary with her chin resting in her palm, elbow on the table, watching Chelsea with a grin. Her little girl, her daughter. Thick curls and pink cheeks, button nose, so smart and so sweet. Her heart ached at her innocence and kindness, and she prayed to herself every day that she could protect her and preserve her childhood for as long as possible. Even on the subject of pierced ears she had pushed back - “When you’re thirteen we’ll talk! Mine aren’t even pierced!”
She looked at the clock on the wall. Eight thirty.
“Time for bed, what do you say?” she asked Chelsea, standing up from the table. Hillary couldn’t help but to prick up her ears as they walked by Bill’s study. The door was closed, but she could hear muffled voices. Bill, Betsey, and someone else.
She held Chelsea’s hand as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. Hillary supervised her preparations for bed, the teeth brushing and face washing, pajama buttoning, and tucked her in. She knelt next to the low bed and pressed a kiss to her daughter's forehead. She cherished these quiet moments.
“Goodnight, sweetheart. We are going to going to wash off the dirt of today,” she said, pecking another kiss on her nose, “and then tomorrow will be a new day and we will stand up strong.” One of their little mantras since Chelsea was a baby. A tradition to keep the calm in the midst of the storms.
“I love you, mommy.”
“I love you too, my girl.”
She flicked off the light and closed the door behind her, making her way back down the stairs. The muffled voices in the study were louder, now. An argument. She reached her hand out to grasp the doorknob, but recoiled as if she had been burned before she could enter - Betsey’s voice cut through her like a knife.
“You will fail, Bill, and you will destroy your wife in the process.” Betsey, on the verge of shouting.
She pressed her ear to the door, feeling a pang of guilt. She wasn’t the eavesdropping type. It had never served her well in the past.
“You’re being ridiculous. Our marriage - our private life--” it was Bill. Betsey cut him off.
“It’s not goddamn private when you’re trying to be the president--” she countered.
“It’s no one’s fucking business, it’s old history--” he exploded.
“It’s not old history Bill, for Christ’s sake, stop lying to me. Stop lying to your wife . If you can’t be faithful to her, at least be honest. Protect her from the humiliation. Look what happened to Gary Hart.” Betsey again.
Hillary swallowed. Humiliation like bile in her throat, acid-hot.
Gary, after making his presidential bid known, had challenged reporters to follow him around and confirm that allegations of extramarital relationships were false. They had photos of him and another woman together on a boat all over the tabloids within a week. Fool .
“What about Gennifer, huh? What about Mary-whatshername, what about the others, what do you think it’s going to do to your wife when all of that comes up again in the press? What about Chelsea, Bill?” The other voice, a woman she didn’t recognize. Betsey must have brought her along for back-up. No response from Bill. “Do you think people are going to trust you to run the country if you can’t even be faithful to your wife?”
“What about last week, Bill? Is that history ?” Betsey demanded.
Last week. Fuck.
Hillary jerked her head away from the door. Her mouth had gone dry as cotton. Gennifer. She knew about that one. She knew of some of them, knew her husband had “caused pain in their marriage”, as had been their phrase of choice. Their phrase to describe the pain like a knife between the ribs each time she confronted him about it. Each time he confessed to being a weak man, not good enough for her, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Baby, don’t go, I need you I want you come here. The time when it got really bad, after he lost in ‘80, when he wanted to leave her. When he said he couldn’t stand her pushing him, dragging him up off the floor. How he wanted someone softer, sweeter, simpler, no hard edges. Pain in their marriage. Another mantra, another calm in the storm.
She clenched her jaw, backed away, up the stairs towards their bedroom. She stumbled on the way up, distracted, slammed her knee into the top stair and didn’t feel a thing. Numb, so numb, she hobbled into bed and crawled under the covers fully clothed. She felt humiliation like a dark cloud fill her mind, Betsey and the other woman’s voices screaming through her head. Discussing, analyzing, dissecting the infidelities. They knew more than her. They knew everything. There was nowhere to hide, no privacy, nothing was sacred. What did they think when they looked at her? What kind of sad, pathetic woman must they see? Did they pity her? The thought made her gag.
Her mouth opened into an “O”, a silent scream, and she wrapped her arms around her midsection, collapsing on herself. Their dreams would be shattered by her husband’s weakness. By your inability to make him happy. To satisfy him. Ugly, hateful, nagging voices.
If you had just changed your name. If you had just been more beautiful. If you had just been more blonde, had more babies, been softer, sweeter. A good wife. If you had just quit the law firm. If you hadn’t pushed him and pushed him. If you had just stayed in the background, pretty wife on his arm. The voices of her mother-in-law, of men, of women, of the public. Even the voice of Bill. ( Divorce, I want a divorce , he had sometimes sung under his breath when she really raked him over the coals of his own failings.) Faces familiar and strange, pointing fingers, writing columns in newspapers, taking pictures, snap pop flash.
Hours passed, and then Bill was on the bed next to her, gently squeezing her arm.
“Hillary, baby, wake up honey. I need to talk to you.”
And so the story goes again and again, history and the present colliding. But that time, in the early hours of a summer morning in 1987, he was honest, just for moment. Yes, there were other women, and they would talk to the press. And so he couldn’t run... not yet. It was too soon, he was a weak man, he had made so many mistakes. The stories would come up - and they were true, but Oh, honey, he was so sorry - and they would ruin everything. Give it a few years to cool off, for people to forget. He would run next time.
And then the charm came out, the false promises. He promised, he promised. No more. No more other women. In the meantime, he would be good to her. He would care for her like he should. Sorry, he was so very sorry. Lies, he lied to her face. There would be more women, still, even as the 80’s wound to a close. Lean in close, you can taste the dishonesty.
Two days later at the Excelsior hotel, Bill announced that he would not be entering the presidential race.
Hillary stood by his side, as she would again and again and again. Her tears glimmered in the pops and snaps of flashbulbs.