There were moments when I felt guilty for being extended so much sympathy, especially when I knew so many of the people extending it had experienced tragedies far worse than mine. It staggered me to think about how so many of them had faced their losses without the love and resources available to me.
There were also times, I have to admit, when I felt as if no one else could understand my pain. It seemed narcissistic even to contemplate. Yet that didn’t make it feel any less true. Believing that your pain is exceptional doesn’t lessen anyone else’s.
Pain is our universal condition. People can go through life without finding love, but no one lives for long without experiencing real hurt. It can connect us or it can isolate us. I vacillated between the two.
Those were thoughts that overwhelmed me on that sad, triumphant day in Charleston, then the epicenter of America’s pain.
I continued to experience bouts of hopefulness and hopelessness. My dad and I struggled, neither of us knowing quite how to put our finger on what we wanted to say. When I looked into his eyes I saw what struck me as insurmountable sadness—as well as concern for me. It wasn’t just that Beau was missing. The question that lingered was bigger than that, and one we hadn’t yet answered for ourselves: If we weren’t the three of us anymore, what were we?
At one point, I remember telling Dad, “I don’t know if I should be grateful or angry at you for making us all love each other so much.”
He took it the way it sounded, which was as a pretty spectacular compliment. And it was, in one way. Yet I also meant it in a more literal sense. I just felt so much pain, as I know he did and still does.
I tried to keep my focus on my kids and family and the things that gave me a real sense of meaning and motive.
I then allowed one moment, and all the underlying anger and confusion it unleashed, to give me the excuse to drink again. It was an almost instantaneous reaction, at once impulsive and short-sighted and, perhaps, inevitable.
Virtually everything I did afterward, for the next four years, resulted in me stumbling, then sliding, then racing downhill.
On July 2, Kathleen and I took our traditional anniversary walk: one mile for each year we’d been married. The twenty-two-mile trip that warm, overcast day started in Georgetown, looped past the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, then crossed the Potomac River and followed a rolling towpath nearly to Mount Vernon. We then retraced our steps back home.
Along the way, we discussed our marriage: past, present, and future. There was plenty to talk about. We were on rocky ground. If you’re married to someone for twenty-two years, there are twenty-two million reasons to get a divorce. To my mind, however, there are not many good ones.
Kathleen had said, “Tell me everything; let’s get everything out in the open that we can.” I owned up to all my shortcomings—every grievance, every secret, every sin. We talked about our lack of intimacy, my being consumed by work and keeping up with our crushing bills, my past bouts with drinking, and how I was addressing those problems now. I hadn’t had a drink in months. Some things were more troublesome than others, but I didn’t think any of them rose to the level of ending our marriage. I was committed—recommitted—to making it work.
The next day we met with a couples’ counselor whom we had worked with together for a while and who more recently I’d been seeing alone. She was aware of our anniversary tradition and asked how it went. I responded enthusiastically. I said it had been cathartic and felt that we’d come to a better understanding of where we stood. I said it left me feeling hopeful.
Then Kathleen answered. It was as if we had walked twenty-two miles in opposite directions. Her take, basically: “Cathartic? Who are you kidding? You can say that you’re sorry for the rest of your life and it wouldn’t matter. I’m never going to forgive you.”
I was floored. In that moment, everything we’d said to each other the day before seemed for naught—seemed like utter bullshit. It felt like Kathleen had made the decision that we were over on the day Beau died and that the conversation we’d had driving home after his funeral really had been the end.
I snapped. I did the kind of counterproductive thing that every good alcoholic knows how to do in times of deep frustration: I set out to prove her right.
I walked out of the session, bought a bottle of vodka, and drained it.
Within weeks I was back in rehab.
I didn’t want to burden my dad with the problems of my marriage, with my doubts and loneliness. I only wanted to project to him a sense of well-being. Not only was he dealing with Beau’s loss while continuing to perform the duties of his office, but he was also in the midst of deciding whether to run for president in 2016.
The only recourse to salvaging my marriage and returning home was to enroll in another rehab program and stay 100 percent sober. Kathleen made that clear: I wasn’t permitted back into the house until I met those criteria. I didn’t think it was the best thing for me, my problem, or my kids, but I didn’t think she knew what else to do.
I became an outpatient for about a month at a facility at the University of Pennsylvania, living during that period in my uncle Jimmy’s house in Philadelphia. Therapists prescribed two drugs for me, one to lessen my cravings, another to make me feel sick to my stomach if I drank. I didn’t test the effect of the latter. The effect of the first drug was middling.
I spent the following month at an inpatient program on a rural mountaintop
