Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage by Dina Matos McGreevey Read Free Book Online Page B

attracted to you,” Grace said when we next saw each other.
    “Hmmm,” I nonanswered.
    “The two of you would make such a cute couple.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said, my attempt at a tactful “No comment.”
    A few weeks later, I heard something similar from another friend, Maria, who had also been at the dinner when Jim and I met. “You know,” she said, “my husband and daughter said they think Jim McGreevey is interested in you. Come to think of it, you’d make a great couple.”
    “C’mon, stop!” I protested, laughing. “There’s nothing there. We enjoyed chatting that night, but that’s it.”
    Actually, spark or no spark, for whatever set of reasons on Jim’s part, nothing more was forthcoming.
    In the months that followed, Manny persisted in telling me more about Jim.
    “Did you know Jim’s wife left him?”
    “Oh, that’s a shame.” It really was a shame. And, I thought, maybe the reason our conversation that evening hadn’t led to a next time.
    Taking my response as a sign of encouragement, Manny continued.
    “Yeah, in ’94.” He nodded at me significantly. “She didn’t like politics. She couldn’t take it.”
    I’d heard that in Woodbridge, the town where Jim was now mayor, the politics were down and dirty. Another mayoral election had been coming up for Jim in ’95, so, said Manny, sometime in 1994 Jim’s wife packed a bag for herself and their toddler daughter and headed out the door. She never came back.
    “That’s the story,” Manny said. “Isn’t that terrible?”
    “It is,” I agreed.
    “Want to help him mend a broken heart?” That was Manny—subtleties not included.
    I retreated back into my noncommittal, monosyllabic mutter. I didn’t like being so evasive, especially with Manny, who was so well intentioned, but I just was not ready to be set up. Besides, I had no idea whether this man I’d so recently met was done with his first marriage, hopelessly pining, or perhaps trying to repair it. Knowing as little as I did, I wanted to keep my distance. But on the face of it, I thought it
was
terrible what Jim’s wife had done. What kind of person would take off with her child and leave her husband behind, depriving him of watching his own daughter grow up? I could imagine the pain he must have felt, was probably still feeling. I didn’t know what their relationship was like, but to me, if there was a child involved, it changed everything. The marriage might be so much dirty bathwater, but you just can’t throw the baby out with it. No parent has the right to destroy or disrupt a child’s relationship with the other parent. And let me say I still feel this way today. At the time Manny told me about how Jim’s marriage had ended, I didn’t reply, because I didn’t want to encourage him. But I felt a flood of sympathy for Jim that might have opened my heart to him a bit more.
    Meanwhile Manny and Grace continued to entertain themselves with their matchmaking plans. I know this because at one of the meetings Manny and I were at together, he told me.
    “Grace and I have been talking to Jim McGreevey about you,” he whispered conspiratorially.
    “Oh?”
    Manny nodded. “We went to him and said, ‘Boy, do we have a girl for you!’”
    “Oh?”
    “We asked him what he thought of you, too.”
    This time I didn’t even insert my noncommittal “Oh?” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know. What woman doesn’t want to hear how she’s thought of by a man she herself finds both attractive and interesting? Besides, it was probably a safe question. Since Manny was raising the subject, the news was bound to be positive. But I still wasn’t sure I was up for anything. I was readier than I’d been months earlier, but that didn’t necessarily mean ready. Besides, I knew that if I showed any interest in what Jim thought of me, Manny and Grace would push it with him, and I didn’t want that. The scrutiny would have made my skin crawl. I didn’t want to feel like I was