The Politician

“Are you kidding me?”

“We just have to deal with this. I know it’s ridiculous. But it’s not going to be for very long.”

Cheri had seen so much crazy stuff where the Edwardses were concerned that she wasn’t exactly surprised. Instead, she was angry and disgusted. But she trusted me enough to just shake her head in a weary way and say okay.

Rielle caught a flight on American Airlines and arrived at the Raleigh airport at about nine-​thirty P.M. She came out of the terminal wearing tight jeans, sunglasses, and the long pink scarf that was her signature accessory. I drove her to the house in the four-​wheel-​drive convertible Jeep I had bought once Mrs. Edwards barred me from driving her husband and I no longer needed the Suburban. I had the top off, and Rielle complained about the rough ride all the way down Interstate 40 and through the security gate at the Governors Club. When she got to the house, which was a pretty impressive million-​dollar place, her mood changed. She followed me up to the door as I carried her bag. As she entered the foyer, which was lit by a big chandelier, she took a spin like Mary Tyler Moore’s whirl in the opening of the 1970s TV show and cried, “I’m heeeeere!” As she squealed, her sunglasses flew off her head.

Cheri was as kind as she could be for a wife greeting the mistress of her husband’s boss at ten-​thirty P.M. She welcomed Rielle and listened as she excitedly told us how she had evaded the photographers and escaped to North Carolina. Rielle has an almost childish voice and the Valley girl habit of making statements in a tone that rises at the end of the sentence, making it sound as if she’s asking a question. She laughed a lot and spoke about her day as if it had been an adventure. She seemed to like the idea that she was being pursued. She genuinely admired John Edwards and believed she could help him present himself to the world in a more effective and appealing way. But she also liked the power that came with being the woman with a secret that could bring down a presidential candidate.

The next morning, when the kids awakened to find a strange lady in the house, we explained that she worked with me and she needed our help. This explanation seemed to be enough (we had had many staffers stay with us over the years), and since Rielle barely interacted with the kids or even showed much interest in them, they didn’t ask many questions. We had to leave town for my stepfather’s funeral, and when we came back, the senator told me to rent a house in the Governors Club where Rielle could live by herself. This seemed the best option for keeping her quiet and safe during the pregnancy. It would also allow the senator to come visit by claiming to have an appointment with me.

With funds supplied by Bu

Rielle lived with us for about two weeks while waiting for the lease on her place to start. She had some a

The senator’s risk taking made Rielle feel she was his true love. She talked constantly about how Edwards was fighting against his “destiny” and that he should “let the universe take him where he is supposed to go.” At the top of this agenda was honesty, she said, and for this reason she protested how he asked her to “live a lie” by hiding the relationship. Every time she heard the senator mention how much he loved his cancer-​stricken wife-this line was a campaign staple offered primarily to women voters-Rielle became angry and resentful. Over and over again, she said she didn’t know how much longer she could violate her superior moral code by staying silent. But then we would go shopping for a car, or the deliveryman would arrive with something she’d bought over the Internet, and her impatience would subside. It seemed like every few minutes I got an e-​mail confirming a purchase Rielle had made from Pierre Deux, Restoration Hardware, or The Children’s Place.

Empowered with a credit card and money that unknowingly came from Bu

Other people, however, talked. Within days of Rielle’s arrival in North Carolina, the Enquirer quoted a “friend” of the mistress who explained how the two met and that “sparks flew immediately.”

The tabloid report made Mrs. Edwards furious, and as the senator told me time and again, she screamed and yelled and cried and repeatedly threatened suicide. In the coming months, she would do everything possible to monitor his movements and track his contacts. Her telephone calls and demands for attention would make him late for many campaign appearances. But through it all, he never seemed to grasp the magnitude of the trouble he faced. Instead, he would tell me that if the truth ever came out, it would be, at worst, a one-​day news story because “everyone knows” that politicians screw around on their wives. What this position denied was the fact that ƒ thhis wife had cancer and he had sold himself to the American public as a devoted husband and family man who talked about his faith in order to appeal to Christian voters.

The senator’s minimizing may have been a psychological strategy, a way for him to stay calm while heading down the path to self-​destruction. I say this because if you look at what he did rather than what he told me, the fear is obvious. Why else would he work so hard to get me to serve as his protector? Almost immediately after the paper reported on Rielle, he issued a statement denying the affair and accusing the paper of fabricating the whole thing. “The story is false,” he said. “It’s completely untrue, ridiculous.” Speaking to reporters, he added that he had been “in love with the same woman for thirty-​plus years” and that she remained “loving, beautiful, sexy, and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story’s just false.”