Free Jack's Widow by Eve Pollard

often bedded the same women. Jack would seduce them and then they would fall into Deck’s arms when “Potatoes” (as the older man always called his friend) had discarded them. Of course, the girls rarely realized exactly what was happening. The dashing pair would roll up in Deck’s latest sports car to collect them, then, occasionally after just one date, Jack would ask the girl out again and during dinner, if he had his eye on someone new, would do his disappearing act, leaving Deck to pick up the pieces. Slowly they would fall for the gentler, sweeter man.
    From day one Jackie had learned to accept Deck as part of the Kennedy equation.
    More poignantly, in the early years of her marriage, Deck would be the one to drive her home when Jack vanished. Carefully ignoring her anger and pain, he would brilliantly pretend that Jack probably had a very good reason for having to dash back to the office. He never admitted that his pal was the “low, contemptible bastard” that Jackie called him but would always attempt to dredge up some excuse for his friend’s behavior. More feeble than feasible, nonetheless these well-bred, considerate lies had been part of the putty that kept the marriage together until Caroline was born.
    Deck’s wealth meant that he had no need of a job. He occasionally wrote pieces for small literary magazines. Often engaged but never married, he was always able to drop everything to drive down to Hyannisport, fly off to the Riviera, or sit at the back of the train on campaign trails.
    He was very well read and took great plea sure when a word or phrase that he suggested crept into his friend’s speeches. He didn’t care if the speech was delivered at the local Boy Scout meeting or on Capitol Hill. He was just happy to be of service.
    When Jack Kennedy’s heart stopped in Dallas, Jackie knew that it might as well have been Deck’s. His life, his extravagant hobby, the worship of his president, his friend, was at an end.
    In the first few days he was the only visitor allowed to pass through the curtain of bitterness and tears that surrounded the president’s parents. When he returned to Washington there was a deep emptiness in his life. He was lost. The first Christmas, just four weeks after Dallas, without his friend, he found that he had nowhere to go. Jackie’s mother was watching over her daughter andinvited no one except close family. An old fiancée suggested that Nevada was the place to escape. He was encouraged to lose himself in a land where there were no clocks, no snow, no sentimentality. Once there he didn’t look back.
    Jackie had seen him only once or twice in the last year when they had both turned up at her brother-in-law’s Sunday lunches. He was godfather to her daughter and to one or two of the cousins. He charmed the children, all of whom called him “Uncle Deck.”
    Before he heard the news about Monroe, she had to talk to him.
    She puffed away at a cigarette while she waited for him to emerge. Having nowhere else to stub the butt out, she deposited it down by the side of a tub of white hydrangea encased in a majolica jardinière, one she well remembered acquiring, though not for this purpose. She marveled at what her life had come to, skulking around her old home trying to find out the truth about her late husband’s sexual affairs.
    In her mind she went over and over what Jack had sworn to. The hurt it summoned made it all seem like yesterday. She was sure he had mentioned Deck. His great buddy had been there.
    Not that long ago, and yet it seemed like another century.
    She noted that as he opened the door he checked both ways to see if the coast was clear.
    When she stepped out in front of him, he jumped.
    As she drew close to him she could tell from the shaking hand holding his cigar that Deck, Mr. Cool, was nervous.
    “Hello, Deck,” she said quietly.
    Before he gave her a kiss or had a chance to mention his pain, her pain, today’s ceremony or anything else, she