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it.”
     
     
     
    Jackie always looked forward to seeing him. Witty, with a store of stories about the Russians, Guy always made sure that he told her how useful she had been, a lesson her husband only learned toward the end of his life.
    As it was the first time Guy had seen her since the assassination, he expressed his sympathy and sorrow. Then, breathing on his cupped hands, he said, “It’s about as cold as a Siberian winter out there today. Does this mean there are always people waiting outside?”
    “Yes, always,” she said, sighing.
    Now that she was alone it seemed only natural that she should tell him about the problems she was having with security. With his background he would be in a good position to understand.
    “They wait at all hours and as the Secret Service can’t be sure that one of them isn’t a madman we have extra men on guard. The whole thing escalates from there. Since these extra guys are all visible, passers by see them and think, Hey, something’s going on, and so it mushrooms. The three of us have started to hate going out. You should come at the weekend!”
    To illustrate these difficulties she couldn’t resist leaning out of the window.
    Immediately a Secret Service man looked up from the garden.
    Pretty soon, like naughty children, they couldn’t stop takingturns to look out of several ground-floor windows to the resultant semisilent panic of various Secret Service agents.
    Bad behavior or not, they got the giggles.
    Amazed that she could still laugh, she wanted to do it all over again.
    Something in her demeanor made Guy want to indulge her.
    He expected her to be low but from the moment he arrived he thought the house seemed to be crushing her, that the somber shadows of the place appeared to add more misery to the mood of the former First Lady.
    Innocents caught up in horror and outrage often took years to cleanse themselves of fear and shock. How could she forget the moments when she had held the innards of the man she had loved, had seen the instantaneous removal of all of his dignity, let alone his life?
    Guy’s training had included a great deal of information about the psychological effect of such a bloody baptismal.
    But the heavy drapes and the comings and goings of too many Secret Service staff, all knowing her family’s routine, their moments of anguish or joy, seemed to him to be an extra punishment.
    As they talked, he realized that for her there were no-go areas in her own home. She didn’t stir toward the kitchen for their coffees or for her beloved Newport cigarettes. She relied on staff. He could see this irked her. He knew that in the White House, while she disliked being under a magnifying glass, there was enough space to be unaware of the minders.
    He could see that she was a person who had used up all her strength and fire on the nation’s behalf. A woman who was now quite capable of being drowned in Secret Service guilt.
    It wasn’t right.
    It wasn’t fair.
    “Jackie, I know it is easy for me to say but the last thing you should be worried about now are threats.
    “Think of it this way, the worst that could possibly be done has been done.”
    “No, you’re wrong,” she said harshly, her face creased into a rare tightness. “You are so wrong. So wrong,” she repeated.
    “Please don’t believe in all the stories, like everyone else. Because I don’t go out everyone thinks I can’t cope with not being First Lady. Not having protocol and pomp and ‘Hail to the Chief.’ Of course I miss my husband, I’m sad that he could not fulfill his dreams, go on being in the White House, see the children grow up, but there are worse things: they could hurt my children.”
    “Then you have three choices, stay here with the understanding that these guys are just trying to do their job. They know they mustn’t screw up again, but there just isn’t the room here for them to operate without your being aware of them breathing down your neck.
    “Or move to a