Out on the square, the Del McCoury Band struck up some trademark bluegrass and entertained the crowd gathered to celebrate the start of the campaign. Away from view, Elizabeth Edwards confronted her husband about the glowing blond woman who had obviously arrived with him from the road. However, they couldn’t discuss the issue at length because people were all around and they were about to go onstage.

When the Edwardses finally emerged from their private backstage hell, Mrs. Edwards looked stricken. At center stage, political consultant Mudcat Saunders, veteran of the 2004 campaign, took the microphone and declared himself a “redneck from Virginia Tech, a Hokie who is a recovering alcoholic.” He offered s1; a little testimony about his struggle with alcoholism and how John and Elizabeth Edwards had given him a second chance. Eventually, he worked his way to an introduction of “the next president of the United States,” and the senator instantly transformed his demeanor and walked forward to accept the acclaim of thousands. (Both of the Edwardses had this ability to shift instantaneously from private rage or anguish to public benevolence, and I had seen it so many times that I no longer took much notice.)

The hour was late, and the weather was cold. Edwards’s brief talk covered health care, the war in Iraq, global warming, and the need for change in Washington. He finished with a call for everyone to roll up their sleeves, dig into their pockets, and wear out some shoe leather to win an election that “isn’t about me,” said the senator, “but is about all of us.”

As he finished and the cheering reached a crescendo, no one who looked at the scene could have guessed that the senator’s marriage was coming apart at the seams because his wife had just stumbled upon his mistress, who stood mere yards away. All anyone in the crowd knew was that by announcing early, John Edwards had landed the first punch in the fight for the nomination. Conventional wisdom held that Hillary Clinton was such a polarizing figure that she could never win a general election. Barack Obama was so little known that he seemed to be positioning himself to take the second seat on the ticket, as candidate for vice president of a future White House run. This left John Edwards as the logical and likely choice.

That night, I drove the Edwardses home in silence. The next…

What I wouldn’t find out for many months was that the senator had told Elizabeth that although he had indulged in a “one-​night” fling with Rielle, in recent weeks she had become my mistress! And that’s why we were together as we arrived at Southern Village.

Nine

If you’re not from the South, where these places seem to be on every other corner, the first thing to know about the Golden Corral buffet is the price. Our family of five could eat there for about thirty dollars. The second thing is clown night. Once a week, the management at our local corral brought in a clown to work the dining room. With the kids gaping at his makeup and big rubber shoes and occupied with balloon animals, the clown gave weary mothers and fathers a chance to breathe.

On a clown night in early 2007, Cheri and I balanced the nutritional hazards of turning our kids loose on a pile of fried and sugary food against our need for a little stress relief and decided the rewards outweighed the risk. After we worked our way through the line and found a table, my cell phone began to ring. A check of the screen told me the call was from Mrs. Edwards. All I had to do was show it to Cheri, and she just sighed with acceptance and glanced toward the door, which let me know I could take it outside.

I answered the phone as I walked through the dining room, past the clown and tables filled with families like mine. The first words I heard were, “Hey, Andrew, how are you? How are the kids?”

The pleasant opening made me wary. She hadn’t been nice to me since the PlayStation 3 conflict. She told me the refrigerator at the new house had been acting up, and I thought that perhaps she wanted me to call the repairman again. But as I stepped outside onto the sidewalk and leaned against the wall, her tone changed abruptly. She said that she and the senator had been discussing Rielle Hunter and that while she believed she knew the entire story, she wanted to clear up a few details with me.

Once I agreed to talk, Mrs. Edwards turned from friendly to prosecutorial. The interrogation began with questions about Rielle’s visits to her home. She knew that Rielle had been there to interview the senator’s parents and the children, but she had spent hours reviewing the tape handed over when Rielle was fired and couldn’t find the stuff shot at her house. This only made her more suspicious, and she wanted to know how many other times I had helped this “other woman” invade her sanctuary, to sit on her furniture and enjoy her food and drink.

As my mind raced, I couldn’t think of any other time I may have transported Rielle to the estate, but the shock of being questioned made me feel uncertain and confused. Whenever the senator was home, I might bring half a dozen parties a day to see him. Rielle could have been in one of those groups. But I didn’t think this had happened more than once, and I told her so.

“Andrew,” she replied, “I know you are lying.”

Here she was acting like a detective, using the old technique of suggesting she possessed some kind of incriminating evidence when in fact she did not. It worked a little, making me scour my memory for something I may have forgotten. But then I got a little angry. After all I had done for the Edwards family, I didn’t deserve to be pushed into a triangular drama with the senator and his wife. (He should be answering those questions, not me.) When I stood my ground, she applied one last bit of pressure: “And I have Heather standing here beside me. I know you are lying to me, and if you don’t tell the truth to me, I’ll have John fire you.” When I repeated my answer, insisting I was telling her the truth, she abruptly hung up the phone.

The call gave me something to discuss with Cheri when I got back to the table. She was accustomed to hearing about my difficulties with the Edwardses and had grown bored with their c {d womplaints about household problems like broken refrigerators. However, Rielle Hunter had introduced a new level of drama and danger into the Edwards saga, which made any scene involving her far more compelling. At the table, we agreed that Mrs. Edwards’s investigation was not over and that Rielle was not going to go away. Of course, we didn’t know that Mrs. Edwards believed I had become Rielle’s lover after her husband saw the error of his ways.

After dinner, we went home and I decided to get on the treadmill to work off some of the mashed potatoes I’d eaten. I was still angry when our home phone rang. I checked the caller ID and answered because it was Mrs. Edwards again. Cheri, who had glanced at a phone in another room and knew who was on the line, came to listen to my side of the conversation. It was a good move, because this was one of the few times that my end of an exchange with Elizabeth Edwards was worth hearing.

She began by saying that she thought I hadn’t been given a full opportunity to “tell the truth” and now she was willing to listen. After I asked whether she wanted the truth or “what you want to hear,” she opted for the straight story and I launched into a minor diatribe.

“Mrs. Edwards, I love you like a big sister, and I love your husband like a big brother,” I continued, “and after ten years of me working for you, for you to treat me like this is wrong, utterly wrong.”