The way I saw it, Rielle presented a problem with three possible outcomes. If Edwards ended the relationship, she would probably go to the press, reveal the affair, and, I assumed, supply enough solid evidence to make the story stick. Since he had presented himself to the country as the handsome and brilliant man of the people who was standing by his wife through her illness, news of an affair would end Senator Edwards’s political career. If he followed the second option, he could keep seeing Rielle and, if Elizabeth found out, risk a divorce that would expose him in the same way. The difference here was that Mrs. Edwards’s desire to live in the White House was as great as, if not greater than, his. She had already accepted his personal betrayals as part of the price for the real estate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The third option would be to continue to see Rielle and hope to keep Mrs. Edwards in the dark until after the election. Callous as it was, the senator chose this last option and pursued the presidency with all the energ {aly he could muster while talking to me about how much easier life would be without Elizabeth. I thought all of this was repulsive, but since she had forced me out of her life, I felt there was nothing I could do about it.

Ironically, once the senator was relaxed about discussing Rielle with me, he frequently aired the same kinds of complaints about her that he had expressed about Mrs. Edwards in the past. He said Rielle was overly demanding and emotional, and he frequently called her “crazy.” But just as he counted on his sometimes “crazy” wife for counsel and support, he depended on “crazy” Rielle’s input and advice. Along with her commitment to do everything and anything he requested as part of her spiritual mission to see him become a world leader, she offered political guidance, comments on strategy, and criticisms on every aspect of his performance from wardrobe to cadence. Although it came mixed with horoscope readings and other New Age mumbo jumbo, the senator genuinely valued Rielle’s input. He called her before every debate or major public appearance and generally called her afterward for a critique. I know, because I was the go-​between who used three-​way calling to connect them so no record of Rielle’s number would appear on his phone.

Strange as it may sound for a man raised a Southern Baptist, I think the senator was open to the idea that Rielle might have a special power to see into the future-a startling number of powerful people believe in such things-and that her age and social background meant she could speak for a part of the electorate he wanted to reach. Finally, in listening to her and including her in the campaign, he rewarded her for accepting the mistress role and staying in the background. She clearly loved playing secret adviser to a future president, and he fed her feeling of importance by having me send her the daily schedule, clippings from the national press, and important memos so they could discuss them. Regardless of her flakiness, she did provide an interesting and creative perspective on his campaign.

Besides information, Rielle needed money. She had worked in the past as a spiritual adviser, but now believed her life’s purpose was serving John Edwards. The senator wanted to keep her happy but had difficulty getting money to her. He once gave her his bank card, but when Mrs. Edwards saw that a large sum had been withdrawn in New York when her husband was in California, she sent out an alarm. He was able to make some kind of excuse to cover up this incident, but from that point on he asked me to handle Rielle’s finances. I used my credit card to book hotel rooms and airline flights for Rielle. I even gave him cash to give her-a few hundred dollars at a time-when I took him to the airport for outbound flights. He promised I would be repaid when a wealthy benefactor was recruited to cover these costs or when Mrs. Edwards died.

“I’ll take care of you, Andrew,” he said. “You know I’m good for it.”

Elizabeth Edwards’s cancer had hung over her family and the senator’s various organizations ever since it was discovered in 2004. At that time, it was described as a metastatic for {metm of breast cancer that is almost always fatal, and the senator talked about the future in the bleakest terms. But three years after it was discovered and her treatment was begun, Mrs. Edwards seemed as robust as ever. She was so active that I sometimes forgot she had been diagnosed.

In many ways, the senator acted as if she were gone already. In March he arranged to celebrate Rielle’s birthday at the Hotel Fort Des Moines while he campaigned in Iowa. When the date arrived, I got an urgent call from John Davis, who was with him. The plans had been changed, he said, and the boss was coming home. He gave me the time to pick him up at the private hangar at Raleigh-​Durham International and warned me that the senator was “very upset.” He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew it was bad.

At the airport, Edwards skipped the usual handshakes he offered the ground crew and hustled to my Suburban. He didn’t say a word until we had left the airport proper and had merged onto the interstate. “ Elizabeth ’s cancer is back,” he said, “and it’s bad.”

The senator looked out the window and cried as he told me that Elizabeth ’s cancer had spread to her bones. He told me she had heard one of her ribs break as she was moving a box “and cussing you out, Andrew, for putting it in the wrong place.” Publicly, she would say the fracture happened when Senator Edwards had hugged her too hard. I wondered what she thought she gained from this version of events.

Imaging done at the hospital had turned up a fracture on one side of Mrs. Edwards’s rib cage and a mass on the other. A biopsy had shown a malignancy in one rib, and further tests indicated the cancer had spread to other areas of the body. As he talked about his wife’s condition, the senator used words like “fatal” and “terminal” and seemed to be genuinely grief-​stricken. But then, as we reached a point halfway to his house, the conversation turned to the campaign and he made it clear that they both wanted it to continue. Within days they agreed that this diagnosis would generate positive publicity after frustrating months when the press ignored him. They actually believed the cancer would give the senator’s poll numbers a boost.

From a coldly political perspective, they were correct. If people believed the campaign was intended to serve others, the brave pursuit of a victory despite the cancer would seem heroic. Anyone else whose spouse had received a death sentence diagnosis might decide to chuck all current plans and devote the time to a sail around the world or anything else his or her heart desired. But the White House was what the Edwardses desired most, and they weren’t going to give up the dream just because of a fatal illness. Instead, they planned to bring them on the campaign trail so the family could be together as much as possible. (They would be “homeschooled” along the way, with lessons taught from books and trips to museums and historic sites wherever they traveled.)

As we exited the interstate and turned west toward Chapel Hill, the senator recalled that Rielle was waiting for him in Iowa. He used my cell phone to call her and explained why he would not be there to celebrate her birthday. When he finished going through his wife’s d {wifiagnosis and describing how it would be revealed to the press, he paused to let her respond. She cussed him out so loudly that I could hear almost every word. He let her complain and then kept saying he was sorry until we approached the long driveway that led to his house. The senator repeatedly tried to end the call and finally asked me to pull over since we were near his home, but Rielle wouldn’t stop talking. After the senator finished placating Rielle and ended the call, we then went up the drive, and I let him out. Before he went inside, he told me to send Rielle some flowers but to leave the name John off the card.