Stephanie Madoff Mack - The End of Normal

T HE E ND OF N ORMAL

A Wifes Anguish, A Widows New Life

STEPHANIE MADOFF MACK

with Tamara Jones

BLUE RIDER PRESS

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

New York

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

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Copyright 2011 by Stephanie Mack

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN 9781101559222

BOOK DESIGN BY CLAIRE NAYLON VACCARO

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.
In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;
however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the authors alone.

For my children,
Audrey and Nicholas,

and in loving memory of my husband,
Mark D. Madoff

C ONTENTS

one

T HE L AST D AY OF N ORMAL

E very night before going to sleep, I put a fresh towel down on my side of the bed, knowing it will be drenched with perspiration by the time I bolt awake, precisely and without fail, at 3:51 in the morning. Usually Im sobbing already, my body shaking, my heart exploding. I dont know this person, this scared new self. I wish I could believe even once that she isnt real, that Im seeing her through the fog of a bad dream. I was always the one who would nod off three pages into a book, or before the first commercial if Mark and I were watching TV after the kids were down for the night. Mark used to joke about how soundly I could sleep, how utterly peaceful I looked, and how loudly I could snore. Now night terrors have become my normal.

How cruel that they would begin in a place that once felt so safe and comforting, so alive with our happiness. By day, our apartment on Mercer Street was airy and inviting, a signature SoHo loft with soaring ceilings and a full wall of windows. Mark and I loved the big, open floor plan, and we had eagerly knocked down more walls to make it even more expansive. I never imagined that there would come a time when our beautiful home would close in on me deep in the night, sucking the air from my lungs, waking me in a panic.

Now it doesnt matter where I am anymore: The terror will find me. I know I will lie there crying in the predawn hush, my children in their cartoon pajamas sleeping unaware in their bedrooms down the hall. Filled with dread, I follow what has become a horrifying ritual. I wrap my fingers around my throat and tighten my grip gradually, testing. How long do the lungs fight back? I imagine the moment when everything goes black. Is there a rush of pain, of fear, or is it euphoric relief?

I turn onto my left side to stare at the alarm clock on the nightstand, willing the glowing numbers to fall into place. I need it to be time. I need it to be 4:14. There is a reason why I am awake at this hour, a vigil I have to keep.

And so I watch the clock, silently counting off the same twenty-three minutes night after night, waiting for my husband to kill himself.

By the time the first morning light spills through the window, I am able to be the person the world needs me to be again, finishing my cup of tea, getting both kids ready for preschool, checking my e-mail to determine what needs to be done and who cant be ignored. I follow the Hallmark Hall of Fame script of a lucky stay-at-home mother, ordering cupcake slippers for my daughter online, signing up for a spin class at the gym, making plans to meet an old friend for a glass of wine before dinner. I apologize to the dog as he whimpers in front of the cabinet where his treats are stored. Youve already had enough.

If you were outside looking in on this tableau, you might think we were any normal family. You might think we were more than content, living a dream life, even. You would be wrong. But we were that, and we had that, once.

Our last day of normal fell in the winter of 2008. It was December, and we were in Greenwich, Connecticut, where we spent every Tuesday night with Marks two children from his first marriage. It seems like I should be able to remember what we talked about that night, what news the kids had about their classmates or their tennis lessons or swim meets, the table manners we corrected or sibling quarrels we quashed. But these banalities of everyday life arent anything you think to preserve, much less cherish. Why bother? It was just another Tuesday.

The next morning, December 10, we drove the kids to school before heading back to Manhattan. Mark rolled down his window as usual to heckle his thirteen-year-old daughter as she joined a clutch of friends heading to class. Hey, Kate! Learn a lot! he shouted, laughing when she shot him the mortified look he had hoped for. Mark worshipped Kate and her sixteen-year-old brother, Daniel, with a devotion I found alternately endearing and maddening. His kids came first, no matter what. As a parent, I understood that part of the equation perfectly. But Mark also had a chronic case of divorced-daddy syndrome, missing his son and daughter so much that he often overcompensated by trying to anticipate every possible need and kowtow to every whim. When we were all together, any restaurant we ate at or movie we saw was the childrens choice to make. Mark craved their company, but now that they were teenagers, Kate and Daniel both had busy social lives of their own to manage, and that didnt always include blocking out Tuesday nights or every other weekend for their father. It didnt matter. Even if he knew he wouldnt see them, Mark insisted that we make the hour-long trip just so they would know he was there.

Try as I did to be a good sportand a good stepmotherI have to admit that being a second wife grated on me at times, and my insecurities about my own place in the pecking order of Marks close-knit family were the biggest bone of contention between the two of us. It wasnt just my imagination, though. I was often overshadowed by Marks failed first marriage, so much so that his mother routinely called me Susan instead of Stephanie, even though I had come along three years after his bitter divorce. It rankled me that Kate and Daniels mother remained, by extension, so deeply entwined in our lives. Its part of the mix, Mark would shrug, anxious to keep the peace. I tried to suck it up, and was successful more often than not, but I never really perfected the art.