Too Much and Never Enough, стр. 58
Fred no doubt believed that my dad had been given the same tools, the same advantages, and the same opportunities as Donald had. If Freddy had thrown them all away, that wasn’t his father’s fault. If, despite them, my dad had continued to be a terrible provider, my brother and I should consider ourselves lucky that there were trust funds our father couldn’t squander when he was alive. Whatever happened to us after that had nothing to do with Fred Trump. He had done his part; we had no right to expect more.
While the lawsuits were still in progress, I received word that, after a brief illness, Gam had died on August 7, 2000, at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, just as my grandfather had. She was eighty-eight.
If I had known she was sick, I think I would have tried to see her, but the fact that she hadn’t asked to see me clarified just how easy it had been for us to let each other go. We had never spoken after that last phone conversation, just as I had not spoken again to Robert, Donald, Maryanne, or Elizabeth. It had never occurred to me to try.
Fritz and I decided to attend Gam’s funeral, but, knowing we were unwelcome, we stood in one of the overflow rooms at the back of Marble Collegiate Church. Along with a couple of Donald’s security guards, we watched the service on a closed-circuit monitor.
The eulogies were remarkable only for what was not said. There was a lot of speculation about my grandparents’ reunion in Heaven, but my father, their oldest son, who had been dead for almost twenty-seven years, was not mentioned at all. He didn’t even appear in my grandmother’s obituary.
I received a copy of Gam’s will a few weeks after she died. It was a carbon copy of my grandfather’s, with one exception: my brother and I had been removed from the section outlining the bequests for her grandchildren. My father and his entire line had now been effectively erased.
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The Worst Investment Ever Made
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HIRTEEN
The Political Is Personal
Nearly a decade would pass before I saw my family again, in October 2009 at my cousin Ivanka’s wedding to Jared Kushner. I had no idea why I’d received the invitation—which was printed on the same heavy-gauge stationery favored by the Trump Organization.
As the limo I’d taken from my home on Long Island approached the clubhouse at Donald’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, which looked eerily like the House, I was unsure what to expect. Ushers handed out black shawls, which made me feel a little less exposed as I wrapped one around my shoulders.
The outdoor ceremony took place beneath a large white tent. Gilt chairs were lined up in rows on either side of a gilt-trimmed runway carpet. The traditional Jewish chuppah, covered in white roses, was about the size of my house. Donald stood awkwardly in a yarmulke. Before the vows, Jared’s father, Charles, who’d been released from prison three years earlier, rose to tell us that when Jared had first introduced him to Ivanka, he had thought she would never be good enough to join his family. It was only after she had committed to converting to Judaism and worked hard to make it happen that he had begun to think she might be worthy of them after all. Considering that Charles had been convicted of hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, taping their illicit encounter, and then sending the recording to his sister at his nephew’s engagement party, I found his condescension a bit out of line. After the ceremony, my brother, my sister-in-law, and I entered the clubhouse.
As I walked down the hallway, I saw my uncle Rob. My last exchange with him had been when he’d hung up on me in 1999 after I had told him that Fritz and I were hiring a lawyer to contest my grandfather’s will. As I approached him now, he surprised me by breaking into a smile. He put his hand out, then leaned down—he was much taller than I was even in my heels—shook my hand, and kissed me on the cheek, the typical Trump greeting.
“Honeybunch! How are you?” he said brightly. Before I could answer, he said, “You know, I’ve been thinking that the statute of limitations on family estrangement has passed.” Then, bouncing on the balls of his feet, he smacked a closed fist into his open palm in a not-quite-accurate imitation of my grandfather.
“That sounds good to me,” I said. We spent a couple of minutes exchanging pleasantries. When we were done, I walked up the stairs to the cocktail reception, where I spotted Donald speaking to somebody I recognized—a mayor or a governor—although I can’t recall who it was.
“Hi, Donald,” I said, as I walked toward them.
“Mary! You look great.” He shook my hand and kissed my cheek, as Rob had. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too.” It was a relief to discover that things between us were pleasant and civil. Having established that, I gave way to the next person in the lengthening line of people, some of them waiting to congratulate the father of the bride. But The Apprentice had just concluded its eighth season, so it’s just as likely that many of them were simply there for the photo op. “Have fun,” he called after me as I walked away.
The reception was being held in an enormous ballroom quite a distance from the hors d’oeuvres. Along the way I saw my aunt Liz in the distance, chasing after her husband. I caught her eye and waved. She waved back and said, “Hi, sweetie pie.” But she didn’t stop, and that was the