American Wife Read online

  DEDICATION

  FOR CHRIS—MY LOVE, MY LIFE

  EPIGRAPH

  IF I COULD SUM MY LIFE UP IN FOUR WORDS, THEY WOULD BE THESE:

  TAKEN TOGETHER, THESE HAVE BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY, THOUGH WITH THAT JOY I HAVE ALSO FOUND THE DEEPEST SORROW.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Preface: The Longest Day

  1

  LOVE

  2

  WAR

  3

  FAME

  Photo Section

  4

  SHATTERED

  5

  DESPAIR

  6

  FAITH

  7

  RENEWAL

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PREFACE: THE LONGEST DAY

  When life brings you to your knees, you are in the perfect position to pray.

  FEBRUARY 2, 2013

  Saturday, and like a lot of Saturdays, we were going in a dozen different directions. But as always, we began the day together.

  First up was a rec basketball game at the local church gym. Both of our children, Bubba and Angel, were on the team. My husband Chris and I made it a point of attending the games together. Not only were we were a vital part of the team’s cheering section, but the hour or two in the gym let us reconnect with our friends, maintaining the neighborly ties that are so important in a small town. It was always a fun time.

  We took different vehicles—Chris his truck, me the family SUV—because we had to split up after the game. I was taking the kids to friends’ and then later the mall; Chris was going shooting at a range he’d helped design.

  He was bringing a friend, and another man he knew only as a veteran in need.

  A few days before, a woman had approached my husband while he was dropping the kids off at school. He didn’t know her, but like nearly everyone in the community, she knew who he was: Chris Kyle, American Sniper, former SEAL, war hero, and freshly minted celebrity. The story of his life had been a bestseller for over a year; Hollywood planned a major motion picture starring Bradley Cooper, the hottest actor in America. Since the book’s publication in January 2012, Chris had been on TV numerous times, starred in a reality series, and spoken at events across the country. His easygoing smile and matter-of-fact personality attracted admirers near and far.

  He also had a warm heart and a genuine reputation for helping people, especially veterans and others in need in our community. And it was that reputation that brought the woman to Chris. She told him her son was just back from Iraq and having a little trouble getting the help he needed from the VA and fitting into civilian life. She asked if he might be able to talk to him.

  Chris didn’t know the young man, nor was he told the vast depth of his problems: fitting in was the least of them. But as he nearly always did, Chris told her he’d see what he could do. Chris and I talked about where they might go. He settled on Rough Creek Lodge, a serene and peaceful place where they wouldn’t be bothered. He recruited our dear friend and neighbor, Chad Littlefield, to come with them.

  That was today. It was a long drive, perhaps an hour and a half each way. Chris believed the time in the truck would give them a chance to get to know each other. Once the young man was comfortable, Chris would recommend people who might help him, assuming he thought that necessary. For many veterans coming home from a war zone, just being able to share the displacement they felt was enough to set them onto a normal course.

  The young man’s name was Eddie Routh. He had been a Marine, and he had been deployed, though apparently he hadn’t seen combat. But his troubles started before that. Routh had held his girlfriend and a friend of hers at knifepoint and had a history of problems including drug abuse. Whether he was suffering from PTSD or not, his problems went far beyond that, in a different and far more lethal direction. He had threatened to kill his family and himself, been in and out of mental institutions, and generally acted antisocial—important facts that neither Chris nor I knew that morning.

  The game went well. I don’t remember the score, but I know we both cheered a lot. Chris’s hearty laugh filled the auditorium; it was a day of great if simple joy.

  Chris and I had been married now over a decade, and while it may sound like a cliché, our love had grown deeper over time. The attraction we’d both felt at our very first meeting had deepened into something truly beautiful. Like all marriages, we’d had our share of ups and downs, heartache and triumph, but lately we’d hit a kind of glorious plateau. We were spending more time together and had found a rhythm that gave us both comfort and shelter, even as our world had expanded and changed.

  Chris left when the game ended, so he could get ready for the rest of the day. I gathered the kids and a friend, then drove Bubba to a buddy’s house, where the two boys planned to spend most of the day. I was taking Angel and one of her friends to the mall, but the girls needed the bathroom, so we stopped back at the house before continuing.

  Chris was packing his rifles and gear in his truck, a tricked-out black Ford 350 pickup. It was his pride and joy.

  We passed in the hall.

  “Does this guy know it’s okay to talk in front of Chad, even though he wasn’t military?” I asked.

  While he wasn’t a veteran, our friend Chad Littlefield was the sort of man who was great at listening. He was as easygoing as Chris, and if anything even more laid-back.

  “Yeah,” said Chris. He’d already talked to Routh on the phone, mentioning that Chad was coming.

  Running a little late and preoccupied, Chris continued packing the truck. Typically at the range, they’d shoot a few different rifles and pistols at different distances. For people who grew up hunting, especially war veterans, shooting often settled the mind. It was something that required full concentration, and therefore took you away from your troubles, at least for a short time.

  “Is he coming here?” I asked Chris.

  “Hell no,” he said. “I wouldn’t give anybody our address. I have to go pick him up.”

  I went to look after the kids. Then suddenly we were ready to leave. I looked around for Chris to say good-bye but couldn’t find him; finally I went back into the house and literally ran into him.

  “Hey!” I said. “I was looking for you!”

  “I was looking for you!” he said.

  “I just wanted to say good-bye.” I hugged him.

  “Me, too.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said.

  I gave him a quick kiss and a hug—something we tried to always do when we left the house—and went out to the SUV to take the girls to the mall.

  That was the last time I saw my husband, my best friend, my hero, alive.

  ONE

  LOVE

  A little more than a decade before, Chris Kyle was the answer to my prayers.

  Literally. I’d been feeling depressed after a series of bad relationships and was unsure of my future. I prayed to God that He would send me someone I could raise a family with. Someone who would value and cherish me—and someone I could value and cherish in return. I didn’t care about age, career, looks, or anything; all I wanted was a man with a good heart. I told that to God and admitted that although I wanted to be independent of a man, perhaps I wasn’t meant to go it alone.

  Within weeks, He sent me Chris, in the most unlikely place to have a prayer answered. But maybe it will make more sense if I start at the beginning—my beginning, at least.

  FAMILY BEGINNINGS

  I was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1974, to Kent and Kim Studebaker. I spent my childhood in small-town suburbs. Trained as a lawyer, my father gave that up to run a small business; my mom was a teacher by trade, but worked as a bookkeeper for my father. I had one older sister, Ashley. We lived a pretty typical middle-class life. Family was very important, and some of my fondest memories are of days spent visiting my grandparents, who lived on a lake about twenty minutes from us. Visiting them, whether during the summer or on a weekend or even just for a meal, was like going on vacation. We’d boat and swim, or just sit out on their patio and gaze at the ripples on the water. My grandfather was wicked smart, with a sense of humor to match. One of his favorite things was fashioning limericks on the spur of the moment to keep us amused. He had a huge stock of the witty poems, and could deploy them at will, making crazy connections with things that were going on. I blame my offbeat sense of humor on him.

  At the same time, he had an old-fashioned sense of decorum and style, always wearing nice slacks and a button-down shirt, often topped off with a Mr. Rogers–style cardigan sweater. He managed to carry them off with a casual rather than stiff air. He was a calm man, so even-tempered that the very few times he got angry were the stuff of family legend.

  That’s one trait that doesn’t seem to have been passed on in my genes.

  There is one unusual wrinkle in my family tree—my mom’s mom was married to my dad’s dad. They were actually stepbrother and -sister, though they never met until college.

  Marion—my father’s father—and his wife had four children together, including my dad. (He hated that name, by the way; most people called him “Studie,” short for Studebaker, his last name.) When my father was fifteen, his mom died after a long illness. Studie married again soon afterward, then divorced. Following that, and maybe thinking he was done with marriage for good, he moved into an apartment complex on the lake.

  Meanwhile, my mother’s mother, Emily—gorgeous and very a
rtistic—had married her high school sweetheart in Pasadena. He became a very successful dentist, gave up his practice to join the Navy during World War II, then came out and resumed dentistry after the war. Unfortunately, he seems to have cheated on her; the marriage ended in divorce despite the fact that they had three kids, including my mom.

  Emily then married a man from Oregon, moving there to be with him. That marriage also ended in divorce. She moved to an apartment complex—the same one where Studie happened to live.

  Two bad experiences were enough to turn her off to marriage forever. Now in her fifties, she was adamant that she would remain single for the rest of her life.

  Then she met my grandfather. He set out to woo her practically the moment he saw her.

  We have some of the notes they wrote to each other, and based on the evidence, Studie was a master Romeo, even well into his fifties. “Together you and I are meant to be,” went one note. “You’re going to marry me one day you see.” He was the sort of man any woman would find hard to resist—big blue eyes, a gentle heart, brilliant, and a great sense of humor. It took him a while, but gradually he wore Emily down and they were married.

  While they’d had a few bad marriages between them, this one was the sort people refer to as made in heaven. They’d have weekly races to see who could do the New York Times crossword puzzle the fastest, cooked gourmet meals together, and danced in the kitchen whenever the mood struck them—which was often. They laughed all the time and just seemed to have the most wonderful days together. Visiting their house was like going to a resort where only happy people were allowed.

  My sister Ashley once asked my grandmother what the secret of their marriage was.

  “Oh, I don’t know, honey,” she told her. “We just laughed a lot, danced a lot, and loved a lot.”

  If you could package that somehow, you’d make a fortune.

  They were married for twenty-five years before death separated them. I still remember sitting with my grandfather in their living room a few days after she died; we talked about her, remembering good times.

  After twenty minutes or so, a single tear rolled down his cheek. It was as emotional as I’d ever seen him.

  “She was such a good woman, wasn’t she?” he asked.

  I could only agree.

  He pursed his lips, then smiled and got up. There was deep sadness, great loss, and yet resolve to go on. His energy was happy energy; sadness might weigh him down, but he rarely admitted it to others, and it was even rarer still to see evidence of it.

  He’d have my sister and me over for dinner every Thursday night. He’d fuss and cook up a storm, then watch Jeopardy! with us in the living room. I’d hold his hand and wonder how in the world he could know so many answers.

  Unfortunately, he developed prostate cancer as he aged, and despite aggressive treatments, slowly began to waste away. His body took a beating, yet somehow he managed to smile every time he saw us, whether at home or at a hospital. He was in constant pain, and it must have been hard to keep radiating love and kindness to others. But when I visited him, I always left cheered up, as if I was the one who was ill.

  To this day, he’s an inspiration.

  Where did that strength come from?

  I don’t know. He’d grown up poor and achieved great success; he’d had a wonderful mother but a terrible father. He’d been through a lot—three wives is a lot of living. But none of those things alone can account for character.

  My mom and dad met in college shortly after my grandparents started dating. Actually, my aunt met my father first—and went out on a date with him.

  According to family lore, my aunt called up her older sister as soon as she got home.

  “I just went out with this guy,” she said. “You have to meet him. He was made for you.”

  That phone call gave my mom “permission” to break the don’t-date-the-guy-your-sister-has-dated rule. The next time they were both in town together, they began seeing each other. Both had fiery personalities, yet somehow they hit it off. They ended up getting married about a year after my grandparents.

  My grandfather had been an engineer before opening his own business supplying power transmission companies and utilities with equipment. After my father got his law degree, served in the Marine Corps, and worked in corporate law for a decade or so, he decided he wanted more autonomy, and went to work at his father’s company. But my grandfather was old school—Dad had to work his way up, learning the business from the warehouse floor to the executive suite before being allowed to buy in. My dad wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. It was a small business. Both my grandmother and my mother worked there as bookkeepers, and my sister was also employed there for a while. I was the lone rebel—unless you count the time Dad paid me to pull the dandelions off the office lawn.

  My childhood in the seventies and eighties was pretty normal. It was the Reagan era, a time when the Cold War came to an end and women became a fixture in the workforce. Maybe that’s why, when I was little, I wanted to be an NFL quarterback.

  My next ambition was somewhat more realistic, but not by much: I wanted to be a race car driver.

  When most girls my age were asking for Barbies, I was hoping for Matchbox cars. I wasn’t a tomboy, exactly, but my interests were definitely all over the gender map.

  I grew out of that phase. For college, I followed a boyfriend to Wisconsin—a mistake, but it did lead to more independence. Truth be told, we weren’t even getting along at the time, but I wanted to get out of Oregon and spread my wings. It was the best excuse I could think of. I ended up earning a degree in economics with a minor in business, wandering into those fields after dabbling in psychology and philosophy.

  I remember my dad laughing when I suggested philosophy as a major: You’re going to major in thinking about thinking?

  There’s nothing wrong with thinking about thinking, but ultimately I was too practical for that: if Plato were alive today, odds are he’d be pouring coffee at Starbucks. I wanted a profession where I could get a job and support myself, and economics and business were far better bets.

  My first real job out of college was selling advertising for a local newspaper—ironic, since for years I’d sworn I’d never be a salesperson. But I managed to do well, earning a number of promotions over four or five years before Wisconsin’s long, gray winters got to me. Looking for something warmer, I started interviewing for jobs in the sunniest place I could imagine—California.

  I got a position as a salesperson with an office-supply company. A year of cold-calling convinced me I needed to find something else. A friend recommended pharmaceutical sales, and after a lot of debate—Do I really want to work in sales? Do I want to sell drugs?—I went for an interview and got the job.

  My life to that point was a battle between my practical, conservative side and a more free-spirited, dreamer side. The practical side wanted a steady paycheck. The dreamer side wanted the perfect job, even though it couldn’t define what that job was. I loved sales because it meant I didn’t have to stay in an office all day. I got out to meet all different sorts of people; no day was ever exactly the same.

  The new position took all that and added the fact that medicine helps people, making pharmaceutical sales a bit more meaningful than hawking pencils. It also paid very well. It may not have been the perfect match, but it was an engaging one. I bought a condo in Long Beach and settled in.

  Gradually, the pressures of the job—not only meeting quotas but dealing with the resentment from many doctors and their staffs—started to get to me. I eventually realized that I had a case of mild clinical depression and went on antidepressants. I came to know a lot about the drugs I was recommending.

  I went through some difficult emotions. I didn’t have a steady boyfriend, and in fact I didn’t think I wanted one. Because I was in outside sales, I didn’t have even an office full of coworkers to make friends with. Looking back, I feel as if God had to break me, in a way: He had to let me feel the results of my stubbornness so that I could understand the beauty and potential of life. I had to be convinced that I wasn’t destined to be a loner, that I needed to walk through this life with a partner.