about much of anything else. That was not the way it had been before—before the assassination. The two of them had once talked and laughed together a lot, mostly about little things that had happened at her school and her mother’s bank. Now mother and daughter stayed isolated even when they were in the same room.
A sense of loneliness, silence, and misery was Marti’s only real memory of the thirty days between the holidays. Her eyes went moist as she told me that those days had always been full of happy expectation and joy for her and, she believed, for her parents. The Walters trio had never been one of high spiritsand loud voices. They were a quiet little family. The only time anybody yelled much was when the Cowboys won.
She said Christmas Day 1963 itself was truly awful. Her father came out of the bedroom in the late afternoon to eat with Rosemary and Marti. The gift highlights were a sleeveless pink sweater for her, an olive-and-gray-checked tie for her dad, and a pair of thin brown leather gloves for her mother. There were no TO and FROM tags on anything, the family custom being that most presents still came from Santa. Marti spent two dollars from her allowance money on a tiny jar of lavender-scented bath salts for her mother and a solid cream-colored pocket handkerchief for her dad.
Physically, Marti said Van looked changed. His face had grown gray and pasty. Between each of the times Marti had seen him—which, as best as she could recall now, added up to only half a dozen between Thanksgiving and Christmas—he seemed to grow thinner and smaller and more withdrawn.
Over Christmas dinner Van barely cracked a smile or spoke a word, other than to recite a Dutch Reformed prayer for Christmas that had been a tradition since Kinderhook days. He prayed this time over a bleak meal—several slices of turkey with cranberry sauce and a fruit salad. It seemed clear to Marti, who stayed out of the kitchen when it was being prepared, that most of the food, including the turkey, had been brought in. A handout, most likely, from another Dallas-based Secret Service agent’s family table.
The only semi-drama of the day was the ongoing one Martihad invented for every meal, however few, she spent with her dad. She tried relentlessly to get him to make direct eye contact with her. But she seldom succeeded. His once bright brown eyes had taken on a glassy, far-off stare, and even his glances were usually slightly off to the side, above, or below where she was sitting or standing. He seemed not to even see her.
Another of her grim habits became counting the occasions when she smelled alcohol on her mother’s breath. Marti was up to fourteen separate instances the day the three of them sat down to eat their Christmas meal. She assumed by now that Rosemary had a bottle of something stashed in the house where neither husband nor daughter could stumble over it accidentally.
She felt very alone in every way a teenage girl could feel, unable to discuss with anybody her mother’s drinking or what had happened on November 22. Marti had a few girlfriends at school but no real pals—nobody to spend time with after school or during the many no-school days brought on by the assassination and the holidays.
Then, two weeks after the New Year, the worse got worser. The Secret Service transferred Van Walters to the Kansas City office. He would go as a regular field agent, not as a special agent in charge or even as an assistant in charge, the job he had held in Dallas. He had been demoted.
Marti was in the bathroom when she heard her dad, having just come home, report the news of the Kansas City transfer to her mother.
“I was told that ‘for several reasons,
we
think it would begood for the service that
you
be away from Dallas proper but fairly close geographically. Also, the freer
you
are of management duties the better off
you’ll
be as the assassination investigations proceed.’ That’s what Washington said.”
Her father
A sense of loneliness, silence, and misery was Marti’s only real memory of the thirty days between the holidays. Her eyes went moist as she told me that those days had always been full of happy expectation and joy for her and, she believed, for her parents. The Walters trio had never been one of high spiritsand loud voices. They were a quiet little family. The only time anybody yelled much was when the Cowboys won.
She said Christmas Day 1963 itself was truly awful. Her father came out of the bedroom in the late afternoon to eat with Rosemary and Marti. The gift highlights were a sleeveless pink sweater for her, an olive-and-gray-checked tie for her dad, and a pair of thin brown leather gloves for her mother. There were no TO and FROM tags on anything, the family custom being that most presents still came from Santa. Marti spent two dollars from her allowance money on a tiny jar of lavender-scented bath salts for her mother and a solid cream-colored pocket handkerchief for her dad.
Physically, Marti said Van looked changed. His face had grown gray and pasty. Between each of the times Marti had seen him—which, as best as she could recall now, added up to only half a dozen between Thanksgiving and Christmas—he seemed to grow thinner and smaller and more withdrawn.
Over Christmas dinner Van barely cracked a smile or spoke a word, other than to recite a Dutch Reformed prayer for Christmas that had been a tradition since Kinderhook days. He prayed this time over a bleak meal—several slices of turkey with cranberry sauce and a fruit salad. It seemed clear to Marti, who stayed out of the kitchen when it was being prepared, that most of the food, including the turkey, had been brought in. A handout, most likely, from another Dallas-based Secret Service agent’s family table.
The only semi-drama of the day was the ongoing one Martihad invented for every meal, however few, she spent with her dad. She tried relentlessly to get him to make direct eye contact with her. But she seldom succeeded. His once bright brown eyes had taken on a glassy, far-off stare, and even his glances were usually slightly off to the side, above, or below where she was sitting or standing. He seemed not to even see her.
Another of her grim habits became counting the occasions when she smelled alcohol on her mother’s breath. Marti was up to fourteen separate instances the day the three of them sat down to eat their Christmas meal. She assumed by now that Rosemary had a bottle of something stashed in the house where neither husband nor daughter could stumble over it accidentally.
She felt very alone in every way a teenage girl could feel, unable to discuss with anybody her mother’s drinking or what had happened on November 22. Marti had a few girlfriends at school but no real pals—nobody to spend time with after school or during the many no-school days brought on by the assassination and the holidays.
Then, two weeks after the New Year, the worse got worser. The Secret Service transferred Van Walters to the Kansas City office. He would go as a regular field agent, not as a special agent in charge or even as an assistant in charge, the job he had held in Dallas. He had been demoted.
Marti was in the bathroom when she heard her dad, having just come home, report the news of the Kansas City transfer to her mother.
“I was told that ‘for several reasons,
we
think it would begood for the service that
you
be away from Dallas proper but fairly close geographically. Also, the freer
you
are of management duties the better off
you’ll
be as the assassination investigations proceed.’ That’s what Washington said.”
Her father
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