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Our
life together is basically about you.”
I tried to defend myself, saying that I was always listened to
her, and that I had never stopped her from pursuing her own inter-
ests and her own friendships, but she wasn't really paying attention.
“I want to be around people who like me for me, not because I'm
O.J. Simpson's wife,” she said.
I thought that was bullshit, too, and I told her so, but she was
adamant: she wanted to take a break from the marriage.
“Fine,” I said, trying to keep emotion out of it. “If you want a
break, I'll give you a break. But there's no way in hell we're doing
this without lawyers.” We needed the lawyers so that we'd be
absolutely clear on what was going on, I explained. She wanted out,
not me, for reasons I couldn't really understand. And the
Rockingham house predated our relationship. It was my house, a
fact that was clearly spelled out in the prenuptial agreement. That
house held a lot of history for me, including the drowning death
my infant daughter, Aaren--t he little girl I had with Marguerite
    during the rocky tailend of our marriage—and I wasn't going to let
anyone tell me to move out.
At the end of that month, with the lawyers already hard at
work, Nicole moved into a rented house on Gretna Green Way, not
eight minutes from my place, and—given my hectic travel sched-
ule—took physical custody of the kids. I was in a state of mild shock
for several weeks, to be honest, unable to get my mind around what
had happened, and how it had come to this. Her mother was in
shock, too, as were most of her friends. None of them seemed to
think that our problems were all that significant, though of course
one never really knows what goes on behind closed doors.
The only person who had seen it coming was her best friend,
Cora Fishman, because Cora had known about the affair—the one
Nicole denied having. It wasn't anyone she was serious about, I
learned much later, but it had happened, and when shit like that
happens you know that deep down something is very wrong. It's
strange, though, because years later, in a letter she wrote me when
she was trying to reconcile, she still said nothing about the affair.
Instead, she talked about the 1989 incident, and how that had been
the big turning point in our relationship—for her, anyway—which
was kind of off odd because she was no longer blaming me for what
had happened. She said she was beginning to realize that she had
contributed as much to our problems as I had, if not more, and that
looking back on it she felt that I'd been right from the start—that
we did have a pretty good life together. It was the first time she had
taken responsibility for her actions, and it was a good thing, but
unfortunately it came too late. When I read that letter, it about
broke my heart. All along I thought we were going to make it, and
I guess I never really understood the depth of her unhappiness—let
alone the reasons for it.
So we started our new life, in separate homes but still commit-
ted to making it work—like so many other couples. I was optimistic,
to be honest. I had been through this before, with Marguerite, twice,
and we'd managed to survive the first separation, so in my heart it
wasn't over. We're just separating, I told myself. We're trying to get
back together. And this time I'm determined to make it work.
Still, it wasn't easy. I didn't enjoy watching Nicole settle into a
new place with the two kids, watching her move forward without
me. She even found a guy to help out with babysitting and running
errands and stuff, someone she'd met skiing in Aspen, and she let
him move into the guest house, rent free, instead of paying him a
salary. His name, as you may recall, was Kato Kaelin.
When that first Valentine's Day rolled around, less than three
weeks into the separation, I was in Mexico for a celebrity golf tour-
nament, but I sent Nicole some nice flowers and a note, and she
was very appreciative. I told her I wasn't giving up on us, and