In
private time, Hillary once biked the three miles from the White House to the
National Zoo (Secret Service in tow) to meet with Chelsea's class for a field
trip and often went shopping with Chelsea, sometimes unrecognized, at Banana
Republic. She also led her daughter by the hand in 1995, when the 15-year-old
enjoyed a public coming-out of sorts on a 10-day trip to South Asia. On the
tour, through slums and palaces, "one could see how close they were," says
Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. "We went to a state banquet at
the Lahore fort, and as we were walking up there were all these stalls where
people were selling things. Mrs. Clinton made sure that Chelsea was right there
with her, that she didn't get left behind in the crowd." Chelsea also found
ways to show off her own interests on their trips abroad, sharing her knowledge
of Koranic writings in a mosque in Pakistan and, as a practicing non-meateater,
dragging her mother to a restaurant in India where she and Hillary sampled
vegetarian dishes with their hands.
A more difficult trip for Hillary, say friends, was Chelsea's -- to college.
Though she would have liked Chelsea to have stayed closer to home, "the very
idea of Hillary trying to drive her to do anything is preposterous," says a
friend. Instead she simply murmured, "But it's so far away." Days before
Chelsea's departure, Hillary rushed home after a 20-hour trip to Mother
Teresa's funeral in Calcutta to help her pack, and when Chelsea finally moved
out, on Sept. 18, 1997, "it left an emptiness," says a friend, "that Idon't
think even Hillary expected."
Four months later came the Lewinsky tempest. The Clintons were furious at the
President's brother Roger Clinton for telling Paris Match that the
scandal had "profoundly affected" Chelsea. That transgression violated
Hillary's own belief that public restraint represents a "commitment to her
daughter," her mother told Vanity Fair recently. "[Chelsea is] somebody
outside of her own problems that she was being strong and positive for." More
privately, during a visit to Stanford last May, Hillary showered Chelsea with
affection. At a restaurant brunch with Chelsea's dormmates and then-boyfriend
Pierce, the First Lady "kissed and hugged Chelsea openly all the time,"
according to one waitress.
Today, friends have no doubt that Chelsea, grateful to be 3,000 miles from the
Lewinsky earthquake's epicenter, will, like her mother, survive this latest
crisis. "They are both forgiving people who don't feel alone. They don't feel
sorry for themselves," says a longtime friend of Hillary's. So far, says a male
pal of Chelsea's at Stanford, "I have never seen her visibly upset. Before
Christmas she looked exhausted. She's under a lot of stress. That's pretty
obvious, and it all adds up after a while." But tabloid reports that she had
suffered a collapse and visited the university health center after the breakup
with her boyfriend were "blown way out of proportion," the friend insists.
At present, Hillary and Chelsea are "still healing, but it's going to take
time," says a friend. In her 1996 book, Hillary included an anecdote that may
speak more about her sorrow and solace in this time of betrayal than anything
that she has otherwise disclosed. It is the story of a then 4-year-old Chelsea,
who was asked in church on Mother's Day what gift she would most like to give
her own mother. "Life insurance," she announced.
Later, after questioning her, Hillary learned that the little girl believed
such a thing could keep her mother from ever dying. "This tiny child wanted me
to live forever," she wrote. "Isn't that what being alive is all about--being
loved like that?" In a world where affection and allegiance are so often
conditional, that simple realization seemed, to Hillary, like something of a
miracle.
--By SUSAN SCHINDEHETTE
-- Reported by: JANE SIMS Podesta in Washington, D.C., JENNIFER LONGLEY and
ERIC FRANCIS in New York City, KEN BAKER and JOHN HANNAH in Los Angeles, STEVE
BARNES and BOB STEWART in Little Rock, JAN MCGIRK in New Delhi and KELLY
WILLIAMS in Chicago
