Page 59 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

Her husband didn’t confide in Linda anymore, wanting perhaps to shield her, so she wasn’t privy to the details of the conversation he’d had with Fred back in December. Linda didn’t know about the constant barrage of abuse Freddy was receiving from his father in New York through letters and phone calls. But his friends knew. Freddy told them, with a note of disbelief in his voice, that the old man was embarrassed to have a “bus driver in the sky” for a son. It didn’t take much for his father to convince him that choosing to leave Trump Management meant choosing failure. The most crucial thing that Linda didn’t fully grasp—and to be fair, Freddy probably didn’t grasp it, either—was how much Fred Trump’s opinion mattered to his son.
One night, after returning from his most recent rotation, Freddy seemed particularly on edge. Over dinner, he said, “We need to get a divorce.”
Linda was shocked. Her husband was under more stress than usual, but she thought it might be the result of his being responsible for the lives of more than two hundred people every time he flew.
“Freddy, what are you talking about?”
“It’s not working out, Linda. I don’t see how we can keep going.” “You’re not even here half the time,” she said, mystified by his outburst.
“We have a baby. How can you say that?”
Freddy stood up and poured himself a drink. “Forget it,” he said, and left
the room.
They never renewed that conversation, and after a few days, they
continued on as though nothing unusual had happened.
In June Donald, then eighteen and freshly graduated from the military academy, and Robert, sixteen, still a student at Freddy’s alma mater, St. Paul’s, drove up to Marblehead for a visit, arriving in Donald’s new sports car, a high school graduation present from his parents—a step up from the luggage Freddy had received when he had graduated from college.
Freddy was anxious about seeing them. None of his siblings had ever been up in a plane with him or expressed any interest in his new career. He hoped that maybe, if he could let his brothers into his world, he’d find an ally; having even one person in his family who believed in him might bolster his waning strength to withstand his father’s disapproval.