Not Afraid of Life Read online

  Well, not completely inseparable. One day we had a little fight—just a silly argument, but we decided to take a short break to sort things out. We still stayed in touch and we knew we’d be back together as soon as some time had passed.

  That’s when my attorneys told me I had to get serious about getting Levi’s visitation schedule set up. Levi kept publicly saying that I was keeping him from seeing his son, and my legal fees were stacking up.

  “Okay,” I said to my lawyers. “I’ll take care of it.”

  After all, I wanted to put the Levi part of my life behind me as much as anyone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Home

  Come to Anchorage to set up a schedule to see Tripp.

  In spite of the fact that I never really wanted to see Levi��s face again, I texted him when my attorneys suggested in May 2010 we figure out—once and for all—our custody arrangement. No progress had been made in a year, lies were still being told, and Tripp was still without a father.

  I’m not doing this forever, Levi.

  A man of very few words, he immediately texted me back.

  Right.

  Hardly a surprise. He was always promising things on which he never followed through. But I was surprised when he actually showed up the next day in Anchorage.

  I opened the door with Tripp on my hip, expecting Ricky Hollywood, with his spray tan and skinny jeans and a European handbag full of excuses. But instead what I saw was an unshaven Levi wearing boots, his camo jacket, and a camo ball cap. He looked very much like the guy whose locker was beside mine in seventh grade.

  “Come in,” I said, motioning inside my new condo, thrilled to be able to show it off. I’d been able to care for Tripp in a nice comfortable setting in spite of Levi’s lack of child support and visitation. Track’s girlfriend, Britta, lived with me, because I felt a little scared about living by myself. Nonetheless, I felt like I’d made it “on my own.” Levi seemed impressed by the tour of the place, and he ruffled Tripp’s hair.

  It was a little awkward to have him there, after all of the bitterness that had passed between us like a bad case of the flu. “Hey, let’s take Tripp for a walk,” I suggested. At least that would entertain the baby while we hashed out custody issues.

  “So what happened to Ricky Hollywood?” I asked. We were walking on the sidewalk pushing Tripp in his stroller.

  “I gave that up,” he said. “It wasn’t really me.”

  “And what was up with your hair, anyway?”

  He took my teasing good-naturedly, and we laughed as I made fun of his ridiculously fake persona. It was strangely relaxing and comfortable. Tripp laughed and played quietly, while I asked Levi about his late child-support payments. The word late implies that he would one day pay them, which we both knew was not the case. Though he’d made a pretty good amount of money selling his stories to the press and his body to Playgirl, he had wasted it on toys, fishing gear, and a hefty percentage to Rex and Tank. By now, he owed me more than $20,000 in child care, and I suggested he just sign over his rights and call it a day.

  But the heavy conversation soon yielded to the fun in the park. Suddenly, instead of a harsh interaction between enemies, it felt more like we were just two parents passing a nice day in the sun. If you didn’t know us and were just a stranger walking by, you might have mistaken us for one happy young family. When we said good-bye, I didn’t hug or kiss him. However, I felt just briefly the sensation of the way things used to be . . . before life got so darn complicated.

  That night, after I’d put Tripp to bed, my phone buzzed with a text message.

  I miss you, Bristol.

  Initially, I was shocked. Here was a guy who’d so publicly betrayed my family we probably shouldn’t have even been in the same room. Someone who’d sell his body to make a buck. Someone known primarily for lies and mistakes and sleaze.

  And yet . . .

  I sat there alone, and I wondered if I’d really given “us” a chance as a family. Had I really considered Tripp’s best interests when I’d tossed Levi out on his butt so many times before? Now that I had a child, didn’t Tripp deserve to have his father in his life? Could Levi have really yanked himself from the old persona and seen the light?

  It’s hard to explain what I did next. Women throughout history have looked back at their relationships and wondered how they could’ve loved a man who treated them so badly. From Hillary Clinton to Sandra Bullock, from Jackie Kennedy to Jennifer Aniston, from Elin Woods to Princess Diana. My story is—sadly—not unique. And neither was my response. I texted back:

  I miss you too.

  But this time, I told myself, I’d be in control of our relationship. This time, instead of reeling from his infidelities, I’d stop them before they happened. This time, instead of watching him indulge in his teenage obsessions like fishing and hunting, I’d help him learn how to grow into a man and an attentive father. Levi’s dad hadn’t been the best role model: he’d had a long-term affair when he was with Levi’s mom, and eventually left her for the other woman. Perhaps this was the reason Levi had abandoned me and Tripp. He simply never learned how to act in a mature relationship.

  That was about to change.

  The next day, he came over—Levi again, not Ricky—and we sat together commemorating our new relationship. But instead of celebrating with a candlelit dinner, we began it with a spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen. I was making a list.

  “Okay, if this is going to work out, we have to agree on some terms,” I said. Normally, I’m not a bossy, controlling girlfriend, but if I was going to risk upsetting my family for this guy, it absolutely had to work. One way to guarantee that everyone was on the same page was to spell out his obligations and my expectations. Here is my list, almost verbatim . . . (I edited it to eliminate the profanity, which I’d added to make a point to Levi!)

  1. Protection: I shouldn’t feel threatened by your family. You should protect Tripp and me before anyone else.

  2. Respect: I don’t deserve to be treated poorly and called a b—ch.

  3. Forever love: Not just now, but forever.

  4. Willingness to change: I can’t hold your hand and guide you through life.

  5. Love for our child: You have to try to be a good dad to Tripp.

  6. Appreciation: Be grateful for the two of us.

  7. Dedication: Try to improve yourself for our family.

  8. Honesty: Commit to me and only me.

  9. Devotion: Be here for us consistently.

  10. Stability: When are you getting a job? An education?

  11. Motivation: Start doing stuff for yourself.

  12. Maturity: Spend time with Tripp, not just fishing 24/7. You can’t spend all your money on fishing gear. Have to help out with the bills.

  13. Controlling your anger: You know you have a temper.

  14. Regret: I want you to feel regret for everything you have done to me. Regret for how much you have disrespected my entire family. Regret for missing so much of Tripp’s life.

  15. Apology: You need to apologize to my family, publicly and privately.

  16. Education: You need to get your GED. I tried to push you into doing this, but you have to have motivation yourself.

  At the bottom of the paper, I wrote, “I’ve given up all of my life to be the best mom I can be. Why do you go fishing without even thinking twice about it? Why do I feel guilty about spending $200 when you throw money down on pointless gear?”

 
But the part that haunts me now is the last sentence, on a totally different page. “Why don’t you have emotion toward Tripp and me?”

  That question should’ve caused me to pause, to protect my son, me, and the rest of my family from Levi. But writing it down on paper made me feel like I owned the situation just a tad more and gave me a false security of “setting the terms.” This time, I thought, things would be different. This will be the moment we look back on when we’re old and gray and sitting in our rocking chairs, and we’ll laugh and say, “Yes, that’s when everything turned around for us . . . after all the chaos of the campaign, after all the immaturity of high school, after our love for Tripp transformed our love for each other . . . it all came together after the day we took our son for a walk.”

  He quickly agreed to all of my stipulations. He promised to get a job, get his GED, and quit having that weird relationship with his obsessed sister, who was always trying to hook him up with her friends and had physically threatened me when I was pregnant. Most of all, he said he would apologize to Mom and Dad—publicly and privately—for all of his lies.

  Suddenly, life seemed a lot “fuller” as our almost-but-not-quite family began trying to make things right.

  Some time after Levi and I got back together, I went to the mailbox and found a card, addressed to “SM Properties, LLC,” in a yellow envelope. Inside was a white piece of copy machine paper, with this message written in pink highlighter:

  B.P. –

  We know . . .

  And so do they . . .

  My heart sank. Who would know that “B.P.” was really SM Properties? And what does “so do they” mean?

  I was about to find out.

  Suddenly, I started noticing strange people hanging out in front of my home.

  One day I was home giving Tripp a bath when someone knocked on my door.

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the man said. He looked like a homeless man. “The hard way is that you avoid me and I still get the pictures. The easy way? You cooperate and I’ll give you a cut of my profits.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. He was asking me to pimp myself out.

  “Let’s do it the hard way,” I said before slamming the door. After he left, I leaned up against the door and realized I really couldn’t hide.

  The hard way suddenly became even harder. The local AP press started showing up on my doorstep every day. Larry King’s producers sent me packages—suspenders for Tripp!—to entice me to come on his show. Some despicable bloggers drove by my house every day and would keep a log on what cars or trucks were in the driveway. And speaking of blogs, another one popped up. This time, it was Levi’s sister, who created it to falsely answer any question that people around America had about me.

  Looking back, I realize it couldn’t have been a coincidence that everyone found out where I lived right around the time I got back together with Levi. But I didn’t put two and two together at the time. Then, I was simply dedicated to the idea that finally Levi, Tripp, and I would become a family.

  And he seemed to be, too.

  I was at work when Levi went to Mom and Dad’s house in June to apologize. I gave Levi my mother’s phone number and he texted her to arrange a time to stop by. All of the lies he’d said about them needed to be addressed both publicly and privately, so he was taking care of the private apology first.

  Mom and Dad allowed him into their home, and they sat at their kitchen table. Willow, as always, was eavesdropping from the balcony and kept me apprised via text of all that was going on downstairs.

  “I’m sorry about all the lies I’ve made up about you,” he said. Mom seemed to take it better than Dad . . . at least according to Willow’s play-by-play. Dad was not impressed by the fact that Levi was dressed like his old self and claimed not to be under the influence of Rex and Tank anymore. And, according to Willow, Dad was not going to easily let Levi off the hook.

  “I’m the one who’s been getting up with Tripp in the mornings, taking care of your son. I’m the one who’s been comforting Bristol. I’m the one who’s been changing the dirty diapers and watching your son take his first steps. Where have you been?”

  Levi apologized, again, and said that he’d have to prove himself to gain their trust. It didn’t go flawlessly, but at least he had shown that he could own up to his mistakes and he promised to make a public apology. My parents were skeptical.

  But, within days, People magazine ran the note that Levi and I had drafted that day on the notebook paper:

  Last year, after Bristol and I broke up, I was unhappy and a little angry. Unfortunately, against my better judgment, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true. I have already privately apologized to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were public, I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologize. So to the Palin family in general and to Sarah Palin in particular, please accept my regrets and forgive my youthful indiscretion. I hope one day to restore your trust.

  It was a Band-Aid on a gaping wound of problems he’d caused my parents. While I took it as proof he’d really put his old ways behind him, they couldn’t come around to trusting him again.

  When shortly after that I drove over to the house to see my folks, ready to have a frank and honest conversation with my parents about my decision to get back together with Levi, there was tension in the air. I soon realized a calm conversation would not be happening that day.

  When I pulled into the driveway, Dad came out and flagged down the truck.

  “Why do you keep going back to a guy who lied about us so badly?” he said. “Do you know how many times you’ve come crying to me, upset about that guy? He’s done nothing but disrespect this family.”

  “I’m trying to give Tripp a father,” I protested, but I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t ready for me to explain why I’d chosen to reunite. I didn’t get a chance to explain that I wanted Tripp to have a family as good as the one I had growing up.

  My heart hurt, as I processed the fact that the damage I’d done to my family was permanent. By this time, I was crying.

  “He has betrayed you over and over and over. It will happen again,” he continued. “I’m done talking to you.”

  I drove off, rationalizing my decision with every mile. I’m going to have my own family now, I thought. I pressed on the gas to get to the only person on the planet who understood me. Levi was in the same boat as I was, because he’d forsaken his family to be with me. In a Romeo-and-Juliet-type way, we were pursuing love in spite of all the forces that were coming against us. What could be more romantic?

  In July, Levi made the romance official when I came home from work and walked into my bedroom to find he’d made a heart out of rose petals on my bed. There were also bouquets of red roses sitting around.

  Again, I don’t even really like flowers—they require so much attention, and the best-case scenario is that they die slowly! The fact that he didn’t know my antiflower policy probably suggested he really wasn’t all that into me. By that time, I wasn’t even physically attracted to him. After all of his betrayal, his face, his body, even his aroma just seemed “off” to me. But my instinct was still to move toward him in an effort to become a real family.

  I didn’t notice the little box in the middle of the heart. That’s when he got down on one knee and said, “I want to be with you. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I want to be a family with you and
Tripp. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” I said, and he slipped the ring on my finger.

  I was fully aware of the shock waves that engagement was about to send across the nation. So we started making plans.

  We took out our notebook and began writing a public apology, one that I faxed to my attorney as we prepared to figure out how to go public with our relationship. Instead of allowing it to filter through Wasilla, Anchorage, and then to the national press, we decided to take control of the story. Rex and Tank suggested that we sell an exclusive story to Us Weekly. Since people were going to find out anyway, why not tell the story in a way that not only benefited our new family but also controlled the message? They also suggested we fly to Las Vegas and get married, a suggestion I’m thankful I had enough sense to ignore.

  Immediately, the magazine sent a contract over and we began working out the details. We agreed to a two-week exclusive, which meant we couldn’t talk to any other media outlets about our upcoming nuptials. If we made the news or talked to other magazines before two weeks after the magazines hit the newsstand, we’d violate our contract.

  And so we were quiet about our decision to get married, and I dreamed of what kind of wedding we might have. I also began sticking up for Levi in front of friends, my family, and in front of Dr. Cusack, telling everyone he’d really changed.

  On July 14, I was sitting at work in Anchorage when I received an e-mail that would change my life even more for the next few months. It was from Deena Katz, a casting guru from Los Angeles who was finding people to be in the eleventh season of Dancing with the Stars.

  “Dr. Cusack, can I go talk on the phone in your office really quick? I just need to make a call.”

  I got up from my desk, ducked into my boss’s office, and called my attorney. I was thankful to finally be communicating with him about something other than custody issues!