Andrew Cuomo, tall and lanky in his checkered swimsuit, was lounging by the pool one day with one of Kerry’s brothers when Ethel approached in her colorful muumuu. “About last night,” she began, standing before Cuomo and looking down at him critically. Surprised by her presence, Andrew jumped to his feet in respect. She nodded and told him to sit back down. “You’re from an Italian family, Andrew,” she then said. “I thought for sure that Italians were fun. But you. You’re such a wet blanket. Has anyone ever told you that?” she asked. He looked at her with a stunned expression. “Close your mouth, Andrew,” she told him. “You’ll catch flies.” Was she being insulting? Her beguiling charm and easy naturalness often made it hard to figure her out. It was her laughter as she sat down next to him, though, that answered the question.
Though Hickory Hill was an expansive estate and Andrew and Kerry certainly had their privacy, he was not accustomed to the place’s rabble-rousing culture. On this sunny afternoon, Ethel was referencing what had happened the previous night when a Kennedy tried to push Andrew into one of the estate’s two swimming pools. The two men almost came to blows over it. “We are fun,” Andrew protested. “But within reason. Why is it so wrong that I don’t want to be shoved into a pool when I’m wearing a suit and tie?”
Ethel nodded. “Okay. Fair enough,” she agreed, though secretly she no doubt disagreed.
The two then had an animated discussion about public housing and the devious methods of slumlords in this country, a topic that had obviously become a priority of Andrew’s because of his work with HUD. He explained that Mario had started as a lawyer for the underdog, and that he had now proudly taken up the fight himself, a battle Ethel admired and one that sounded a lot to her like something her late husband might have waged. Andrew was also invested in the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO), which had been started under the LBJ administration. Ethel had had mixed feelings about LBJ back in the day but believed deeply in FHEO and its work in fighting discrimination in public housing. Andrew had recently beefed up its staff, wanting to make sure that each and every complaint ever lodged would be dealt with quickly and handled fairly. It wasn’t just lip service for him, either. He had deeply held convictions and was passionate, which was clear whenever he talked about his work as an advocate.
In the year that they lived together at Hickory Hill, Ethel began to understand what Kerry saw in Andrew; she became a staunch advocate not only for him and his undertakings but also for the marriage. She began to think that maybe one of the reasons hers sons didn’t like Andrew was because they were jealous of him. He was a good man, she said, who kept his head down and did his work without distraction. He had a strong work ethic, which she felt some of her more undisciplined sons might consider worth emulating rather than criticizing.
Andrew soon became a fan of Ethel’s as well. “My mother-in-law was a firsthand witness to pretty much everything I ever learned about the Kennedys in school,” he said at the end of his year at Hickory Hill. “I admire her, probably more than she knows. I now understand that she’s been Kerry’s greatest influencer.”
After that first year at Hickory Hill, the Cuomos settled in a large six-bedroom home in an upscale neighborhood in Queens. They had three children, twins Cara and Mariah in 1995 and Michaela in 1997. Andrew and his mother-in-law continued their close relationship, speaking on the phone several times a week.
While he was well-meaning in his work, it was also true that Andrew Cuomo was a tough boss; most of his aides were intimidated by and even afraid of him. Even those who admired him had to admit that they thought he was a bit of a tyrant. “Every day was blood-sport battle for Andrew,” said one assistant of his, “and he eagerly put on his armor to engage in it. It was difficult for him to turn it off when he got home, and from what I understood, he could be less than warm to Kerry, particularly on days when tensions ran high at the office.”
Also, because of his heavy workload and his commitment to it, Andrew had become an absentee father. By the end of 1997, Kerry was frustrated. She told her sister-in-law Mary that Andrew was always gone, traveling for work. She’d actually fallen into a pretty good routine with the kids in his absence. When he was finally around, however, his presence threw things into chaos. “To be honest, I’m starting to think it’s better when he’s not here,” she said. “First of all, my expectations are lowered, and secondly, things just run more smoothly.” Even when he was home, Kerry complained, Andrew seemed checked out. He was preoccupied, and maybe with good reason. After all, he was contemplating a run for governor. She started to feel selfish wanting more from her husband, and then that didn’t feel good, either.
Even given her present dissatisfaction with him, Kerry felt Andrew had good ideas for the state of New York and that he could make a real difference. “What if this is his moment?” she asked her brother Joe. His response was, “Pretty much always in politics, it comes down to one of two things: ‘I hate that guy’ or ‘I don’t hate that guy.’ With your husband, I’m pretty sure it will be ‘I hate that guy.’”
Kerry wasn’t offended by her sibling’s observation. She knew how her brothers felt about Andrew. By this time, he knew it as well. “They can’t stand it,” he said of them, according to one account. “They just want us to be as miserable as they are.”
Andrew didn’t see the problems he had with Kerry as being insurmountable. He was still completely devoted to her and the children and felt he was giving to them as much as he had to give. Meanwhile, Kerry didn’t want to sabotage his chances of being governor with a high-profile separation and possibly even a messy divorce. She wanted to support him; she felt it was her duty, and she wasn’t going to let him down. Still, she wanted to honor her own concerns, too. Rather than cause any sort public sensation at the wrong time in her husband’s career, she instead asked him if he would attend couple’s counseling with her. He readily agreed.