The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words (19 page)

Tom’s mother, Dorothy, told me that she liked that I was different from everybody else and encouraged me to be myself. She welcomed me into the family with open arms. She had seven children and often told me that I reminded her of Pat (her daughter and Tom’s sister), who had passed away
in her thirties and had been the entertainer in the family. Mom Staub loved my spirit and I enjoyed her company. She brought a lot to the table as a woman, mother, and human being, and she taught me so much through our conversations over the years.

As we settled into married life, Tom kept saying that he couldn’t wait to get me pregnant, and it was almost as if he wished it and it came true. While we both wanted to have a baby, we never thought it would happen that quickly—my getting pregnant with Christine was a complete surprise for Tom and me, to say the least. We were just going about being newly-weds, and then, all of a sudden, we were expectant parents.

My first pregnancy was rough. I basically set up shop in our bathroom and didn’t leave for the first three months. I laid my pillow and blanket on a gymnastics mat on the floor, which served as sort of a bed. I’d be sick to my stomach in the bathroom when Tom would head off to work in the morning. He’d leave me some saltines and ginger ale to help my stomach, and I’d be sleeping on the bathroom floor or throwing up when he returned home at the end of the day. I was actually losing weight instead of gaining it.

Despite my discomfort, Tom and I got totally involved in our roles as expectant parents. We were both so excited. We bought lots of baby-name and pregnancy books and shopped for nursery furniture together. We interviewed pediatricians. We even went to Lamaze classes together. As I look back, I think Tom and I were probably the closest during this time.

One day, I got word that Kevin was living close by in New Jersey. I was going to be a mother soon, and with a new family developing, I had a lot to be grateful for and protect. My husband and I spoke at great length, and we decided to change my identity by legally changing my name from Beverly to Danielle. We contacted my lawyer and he took care of the paperwork for the name change. In April 1993, I legally became Danielle Staub. Previous reports have falsely claimed that I changed my name to hide from my past in Florida and the people who were involved in my court case. I changed my name to hide from one person only—Kevin Maher.

On December 4, 1993, our daughter Christine was born. It wasn’t an easy birth, but when the doctor handed me my newborn Christine, everything was peaceful and perfect. I had a roomful of nurses and doctors attending me, but I was oblivious to it. I was holding my miracle, my baby. She was so big— nearly ten pounds—and healthy, and her skin was glowing, just as beautiful as it comes. Tom and I were happy. He couldn’t wait to bring his family home.

I took my journey into motherhood very seriously. Children are like little sponges, and I wanted Christine to absorb all that is good in life to mold and shape her into a strong girl with a kind heart and a bright mind. When she was born, I woke up eager to begin every day with a new purpose. I now had a little girl who was looking to me for answers and guidance, and I was not going to steer her wrong or let her down. I was, and still am, a very protective mother. For the first eight weeks it
was difficult for me to allow anyone to touch Christine, much less hold her. I was afraid that someone might drop her, hurt her, or touch her inappropriately. I was determined to witness everything she experienced because those first weeks of life are so uncertain. Not to mention, this is a bonding period between a mother and her newborn child. That was my time to learn my baby’s sounds and language without words. And most important, I wanted to enjoy every moment and just breathe her in. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun and very important to me. Oh how I adored rocking with my baby until she would fall asleep in my arms.

I had the chance to show Christine a significantly different life than the one I had growing up. I recognized that motherhood was a blessing, an opportunity, and a second chance. This moment was not only the beginning of life for my young daughter, but a new beginning for me. It was a chance to move on from the past with great success as a passionate mother, wife, and homemaker.

Almost immediately after Christine’s birth, Tom and I started trying to have another baby. I figured that if we tried then, in a year I would be pregnant and Christine would have a brother or sister by the time she was two years old. It seemed like the perfect plan.

However, I couldn’t seem to get pregnant.

Tom and I were planning our sex life around the time of the month that I was the most fertile. I started cycles of fertility
drugs and was going for regular shots and hormone therapy in conjunction with getting embryos implanted in my uterus at St. Barnabas hospital. It was a lot to go through on a daily basis and Tom was right there with me. That was why it was shocking to me to discover that while he was allowing me to put my body through all of this so that we could have another baby, Tom was having an affair. He was saying all along that his sperm couldn’t have been the reason we weren’t conceiving. After all, we had no problems conceiving Christine. So finding out that Tom’s sperm count was abnormally low for a married man with—presumably—one partner, was a tough pill to swallow. There was no other explanation.

Soon after this discovery, Tom and I decided to take a long weekend together in New York City to talk things over. We booked a room at the Four Seasons and left Christine with our nanny.

Trust had been broken in our marriage, and Tom felt terrible about it. He owned up to what he had done like a man and promised it wouldn’t happen again. I believed him and wanted to work through this tough time together. I was truly in love with my husband and wanted to have another baby with him. We both wanted to keep the family together.

That night in the city, we met up with Tom’s brother, Jerry, and his wife, Denise, at the Rainbow Room for dinner and dancing. Normally, I can drink Cristal Rose and eat healthy portions of caviar. However, when the waiter brought the
champagne and caviar to the table, I suddenly got nauseated from the smell.

I told everyone that I didn’t feel well and excused myself to go to the restroom. Once inside, I met a couple of women, both mothers, who told me that I did not look well. I nodded and immediately ran into a stall to throw up. When I came out, one of the women said, “You’re pregnant.”

“No, I’m
not
pregnant,” I responded with certainty. “I have been trying for three and a half years and it hasn’t happened.”

“Nope, you’re pregnant,” she said with a smile.

When Tom and I got back to our hotel room, I sent out the bell captain to a local twenty-four-hour pharmacy to get me some pregnancy-test kits. I spent the rest of the night in the bathroom peeing on the test sticks. Tom eventually fell asleep, and at about six in the morning, I let out a scream of happiness. Tom came charging into the bathroom, still half-asleep, and said, “Where’s the spider?” (He knows I can’t stand spiders and thought he had to kill one for me.)

I held up the positive test. “It’s pink!” I yelled with excitement.

“Does this mean what I think it means?!”

“Yes!”

“Great, sweetie! Can I go back to bed now?” He meant it in a kind way, and later that day we celebrated the good news over brunch.

Jillian was born two weeks early, on May 14, 1998. When
Christine came into my hospital room to meet her new baby sister, I smiled at Tom and everything seemed to be glorious in our lives once again. With two beautiful daughters born out of love, I couldn’t help but think how life could not get any better than this.

For the next four years, I lived a dream life. I had two beautiful and healthy daughters. I had everything materially that any woman could ever wish for. I could shop for designer clothes and shoes every day. At the drop of a hat, I could travel first-class anywhere in the world I wanted. I never had to worry about paying any of the bills; they were all paid on time or months in advance. Tom and I didn’t owe a penny on our $2 million home. We bought brand-new luxury cars with cash anytime we wanted. My husband believed that you should never take out a loan; he was convinced that you should pay for everything in cash because you saved money on interest that way. His philosophy, which had been passed down by his father, was that if a person couldn’t pay for something in full, then he or she shouldn’t buy it.

Tom and I hosted old-Hollywood-style extravagant parties at our palatial New Jersey home. Semiformals would be held often and put together by professional party planner Amy Winters. Hundreds of invitations would be sent out, tents would be set up on the grounds three weeks in advance, and a dance floor would be specially built in our backyard. Valets and waiters dressed in tuxedos would stand at attention. Our social
events always seemed like something right out of a movie. The flowers alone, arranged throughout the house, would cost $35,000.

However, while I was clearly comfortable financially, I wasn’t happy emotionally. My marriage to Tom was not healthy. Tom created a lot of distance between us. Our date nights on Saturdays became less and less frequent. The communication between us was disintegrating. We no longer laughed together. We became two people living separate lives under the same roof.

From the outside it seemed as if we had everything. But on the inside, our relationship was hollow. It was no longer a marriage of love, and I wasn’t about to live a lie or stay in a marriage because a man was taking care of me and making things easy. Should I have stayed in a marriage because all of my bills were paid? Should I have stayed in a marriage because I could buy anything I wanted? No, because that’s what a prostitute does. I apologize, but it’s true. Some women can live like that, but I was not going to be one of them. I refused to be one of them. Which is why being called a prostitute is so ridiculous to me— it is the opposite of what I really am.

Accepting that my marriage was over was really difficult. Tom was and is the father of my children, and it would have been so much easier to stay together for their sakes. I knew it would be hard for my daughters not to have a father around. They were still so young! Jillian was only four years old at the time our marriage was crumbling, and she needed a father at
home to read to her and tuck her into bed every night. But ultimately I asked myself,
If I stay in this marriage, what example will I be setting for Jillian and Christine in the long run?
I imagined not a good one.

My inner voice was telling me things were wrong, and I needed to listen to it and be strong. After our last party, which we held to celebrate Christine’s first Holy Communion when she was eight years old, the marriage was done. Tom and I couldn’t mend our relationship and find our way back to each other. So, I filed for divorce.

Going through my divorce from Tom was when the real day-to-day struggles began for me. Paying all of the bills for a house the size of mine was completely foreign to me. Prior to being married, I owned and rented small homes, condos, and apartments. I had no idea what it cost to maintain a dwelling like the one in which I was living. I was now a mother of two and wasn’t going to go back to dancing in clubs. That was in the past. I needed to reinvent myself in the present while I dealt with the challenge of making ends meet for my family.

Unfortunately, the bills didn’t come to me—they went to my ex-husband, and he didn’t always take care of them on time. It’s difficult enough being a single mom, let alone having someone else in charge of the money. As a result, I started out behind the eight ball.

I had to pull in the reins. We went from going out to see a movie once a week to staying home and renting a movie once a month. I went from having a black American Express card
to bringing buckets of change collected from under couch cushions and beds to the bank in exchange for paper money. I’d go to the supermarket with just $20 to feed three people. (Let’s just say that macaroni and cheese became a big hit in our house.)

I had always felt for single moms, but when I became one, I found a new respect for them. I don’t think it’s any different being a single mother who lives in a house the size of mine or one who resides in a smaller dwelling. Wealthy or poor, no single mom out there has it easy.

Regardless, I had to create some sense of normalcy at home for my daughters’ sakes. It was hard enough for them to lose a father, but they also underwent a complete change of lifestyle. I needed to find fun things that we could do together that didn’t cost much money. For instance, each Saturday we would go into New York City. We didn’t have enough money to pay to park in a garage, so we made friends with a street vendor on the Upper West Side who would kindly save a parking spot for me every Saturday. I don’t how he saved the spot, but he came through every time! He’d even put change in the parking meter while my daughters and I would go off to Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History. We’d walk all over the city for hours. Christine and Jillian were used to riding door-to-door in our own limousine, and now they traveled everywhere on foot, but they didn’t miss it at all.

Through these hard times, my daughters and I bonded with one another, and I’d even say that we had a blast together. We
all developed a better understanding of one another and created a closeness that I wouldn’t give up for anything. My daughters and I are best friends. While my marriage was coming apart, my daughters were the glue that kept me together.

To my surprise, as I adapted to my new roles, I became the complete opposite of who I originally was. I used to be concerned with things like “Where will I plug in my blow-dryer?” and I would send concierges out to buy me things; now I was cutting wood and building fires with my daughters. Simple pleasures became our daily pleasures. I stepped down from the proverbial high horse that my husband had put me upon and actually achieved things by myself. Who knew?

When a wife files for divorce and becomes a single mom, often her soon-to-be ex-husband puts her through hell. As I was going through my divorce, I spoke to many women who were wealthier than I was who came crashing down financially and emotionally. During the time we were separated, Tom asked me many times to get back together with him. I always said no, and I believe that fueled some of the difficulties of our divorce settlement. He was hurt by the rejection, and I can understand that. I knew we were a family. Trust me, many times I would say to myself,
What am I doing? I am still in love with Tom. Maybe I should get back together with him. Maybe I should give our marriage one more try.
But in my heart of hearts, I knew that getting back together with him wouldn’t be for the right reasons. I would be going back because he could pay the bills. I was truly torn, and I cried often. I had been with Tom since my
late twenties and we had shared many great moments together. Were there more to come? Possibly.