Since the topic of the day is, apparently, love, I think it’s only correct to mention that for a very long time, my image of the ideal marriage and relationship was personified by Andy and Lea Fastow. I know, I know. That’s a strange statement.
Even the most militant Andy Fastow bashers will admit that he was very devoted to his wife. He made time for lunch with her several times a week. They called each other terms of endearment, even after twenty years of marriage. There was never a whisper of indiscretion from either of them.
I have spoken to several people who knew Andy Fastow quite well. The common thread, the one thing I can count on them to say, is that Andy Fastow was a man who had perfected the art of self-interest. One person said that to understand anything Andy Fastow did in any situation, simply ask yourself what Andy got out of it.
This became an important question when I was wondering why he allowed Lea, the love of his life, to go to prison for a year on a tax fraud charge related to his undeclared Enron earnings. He could exculpate his wife but chose not to. For months, I pondered this. And then, like all epiphanies, the answer was right there in front of my face. He did it because he did love her, and he valued the life and family they built. It would have been much more difficult for Lea, I think, if she had seen him go away for twenty years – or even the ten that the Task Force promised. Certainly the Task Force understood his weakness for his wife. They promised Fastow he could be home with Lea in six, but he had to let her go to prison for a year – a very close prison (the Houston Federal Detention Center) – so that she could be an example of the Enron Task Force prowess. In six years, instead of ten (or even more), he could be home with her, and they could continue their lives as if nothing had happened. Since their plea agreements were cross-collateralized, I do not think this is too far outside the realm of possibility.
I imagine the talks they had before accepting the plea deals were very candid, and they struggled to find a way to minimize the pain of fracturing their family. I imagine at no point did they turn on each other or even get too angry. Sad, definitely. A little panicky, yes. But they never, ever turned on each other. And when Lea went away, Andy brought the kids to see her every single weekend.
Andy Fastow has hurt a lot of people. He has made up lies out of whole cloth (Global Galactic, for instance), he’s testified against his friends, he’s guilty of both double-dealing and self-dealing, and he sold his soul to the Enron Task Force for six years and the possibility of getting out in three. Money is his God; he has no moral compass, he lies to his friends, he takes what he can from his enemies, he decieves as a matter of course, he is narcissistic to the most extreme degree. Certainly disloyal, misanthropic, devious.
But he loves his wife.
He loves her terribly, maybe even more than he loves his own self-interest. So say whatever you will about how this man can not be trusted by you or me and anyone else. But Lea will trust him until the day she dies, because he’s done exactly what he promised to do: he took care of her. And in a storm when he could not trust the Task Force, or even himself, Lea took care of him.
It is perhaps telling of the redemptive qualities of love that it was the one thing that survived Enron, and prison, and whatever monsters Fastow must battle when he closes his eyes to sleep each night. But if there is any goodness in him at all, it is in the fact that he did cherish loyalty and goodness in his wife, and that he incontrovertibly felt those same qualities for her. It does not excuse anything he has done, but whatever else he may be, Andy Fastow is a good husband.
Enron Online: The Enron Blog 