Now, though, it is Sat., Jan. 10, the morning after. All the celebrities and power brokers who came to Palm Springs for the funeral have left, and Cher, stunned and puffy-eyed from grief, remains, curled up in her gray pajamas on a blue sofa in the guest house next to the home of Mary Bono, Sonny's fourth wife. Rep. Sonny Bono, the public man, has been laid to rest. Now it is time for the private grieving
"Sonny was like my father, my husband, my brother, the father of my child, my partner and my best friend,' Cher says softly, with daughter Chastity, 28, sitting close by. In the main house, a Spanish-style villa in the foothills above the town, phones ring, a TV blares momentarily, voices are raised in conversation. There, Mary, 36, her son, Chesare, 9, and daughter, ,. Chianna, 6, also begin the sad task of learning to live without Sonny.
At the public funeral—family and friends attended a private memorial service on Wednesday—Mary chose not to speak. "There's no way I could ; have kept my composure," she says. Instead, Cher spoke for the family, preceded by Gov. Pete Wilson of California, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former congressman Bruce Her-schensohn, Sonny's friend. The congregation of 1,200 was drawn from each of Sonny's various worlds. Former President Gerald Ford was there, former Vice President Dan Quayle, singer Tony Orlando.
All of this for a funny-looking guy with a nasal voice who started his public career wearing a bobcat vest and Eskimo boots, a guy with whom Cher squabbled incessantly, both on-air and in the years since their 1975 divorce. Yet the fighting never quite killed the affection they had for one another. "I know that if the tables had been turned," she says, "it would be exactly the same thing; that Son [her pet name for Sonny] would have dropped what he was doing and given the eulogy. There are some bonds that even death cannot break."
Including those between father and daughter. Chastity and Sonny had been, if not estranged, a little out of touch over the past several months. For one thing, Chastity, a gay rights activist, was upset that he had voted in July 1996 for the Republican-sponsored Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages. "It wasn't like I didn't love him or we had a falling out," she says. "We just hadn't talked in a while. I just wish—more than anything—that I could wake up in the morning, find him in the kitchen and have a cup of coffee with him." Looking down at the floor, she says softly, "God, Dad, we were stupid."
During the week, Mary Bono kept trying to get 10 minutes alone with Cher to talk about the man they both loved and the future. Finally, on Friday night, after the funeral, exhausted and emotionally drained, they lay down together in the master bedroom. "Chianna came in and fell asleep between us," says Mary. "We spent an hour and a half talking. We talked about how we both realized Sonny's strength." When Mary asked whether she should run for Sonny's seat in Congress, Cher told her, "If this is something you need to do, you do it."
That night the children slept in Mary's room. "Waking up is the hardest part," she says. "For a moment there, you kind of forget he's gone. I miss everything about him." By mid-morning, though, as the house begins filling up with family members and friends coming by to pay their respects, Mary is able to find a vestige of humor. "Sonny," she says, "would have loved this: 75 people in the kitchen to cook for, and lots of great press."
MICHAEL NEILL
JEFF SCHNAUFER in Palm Springs
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- Jeff Schnaufer.
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