And he was the first person to congratulate her when she took a job teaching at Wharton. She never knew that he had made a few calls on her behalf. He never wanted her to know. He merely wanted to help her, in any and all ways that he could. And he did that, lovingly, until he died at age eighty-one.
Connor gave the eulogy. Her boyfriend, Greg, was one of the pallbearers. Afterward, she and Greg came to stay with me for a while.
“Mom, after seven husbands, I’m not sure you’ve had any practice living on your own,” she said as she sat at my dining room table, the same table she used to sit at in a high chair with Harry, Celia, John, and me.
“I lived a very full life before you were born,” I told her. “I lived alone once, and I can do it again. You and Greg should go live your lives. Really.”
But the moment I shut the door behind them, I realized just how huge this apartment was, just how quiet.
That’s when I hired Grace.
I had inherited multiple millions from Harry, Celia, and now Robert. And I had only Connor to spoil. So I also spoiled Grace and her family. It gave me happiness to give them happiness, to give them just a little bit of the luxury I’d had for most of my life.
Living alone isn’t so bad once you get used to it. And living in a big apartment like this, well, I’ve kept it because I wanted to give it to Connor, but I have enjoyed some aspects of it. Of course, I always liked it more when Connor would spend the night, especially after she and Greg broke up.
You can make quite a life for yourself hosting charity dinners and collecting art. You can find a way to be happy with whatever the truth is.
Until your daughter dies.
Connor was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer two and a half years ago, when she was thirty-nine. She was given months to live. I knew what it was like to realize that the one you love would leave this earth well before you. But nothing could prepare me for the pain of watching my child suffer.
I held her when she puked from the chemo. I wrapped her in blankets when she was so cold she was crying. I kissed her forehead like she was my baby again, because she was forever my baby.
I told her every single day that her life had been the world’s greatest gift to me, that I believed I was put on earth not to make movies or wear emerald-green gowns and wave at crowds but to be her mother.
I sat next to her hospital bed. “Nothing I have ever done,” I said, “has made me as proud as the day I gave birth to you.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ve always known that.”
I had made a point of not bullshitting her ever since her father died. We had the sort of relationship where we believed each other, believed in each other. She knew she was loved. She knew that she had changed my life, that she had changed the world.
She made it eighteen months before she passed away.
And when they put her in the ground next to her father, I broke like I have never broken before.
The devastating luxury of panic overtook me.
And it has never left.
THAT’S HOW MY STORY ENDS. With the loss of everyone I have ever loved. With me, in a big, beautiful Upper East Side apartment, missing everyone who ever meant anything to me.
When you write the ending, Monique, make sure it’s clear that I don’t love this apartment, that I don’t care about all my money, that I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if people think I’m a legend, that the adoration of millions of people never warmed my bed.
When you write the ending, Monique, tell everyone that it is the people I miss. Tell everyone that I got it wrong. That I chose the wrong things most of the time.
When you write the ending, Monique, make sure the reader understands that all I was ever really looking for was family. Make sure it’s clear that I found it. Make sure they know that I am heartbroken without it.
Spell it out if you have to.
Say that Evelyn Hugo doesn’t care if everyone forgets her name. Evelyn Hugo doesn’t care if everyone forgets she was ever alive.
Better yet, remind them that Evelyn Hugo never existed. She was a person I made up for them. So that they would love me. Tell them that I was confused, for a very long time, about what love was. Tell them that I understand it now, and I don’t need their love anymore.
Say to them, “Evelyn Hugo just wants to go home. It’s time for her to go to her daughter, and her lover, and her best friend, and her mother.”
Tell them Evelyn Hugo says good-bye.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘GOOD-BYE’? Don’t say good-bye, Evelyn.”
She looks me right in the eye and ignores my words.
“When you put it all together into one narrative,” she says, “make sure it’s clear that of all the things I did to protect my family, I would do every one again. And I would have done more, would have behaved even uglier, if I thought it could have saved them.”
“I think most people probably feel the same way,” I tell her. “About their lives, their loved ones.”
Evelyn looks disappointed in my response. She gets up and walks over to her desk. She pulls out a piece of paper.
It is old. Crinkled and folded, with a burnt-orange hue on one edge.
“The man in the car with Harry,” Evelyn says. “The one I left.”
This is, of course, the most egregious thing she’s ever done. But I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same for someone I loved. I’m not saying I would have done the same. I’m just saying that I’m not sure.
“Harry had fallen in love with a black man. His name was James Grant. He died on February 26, 1989.”
HERE IS THE THING ABOUT fury.
It starts in your chest.
It starts as fear.
Fear quickly moves to denial. No, that must be a mistake. No, that can’t be.
And then the truth hits. Yes, she is right. Yes, it can be.
Because you realize, Yes, it is true.
And then you have a choice. Are you sad, or are you angry?
And ultimately, the thin line between the two comes down to the answer to one question. Can you assign blame?
The loss of my father, when I was seven, was something for which I only ever had one person to blame. My father. My father was driving drunk. He’d never done anything like it before. It was entirely out of character. But it happened. And I could either hate him for it, or I could try to understand it. Your father was driving under the influence and lost control of the car.
But this. The knowledge that my father never willingly got behind the wheel of a car drunk, that he was left dead on the side of the road by this woman, framed for his own death, his legacy tarnished. The fact that I grew up believing he’d been the one to cause the accident. There is so much blame hanging in the air, waiting for me to snatch it and pin it on Evelyn’s chest.
And the way she is sitting in front of me, remorseful but not exactly sorry, makes it clear she’s ready to be pinned.
This blame is like a flint to my years of aching. And it erupts into fury.
My body goes white-hot. My eyes tear. My hands ball into fists, and I step away because I am afraid of what I might do.
And then, because stepping away from her feels too generous, I edge back to where she is, and I push her against the sofa, and I say, “I’m glad you have no one left. I’m glad there’s no one alive to love you.”
I let go of her, surprised at myself. She sits back up. She watches me.
“You think that giving me your story makes up for any of it?” I ask her. “All this time, you’ve been making me sit here, listening to your life, so that you could confess, and you think that your biography makes up for it?”
“No,” she says. “I think you know me well enough by now to know I’m not nearly naive enough to believe in absolution.”
“What, then?”
Evelyn reaches out and shows me the paper in her hand.
“I found this in Harry’s pants pocket. The night he died. My guess is that he’d read it and it was the reason he�
�d been drinking so much to begin with. It was from your father.”
“So?”
“So I . . . I found great peace in my daughter knowing the truth about me. There was immense comfort in knowing the real her. I wanted to . . . I think I’m the only person alive who can give that to you. Can give it to your dad. I want you to know who he truly was.”
“I know who he was to me,” I say, while realizing that that’s not exactly true.
“I thought you would want to know all of him. Take it, Monique. Read the letter. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to keep it. But I always planned on sending it to you. I always thought you deserved to know.”
I snatch it from her, not wanting even to extend the kindness of taking it gently. I sit down. I open it. There are what can only be bloodstains on the top of the page. I wonder briefly if it’s my father’s blood. Or Harry’s. I decide not to think about it.
Before I can read even one line, I look up at her.
“Can you leave?” I say.
Evelyn nods and walks out of her own office. She shuts the door behind her. I look down. There is so much to reframe in my mind.
My father did nothing wrong.
My father didn’t cause his own death.
I’ve spent years of my life seeing him from that angle, making peace with him through that lens.
And now, for the first time in nearly thirty years, I have new words, fresh thoughts, from my father.
Dear Harry,
I love you. I love you in a way that I never thought possible. I have spent so much of my life thinking that this type of love was a myth. And now here it is, so real I can touch it, and I finally understand what the Beatles were singing about all those years.
I do not want you to move to Europe. But I also know that what I may not want may very well be the best thing for you. So despite my desires, I think you should go.
I cannot and will not be able to give you the life you are dreaming of here in Los Angeles.
I cannot marry Celia St. James—although I do agree with you that she is a stunningly beautiful woman, and if I’m being honest, I did nurse a small crush on her in Royal Wedding.
But the fact remains that though I have never loved my wife the way I love you, I will never leave her. I love my family too much to fracture us for even a moment of time. My daughter, whom I desperately hope you can one day meet, is my reason for living. And I know that she is happiest with me and her mom. I know that she will live her best life only if I stay where I am.
Angela is perhaps not the love of my life. I know that now, now that I’ve felt real passion. But I think, in many ways, she means to me what Evelyn means to you. She is my best friend, my confidante, my companion. I admire the forthrightness with which you and Evelyn discuss your sexuality, your desires. But it is not how Angela and I work, and I’m not sure I’d want to change that. We do not have a vibrant sex life, but I love her the way one loves a partner. I would never forgive myself for causing her pain. And I would find myself desperate to call her, to hear her thoughts, to know how she is, every moment of every day if I was not with her.
My family is my heart. And I cannot break us up. Not even for the type of love that I have found with you, my Harry.
Go to Europe. If you believe it is what is best for your family.
And know that here, in Los Angeles, I am with mine, thinking of you.
Forever yours,
James
I put down the letter. I stare straight ahead into the air. And then, and only then, it hits me.
My father was in love with a man.
I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I sit on the couch, staring at the ceiling. I think of my memories of my dad, the way he would throw me up in the air in the backyard, the way he would every once in a while let me eat banana splits for breakfast.
Those memories have always been tinged by how he died. They have always had a bittersweetness to them because I believed it was his mistakes that took him from me too soon.
And now I don’t know what to make of him. I don’t know how to think of him. A defining trait is gone and is replaced by so much more—for better or for worse.
At some point, after I start replaying the same images over and over in my mind—memories of my father alive, imagined images of his final moments and his death—I realize I can’t sit still anymore.
So I stand up, I walk into the hallway, and I start looking for Evelyn. I find her in the kitchen with Grace.
“So this is why I’m here?” I say, holding the letter in the air.
“Grace, would you mind giving us a moment?”
Grace gets up from her stool. “Sure.” She disappears down the hall.
When she’s gone, Evelyn looks at me. “It’s not the only reason I wanted to meet you. I tracked you down to give you the letter, obviously. And I had been looking for a way to introduce myself to you that wasn’t quite so out of the blue, quite so shocking.”
“Vivant helped you with that, clearly.”
“It gave me a pretense, yes. I felt more comfortable having a major magazine send you than calling you up on the phone and trying to explain how I knew who you were.”
“So you figured you’d just lure me here with the promise of a bestseller.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Once I started researching you, I read most of your work. Specifically, I read your right-to-die piece.”
I put the letter on the table. I consider taking a seat. “So?”
“I thought it was beautifully written. It was informed, intelligent, balanced, and compassionate. It had heart. I admired the way you deftly handled an emotional and complicated topic.”
I don’t want to let her say anything nice to me, because I don’t want to have to thank her for it. But my mother instilled in me a politeness that kicks in when I least expect it. “Thank you.”
“When I read it, I suspected that you would do a beautiful job with my story.”
“Because of one small piece I wrote?”
“Because you’re talented, and if anyone could understand the complexities of who I am and what I’ve done, it was probably you. And the more I’ve gotten to know you, the more I know I was right. Whatever book you write about me, it will not have easy answers. But it will, I predict, be unflinching. I wanted to give you that letter, and I wanted you to write my story, because I believe you to be the very best person for the job.”
“So you put me through all this to assuage your guilt and make sure you got the book about your life that you wanted?”
Evelyn shakes her head, ready to correct me, but I’m not done.
“It’s amazing, really. How self-interested you can be. That even now, even when you appear to want to redeem yourself, it’s still about you.”
Evelyn puts up her hand. “Don’t act like you haven’t benefited from this. You’ve been a willing participant here. You wanted the story. You took advantage—deftly and smartly, I might add—of the position I put you in.”
“Evelyn, seriously,” I say. “Cut the crap.”
“You don’t want the story?” Evelyn asks, challenging me. “If you don’t want it, don’t take it. Let my story die with me. That is just fine.”
I am quiet, unsure how to respond, unsure how I want to respond.
Evelyn puts out her hand, expectantly. She’s not going to let the suggestion be hypothetical. It’s not rhetorical. It demands an answer. “Go ahead,” she says. “Get your notes and the recordings. We can burn them all right now.”
I don’t move, despite the fact that she gives me ample time to do so.
“I didn’t think so,” she says.
“It’s the least I deserve,” I tell her, defensive. “It’s the fucking least you can give me.”
“Nobody deserves anything,” Evelyn says. “It’s simply a matter of who’s willing to go and take it for themselves. And you, Monique, are a person who has proven to be willing to go out there and take what you want. So be honest about that. No one i
s just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal.”
I get up from the table and walk to the sink. I wash my hands, because I hate how clammy they feel. I dry them. I look at her. “I hate you, you know.”
Evelyn nods. “Good for you. It’s such an uncomplicated feeling, isn’t it? Hatred?”
“Yes,” I say. “It is.”
“Everything else in life is more complex. Especially your father. That’s why I thought it was so important that you read that letter. I wanted you to know.”
“What, exactly? That he was innocent? Or that he loved a man?”
“That he loved you. Like that. He was willing to turn down romantic love in order to stand by your side. Do you know what an amazing father you had? Do you know how loved you were? Plenty of men say they’ll never leave their families, but your father was put to the test and didn’t even blink. I wanted you to know that. If I had a father like that, I would have wanted to know.”
No one is all good or all bad. I know this, of course. I had to learn it at a young age. But sometimes it’s easy to forget just how true it is. That it applies to everyone.
Until you’re sitting in front of the woman who put your father’s dead body in the driver’s seat of a car to save the reputation of her best friend—and you realize she held on to a letter for almost three decades because she wanted you to know how much you were loved.
She could have given me the letter earlier. She also could have thrown it away. There’s Evelyn Hugo for you. Somewhere in the middle.
I sit down and put my hands over my eyes, rubbing them, hoping that if I rub hard enough, maybe I can make my way to a different reality.
When I open them, I’m still here. I have no choice but to resign myself to it.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Page 32