“No one would blame you if you did, Charlotte. No one blames you for anything.” She paused. “You don’t have to pretend with me. She was your precious angel.”
There was no stopping the tears then. I didn’t really want comfort from anyone, because I knew there was no real comfort anywhere. Eva was my child. Press couldn’t understand. Not really. Not Nonie, not even my best friend could comprehend the depth of the empty space inside me. It was a nameless, endless chasm that could never be filled—not with air or water or tears, and certainly not words of any kind. Rachel let me cry and just held my hand, occasionally squeezing it. Outside the screens, the rain fell harder, drowning out the sound of my sobs.
I don’t know how long we sat like that. Five minutes, or an hour. When I think back, I realize that, for many reasons, it must have been a Herculean effort for Rachel. My handkerchief was limp and wet, and the area behind my eyes felt washed out and scratchy. Finally, the sound of the rain was the only sound left.
Weeks earlier, I couldn’t have imagined myself crying as I had in front of her. And certainly not in front of the more distant friends and acquaintances who had been at the cemetery. Death had changed me; but, despite her initial hysteria over the Heasters at the house, it had not changed Rachel. She was her cool, unemotional self. The silence between us turned quickly awkward.
“Do you want me to call Press to take you home?”
“God, no. There’s no reason.” I ran the handkerchief carefully below each eye, remembering that I’d put on a small amount of mascara, though I doubted there was any left.
“What can I do? Do you want me to drive you? I can still fit behind the wheel.” She patted her stomach. There seemed to be more baby than there was of Rachel.
Once again I tried to smile but couldn’t quite make it happen.
“Nonie will wonder where I am,” I lied. “I should go.”
I got up to leave just as Sarah was cautiously putting down a tray with iced tea and a plate full of ladyfingers drizzled with raspberry syrup on the low table in front of us. No doubt she’d been waiting in the kitchen for me to stop crying. Had she been listening, as well? My sobbing was just more fodder for the Old Gate gossip mill.
“Sarah, wrap up the ladyfingers for Mrs. Bliss to take with her. Her husband will love them. Here, help me up, will you?”
Sarah was lean and hollow-eyed, younger than most of Rachel’s housekeepers. The arm she held out to Rachel looked strong, like she was used to heavy work.
“Yes, ma’am.”
As we walked to the front door, Rachel kept her hand around my waist. We embraced on the front step and exchanged kisses. Before I turned away, I lifted the little bag. “Maybe I’ll let Michael have a bite of one. They smell wonderful. Thank you.”
We parted, but she called out to me just as I reached the car. “Wait. I meant to ask you what you thought about Halloween. Isn’t Press brilliant for suggesting it?”
I must have looked puzzled, because she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Press is such an idiot. He told you about the memorial for Helen and Zion, yes? He said we’d do it in your theater on Halloween. They would’ve loved that.”
There is nowhere on earth more beautiful in the fall than the hills around Old Gate, the colors of the trees violent against the dulling earth beneath them. But I didn’t see them as I drove back to Bliss House. They could’ve been purple or black as night or in flames, as much impression as they made on me.
I wove through town, past the library and the courthouse, past the new furniture store that had opened in May with a celebration that had included a brass band and a clown handing out balloons. I had driven Nonie and Eva into town to hear the band, and Eva had gone right up to the clown who, truth be told, was not a very good one, with makeup that didn’t completely hide his day-old beard, and a thin piece of rope binding one of his giant red shoes. The other children hung back, wary. But not Eva. She challenged the clown with her smile and asked for a second balloon for Michael, who bounced in my arms, excited by the music.
The memory of how Eva had looked up at the clown, her arm lifted to reach the balloon’s string (Had the balloon been yellow or red? It seemed critical that I remember, and I could not.), was so strong that I also drove past the stop sign on Market Street without stopping.
With the great blaring of another car’s horn, I came to myself in time to keep from rear-ending a car that had stopped on the other side of the intersection. My window was open and I hadn’t turned on the radio, so I heard the man who had almost hit me yelling at me as he continued through the intersection. My mouth went dry.
Carefully, with a small wave, I drove around the stopped car. Just as I reached the edge of town, I heard a police siren behind me.