Far behind us in the Children’s Grove, the gravediggers had begun to shovel dirt into Eva’s grave. I wanted to run back to them to help. Or, better, to do it myself.
Were there places in the world where mothers were the ones who buried their children? Clearing the ground of grass and leaves as though readying it for a garden, hauling away the stones, cleaving the naked dirt with a spade, the force of it driven by their wordless pain? There could be no better way to use that pain, that sharp, relentless, endless pain that sat like a rock in my gut and pulsed its poison throughout my body. Eva’s grave had been dug that morning (Or the day before. I didn’t know, didn’t want to know.), but I could at least help to cover her. Hide the bright, white coffin away in the sheltering earth. Who better to lay a child to sleep than her own mother?
My father’s hand tightened around mine as though he’d heard my thoughts and might keep me from turning back.
The Children’s Grove, with its pensive army of stone and marble cherubs guarding rows of small graves, had been my choice. Preston had wanted Eva buried in the gated section of the cemetery reserved long ago for the Bliss family; but even fighting from the depths of my guilt, I had won. She would sleep in the company of the twenty or so children who had died in a flu epidemic of forty years earlier, along with the several more who had been buried there since. Eva had loved being with other children and had adored Michael too. It was the right place for her.
I stumbled on a hole that had been covered by leaves, and my father steadied me.
“Are you sure you’re up to having all these people back at the house, Lottie?” He kept his voice low, no doubt to keep Press from hearing. Although he was always friendly with Press, they were never truly close. Neither of them ever spoke to me about it, but I suspect it was a mutual choice.
There was no question of canceling the wake. It was the tradition of the family to open the house to anyone who wanted to come and visit after a funeral. And there had been several funerals tied to Bliss House in the eighty years of its existence.
“Marlene will have everything ready. It doesn’t matter, Daddy. I don’t care.”
The truth was that I really didn’t care. Eva was dead. Let them stare. Let them wonder. Let them eat our food and gossip about us. It was both the cost and privilege of living at Bliss House, the house my father had once called “that worrisome place.”
Chapter 3
Death, Endless Death
Press’s face and shoulders were canted over the steering wheel as though he might make the Cadillac sedan—which he’d bought for me when Michael was born—go faster. Several people had approached us before we reached the car, delaying our departure, and he had stood rudely fingering his keys, tolerating their condolences. I hadn’t wanted to speak with them either, and had just nodded at first, hoping they would finish so we could return to the house and get the whole thing over with. I suppose I fell back on my training, trying to be polite even though I felt dead inside.
Press—at least this new Press—was very different from me. He wasn’t often rude, but his air of natural privilege had intensified. Months earlier, before Olivia’s funeral, he had shocked me by saying that he didn’t give a damn about the feelings of the people who kept calling and coming by to tell us how sorry they were. Father Aaron had told us grief might expose itself in unexpected ways, and, as the weeks progressed, I found myself even a little excited by Press’s unpredictability.
“Without Olivia in the house, he can be his own man now, Lottie. That’s a good thing for you both,” my father had said.
Still, I was certain that eventually Press would again become the kind, funny, pleasant man I’d married. I did see that man again, briefly, that golden afternoon in the salon, but then he was gone forever.
When Augie Shaw, Olivia’s lawyer, went over her will with us, we learned that Olivia had specifically left half of Bliss House and the surrounding land to me, along with a substantial gift of money and jewelry. I had seen a flash of real surprise in Press’s eyes. Then he had smiled—but only with his lips. There was no doubt to whom he believed Bliss House really belonged.
By the time Eva died, his singular obsession was Bliss House.