“I find I’m rarely disappointed.” She follows Eve to the kitchen.
Brady tenses. He plotted out the morning, and Paige isn’t in the script. She’s the ultimate reminder of what he lost.
“Is your better half at church?” he asks. That’s how the guys refer to their standing Sunday golf game.
Paige nods. “He said to tell you they’re holding your place in the foursome until you officially tell them to screw off.”
“You should go sometime, Dad,” Eve urges.
“Nah,” Brady says.
He’s been branded and he knows it. Men aren’t as obvious with their judgment, but it’s there. Inwardly the guys at the club use my death to puff up what great family men they are. Their wives spend their money all-smiles—they can’t figure out how Brady botched such an easy equation. Even Paige, who was my trusted advisor and had a front-row seat to my life, doubts Brady’s innocence. We shared every marital grievance, but Paige now assumes I held back. She wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for Eve.
“Should I open them?” Eve asks, looking at the gifts.
“No,” Paige says in a serious tone. “They’re for your eighteenth birthday.” They both giggle. Brady puts tinfoil over the pancakes, sensing this will take a while.
The first few gifts are to get Eve into yoga—videos, a mat, Athleta clothes. My primary intention is to offer an outlet for her anger, but I also want to establish a commonality between Eve and Rory.
Eve thanks Paige without enthusiasm. “Try it,” Paige presses under divine inspiration. “It’s not like your schedule is booked solid.”
“Thanks for pointing that out.”
Paige’s eyebrows rise. “Well … am I wrong? Do you have time to give it a try?”
“No, you’re right, I do. But I can’t promise I’ll like it.”
“Fair enough,” Paige agrees. “Next present.”
Their exchange leaves Brady jealous. If he called Eve out like that there’d be backlash. What gives Paige the right? he wonders. Is it just maternal confidence?
Eve unwraps a paperback copy of The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. I’m convinced it’s the right book to further open Eve’s mind to the possibility that the energy she senses, the vibrations I send, are real. The more she believes, the easier it will be to get through.
The final present was not at my behest. Paige bought Eve four-hundred-dollar Frye boots. Eve does a double take at the branded box. “This is a pity present.”
“Completely,” Paige admits. “I love ya, kiddo. Since your mom isn’t here to spoil you, I figured I’d step in.”
Eve tears up while they embrace. Brady shuffles behind the counter to remind them of his existence, but Paige shoots him a look that screams, Back off. Brady shrinks, admonished. After his friend Bobby left, Brady did a masterful job pushing back the nagging possibility that he’d played a role in my unhappiness, but Paige’s contempt resurfaces his doubt.
It’s time for her to go. I poke Eve. “I’ll walk you out,” she says.
When Eve returns to Brady, they stare at each other, looking for a way back to their earlier momentum. Eve starts to say something, but abandons the thought mid-sentence. “Spit it out,” he says lightly.
“Mom shared the story of her labor last night.”
Respond carefully, I coach. “I hear her laugh sometimes,” he divulges. “It’s in my head, obviously, but still.” He wipes away a tear, but not before Eve sees it.
“You never told me that.”
“I thought it sounded crazy.”
“It does.”
Brady snorts, “Yeah. Yours too.”
Eve pours two glasses of orange juice while Brady puts the pancakes in the microwave. “Do you think it’s ’cause we want to hear her so badly? I mean, it’s not real, I know that, but then, what is it?” She places a hand on her collarbone. It’s a gesture of hers I know well—she’s scared of the answer.
“I don’t know,” Brady admits, “but hearing her makes me happy, which so little does right now, so I’m trying not to overthink it.”
“You? Overthink something? Never.”
Laugh at yourself, I instruct Brady. And, with mammoth effort, he does.
Eve
My hands are still sticky with syrup when he hands me a blank version of my mother’s journal. I thought he’d have Paula buy a bunch of random shit and try to pretend this birthday is normal, but he gives the one gift, unwrapped, as if to prove he had no help. I don’t know how he tracked down something Mom bought over two years ago, or how he thought to get it in the first place, but it’s the perfect present. He wrote a note on the inside cover.
Eve,
I know this birthday will be unforgettable in the most negative sense. It’s unfair that grief doesn’t take time off. I’m a poor substitute, but I promise we’ll make it—you and me. Our grief will mature. Although in despair, I cherish your life today, as I do every day.
There was a saying your mom used to quote by Adrienne Rich: “If we could learn to learn from pain even as it grasps us…” I hope this journal helps you do that.
Happy birthday,
Dad
The note is proof that out of freaking nowhere, it’s no longer me versus him; it’s us versus them, where them is everyone who didn’t lose Her. We’re a team. A totally dysfunctional team, but still.
“Remember the Clean Plate Club?” I ask.
“Remember it? I invented it.” He looks down and sees my food is gone. “Nice work.”
I eye the three-quarters of a pancake still on his plate. “I think we should reinstate the Clean Plate Club.”
He folds his arms. “I disagree.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like playing games I won’t win. Any other questions, Chatty McGee?”
He’s right. I’m not usually this talkative, but I don’t want breakfast to end. The second it does, his laptop will come out, his office door will close, and I’ll be left alone with my ghost of a mother. “Yeah, actually…” I draw out the words while I think of a question. “Why did you guys name me Eve?”
He wiggles his jaw to find the memory. “Umm, your mother picked it. It means ‘life giving’ and she loved the idea of that. But Eve had been a favorite of hers even before we looked through those crazy name books. A friend of Gram’s was named Eve. Mom talked about her quite a lot when we were first dating.”
“Who was she?”
“She was the one who turned your mom into such a bookworm. Highly intelligent. Men proposed right and left, but Eve balked at the whole idea of it. If memory serves, she was one of the first women to get a law degree from Boston College.”
“Did I meet her?”
“No,” he says, “and neither did I. She died while Mom was in college, before we met. Lung cancer, I think. She was a big smoker.”
I grin. “I was named after a dead woman you never met who smoked a lot?”
He frowns. “It’s all in the details you pick. Mom would say you were named after the most inspiring, independent woman she knew. That’s what she wanted for you, you know? She believed everyone had the right to create their own life, so she was inherently wary of people who told her how to live.”