I laughed and realized I had tears in my eyes, too. Afterward, when Julia returned from work, the moment I dreaded had come. We were going to the cemetery.
“This doesn’t seem real to me,” I told her on the way.
“Oh, it’s real,” she said. “There’s nothing more real in life than death.”
How deep did your dissatisfaction with yourself have to go in order for you to think like that? I wondered.
“Did you know he had all this planned out?” she asked.
“All this?”
“Their plots, of course, but also his tombstone, its size and shape and what he wanted written on it. Mummy says he did all that years ago.”
Why wasn’t I surprised?
The only word on his stone that surprised me was beloved. I didn’t think I ever realized that he believed he was. It didn’t seem that important to him. Respected and admired were words I would have thought of before I had thought of beloved husband and father.
“Do you think this is my fault?” I asked Julia as I looked at the grave.
I was pleased that she didn’t reply instantly. I glanced at her and then back at the tombstone.
“No,” she said, which surprised me. Julia was so much more like him. She wouldn’t rationalize or fabricate. “He gave his anger free rein; he let it diminish him. There was another way. Some understanding would have helped, helped us both,” she confessed.
I looked at her, surprised.
“His father shaped him and, like following a straight line, brought him to this place.”
She looked away and at the other graves, a sea of them, really. I thought she had never looked so beautiful. I was jealous of her for a change, jealous of some peace she had found in herself.
“I’m not going to try to understand you, Emma. You are who you are, and you do what you do because of that. He’d still be alive today if he’d accepted that truth.”
“Thank you, Julia,” I said.
She smiled, and we hugged and held each other. Why, we were both thinking for sure, couldn’t he be alive to see and hear us at this moment? It would have changed the world for him.
I remained with Julia and my mother, keeping myself at home, for three more days. I had come with some doubt that I would go back to Wyndemere, but with every passing hour at home, I realized more and more that I would. They realized it, too.
There were tears when I left, but there wasn’t that dread. Unsaid, but heard, was the thought, the wish, Go find yourself and your life, Emma.
Julia promised to visit me in America. She said she would try to bring Mummy, too. And of course, I promised to visit again soon.
Promises were really the glue that held us together. They brought relief and helped us avoid disappointment and ugly truth.
As weird as it seemed, I was happy to be back at Wyndemere. Everyone there, especially baby Ryder, I thought, was happy to see me return. My guise as Samantha’s college friend was restored, and people were again invited to dinners and parties at the mansion. During many of them, I was asked to sing. The only dark moment came when Elizabeth Davenport suffered a stroke. Whatever semblance of mind she clung to kept her insisting she not be moved to any facility, and Dr. Davenport hired round-the-clock nursing for her. I was told she could live for years like that.
My six months of breastfeeding were coming to an end. No one was pressuring me to remain any longer, but comments about how healthy Ryder was were always tied in one way or another to the breastfeeding. Samantha was doing all she could to keep me amused, too. During the six months, she was still buying doubles of everything she bought for herself. Every once in a while, we’d dress alike, even doing our hair alike, and go to dinner just to see the looks on Mrs. Marlene’s and Dr. Davenport’s faces.
In a blatant attempt to keep me from leaving, Samantha had Dr. Davenport arrange for me to have an audition at a supper club in Hillsborough. I wasn’t going to do it, but it was Franklin who convinced me. Sometimes, I thought he wanted me to stay more than anyone else did.
“You know that shows are often tested outside of New York before they get there. So are performers, I imagine. Get some experience while you have free room and board,” he