The Light of the World, page 2
Now Eva found herself taking in the scattering of freckles over her nose peeking through the makeup that she’d already sweat through. Under the harsh, industrial lights of the bathroom, Eva could see the lighter streaks in her hair from a summer spent out of doors wandering the streets of the city. It looked strange, almost out of place, as if she’d put the highlights in purposefully in an attempt to be someone else, or as if she were masking the truth of herself behind a socially acceptable veneer.
Eva puffed out her cheeks and scowled into the mirror. She looked like hell, she decided, poking at her cheeks and blinking her green eyes furiously to try to clear them before the tears came again.
She could not handle the people out there who had scarcely known her grandmother. They only pretended that they had. They weren’t the type of people who would understand the woman who had sat Eva down after she had to drop out of college and demanded to know what she wanted to do with her life. Eva had been very careful never to tell her grandmother about her struggles to find a job worth doing with no degree, but her grandmother had seen it anyway. “You need to try harder,” Mary insisted when they were alone. “The world isn’t all misery and heartbreak.”
“It feels like it is,” Eva replied.
The sound of running water in the sink calmed her. Eva stuck her hands under the stream, pushing the tap as cold as it would go. She shuddered as the water hit her wrists and began to cool her. The service would be over soon, and then they’d leave for the cemetery to bury the one person who’d ever really understood her.
Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes and Eva sniffed loudly. She shut off the water and resolved to avoid thinking of the loss. Her grandmother wouldn’t have wanted that. And besides, it wasn’t as though Eva didn’t have other things to think about. Her creepy cousin had a new flavor of the week, which was intriguing and a little sad. Maybe she’d spend the rest of the reception reflecting on how he was able to get the hottest chicks around despite being a total weirdo.
Eva steeled herself. She could handle this, she knew that she could. She shook herself before turning away and heading back out into the oppressive late-summer heat.
The service was over and her father was talking to Eva’s mother and her uncle Nate. He was technically her father’s cousin, but she’d always called him uncle. He and her father had been raised like brothers. Eva slid quietly in beside them, hoping that her absence had gone unnoticed by anyone other than her parents.
“Eva!” Nate boomed in a voice that was far too loud for the somber affair. He was a large, round man who was the complete physical opposite of Eva’s willowy, beanpole father. Eva took after her father, but with her mother’s shorter stature. People liked to joke that she was a carbon copy of her grandmother, back in the day. “How are you holding up, sweetie?” Nate asked.
Eva shrugged, looking away to cover another swell of tears. “I’m a little mad that Mr. McKay made the jokes he did. Gran didn’t believe in heaven or god. I understand that it makes people feel better, but I don’t think Gran would’ve liked it very much.”
Nate smiled sadly and nodded. “You’re probably right.” Eva’s lips twitched upwards into a weak smile and he added in an undertone, “She’d have had a fit. Aunt Mary was an old battle axe, that’s for sure. It’s such a shame she’s gone.”
“It really is.” Her head ached from crying for what felt like days now. The temperature wasn’t helping much at all to quell the headache. It was all she could do to be here and be supportive of her father and the rest of her family. “I’m going to miss her.”
Sometimes, Eva caught herself wondering if who she appeared to be in public was just a mask, like the one her grandmother had worn for years to cover her own misery and self-pity.
There were so many people at this funeral whom Eva didn’t recognize. They were an odd bunch of mourners: old and young, a hodge-podge of people whose lives her grandmother had touched. There was the family connection, as expected, but also several little old ladies who must have known Mary in their youth. Then there were the young people who delivered her mail and her Meals on Wheels when Eva wasn’t staying with her. In Eva’s mind, these people had no place here. This was mourning for family, not for strangers.
She stood, making small talk with her cousins and the few people she did recognize. There were the ladies who lived downstairs from her grandmother’s tiny apartment, the old guy she’d always stolen newspapers from, the guy who owned the corner grocery store since the ’80s and had watched Eva grow up. Mr. Bertelli, if Eva remembered correctly. Mostly she just remembered him as “mustache” because he had one of the most impressive she’d ever seen.
“What are you doing with your life now?” Mr. Bertelli asked her as he scratched at his collar. His beard was already growing in and the morning was not half gone. Eva remembered being utterly fascinated by his mustache when she was a child. Now it just looked to her as if someone had shoved a black feather duster under his nose. “I heard you’d left school?”
It was the question Eva never had an answer for because she was doing nothing right now. She was sitting in her tiny shared apartment, dodging multiple roommates she didn’t particularly like, and applying for jobs while watching the precious months that her student loans were in deferment tick away down to zero. Apparently, getting sick and spending months under watch was not enough to earn you a more lengthy deferment period on loans that hadn’t even bought a complete college education.
“I’m still in the market, yeah.” She looked anywhere but his face. Her cheeks burned with shame. “Haven’t really found much at all.”
“Mrs. Kessler said you were thinking about majoring in history before leaving.” At Eva’s nod, he continued, “It is not the best, is it?”
Eva shook her head. “No,” she confessed. “Not without more school, it isn’t.”
He clapped her on the shoulder, “Well, should you ever need something to do, I am in need of help to mind the counter.” The smile that he beamed down at Eva was wide and genuine, despite the somber occasion. “Think about it.”
“I will, Mr. Bertelli,” Eva promised. She felt uncomfortable with the offer, which would only set her up for days of increased subway fares and long, transfer-filled commutes. He wandered away and Eva watched him go. The humidity was rising and it made the very idea of moving around and being social horrible, especially when all she wanted to do was to sit and think about her grandmother. She fiddled with a tendril of hair that she still could not, for the life of her, get to stay in place.
From where she stood, Eva could see a woman who looked to be around her own age sitting in the corner. She was staring down at the program in her lap. The woman’s fingers played with a pendant that hung around her neck, and a sense of melancholy came over Eva as she watched her. She broke her gaze away, not wanting to get caught staring at a stranger. A chill ran up her spine and her eyes flicked back to the young woman, who sat with her eyes downcast and a shy blush warming her cheeks. What was it about her? Eva didn’t know her and could not guess how the woman might have known her grandmother. The older gentleman who sat down beside her and placed a comforting hand on her arm didn’t seem to know the woman, either.
Eva’s father’s voice cut through the quiet lull of conversation and Eva turned her attention back to her own family. Her dad had his arm around her mom’s shoulders and Uncle Nate stood beside him with his wife Lisa. Eva’s nose wrinkled as Charlie sidled up beside Nate holding hands with the girl he’d brought with him.
Grief was a strange thing, Eva reasoned, picking her way through the sea of folding chairs over to the small cluster of her immediate family. She would never even consider bringing a date to a funeral. It just seemed tacky.
“Hey, Eva.” Charlie leaned toward her as she drew level with the group. His date gave Eva a dirty look and Eva puffed out her cheeks, scowling at the girl’s too-bright and too-short skirt. This wasn’t a wedding, it was a funeral, and a little respect was expected. “Whatcha doin’ all by yourself over there?” Charlie asked.
“I was talking to Mr. Bertelli,” Eva answered. She felt testy, ready to snap at any moment. The heat inside this god-awful tent was making her sweat and she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “He was a good friend of Gran’s.”
Charlie nodded. “He really was.” Tilting his head back and staring up at the roof of the tent, he barreled on, “After Grandpa died, I always wondered if there wasn’t something going on there…”
“Charlie!” Aunt Lisa admonished, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around to face her. He was a good deal taller than his mother, but she had the scary you-done-messed-up-son tone down to perfection. He looked appropriately chastised as she pulled him away, and her voice dropped to low and dangerous tones that Eva couldn’t make out over the din in the tent.
Eva flinched and cast a sympathetic glance over to his date. “He’s a bit of an ass,” she explained in an undertone. “Sorry.”
“And you are?” the date asked, speaking for the first time. Her nasal voice was higher than Eva would have expected and unpleasant, too.
“Oh, Eva Kessler,” She offered her hand and didn’t particularly care that it was probably clammy to the touch. This girl’s attitude completely deserved it. “Mary was my grandmother, and Charlie’s my second cousin.” She glanced over at Charlie’s mother, who was still chewing him out for being an insensitive prick. She didn’t envy him. “How do you know Charlie?”
“We met at school,” the girl replied. She seemed a little bit encouraged that Eva and Charlie were related. “I’m Ainsley. Ainsley Carter.”
“Nice to meet you.” Her smile was tight with false politeness. She couldn’t stand people who judged so quickly and came to the totally wrong conclusion. It wasn’t fair to anyone, and this girl didn’t belong here. Her grandmother would have hated her. She was very blonde, after all.
“I think we have to go soon,” Eva’s father said, and the gathered cluster of their family’s attention turned to him, almost as one. The burial itself was supposed to be a small, family affair. Eva scratched at her upper arm and wondered if Ainsley would be included in the family since she’d come with Charlie. She hoped that she wouldn’t. It didn’t feel right for another of Charlie’s flavors of the week to be included in such a personal moment. Eva didn’t want her there.
She’d been wrong to hope, Eva realized, as they trooped to the car. Ainsley was following Charlie and the rest of his family with a strange expression on her face as she rested a hand in what was apparently supposed to be a comforting manner on Charlie’s arm.
Eva glared at them both, but neither looked in her direction. Annoyed, she glanced over her shoulder one more time at the tent. The sun was now high in the sky and there was little cloud cover to protect the tent or its occupants from the harsh rays that beat down upon it. In the doorway, the girl Eva hadn’t recognized stood staring out at the hearse from behind large black sunglasses. She had a dark green cloche hat pulled down low over her eyes, and her hair, from what Eva could see of it, was the color of straw in autumn.
“Who the hell is that?” Eva muttered. It was useless, though. No matter how hard Eva tried to place the girl, she could not recall ever meeting her. With a frustrated sigh, she turned away and deposited herself in the back seat of her father’s rented sedan.
“Who, honey?” her mother asked, turning to look at Eva with concern.
“The girl in the doorway.” She pointed.
Her mother stared at the woman for a long moment before shrugging. “No idea. Maybe she’s a friend of Charlie’s?”
Charlie was a handful of years older than Eva, and she always hated that he was presented as the shining star of the family when Eva was definitely the smarter of the two. But Charlie didn’t suffer from the “family funk,” as Uncle Nate put it. He wasn’t touched by the family plague of sadness. Instead, he was the guy who had all of his shit together, so much so that it didn’t stink at all. “I don’t know,” Eva said. She pushed it from her mind as her father clambered into the car and cranked the air conditioning to maximum. They pulled out of the cul-de-sac and she lost sight of the girl.
Mary Kessler’s will bore very specific instructions about where she was to be buried. The cemetery had been selected and the plot had been bought and paid for before Eva was born. If the date on the sale contract attached to the will was accurate, the plot was paid for even before her father had shipped off to Vietnam some four decades ago.
They were on the quiet, rural end of Long Island, far outside the city that Mary had called home her whole life. Away from the bustle of New York that sprawled out onto its west end, this place was a sedate oasis awash in greenery.
Farms and wineries flew by the car windows, pulling Eva back into the hazy place between memory and dream. The world drifted and colors blurred together into a wash of blue skies and green orchards as leaves stretched like fingers toward the blank canvas of her mind. Eva lost herself in these moments, caught up in the plummeting feeling of being undeserving of all the beauty in the world. All her life Eva had run from the feeling, pushing it away and burying it deep inside. If she ignored it, it would go away, she reasoned.
It wouldn’t. She’d learned that lesson the hard way—a razor sinking into her skin and blood. Christ. There’d been so much blood. Her grandmother always urged her to embrace the emotions she felt and to never shy away from the depth of her feelings. Eva couldn’t do that. She couldn’t lay herself bare for the whole world to see. She did not want to end up like Mary: a miserable shell of an old woman all alone in the world.
The car jerked forward as the suspension dipped. Eva’s father let out a startled sound from the back of his throat, and turned the wheel sharply. “Sorry about that. Didn’t see that—”
“Drop off?” Eva suggested mildly.
“More like a cliff,” her mother groused. She reached over and touched his leg. “Be careful, dear, it’s a rental.”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s why you buy insurance.” Eva’s father laughed. The sound echoed, harsh and biting. It was too gregarious and too falsely cheerful to be how he really felt. Eva was used to the putting on of airs just to get by. She understood it more intimately than her father’s fake, guffawing laughter.
Eva turned to the window, her forehead bouncing against the warm glass as they headed down the dusty dirt road that led to the cemetery. The road felt, and looked, as if it belonged upstate rather than on the island. Eva wasn’t used to being jostled around so much in cars. Beautiful splashes of green swam together against the tears still pricking at the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t get this much green in her day-to-day life. Her tiny apartment and too many roommates were so far removed from it that she felt as though she had ventured to an alien landscape, far from the busy concrete jungle of the city.
Living away from her parents’ home was her single act of self-assertion following everything that had happened. She didn’t want to retreat to the safety of her parents’ home, and her doctors had agreed. Eva needed structure and something to do that wasn’t wallowing. She’d been trying for months now to find a job, but she had never graduated. There weren’t a lot of jobs available for people like her.
The cemetery was off a connector road, nestled by the ruins of a farmhouse. The roof had partially collapsed, giving it the sunken look of a building that was eating itself alive. The car jostled over some train tracks and a plume of dust rose behind them. The house was obscured by the dust until all that was left was the memory. Eva’s father turned the car toward a cluster of trees that grew up like a beacon beside the grassy fields that surrounded them.
“Must be aerating these this year.” Her father spoke as if he knew anything about farming. “No idea why your grandmother wanted to be buried here of all places.” He glanced at Eva’s mother. “It’s not like anyone’s buried here, I don’t think.”
“Your dad’s in Arlington, right?” her mother asked.
“Uh-huh. I know that their marriage wasn’t the best, but to not want to be buried with Dad… I really don’t understand why she wouldn’t have wanted that.”
Eva shifted a little in her seat and tilted her head back against the headrest. Why had her grandmother wanted to be buried in this anonymous cemetery in the middle of nowhere? It didn’t make any sense.
“Maybe this is about before she met Grandpa, you know?” Her voice shook, just speaking the thought. She did not want to disrespect the dead. Her grandmother had so rarely talked about the time before she had children. It wasn’t taboo, it was just never mentioned. When Eva had pressed, her grandmother had always just said that the light had gone out of her world and that she had no reason to carry on after that. She’d gotten married after the war because it was the thing to do.
Her father was quiet for a moment, his face set in profile and his jaw tight. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Eva wondered what he was thinking. “Maybe when we get back to the apartment we can start to look for an explanation for that,” he said. “I’m sure that there is one. Papers or the like.” There was a resigned tone in his voice of a son who knew nothing of his mother’s secrets. Eva’s grandmother had kept them as well as Eva had kept her own.
“Really, Dan? You think that a woman as private as your mom is going to just have stuff lying around that would explain away all her deepest, darkest secrets?” Eva’s mother gave a good-natured laugh.
“Well, she better have left something. The woman was a damn mystery.”
Eva’s mother pushed his arm playfully. “I thought we weren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Eva agreed. She enjoyed ribbing her father just as much as her mother did because he walked right into these sorts of situations with all the grace of a bumbling professor. “Gran’ll come back and haunt your ass if you insult her on today of all days.”
Laughing, Eva’s father pulled the car into a grassed-over parking lot and set the car into park. “Don’t I know it?” He smiled fondly at the two of them.
