The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

JOHN DIED OF A HEART attack in 1980. He was just shy of fifty. It didn’t make any sense. The most athletic and fit of us, the one who didn’t smoke, the one who exercised every day, he shouldn’t have been the one whose heart stopped. But things don’t make sense. And when he left us, he left a giant-sized hole in our lives.

Connor was five. It was hard to explain to her where Uncle John went. It was even harder to explain to her why her father was so heartbroken. For weeks, Harry could barely get out of bed. When he did, it was to drink bourbon. He was rarely sober, always somber, and often unkind.

Celia was photographed in tears, her eyes bloodshot, walking into her trailer on location in Arizona. I wanted to hold her. I wanted us all to see one another through it. But I knew that wasn’t in the cards.

But I could help Harry. So Connor and I stayed with him at his apartment every day. She slept in her room there. I slept on the sofa in his bedroom. I made sure he ate. I made sure he bathed. I made sure he played make-believe with his daughter.

One morning, I woke up to find Harry and Connor both in the kitchen. Connor was pouring herself a bowl of cereal while Harry stood in his pajama bottoms, looking out the window.

He had an empty glass in his hand. When he turned away from the view and back toward Connor, I said, “Good morning.”

And Connor said, “Daddy, why do your eyes look wet?”

I wasn’t sure if he’d been crying or if he was already a few drinks into the day that early in the morning.

At the funeral, I wore a black vintage Halston. Harry wore a black suit with a black shirt, black tie, black belt, and black socks. Grief never left his face.

His profound, guttural pain didn’t follow the story we had sold the press, that Harry and John were friends, that Harry and I were in love. Nor did the fact that John left the house to Harry. But despite my instincts, I did not encourage Harry to hide his feelings or decline the house. I had very little energy left to try to hide who we were. I had learned all too well that pain was sometimes stronger than the need to keep up appearances.

Celia was there, in a long-sleeved black minidress. She did not say hello to me. She barely looked at me. I stared at her, aching to walk over and grab her hand. But I didn’t take a single step in her direction.

I was not going to use this loss of Harry’s to ease my own. I wasn’t going to make her talk to me. Not like that.

Harry held back tears as John’s casket was lowered into the ground. Celia walked away. Connor watched me watch her and said, “Mom, who is that lady? I think I know her.”

“You do, honey,” I said. “You did.”

And then Connor, my adorable baby girl, said, “She’s the one who dies in your movie.”

And I realized she didn’t remember Celia at all. She recognized her from Little Women.

“She’s the nice one. The one who wants everyone to be happy,” Connor said.

That’s when I knew the family I had made had truly disintegrated.