The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

SIX MONTHS AFTER HARRY DIED, I knew I had no choice but to get Connor out of town. I had tried everything else. I was attentive and nurturing. I tried to get her into therapy. I talked with her about her father. She, unlike the rest of the world, knew he had been in a car accident. And she understood why something like that needed to be delicately handled. But I knew it only compounded her stress. I tried to get her to open up to me. But nothing was helping me get her to make better choices.

She was fourteen years old and had lost her father with the same swiftness and heartbreak with which I had lost my mother so many years before. I had to take care of my child. I had to do something.

My instinct was to move her away from the spotlight, away from people willing to sell her drugs, willing to take advantage of her pain. I needed to bring her someplace where I could watch her, where I could protect her.

She needed to process and heal. And she could not do that with the life I had made for us.

“Aldiz,” Celia said.

We were talking on the phone. I had not seen her in months. But we talked every night. Celia helped ground me, helped me to keep moving forward. Most nights, as I lay in bed speaking to Celia on the phone, I could speak of nothing but my daughter’s pain. And when I could speak of something different, it was my own pain. I was just starting to come out of it, to see a light at the end of the tunnel, when Celia suggested Aldiz.

“Where is that?” I asked.

“It’s on the southern coast of Spain. It’s a small city. I’ve talked to Robert. He has a call in to some friends he knows in Málaga, which isn’t too far. He’s going to ask about any English-language schools. It’s mostly a fishing village. I don’t get the impression anyone will care about us.”

“It’s quiet?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said. “I think Connor would have to really go out of her way to find trouble.”

“That seems to be her MO,” I said.

“You’ll be there for her. I’ll be around. Robert will be there. We will make sure she’s OK. We will make sure she’s supported, that she has people to talk to. That she makes the right types of friends.”

I knew that moving to Spain would mean losing Luisa. She had already moved with us from L.A. to New York. She wouldn’t want to uproot her life again to move to Spain. But I also knew she had been taking care of our family for decades and was tired. I got the impression that our leaving the United States would be just the excuse she needed to move on. I would make sure she was taken care of. And anyway, I was ready to take a more hands-on approach to maintaining my home.

I wanted to be the kind of person who made dinner, who scrubbed a toilet, who was available to my daughter at all times.

“Are any of your movies big in Spain?” I asked.

“Nothing recently,” Celia said. “Yours?”

“Just Boute-en-Train,” I said. “So no.”

“Do you really think you’ll be able to handle this?”

“No,” I said, even before I knew what Celia was specifically talking about. “Which part do you mean?”

“Insignificance.”

I laughed. “Oh, God,” I said. “Yes. That’s about the only part I am ready for.”

* * *

WHEN THE PLANS were finalized, when I knew what school Connor would go to, what houses we were going to buy, how we were going to live, I walked into Connor’s room and sat down on her bed.

She was wearing a Duran Duran T-shirt and faded jeans. Her blond hair was teased at the crown. She was still grounded from when I had caught her having a threesome, so she had no choice but to sit there with a sour face and listen as I spoke.

I told her I was retiring from acting. I told her we were moving to Spain. I told her I thought she and I would be happier living with good people, away from all the fame and the cameras.

And then I very gently, very tentatively, told her that I was in love with Celia. I told her I was going to marry Robert, and I explained why, succinctly and clearly. I did not treat her like a child. I spoke to her as an adult. I finally gave her the truth. My truth.

I did not tell her about Harry, about how long I had been with Celia or anything that she didn’t need to know. Those things would come in time.

But I told her what she deserved to understand.

And when I was done, I said, “I’m ready to hear everything you have to say. I’m ready to answer any questions at all. Let’s have a discussion about this.”

But all she did was shrug her shoulders. “I don’t care, Mom,” she said, sitting on her bed with her back against the wall. “I really don’t. You can love whoever. Marry anybody. You can make me live wherever. Go to whatever school you decide. I don’t care, OK? I just don’t care. All I want is to be left alone. So just . . . leave my room. Please. If you can do that, then the rest of it, I don’t care.”

I looked at her, stared right into her eyes and ached for her aching. With her blond hair and her face thinning out, I was starting to fear that she looked more like me than Harry. Sure, conventionally speaking, she would be more attractive if she looked like me. But she should look like Harry. The world should give us that.

“All right,” I said. “I will leave you alone for now.”

I got up. I gave her some space.

I packed up our things. I hired movers. I made plans with Celia and Robert.

Two days before we left New York, I walked into her bedroom and said, “I’ll give you your freedom in Aldiz. You can choose your own room. I’ll make sure you can come back here to visit some of your friends. I’ll do whatever I can to make life easier for you. But I need two things.”

“What?” she said. Her voice sounded disinterested, but she was looking at me. She was talking to me.

“Dinner together, every night.”

“Mom—”

“I’m giving you a lot of leeway here. A lot of trust. All I’m asking for is two things. One is dinner every night.”

“But—”

“It’s nonnegotiable. You only have three more years until you’re in college anyway. You can handle one meal a day.”

She looked away from me. “Fine. What’s the second?”

“You’re going to see a psychologist. At least for a little while. You’ve been through too much. We all have. You need to start talking to someone.”

When I had tried this before, months earlier, I was too weak with her. I let her tell me no. I wasn’t going to do that this time. I was stronger now. I could be a better mother.

Maybe she could detect it in my voice, because she didn’t try to fight me. She just said, “OK, whatever.”

I hugged her and kissed the top of her head, and just when I was going to let go, she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me back.