The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

CELIA, LIKE HARRY, WAS BURIED in Forest Lawn in Los Angeles. Robert and I held her funeral on a Thursday morning. It was kept private. But people knew we were there. They knew she was being laid to rest.

When she was lowered to the ground, I stared at the hole in the earth. I stared at the glossy sheen of the wood of her casket. I could not keep it in. I could not keep my true self from coming out.

“I need a minute,” I said to Robert and Connor and then I turned away.

I walked. Farther and farther up the winding hillside roads of the cemetery, until I found what I was looking for.

Harry Cameron.

I sat down at his tombstone, and I cried out everything within me. I cried until I felt depleted. I did not say a single thing. I did not feel any need. I had talked to Harry in my head and my heart for so long, for so many years, that it felt as if we transcended words.

He had been the one to help me, to support me, through everything in my life. And now I needed him more than ever. So I went to him the only way I knew how. I let him heal me as only he could. And then I stood up, dusted off my skirt, and turned around.

There, in the trees, were two paparazzi taking my photo. I was neither angry nor flattered. I simply didn’t care. It cost so much, caring. I didn’t have any currency to spend on it.

Instead, I walked away.

Two weeks later, after Robert and I had gone home to Aldiz, Connor sent me a magazine with the image of me at Harry’s grave on the cover. She had attached a note to the front. It said, simply, “I love you.”

I pulled off the note and read the headline: “Legend Evelyn Hugo Weeps at Harry Cameron’s Grave Years Later.”

Even long past my prime, people were still easily distracted from seeing how I felt about Celia St. James. But this time was different. Because I wasn’t hiding anything.

The truth had been there for them to grab if they’d paid attention. I had been my truest self, searching for the help of my best friend to ease the pain of the loss of my lover.

But of course, they got it wrong. They never did care about getting it right. The media are going to tell whatever story they want to tell. They always have. They always will.

It was then that I knew that the only time anyone would know anything true about my life was when I told them directly.

In a book.

I saved Connor’s note and threw the magazine in the trash.