The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘GOOD-BYE’? Don’t say good-bye, Evelyn.”

She looks me right in the eye and ignores my words.

“When you put it all together into one narrative,” she says, “make sure it’s clear that of all the things I did to protect my family, I would do every one again. And I would have done more, would have behaved even uglier, if I thought it could have saved them.”

“I think most people probably feel the same way,” I tell her. “About their lives, their loved ones.”

Evelyn looks disappointed in my response. She gets up and walks over to her desk. She pulls out a piece of paper.

It is old. Crinkled and folded, with a burnt-orange hue on one edge.

“The man in the car with Harry,” Evelyn says. “The one I left.”

This is, of course, the most egregious thing she’s ever done. But I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same for someone I loved. I’m not saying I would have done the same. I’m just saying that I’m not sure.

“Harry had fallen in love with a black man. His name was James Grant. He died on February 26, 1989.”