He lay down on the sofa, which was beneath a far window, and I remember looking at his mouth as he pulled me onto him, and there was something strange about the set of his lips—something hard and unfamiliar that made me think of the bitterness of the champagne. Then he parted them and kissed me again, and I closed my eyes and molded my body against his. But there is no trace of the next few hours left in my memory. It was as though we had reached the farthest border of some island of time and could not go on.
When I opened my eyes again, it was dusk, and the light of a single lamp groped pitifully in the overwhelming dark of the big room. My best friend Rachel knelt beside me, and Press stood in the shadows beyond her, his face solemn. He was holding Michael, who was sucking his thumb as he rested his head against his father’s shoulder.
Rachel’s face was wet with tears.
Chapter 2
The Children’s Grove
I could feel the eyes of all of Old Gate on us once again. Once again I was grateful for the dense veil draped over the front of the black silk hat I’d bought for Olivia’s funeral. Its netting was more difficult to see out of than that of more delicate veils, but it also meant that it was harder to see behind it. Of course, friends and acquaintances alike wanted to see my face. Death had come to Bliss House again so quickly, and their eyes were hungry for its effect on us. If I had been thinking hard about it, I might have hated them all on that achingly clear, horrid October morning. But I wasn’t thinking about them. I was beyond thinking; I existed in a state that barely recognized words or even other people. Eva was dead, and I was the one responsible.
As Father Aaron’s voice droned in the background, I watched a fly drift from rose to rose on Eva’s tiny oh, God, impossibly tiny white coffin. They were fat yellow roses from the garden at Bliss House, the garden where I’d pushed her as a baby in the big English pram that had once held Preston, the garden whose recently replanted maze had grown just tall enough to hide her as she ran away from Nonie and me—had it been only a few days earlier?—her laughter ringing shrill and joyful in the fall sunshine.
The fly finally alighted, crawling over a single spotless petal, stopping every few seconds to rub its front feet together. Feeding or washing. Defecating. Defiling. Defiling!
Unable to bear it any longer, I lunged forward to sweep the thing away, off of my baby’s coffin, breaking the rhythm of Father Aaron’s godly imprecations, giving gathered Old Gate confirmation of my pain. My pain and my shame. The armful of stems, which the florist had loosely tied together with a white ribbon, flew off the coffin and scattered at the feet of the priest. Preston grabbed me from behind, wrapping one arm about my waist and firmly staying my upraised arm with his other hand.
As he pulled me away from the grave, I heard a feral keening that might have been mistaken for the call of some terrified animal. But of course it was my own cry. I can still hear it in my mind when Bliss House is restless in its silence and I think of that day. I collapsed back onto Press.
“Charlotte, Charlotte.” His voice was a fierce whisper in my ear. Was he admonishing or comforting me? Now I think it was something else entirely.
Nonie, seated behind us with Michael on her lap, released an uncharacteristic sob. Michael was blessedly silent.
Press led me back to my chair and helped me sit down. A part of me wanted to tell him about the fly, to explain, but the words wouldn’t come. People talk of the numbness of grief, but I wasn’t numb. I felt as though the outermost layer of my skin had been peeled away so that the halting breaths and pitying gazes of everyone around us chafed me like dried thistles. In the end, it was my father who calmed me, taking my hand gently as though he knew how much any touch would hurt. Father Aaron continued the burial liturgy, condemning my daughter to darkness.
By the time we crossed the graveyard, my black high heels sinking into the soft ground as we made our way toward the line of cars waiting along Church Street, I was calmer. All was muted and quiet, and time had still not returned to its normal pace. A single white cloud hung motionless in the sky above our heads, and even the chiming of the quarter-hour from the carillon at the Presbyterian church at the end of the block seemed too long and slow. My father was at my side; Press walked a few steps ahead, his head down, the hems of his pants wearing a thin line of morning damp from the brown and gold leaves strewn over the dying grass. He seemed to be watching the ground. I couldn’t know if he had chosen to leave me to the care of my father, or just couldn’t bear to walk by my side. He had assured me again and again that he didn’t blame me for Eva’s death, but how could I be certain? Though he had been the one to leave the house while the children napped and I slept—drunk with champagne—how could he have known that I wouldn’t wake before the children? That Eva would get out of bed and try to give herself a bath? In my heart, I knew I was at fault. I clung to my father’s hand. A lifeline.