Robert and I lived a friendly marriage for the next eleven years. We moved back to Manhattan in the mid-2000s to be closer to Connor. We refinished this apartment. We donated some of Celia’s money to LGBTQ+ organizations and lung disease research.
Every Christmas, we threw a benefit for homeless youth organizations in New York City. After years on a quiet beach, it was nice to be members of society again in some ways.
But all I really cared about was Connor.
She had worked her way up the ladder at Merrill Lynch, and then, shortly after Robert and I moved back to New York, she admitted to him that she hated the culture of finance. She told him she had to leave. He was disappointed that she hadn’t been happy with what had made him happy; that was obvious. But he was never disappointed in her.
And he was the first person to congratulate her when she took a job teaching at Wharton. She never knew that he had made a few calls on her behalf. He never wanted her to know. He merely wanted to help her, in any and all ways that he could. And he did that, lovingly, until he died at age eighty-one.
Connor gave the eulogy. Her boyfriend, Greg, was one of the pallbearers. Afterward, she and Greg came to stay with me for a while.
“Mom, after seven husbands, I’m not sure you’ve had any practice living on your own,” she said as she sat at my dining room table, the same table she used to sit at in a high chair with Harry, Celia, John, and me.
“I lived a very full life before you were born,” I told her. “I lived alone once, and I can do it again. You and Greg should go live your lives. Really.”
But the moment I shut the door behind them, I realized just how huge this apartment was, just how quiet.
That’s when I hired Grace.
I had inherited multiple millions from Harry, Celia, and now Robert. And I had only Connor to spoil. So I also spoiled Grace and her family. It gave me happiness to give them happiness, to give them just a little bit of the luxury I’d had for most of my life.
Living alone isn’t so bad once you get used to it. And living in a big apartment like this, well, I’ve kept it because I wanted to give it to Connor, but I have enjoyed some aspects of it. Of course, I always liked it more when Connor would spend the night, especially after she and Greg broke up.
You can make quite a life for yourself hosting charity dinners and collecting art. You can find a way to be happy with whatever the truth is.
Until your daughter dies.
Connor was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer two and a half years ago, when she was thirty-nine. She was given months to live. I knew what it was like to realize that the one you love would leave this earth well before you. But nothing could prepare me for the pain of watching my child suffer.
I held her when she puked from the chemo. I wrapped her in blankets when she was so cold she was crying. I kissed her forehead like she was my baby again, because she was forever my baby.
I told her every single day that her life had been the world’s greatest gift to me, that I believed I was put on earth not to make movies or wear emerald-green gowns and wave at crowds but to be her mother.
I sat next to her hospital bed. “Nothing I have ever done,” I said, “has made me as proud as the day I gave birth to you.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ve always known that.”
I had made a point of not bullshitting her ever since her father died. We had the sort of relationship where we believed each other, believed in each other. She knew she was loved. She knew that she had changed my life, that she had changed the world.
She made it eighteen months before she passed away.
And when they put her in the ground next to her father, I broke like I have never broken before.
The devastating luxury of panic overtook me.
And it has never left.
THAT’S HOW MY STORY ENDS. With the loss of everyone I have ever loved. With me, in a big, beautiful Upper East Side apartment, missing everyone who ever meant anything to me.
When you write the ending, Monique, make sure it’s clear that I don’t love this apartment, that I don’t care about all my money, that I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if people think I’m a legend, that the adoration of millions of people never warmed my bed.
When you write the ending, Monique, tell everyone that it is the people I miss. Tell everyone that I got it wrong. That I chose the wrong things most of the time.
When you write the ending, Monique, make sure the reader understands that all I was ever really looking for was family. Make sure it’s clear that I found it. Make sure they know that I am heartbroken without it.
Spell it out if you have to.
Say that Evelyn Hugo doesn’t care if everyone forgets her name. Evelyn Hugo doesn’t care if everyone forgets she was ever alive.
Better yet, remind them that Evelyn Hugo never existed. She was a person I made up for them. So that they would love me. Tell them that I was confused, for a very long time, about what love was. Tell them that I understand it now, and I don’t need their love anymore.
Say to them, “Evelyn Hugo just wants to go home. It’s time for her to go to her daughter, and her lover, and her best friend, and her mother.”
Tell them Evelyn Hugo says good-bye.
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.”
HERE IS THE THING ABOUT fury.
It starts in your chest.
It starts as fear.
Fear quickly moves to denial. No, that must be a mistake. No, that can’t be.
And then the truth hits. Yes, she is right. Yes, it can be.
Because you realize, Yes, it is true.
And then you have a choice. Are you sad, or are you angry?
And ultimately, the thin line between the two comes down to the answer to one question. Can you assign blame?