I watched her navigate the pathway to the front door, piecing together the details I’d just learned. Billy had a wife before I was born. Her name was Evelyn Weston. She loved The Tempest. I was named for Shakespeare’s Miranda and for Evelyn’s. Evelyn Weston must have also loved Jane Eyre. Mom had to know this. Even without seeing Evelyn’s name in the novel, Mom had to know why Billy left it to me. I didn’t know how it hadn’t occurred to me before. Mom was keeping a secret.
* * *
“Don’t expect your mother’s cooking,” Dad warned as he put the eggplant parmesan into the oven. “Will you let her know dinner’s almost ready?”
I found Mom outside, holding a pair of shears as she decided which flowers to cut for the table. Behind her, the sky was ignited a rich orange lined in pink. I couldn’t see the setting sun, but it left its legacy across the sky.
“Tonight’s an amaranth night,” Mom said, watching the sky. “Amaranth’s not right.”
“It’s carmine. And cerise,” I said. Being raised by Mom, I could name more colors than most people knew existed. That was my skill as the daughter of a decorator, but I didn’t want to talk about shades of pink, the glorious hues of Southern California sunsets. “Dad says dinner’s close.” I snuck a final glance at her, trying to remember when she’d become that way, hesitating before she responded in conversation, when she’d fallen into the habit of covering her mouth as she laughed, when she’d replaced her red nail polish with nude, her crimson lipstick with vitamin E stick. She still listened to Jefferson Airplane and Fleetwood Mac, still meditated for ten minutes each morning, but at some point, everything she owned had faded to muted shades of pink.
When my parents met, they were both living in New York in lives they’d retired before I was born. Mom was twenty with ironed hair and bright miniskirts. She was the lead singer of the Lady Loves, an all-girl band that had a residency at a club in the East Village where Dad represented the owner. When the owner had introduced them, Mom had looked at Dad’s extended hand like it was covered in mud. He’d followed her eyes down his suit and tie to his loafers.
I enjoyed your set, Dad said, putting his hand away.
You like rock? she said with the disdain only a twenty-year-old could muster.
Jesus, Suzy. The guy’s trying to give you a compliment. Cut him some slack for fuck’s sake, the owner said.
Fuck you, Harry. Mom grabbed one of the amps and stormed offstage.
Don’t let her get to you, the owner said to Dad. Suzy thinks ’cause she’s a musician she has to act like an asshole every now and again.
From the first time Mom spoke to Dad, that was it. He went to see the Lady Loves every Friday night. He liked to watch Mom sing, waiting for the moment when she forgot she was onstage, forgot her tough facade, and her face softened as the sweetness of her voice consumed her. It happened during every performance. In that moment, he saw that she was still young, that she hadn’t yet been hardened by life.
There was nothing noteworthy about the night Mom sat at his table. After she finished her set, she pulled up a chair and tied her hair away from her face. Her features were small and girlish. She didn’t smile, but Dad could tell she wanted to.
How many ties do you own? she asked Dad.
The question startled him, and he adjusted the knot on his wool tie. He owned so many ties he rarely wore the same tie twice. No one had ever asked Dad about his collection. As far as he could tell, no one had ever noticed.
About two hundred, he admitted.
Why would anyone need two hundred ties?
They wouldn’t.
So why do you own so many?
Dad didn’t know how to explain it to her. His parents and younger brother had died when he was in college. His uncles had been killed in the war before he was born. His grandparents were long gone. He had childhood friends, law school buddies, others at the firm, a steady stream of girlfriends, but no one he could count on to give him a birthday present each year, to make plans every Thanksgiving. So Dad bought himself ties for Christmases and promotions, a reminder that he could look after himself.
It would be weirder if I owned two hundred pairs of shoes, he said.
Mom giggled and ran off to help her band pack up. From the first time Dad made her laugh, that was it for Mom, too.
* * *
When I went back inside, Dad was sitting at the dining room table, trying to fold linen napkins into Mom’s perfect origami.
“Here,” I said, taking them from his hands. I showed him how to fold it into three long strips, to tuck one side up and then the other into a perfect envelope.
“You make it look so easy,” he said, and disappeared behind the island into the kitchen.
Dad rummaged around the cabinets, banging pans as he put them away. I took out my phone and typed “Evelyn Weston,” stopping when I couldn’t think of anything else to add to my search. Several Evelyn Westons popped up with LinkedIn, Twitter and current IMDB pages. The Evelyn Weston I was looking for had died long ago, in an era before social media and the twenty-four-hour news cycle. I’d have to find out about her the old-fashioned way, by talking to people instead of devices.
Dad returned with two wooden candleholders. The candles sat crookedly in the bases.
“Turns out I’m not a whittler.” When Dad retired, he’d needed a hobby. He’d never been particularly handy. Anything more complicated than changing a light bulb had required the aid of a handyman. Now, suddenly in his mid-sixties, Dad was determined to become a craftsman. Mom had suggested he take a class, but Dad insisted that part of being a craftsman was being self-taught, so he bought books and magazines, watched YouTube videos. He started with a rocking chair, then quickly downgraded to a box. “Did I show you the bookshelf I made? I’m staining it now. If you didn’t know, you might actually think someone had paid for it.”
“Did you know Billy’s wife, Evelyn?” I asked more abruptly than I’d intended.
“Your mom told you about Evelyn?” He sounded surprised without being alarmed. Then again, Dad was good at containing his emotions. He’d had practice for years as a lawyer.
“She said she named me after Evelyn, after her love of The Tempest.” I fudged it a little. If Dad thought Mom told me more than she had, he might tell me more, too. “Were she and Mom close?”
Dad reached for the candleholder, worrying the wood with the pad of his thumb. “Since they were in kindergarten.”
“They grew up together?” Dad nodded, his attention still focused on the unstable candleholder. “How’d she die?”
He peered over at me. “Why are you asking?”
“I didn’t know Billy was married. I’d never even heard the name Evelyn before today. Do you know how she died?”
“Evelyn had a massive seizure.”
“Was she epileptic?”
“I don’t think so.” Dad looked through the French doors toward Mom in the garden, inspecting the soil beneath her rosebushes. “Why don’t you go see what’s taking your mom so long.”
“She said she’d be in in a minute. What was wrong with Evelyn?”
The oven timer went off, and Dad sprung at its chime. Of course he wasn’t going to tell me about Evelyn. He and Mom were a unit, inextricably close, and sometimes it had made me jealous how coupled they were. Of course, if Mom had a secret, Dad did, too.
While