Page 71 of Upstate

“Have you ever read The Velveteen Rabbit? That’s a good one. How about you try it before we see each other again?”

On the drive home, I begged Dad not to take me back again. I promised I was fine, said it upset me to talk about Mom, told him the psychologist made me feel worse instead of better. That night, I got my copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, the one I could still remember Mom reading to me, and tore the pages out one by one, crumpling them into paper balls I buried beneath tissues in the bathroom trash.

Huge as my grief is now, there’s no hiding from it anymore. I bury my face in the soft fabric of David’s shirts and wail. My ribs are the staves of a barrel filled with salt water. Tears gush with every lung squeeze, but the barrel sits atop an aquifer of sadness. It takes hours—eons—a lifetime—to empty.

Chapter 35

May 15, 2015

Schuywich, New York

My darling Evelyn,

Getting ready to open the bookshop for the season has enlivened you after a dark and aimless winter. You woke up so clearheaded today, Dr. Singh’s warning that a time will come when you won’t remember who I am seemed ridiculous. Even if you do, someday, fumble my name, what I hope you never forget is how your strength and love supported me through my litany of losses.

My whole life was built around holding my nuclear family together. Like protons ejected from a dying atom, though, they’d all slipped from my grasp. Daddy’s death had been a shock. I’d been bereft in the months after Mother passed. Learning Billy had been killed plunged me into despair.

You’d gone out to the mailbox early that April morning. By the time I came down for breakfast, there was an empty rectangle in the Times Union where you’d cut out my brother’s obituary.

“Sit down, baby,” you said, handing me a cup of coffee. You waited until I’d had a few sips before reaching across the table and taking my hand. “There’s bad news, Hazel.”

“You’re scaring me, Evelyn. What is it?”

“Billy is dead. I’m so sorry.”

“Dead?” I thought my heart was hardened against my stubborn brother, but hearing you say he’d died sent it flapping like a caged bird. “How? Why?”

You handed me the clipping. “This was in the paper.”

I squinted at the headline, my vision distorted by tears. William McIntyre, Aide to Four Governors, Killed in Easter Sunday Thruway Collision. My brother’s tragic death at age forty-four, it said, was instantaneous, his Ford Taurus no match for the out-of-control eighteen-wheeler that flattened it. The obituary mentioned the state championship he won for the Schuywich Warlocks, gave his degree from Cornell, lauded his humanitarian work in Vietnam, listed his contributions to our state’s government, named his surviving wife and daughter and grandson. When I reached the end, I looked up at you in disbelief.

“There’s nothing about our family or even where he was born. Billy had a mother and a father and a sister, too. Where are our names?”

You read it over again, scowling. “Mai must have written you off out of spite. I didn’t know Patience had a baby, did you?”

“How could I? We only knew she got married because the engagement announcement was in the paper.”

“The funeral service is being held on Friday at St. Mary’s Church in Albany. Do you want to go, Hazel?”

“Billy didn’t show up to our own father’s funeral, or to Mother’s, either. Why should we go to his?” My anger was justified, I told myself, but my heart was broken all the same.

“Are you sure? It could be a chance to make things right.”

I swiped at the tears that streamed stupidly down my face. “If Mai wanted us there, she’d have included my name in the obituary.”

You took my hand and held it tight. “I left my family behind on purpose, but you lost yours piece by piece. I’m so sorry, Hazel.”

“Don’t apologize, Evelyn, it’s not your fault.”

“I’m the one who told you to take your father’s house.”

“I made that decision.” I pulled back my hand to blot my dripping chin with a napkin. “Besides, it was Billy’s choice to cut us out of his life without ever giving me a chance to explain.”

“We still have each other.” You came around the breakfast table to wrap me in your arms. “I’m your family now.”

“No, you’re not,” I blubbered through a fresh round of sobs. “We’re not married, we’re not anything.”

“You know that’s not true, baby.” You took the napkin and held it to my nose. “Blow. Good. Listen, Hazel, I know we can’t get married for real, but there is a way to make things legal between us.”