The truth was, I didn’t want to imagine Halley’s last moments. Instead, I thought of what Stella might say. She’s the kind of person who uses the wordslovelyanddarlingandterrificandwretched. She’d saydifficult, nothard. “That must have been difficult,” I said. “To see.”
“Her couch,” he said. I pictured that couch in my mind. Purple velvet. Button-tufted back. Rolled arms. Halley said it reminded her of where Guinevere might have shagged Sir Lancelot while her husband wasn’t looking.
Charlie drew circles around the lip of his coffee mug. “There’s nothing sadder than staring into the closet of someone who died, seeing the clothes they used to wear. What do you do with it all?”
My coffee mug had cooled to the touch. “Goodwill?” I was trying to be strong for Charlie. What good would my grief do him? I lifted my coffee and held it there. I didn’t take a sip.
“I kept that sweater she always wore. You know, the gray afghan-looking thing. My goodness, I thought it was ugly.”
“She looked like a sheep herder in it,” I said. “I told her so.” We laughed.
The waitress returned, and we both ordered soup. The scenery behind Charlie had changed. I could see the baseball stadium across the river, the old one shaped like a slide tray. Once, Halley took me to a Reds game. She wasn’t a fan of baseball, but her family had box seats, and that night fans were invited to the field to run the bases. We were drunk by the ninth inning, and when we climbed down to the field, it was just me and Halley and a bunch of small kids. I tried to back out, but she pulled me along the diamond, gleefully jumping two feet on each base, our feet kicking up dust until we slid into home. When we stood, she pointed up: We made it on the Jumbotron.
“How are you doing?” I asked. I picked up my napkin and spread it on my lap. “Really. We hardly spoke at her service. You were surrounded.”
“The people who come out of the woodwork,” he said. “Some of them see grief as a prize. They want a piece of it. Not knowing her, they want a piece of it.” He took a sip of his coffee, then pushed it aside.
“I’m sure everyone is just trying to help. How’s Bertie taking it?” I asked.
“She fired Halley. Threatened to cut her off completely.”
“Why?” Halley hadn’t told me. I’d assumed she’d done something stupid again. I thought of Halley’s words the last night I saw her:You don’t know Bertie Tuttle.
Bertie had always been good to me. Not maternal, but aspirational. She put me through the conservatory after my mother died. She invited me to off-Broadway performances at Music Hall where she had her own box. Bertie once used her connections to get me a small part on a movie out west, but the producer had quit before filming began, and that was the end of my big screen career.
My own mother didn’t understand art or see the use for it. She never turned on the TV except for the news andI Love Lucy, which she’d watch while doing puzzles. She never went to a museum or a show. Never read books except the Bible on Sundays. She met Bertie only a few times, and each time my worlds awkwardly collided. I didn’t know which me to be.
“That’s just my mother,” Charlie said. “She means well, but she can be exacting. She has rigid expectations and demands loyalty. She’s not an easy woman. Halley had told her—oh, what does it matter?” He paused and looked like he was blinking dirt from his eyes. He picked up a sugar packet and played with it. “I just keep asking myself why Halley would do it. I keep imagining her there on her couch. The television was on. She was wearing a coat—did you know that? A coat and a hat, like she was going somewhere. I keep thinking about the last thing she saw before her eyes closed. What was she thinking? Did she hesitate? Why didn’t she just ask for help? I would have helped her.” He stopped spinning the sugar packet in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be,” I said.
Sitting across from her father, I felt heavy with shame. Halleyhadasked for help. She’d wanted to talk to me, said it was important, that it couldn’t wait. Halley had driven me to auditions and brought flowers to my shows and drunk wine with me when Wyatt left, and held my hand as we ran those bases, laughing as we wiped away red dirt that had kicked up onto our legs. And in the end, she left something for me. Only I didn’t know what. I didn’t know why.
As if reading my mind, Charlie asked: “I heard she left you something. What was it?”
Sometimes I look back on my life like that bonus material you can find on a movie’s DVD, where the director’s voice is transposed over the film, explaining all the directorial decisions. I can almost hear myself speaking as I recall this, wondering how the story might have changed if I’d told Charlie about what I found in the safe-deposit box. We’d have discussed it. Charlie may have reminded me that Halley was an addict, and he had no idea how Halley got the notebook—a family heirloom. He’d admit he did once show her the safe in the basement of the Earthshine Factory because she’d been so curious about it and she begged him and he couldn’t say no. I’d have told him none of it made sense, and he’d have made a lighthearted joke about family secrets kept locked in a vault, and we’d have eaten our soup and enjoyed it.
But I didn’t answer him. Behind him, I could see a line of women making their way toward us. A few of them held posterboards colored with markers and paint, like bad elementary school projects, and a waiter tried to intervene to stop them, but they pushed past him to our table. “Charlie…” I tried to warn him.
“Did she happen to—” he was saying, but by then the women had formed a barrier around us. I felt the heat of their breath before I could make out their words.
“Our bodies, our soap!” one of them shouted. She wore braids and a sun visor. I recognized her from the group that had confronted meoutside the studio. She held a camcorder, which, at present, was aimed directly at Charlie.
Charlie set down his spoon and dabbed his mouth with his napkin. He pushed out his chair. “It’s been like this,” he whispered to me. “Just ignore it. They’ll go away.”
“When Earthshine Soap came out, birthrates plummeted,” the woman yelled. “Dramatically. That’s science. That’s a fact.”
“Get that camera out of his face,” I said.
“Every woman I know who’s used Earthshine says they’ve felt—”
“He’s grieving his daughter. Show some decency,” I said.
“Oh, look. TheEarthshine Bitchcoming to his defense. That’s rich,” another woman shouted. She wore red glasses like Sally Jessy Raphael. “We’regrieving. Where’sourdecency? Where’s our decency? Where’s our decency? Where’s our decency?” The women around her tried to pick up the chant, but it didn’t take.
The restaurant manager came over. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Tuttle,” he said. “I’m not sure how they got in.” Now two security guards approached.
“You’re going to arrest us?” said the woman with glasses. “Arrest him! Arrest both of them. Do you even know what’s in Earthshine? Poison. Read the papers. Read what all those women say. Not just me!”
