Beautiful(45)

She spent the next three days thinking of him, and went to a nearby church to light a candle for him. On Friday, she dressed carefully. She wore a minimum of eye makeup, perfectly applied and barely noticeable, and dressed in what she’d bought. She put the hat on with great care, at just the right angle, and the mirror told her that she had arrived at the right effect, when she left with the car and driver she had hired for the occasion. She arrived an hour before the service, to be sure she would find a seat in the church. People were quietly lined up to pay their respects. Many had gone to the rosary the night before, but she didn’t. She found a seat more easily than she’d expected to. With one glance at her, one of the ushers, chosen from his senatorial staff, led her to a pew about a dozen rows behind the family. She looked like someone important who belonged there, and she sat praying quietly, her eyes drifting to the mahogany casket covered with a blanket of lily of the valley and white phalaenopsis orchids. The church was filled to bursting, and she stood with everyone else when the family filed in, with her half-brother, Charles, in the lead alone, his three teenage sons behind him, and Véronique’s half-sisters behind them, one with her husband and twin sons, and the other with her husband and a boy and a girl. Their husbands were both bankers, and all of them wore black suits, and the women in black dresses with plain black coats over them. But none had the striking look of Bill’s youngest child, in her exquisite hat and coat. They all appeared sober and very sad.

The sermon and eulogy were predictably impressive and respectful. Three of his senatorial colleagues spoke about how important Bill Hayes had been to the country and to them. Charles spoke on behalf of the family, with a moving eulogy to honor his father. Véronique couldn’t help noticing that Bill’s oldest daughter looked strikingly like her. They had the same tall, slim bodies and similar faces, only Adele was blond. Elizabeth was shorter, and looked more like her mother and had dark hair. Adele had worn a small black fur hat, and Elizabeth was wearing a black lace mantilla that had been her mother’s and she had worn to her funeral the previous year. This was a heavy double loss for all of them, just as it was for Véronique in different circumstances. But the loss of both parents was a hard blow. And all of Bill Hayes’s children had lost their mother in the past year too.

Véronique was seated on the aisle, and lined up to take Communion. She advanced slowly with the line, and stood inches away from her half-brother, as she waited near the front of the line, and he sat on the aisle in the first pew. Instinctively, he turned to look at her. She was a beautiful woman. He could barely see the bandage on her cheek with the tilt of her hat, but something about her held his attention as he stared at her. There was something so familiar about her, the way she stood and moved, and even her face, and she was so beautiful that he would have noticed her anyway. Their eyes met for an instant, and everything she felt for her father was in them, and it struck him. He watched as she moved forward to take Communion, and on her way back down the aisle, he saw the exquisite left half of her face, more exposed than the other side under her hat, and a moment later, she had disappeared into the crowd, and into the pew where she was sitting.

At the end of the mass, she whispered, “Goodbye, Papa,” and threaded her way through the crowd with tears running down her cheeks. Charles saw the hat disappear toward the doors of the church, and then she was gone. She slipped into the car after walking down the steps. Several photographers took her photograph, because she looked so elegant and striking, and she hoped they didn’t recognize her. She slipped on dark glasses, and once in the car, it pulled away to take her back to the apartment, where she carefully took off her hat and coat, and sat down in the black dress to read the funeral program again. There was a beautiful photograph of her father on the cover, and the music during the service had been magnificent with the cathedral organ. They had played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” at the end, and the Ave Maria and “Amazing Grace” during the service, which had reduced Véronique to tears. Compared to her mother’s simple graveside service, her father’s funeral was all pomp and ceremony, as suited his stature as a respected senator.

After the long, emotional day, she wasn’t hungry and made herself some chicken broth and toast for dinner. She was at the table in her nightgown, after she took her funeral clothes off, when the phone rang, and she assumed it would be Doug, asking her how it had gone. She felt drained and didn’t want to speak to anyone, even Doug. She wasn’t going to answer, but the ringing was persistent, and she finally answered the phone, it was from a blocked number. A deep male voice spoke when she answered it.

“Miss Vincent?”

“Yes.”

He sounded serious and somewhat cautious, and the voice was vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place it.

“This is Charles Hayes, William Hayes’s son,” he said, as her heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t imagine why he was calling her. He sounded so official, she was worried that he was going to threaten her in some way, and tell her not to contact any of them, which she wouldn’t have anyway. Her mother had been extremely careful and respectful too. “If convenient for you, I’d like to make an appointment to see you. It was one of my father’s last wishes, on the day he died.” She remembered that he said Chip was coming to see him. She wondered what her father had said to him about her. “Would it be possible for us to meet?” he asked, and she was so stunned she didn’t speak for a minute, and then rushed to answer him.