Evvie Drake Starts Over(29)

   “Why?”

“You know. The…widow thing. The other day, I was working on this interview—it was that guy Jason I sometimes work for? He interviewed a professor about women immediately after World War II, and they talked about this soldier’s widow, and I realized that the whole time since Tim died, I’ve never called myself a widow. Or his widow. I don’t walk around introducing myself, ‘I’m Eveleth Drake, Dr. Timothy Drake’s widow.’ I’m the Widow Drake.”

“I’m not sure people really do that outside of the BBC.”

“I started thinking about it as a word, you know? ‘Widow.’ It’s strange that there has to be a word for ‘a lady who was married to someone who died.’ But it’s real. It’s me. I am a widow right now, right this minute. And honestly, I’m a widow all the time. I’m a widow everywhere I go, which explains why I feel like one, constantly. I looked it up in the dictionary, though, and if I get married again, I’m not a widow anymore. Even though I still married him and he’s still gone.”

He frowned. “That’s weird.”

“Isn’t it? It’s like the comatose princess who can only wake up if somebody kisses her.”

“Well, she’s sleeping,” Andy clarified.

“Who’s sleeping?”

“The princess. Whose name is Sleeping Beauty, not Comatose Princess. I’ve read fairy tales more recently than you have, so you can trust me, she’s just sleeping. But I see your point.”

“It’s weird,” Eveleth told him, “having this thing about me that’s because I was married before, and I can’t ever get rid of it unless I get married again. Do you realize I can’t ever just be single? I can only be married or be a widow, ever.”

   Andy thought for a minute, then held up one finger. “What would you be if you got remarried and then you got divorced?”

“Huh,” she said. “I think then I’d be divorced.”

“What if you got remarried and then it got annulled?”

“Then I think I’d go back to being a widow.” She stared down at the table. “I’m horrible. I have to get myself a project or something. When it’s cold and I’m not working, I sit around and it’s like I can feel all my bones.”

“What does that mean? Feel all your bones?”

“I feel my bones. I mean, I get very aware of the fact that I’m lucky I have them, because if I didn’t, I would basically be a suitcase worth of muscles and skin and fat and a bag of organs like you get with a turkey.”

“Wow, gross.”

“Sorry,” she said, a little more quietly. “I guess I’m afraid I seem like a sad story, too.”

“Well, you don’t. I mean, I wouldn’t go around telling people the thing about the bag of turkey. But everybody just wants you to be happy. Go get your project, and then they can talk to you about whatever you’re doing, and they can stop asking me what to say to you, and I can retire from my job as the Eveleth Whisperer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That you have to be the whisperer.”

“Can I suggest for your project that you take a class in not apologizing all the time?”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, Jesus.” He hollered, “Dean, get out here, would you?”

Dean’s door opened, and he walked through the kitchen, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “See you, Ev.”

Andy shot her a look. “Okay, then. I don’t know how late it’ll be. Their PJs are in the bag by the door. Thank you again. Text me if Lilly rips your eardrum in half.”

   “Will do.” From the window in her living room, Evvie watched Andy’s taillights until she couldn’t see them anymore.



* * *



—

By the time The Little Mermaid was over, Evvie’s room had gone quiet. Lilly had conked out halfway through and was now a tangle of limbs extending across half the bed, while Rose curled against Evvie’s side on the other half. When the credits rolled and Evvie shut off the DVD player, she leaned over to peek at Lilly, whose open mouth was smashed against her pillow. Evvie leaned over and whispered to Rose, “Your sister is even more asleep than usual.” Rose pushed herself up to peer across Evvie’s body, then lay back down. “She’s pretty funny,” Evvie said softly.

Rose rolled her eyes and returned Evvie’s hushed tone. “She’s loud.”

“She is loud. I think she wore herself out singing along.” Evvie smoothed Rose’s hair. “Are you getting excited for Christmas?”

Rose shrugged. “I guess.”

“You guess? You don’t want any presents?”

Rose’s one-sided smile was one of the things she’d gotten from Lori. “No, I want presents.”

Evvie slid down and pulled the blankets up tighter over them both. “What’s the matter, my girl?”

Rose sighed, and it made Evvie think that seven was too young to have a sigh like that in her vocabulary. A sarcastic sigh, yes. An angry-and-frustrated sigh, yes. But not one that sounded like a fifty-year-old diner waitress. “I’m going to my mom’s for Christmas, and she says I have to get Fred a present.” Fred was Lori’s boyfriend, a Charleston furniture designer she had met a few years ago, not long after she and Andy separated.