“David and I are officially getting divorced,” I say.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” she says. “I know that had to be hard.”
I can’t burden her with what I suspect about Evelyn. I just can’t.
“And I miss Dad,” I say. “Do you miss Dad?”
“Oh, God,” she says. “Every day.”
“Was he a good husband?”
She seems caught off guard. “He was a great husband, yes,” she says. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just realized I don’t know very much about your relationship. What was he like? With you?”
She starts smiling, as if she’s trying to stop herself but simply can’t. “Oh, he was very romantic. He used to buy me chocolates every single year on the third of May.”
“I thought your anniversary was in September.”
“It was,” she says, laughing. “He just always spoiled me on the third of May for some reason. He said there weren’t enough official holidays to celebrate me. He said he needed to make one up just for me.”
“That’s really cute,” I say.
Our driver pulls out onto the highway.
“And he used to write the most beautiful love letters,” she says. “Really lovely. With poems in them about how pretty he thought I was, which was silly, because I was never pretty.”
“Of course you were,” I say.
“No,” she says, her voice matter-of-fact. “I wasn’t really. But boy, did he make me feel like I was Miss America.”
I laugh. “It sounds like a pretty passionate marriage,” I say.
My mom is quiet. Then she says, “No,” patting my hand. “I don’t know if I would say passionate. We just really liked each other. It was almost as if when I met him, I met this other side of myself. Someone who understood me and made me feel safe. It wasn’t passionate, really. It was never about ripping each other’s clothes off. We just knew we could be happy together. We knew we could raise a child. We also knew it wouldn’t be easy and that our parents wouldn’t like it. But in a lot of ways, that just brought us closer. Us against the world, sort of.
“I know it’s not popular to say. I know everybody’s looking for some sexy marriage nowadays. But I was really happy with your father. I really loved having someone look out for me, having someone to look out for. Having someone to share my days with. I always found him so fascinating. All of his opinions, his talent. We could have a conversation about almost anything. For hours on end. We used to stay up late, even when you were a toddler, just talking. He was my best friend.”
“Is that why you never remarried?”
My mom considers the question. “You know, it’s funny. Talking about passion. Since we lost your dad, I’ve found passion with men, from time to time. But I’d give it all back for just a few more days with him. For just one more late-night talk. Passion never mattered very much to me. But that type of intimacy that we had? That was what I cherished.”
Maybe one day I will tell her what I know.
Maybe I never will.
Maybe I’ll put it in Evelyn’s biography, or perhaps I’ll tell Evelyn’s side of it without ever revealing who was sitting in the passenger’s seat of that car.
Maybe I’ll leave that part out completely. I think I’d be willing to lie about Evelyn’s life to protect my mother. I think I’d be willing to omit the truth from public knowledge in the interest of the happiness and sanity of a person I love dearly.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just know that I will be guided by what I believe to be best for my mother. And if it comes at the expense of honesty, if it takes a small chunk out of my integrity, I’m OK with that. Perfectly, stunningly OK.
“I think I was just very fortunate to find a companion like your father,” my mom says. “To find that kind of soul mate.”
When you dig just the tiniest bit beneath the surface, everyone’s love life is original and interesting and nuanced and defies any easy definition.
And maybe one day I’ll find someone I love the way Evelyn loved Celia. Or maybe I might just find someone I love the way my parents loved each other. Knowing to look for it, knowing there are all different types of great loves out there, is enough for me for now.
There’s still much I don’t know about my father. Maybe he was gay. Maybe he saw himself as straight but in love with one man. Maybe he was bisexual. Or a host of other words. But it really doesn’t matter, that’s the thing.