The man is around my age, with a thinning buzz cut, his jacket and tie cheap for the room. He smiles, and I turn away from him, the stem of the champagne glass tight between my fingers.
“Why are you here?” he says, and I think, Does he recognize me? I’m hoping my thoughts don’t show on my face.
“Excuse me?”
His smile is surprisingly warm. Disarming. “Are you a relative?”
“No.”
“Brayburn alum?”
“Yes.” The easier lie. “How about you?”
He says nothing. Just nods, as though he doesn’t believe me. Then he turns back around. Strange. But then everything is strange here. Like a dream, or maybe an acid trip, the colors too soft, the whispers too loud. I’m feeling a little nauseous. There are other people looking at me—two silver-haired women in the back row. Is my hair okay? Do I have something stuck to my shoe? I almost ask them that, but I stop myself just in time.
There is a podium at the front of the room, and a man pads up to it. He has thin lips, wispy hair, narrow shoulders, everything about him meager and unobtrusive. His name is Richard Waverly, and he’s the dean of the School of Humanities. He introduces himself as such, but I already know those things. I take a big swallow of champagne and then another and then the glass is done when I hadn’t even intended a sip. The room shimmers and blurs. The silver-haired women whisper like snakes.
Waverly says, “The recipient of the Martha L. Koch Humanitarian Award this year is a young man who exemplifies public service,” and that’s when I finally catch sight of him, standing in the rear corner of the room, his golden curls slicked down, his parents sentries on either side of him. I’d recognize them anywhere. The father is square-jawed and straight-backed, the mother blond and beaming. He’s quite a bit taller now, the son. Apparently, he had some growing to do, but the parents haven’t changed a bit. The mother especially, in her seasonal wrap dress, big diamond at her throat. Her death didn’t change you.
I say it out loud. “Her death didn’t change you.” The hissing women whip their heads around in unison. I can feel the heat of their glares. I aim my eyes at my empty glass and take a deep breath, but then Waverly says the boy’s name. A punch to my throat. “Harris Blanchard.”
He strides up to the podium, taller Harris with his slicked-down curls, with his expensive suit and shiny shoes, and I hear Emily’s voice again. His name is Harris, Mom. He’s really nice. I remember her Instagram bio, Emily’s motto from an Instagram account I’d only learned of after her death, her words on the lips of a defense lawyer as expensive as the gray suit Harris Blanchard is wearing to accept his Martha L. Koch award. My daughter’s Instagram bio. The defense lawyer’s sneer. “No fucks left to give.” What does that mean to you, Mrs. Gardener?
Harris Blanchard pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolds it. My gaze pings on his mother, just as she mouths, I love you, sweetie, and I have no fucks left to give. The word bubbles up in my throat and escapes as a shriek. “Murderer!”
I start toward Harris Blanchard. I don’t get far.
I’M NOT ALWAYS this way. That is to say, nine-tenths of the time I’m calm and cool and going about my business. I do website design out of my home, and when I meet with clients—usually at the one coffee shop in town, since my house is halfway up a mountain and hard to get to—I put on a dress or a nice pantsuit and heels and behave in a professional manner. I work hard. I don’t miss deadlines or pull diva fits when someone wants a change to the design, even an ill-advised one. From time to time, I catch up with old friends over lunch. I make jokes, even.
But Emily is always on my mind, a ragged bundle of memories, cocooned in a constant, gnawing pain. To keep the cocoon tight and the pain at bay, I take pills. In my old life, I had no anxiety that couldn’t be cured by my weekly hot yoga class. Obviously, things have changed since then.