Close Your Eyes

8

Pauline died of cancer when Sylvia was seventeen. Sylvia could still smell the apartment: beef broth and soap. She held her mother’s hand until the end. It was warm for a long time, and then it grew cold and Sylvia let go.

She took a bath with her mother’s Jean Naté bubbles. It felt like something had been torn down—the wall between Sylvia and death. Words ran through her head: You are next in line. After her bath, Sylvia went back into the living room. The sun was still hours away, and most of the apartment windows surrounding her were dark. The nurse would arrive at seven A.M.

She knew it was time to call the nursing service and have Pauline taken to the funeral home. Once Sylvia dialed, everything would run smoothly. But she went back to Pauline and took her hand again. “Bye, Mom,” Sylvia said.

After the doctor had signed the papers and Pauline’s body had been carried away, Sylvia closed the door to the building and was alone in the lobby. The few neighbors who had been roused by the ambulance had gone back inside their apartments. Sylvia glanced at the row of mailboxes as she walked toward the stairwell, then stopped. There was a postcard pinned to their mailbox, an outgoing missive. It had three stamps and was addressed in Pauline’s wobbly script. Pauline must have given the card to a visitor and asked him or her to mail it, thought Sylvia.

She pulled the faded card and stared at it. It pictured a dining room in a restaurant called Gene’s: wicker chairs, tables covered with white cloths. GENE’S FRENCH-ITALIAN FOOD, a swirling font said. DISTINCTION. LUNCHEON, DINNER, COCKTAILS. Pauline had written nothing except a name and an address in Holt, New York. Sylvia stared at the name: her father’s name.

Then she put the card back where it had been.

Sylvia dressed carefully for the funeral a week later. She wore a Fendi gray skirt and matching jacket. She’d been around the Brights long enough to know the power of wealth. Before leaving the apartment, she looked coldly at herself in the mirror. Her skin was unblemished, her makeup light. She pinned her blond hair back with combs, fastened her mother’s gold buttons on her ears, looped a matching necklace around her neck. If her father did come to the funeral, she wanted him to be proud of her, to think she was beautiful. She wanted him to feel sorry for what he had lost.

During the funeral service, Sylvia saw a portly man in an expensive wool coat move quietly into the church. His expression was polite. He looked sad and honest. But in his deep-set eyes and high forehead, Sylvia saw a resemblance to her own face. He had her nose, too, a bit wide. She wanted to run to him, to hold him, to punch him.

While the priest droned on, the man kept his gaze on the prayer book. Pauline’s old colleagues from Tiffany lined up to peer into the open casket (Pauline’s vain request), but the man remained in his pew. When the service concluded, Sylvia saw him preparing to leave. He checked his watch, gathered his coat from beside him. Sylvia knew she didn’t have much time. Darting past well-wishers, she walked straight toward him. He looked up with a distant but pleasant expression.

Sylvia reached the man. She was blinking back tears already. His hair was trimmed neatly around his ears, which were Sylvia’s ears, the lobe attached and fleshy. “Hello?” he said.

“I know who you are,” Sylvia said. She smiled up at him, and what had she expected? An embrace after all this time? Did she think he would adopt her, take care of her? In a way, in a small part of her heart, she did.

His eyes darted upward, the only evidence of his deception. And then, without missing a beat, he met Sylvia’s hopeful gaze. “Who am I?” he asked.

“You’re my father,” she said. “I’m Sylvia.”

The corners of his mouth lifted, and he looked for all the world like a good man. But he said, “No, Sylvia. No. I can’t be your father.” He cupped her shoulder and turned to go. “I am very sorry about your mother,” he said. And then, before walking away and letting strangers take his place, he kissed her on the cheek.

Sylvia’s shoulders fell forward, but she wouldn’t rush after the man, wouldn’t ask for help or love, like Pauline. She tried to make a mask of her face. She had to turn around, to go back to the scraps of her life.

In a corner of the church, she saw Victoria and her mother. Mae stood with her arms crossed, her black hair neatly curling at the padded shoulders of her suit.

Victoria was watching Sylvia’s father, staring daggers at his back. She was fiercely loyal, like a pit bull. Mae was looking at Sylvia. She lifted her chin and walked over briskly.

“Come on,” she said, reaching out to Sylvia. “You’re done with all of this, sweetheart. Come with me. You’re a Bright girl now.”

A few weeks later, Victoria took Sylvia to the party on the beach.