The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

“You could be a nobody living in a cardboard box, and I’d still love you,” I said. I’d never said that before. I’d never meant it before. Celia smiled wide. “Me too. The cardboard box and all of it.”

“I hate this conversation. You’re making me feel awful.”

“I’d give it all up, you know. All of it. The money and the jobs and the fame. I’d give it all up just to be with you, just to be normal with you.” “You have no idea what you’re saying, Celia. I’m sorry, but you don’t.” “What’s really going on here is that you’re not willing to give it up for me.”

“I love you so much, sweetheart. So, so much. And it’s in part because of things like that. You’re an idealist and a romantic, and you have a beautiful soul.

And I certainly don’t want to love a woman who would screw some singer just so the world doesn’t suspect she loves me.”

“I thought that people were put on earth to find other people, and I was put here to find you. To find you and touch your skin and smell your breath and hear all your thoughts. But I don’t think that’s true anymore.” She wiped her eyes. “Because I don’t want to be meant for someone like you.”

And that’s the last thing those assholes want, a world run by people like you and me.”

While I had not found living without Celia to be easy, I did find it easier when I could pretend she was a part of another world. But this, her existing in my orbit, made everything I had been repressing come bubbling up.

The way she said it, the pride in her voice, as if admitting that it hurt her was a vulnerability she wasn’t willing to give in to, made my heart break. It broke for her, and it broke for the me of all those years ago who did the same thing.

But no medium can capture what it is to be in someone’s presence, certainly not someone like her.

And with that, I had no more fight in me. My heart cried out the truth through my throat. “I know. I know that. I know.”

That was how it was with Celia. When you denied her what she wanted, when you hurt her, she made sure you hurt, too.

The tears that fell down my face were because I realized what I had done to Celia.

But I can’t do it. I can’t do it, Evelyn. I can’t live with my heart half-broken all the time.”

And it wasn’t until I was back in my apartment that I lost it. Sobbing as if she’d died.

And all I can think is, What the fuck did she do?

And there’s one other person out there, whom I think of every day.”

“I know she’s watching right now. And I just hope she knows how important she is to me. Thank you all. Thank you.”

“I can’t think of anything more erotic than that,” he said. “Than being each other’s inspiration.”

“And to anyone tempted to kiss the TV tonight, please don’t chip your tooth.”

“There is no she but you,” I told her.

She grabbed my face. She kissed me. And I wept. She started crying with me, and soon I couldn’t tell whether the tears I was tasting were hers or mine.

“If you can’t sleep, think. Think about what you need. What you need from me as a thank-you for what you did.”

I hugged her and kissed the top of her head, and just when I was going to let go, she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me back.

“I’m not kidding! I want to marry you. For once and for all. Don’t I deserve that?

We were in our midfifties, giddy at the idea of finally doing what we should have done years ago.

“I may now kiss the bride,” I said, and I let go of her hands, grabbed her face, and kissed her. My wife.

I had lost her. My love. My Celia. My soul mate. The woman whose love I’d spent my life earning.

“Mom, after seven husbands, I’m not sure you’ve had any practice living on your own,” she said as she sat at my dining room table, the same table she used to sit at in a high chair with Harry, Celia, John, and me.

Tell everyone that I got it wrong. That I chose the wrong things most of the time.

I am tired, and I am angry, and my eyes feel dry and stiff, as if they have been wrung out like wet laundry.

She seems at peace somehow, in full display, and I wonder if the real Evelyn isn’t the woman I’ve been talking to for the past two weeks but, instead, the one I see before me right now.

“Because they are just husbands. I am Evelyn Hugo. And anyway, I think once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in my wife.”