Chapter 10
That evening Rhett came up the front drive of the Iverson estate in his black Range Rover with a small flat package in the front passenger seat and a face Aurora had not seen him wear before, which was not a face that suited him.
Rhett was a smiler, a charmer. He had spent the wedding-night dinner telling Errol stories about Halston getting locked in the wine cellar at age fourteen, and he had spent every speakerphone call Aurora had overheard since, giving Halston the kind of friendly grief only a friendship that went all the way back to prep school could license.
He was not smiling tonight.
He came up the front steps with the package under his arm. He kissed Aurora on the cheek in the foyer and shook Halston's hand at the door of the gold sitting room.
“Both of you. Now. And shut the door.”
Halston shut the door.
Rhett set the package on the coffee table and sat down on the couch, and he did not lean back but set his hands on his knees, and he looked, for the first time since Aurora had met him, like a man with his grief sitting openly on his face — his jaw tight, his eyes tired and red at the rims, the easy charm gone out of him entirely.
"Halston called me this morning," he said.
"He didn't tell me much. He never tells me much.
But I have known this man since we were boys in prep school, and I have never once heard him sound the way he sounded on the phone today.
" He looked at Halston for a moment, then back at Aurora. "That's how I knew it was time."
He tapped the package. "Maeve gave me this six months before she died.
She told me to hold onto it and to deliver it only if things got real between the two of you — and she was very specific about what that meant.
She said, not when they sign the paper, Rhett.
Any fool can sign a paper. You bring it when they mean it.
" He looked between them. "I figured today you mean it. "
Aurora's whole body went cold. Halston sat down beside her on the second couch.
"It's a Mini DV tape," Rhett went on. "I had to dig my old camcorder out of my mother's house in River Oaks, because Maeve, of course, recorded this on a format nobody has owned since two thousand and eight.
The camcorder is in the car. I haven't watched it — she told me not to.
She told me to hand it to the two of you, set it up, and leave the room. So that is what I am about to do."
“Rhett.” Halston's voice was very quiet. “Are you sure?”
“I am sure.”
Halston closed his eyes for one half second. Then he opened them. He nodded once.
Rhett went out to the Range Rover and came back with the old camcorder under one arm.
He set it up on the coffee table and plugged the cable into the side of the television above the marble fireplace.
He pulled out the tape and slid it into the deck.
The little screen on the side of the camcorder lit up white-blue.
Aurora's hand had crept across the leather couch and found Halston's. He laced his fingers through hers without looking at her.
Rhett looked at the two of them. He gave Aurora a small, sad, kind smile. The Rhett smile. Briefly.
“I'll be in the kitchen with Yvette, having a glass of bourbon. Call me when it's over.”
He left.
The door clicked shut behind him.
For a long second there was only the soft mechanical whir of the camcorder.
Halston reached out, picked up the small black remote off the table, and pressed play.
Maeve filled the screen.
She was sitting in the small sunroom of the Pinewood Hollow bayfront house.
The light behind her was late afternoon.
She was wearing the cream linen blouse Aurora had bought her two birthdays ago.
Her dark blonde hair was pulled back in the soft messy bun she had been wearing since she was nineteen.
She had a glass of red wine in one hand and a glass-half-full smile on her face.
"Oh my God," Aurora whispered.
Halston, beside her on the couch, cleared his throat.
Maeve on screen lifted the wine glass.
"Okay," she said. "If you two are watching this, three things have happened.
One, I died. Two, the lawyers actually did what I told them to do, which I will admit I had my doubts about, considering what Mason Whitcroft charges per hour.
Three, you both said yes. So congratulations.
You're married. I assume you got married at the Harris County courthouse because Aurora hates ceremonies and Halston hates being looked at.
I assume my beautiful baby girl was the ring-bearer because if Imari was not the ring-bearer there is going to be a scene about it in the afterlife.
I assume you held a small dinner at the estate with Yvette's gumbo because if Yvette did not make gumbo there is going to be a second scene in the afterlife and I assume Beatrix was not invited.
I am, of course, taking some pleasure in being right about all of that. "
Aurora let out a sound that was half laugh and half something else.
Halston's fingers tightened around hers.
Maeve grinned.
"I am sorry I'm not there for it. Believe me.
I would have liked to be there for it. I would have liked to be there for a lot of things.
Aurora's next book. Halston, you finally retiring from that monster of a defense conglomerate before it gives you an actual aneurysm, you idiot.
Cyrus and me growing old in the Pinewood house, getting a beagle and arguing about the beagle's name then naming it Banana.
But most of all…Imari. God, all of Imari.
Her turning nine, sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one.
..all of them. Losing her front teeth and the gap-toothed school photo that comes with it.
Her first day of middle school. Learning to ride a bike without me running behind her holding the seat.
Her first heartbreak and getting to tell her it will not be her last and that she will survive it.
Her graduation. Teaching her to drive, badly, in a parking lot, both of us screaming.
Watching Cyrus walking her down the aisle if she wants an aisle, or sitting in the front row of a courthouse if she is anything like her godmother.
Holding her babies, if she has babies. I wanted all of it.
Every single ordinary day of it. I would have liked all of that, and if you are watching this, then I did not get any of it.
I am furious about that. I want you to know I am furious.
I am furious right now, filming this, with my whole life still in front of me — furious at a thing that has not even happened yet and that I am praying to God never does, because the very idea of being done and missing all of it makes me want to throw this glass at the wall. I want to be on record saying so."
She lifted the wine glass to her mouth, took a sip and set it down.
She looked directly into the lens. "Halston.
You absolute idiot. She never stopped loving you.
She has never, not once, not for one day, not for one hour, not in all the years I have known her, looked at another man and forgotten you.
I have watched her not forget you, and I have watched her date your shadow three different times in three different cities.
The first one was an associate professor of art history at Rice who had your bad attitude.
The second was a guy in Chicago who I personally had to tell her was not allowed in the apartment.
The third was an architect who at least could hold a conversation, but had your gray eyes, and I called you out on that one at brunch, Aurora — I called you out on it and you cried into your eggs.
Halston. She never stopped. Stop being an idiot. "
Aurora was full-on crying now. She had not noticed she had started.
Halston, beside her, was holding her hand so tightly her ring had pressed into the bone of her finger.
Maeve grinned at the camera.
"Aurora Akande. Mrs. Iverson. My favorite woman in the world.
Listen to me, baby. He called off his engagement to that senator's daughter when he was twenty-six because you posted a photograph of your art show on Instagram.
I have this on direct authority from Rhett, who got it from Halston after the second bottle of Lagavulin at Halston's house six weeks after Halston's father died, and which I am now telling you because Rhett has never been able to keep a secret from me even when he tried.
Halston could not get out of bed for a week.
He skipped a board meeting. He drove past your apartment in the Third Ward at two in the morning three nights in a row and sat in his car at the curb without ever knocking on the door because he was a coward.
He has been a coward about you, Aurora, your entire adult life.
So have you. So have both of you. The two of you are the two biggest cowards I have ever loved, and I have loved a lot of cowards in my time.
You are watching this because I am dead and you are married.
You are married because I made you get married. You are welcome.