Model Home, page 15
“Singing with the choir is an option?” Elijah asks.
“At least with a portion of them,” says Eve. “They’re all very musical, and I don’t think it would even take that much time for them to learn an arrangement you put together. Mama and Pop were big donors to the church, and we are well known and liked there. We can make it happen.” Eve seems happy to have a job to do, that the questions of reporters and what to do with the house and our past have been largely supplanted by funeral arrangements.
“Then yeah, I think it’s a song that would be nice to have some backing for.”
“Then it’s done. We’ll arrange it,” says Eve, clapping her hands a single time the way Emmanuelle did only moments ago.
I, myself, am struggling to get with the single-clap energy. I’ve received an email from a representative of a major, nationally syndicated newspaper who wants to speak to us.
Dear Ezri Washington Maxwell,
I’m so sorry to reach out to you at a time when I know you are heavily burdened by grief. I, too, have lost a parent. What you and your sisters are going through is unfathomable, and you have my condolences. I’m sure I’m not the first journalist to reach out to you. In fact, as the story continues to gain attention, it’s my guess that you’ve been swarmed with opportunists. I can’t say that I’m necessarily any different—we are all self-interested beings—but as I’ve learned more of the details of what happened, I feel that I am the person who can do your story justice. I, too, grew up in an affluent, stifling white neighborhood.
It is nothing short of psychic torture what Black people can endure in these settings, and I wondered if it was an angle worth exploring in a long-form piece about the history of American real estate and housing, desegregation, and Black assimilation. I am deeply interested in who your parents were as people and what led to this devastating tragedy, and the role that race might have played. Does this interest you at all? Would you and your sisters be available for a discussion? I can fly to Dallas at any time, or alternately, we can arrange a virtual or voice meetup.
Maya Gerard
she/her
“What do you think, Yoyo?” asks Elijah.
I shut off my phone and slide it into my pocket. “I love hearing your music,” I say. She so rarely performs publicly, and has at times been so frozen with stage fright as to leave a performance mid-song, that I worry about her at a funeral with an audience of approximately three hundred people, but I do not say that.
“What was that?” asks Eve, having noticed me on my phone. “Another journalist?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m going to forward it to you and Emmanuelle. It’s interesting. I mean, I know it’s not something we’ll want to do, but this person had a different take, at least.”
“Did you see the article I linked you?” asks Eve. I don’t answer her. “Did you?”
“Yeah, I saw it,” I say. It’s from a local newspaper. In it, they quote Laurie. As our community deals with this devastating loss, I hold close Eudora and Edward’s children, who grew up in the Oak Creek Estates, whom I regarded as my own family.
Emmanuelle grabs my phone, reads the article. She snorts as she reads. “How is it possible for people to be this fake?” she asks.
“Easily,” says Eve.
We are four days out from the funeral now. I hold fervently to the notion that when it’s done, it will all be done, that I might say it and finally mean it, goodbye to Mama, to Pop, and to the house.
TWENTY-NINE.
I awake at dawn to claim the world. I am a part of Ezri that stays small and hidden. I come out now so they might remember this frail seed inside of them that needs only a bit of soil and water to grow, a little girl who is fond of beauty and clings to it as a bird beak does to the worm.
I am twelve, but drive miles and miles and miles around the metroplex, collecting bouquets of wildflowers for my parents—Ezri’s parents. It’s no easy task—most Texas flowers are spring bloomers—but I am expansive in my definition of beauty, and I gather all manner of plant matter, some of which I will weave into wreaths, plait into curled table pieces.
Dallas in late summer is arid and hot, but the dry heat, to me, is a blessing, a kind beast’s breath on my skin. Oh, how the beast licks me right up, like my skin is made of sugar. I wear a sun hat I found on a hook in Eve’s garage. I wear one of Emmanuelle’s short, black, linen dresses—one that I’m sure is handmade and costs more than two hundred pounds, but that was sent to her for free by a company expanding into plus sizes. Under the dress, I have on black tights, taken from Elijah, who wears them with every dress and skirt because she’s afraid of what others will think of her legs, thick and soft, darkened with a dense covering of hair. I wear them despite the heat to protect myself from mosquitos and other insects, and to affect some look of modesty.
It is eight when I arrive to the church where Ezri’s parents are to be hymned to and eulogized. I do not want to disrupt the sanctuary and the florist’s arrangements, so I focus on the basement, where the wake is to be held, turning the large hall into something magical and glorious.
When I’m finished, I look upon my work, satisfied. I am sweating, and I notice only now that I am breathing heavily and my joints are aching. Fatigue sets in—from my early wake-up, but also from the intrusion of Ezri’s grieving, or my own. I wonder, taking a seat on the small stage in the church basement, was it I, Elspeth, who wanted to assert herself for Ezri’s benefit, or were we both the same and together all along, and it is I, Ezri, who wanted to do something beautiful for my dear mama, my dear pop, who, despite everything, loved us, loved us so much.
* * *
At ten, my sisters, Elijah, and Eden and Echo arrive, along with a small crew of family.
“We weren’t sure you’d be here,” says Eve. Her words are without challenge or hostility. She is as worn down as me.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Did you lose time?” asks Emmanuelle, but I never lose time truly, not anymore—my dissociative episodes are never so sequestered from my core self. We are always inside dreams of one another. A single shape-shifter rather than disparate entities living separate lives.
“I’m here,” I say.
The choir director pulls Elijah away for a last-minute discussion, and Aunt Jacqueline waves Eden and Echo over to our pew in the front row. It’s still half an hour before the doors open.
“You’re wearing my dress,” says Emmanuelle. She’s heavily made up, and her outfit is dramatic, a sleek black hat on her head with lace netting to cover her mourning. I still see the drama the eyeliner and mascara add to her eyes, the striking allure of her face brought on by contouring.
I look down at myself in comparison.
“You look cute in my clothes,” says Emmanuelle, “though you’ve styled yourself in very Little House on the Prairie fashion.”
That’s Elspeth, I want to say, but I’ve learned not to speak about the others with Emmanuelle, who always takes it too far, uses it as fuel for her obsession with the haunting of 677.
“I brought you a change of clothes,” says Eve, handing me a garment bag. Inside, a crisp, white shirt with two columns of buttons, navy trousers, black patent leather brogues, navy socks with a Fair Isle knit, a skinny tie. It’s all very schoolboy, and I’m grateful she understands my singular dress outfit style so well.
“Thank you,” I say, and nod my head. She nods back and looks at me, assessing, eyes sharp and tongue ready to criticize, but holding back for now.
“Come see,” I say to both of my sisters, and lead them down to the basement, slowly, because everything hurts.
Their reactions are what Elspeth hoped for. They gasp, delighted and struck by awe. Emmanuelle tears up, and Eve soon follows.
“You had the florists set this up?” asks Eve, shocked that I might ever be so thoughtful as to step outside of myself enough to show care for another.
“I did it,” I say.
“What?”
“I did it.”
“You didn’t,” says Eve.
“I did.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Okay. I see. Showing out.” She reaches her hand out to mine, arm unfurling from the crossed position toward me, and I grab hold for dear life. Simultaneously, we pull each other forward into an envelope made of our bodies.
Next, Emmanuelle and I hug, then we are all three embracing, leaning upon one another, hands together, fingers intertwined. We are rope, plaited fibers woven into one.
We quake with sobs. Is it even us, this welling up of feeling, or has something outside of us, made by our joining, been born?
My eyes burn, but I cannot let go of either Eve’s or Emmanuelle’s hand to wipe them. I drag my face along Emmanuelle’s shoulder. I feel Eve’s wet cheek against mine, her flesh my flesh and mine hers.
“We probably got to go soon,” says Eve, that “probably” so unlike her. Never does she show doubt. Never has there been an attitude of maybe in her adult life. So ensnared by this grief animal we’ve awakened—who clutches us in its jaws—she can be certain now only of this feeling, of these tears.
We remain like this for minutes, until a firm hand grabs me on the shoulder, and I awake from the mourning trance. It’s Minister Evans, who’s performing the funeral rites.
“It’s nearly time, sisters,” he says, and I forgive the misgendering not because he is an old man, an old southern Black boy who doesn’t know about these things, but because in this moment we are three sisters, three witches, three Gorgons: Stheno, Medusa, Euryale.
I change into the clothes I prefer, the ones Eve brought for me, and rejoin my sisters up in the lobby when I’m finished. I notice police officers next to where they’re standing. “What’s going on?” I ask, molding myself instantly into someone who can handle crisis. The effort of competence will exhaust me later, but for now, I am buttressed by the catharsis of my earlier tears, by the shield against the outside world my sisters and I briefly became.
“I’m afraid there’s some kerfuffle outside,” one of the police officers says. “It’s nothing for you to worry about now, we’ve got it handled, but the minister called us when he saw that not everybody here is necessarily here for the funeral.”
“Tons of reporters,” Eve says, eyes rolling, and shoots a look at Emmanuelle, who she blames for inviting all of this, even if she hasn’t, not really. “This shit is so disrespectful. You happy now, Emmanuelle? That the story’s out? Is this the deliverance you wanted?” Eve shakes her head and leaves. I go to chase after her—I am the good sibling now, who goes to comfort their sister—but the number of people gathered in the sanctuary for Mama and Pop overwhelms me, and I let the doors swing back shut on me and remain in the entry hall.
“This isn’t my fault,” says Emmanuelle.
“I know.”
“I haven’t told anyone anything, even though I want to, even though I think it’s the right thing, trying to respect what y’all two want.”
“She just needs somebody to be angry with,” I assure her.
She dabs a tissue in the corners of her eyes. Her makeup remains. I don’t know how.
“Well, maybe she wouldn’t have all that goddamn anger if we—if we didn’t have to keep it all a secret.”
“Ladies,” says the minister. “It’s time.”
In an attempt to resurrect the energy of our Gorgon shield, I grab Emmanuelle’s hand. I gesture toward the doors of the sanctuary. She swallows loudly. Together, we go in. The creaking of the doors draws the attention of everyone in attendance, and heads shift toward us. I am immediately jealous of the black lace veil on Emmanuelle’s headpiece.
An usher looks at us sympathetically and hands us each the programs that Eve painstakingly designed, gorgeous and substantial, booklets with a card cover, with hand-stitched binding by a friend of hers who had worked tirelessly.
I am reminded that both Eve and Emmanuelle have made Dallas a home. They have people here who are attending just for them, not for Mama and Pop. Exes, lovers, friends, colleagues, acquaintances. So much of the funeral is the work of their social network. For Emmanuelle, an influencer with a large reach and a brand built on a reclaimed Texanness, it’s obvious why this would be the case, but Eve, too, has her reach: book clubs that she runs, a mutual aid organization she helped root and then flower, parenting friends, community theater contacts.
For the first time in my life, I regret leaving this city, this country. I notice faces, so familiar as to be limbs of my body, loved ones who’ve held me, who’ve fed me, who’ve made jokes with me, who’ve played cards with me, dominoes, who I am now outside of, who I barely know anymore beyond nostalgic recognition.
The ghosts inside me tremble, frightened as they reckon with being forgotten and unknown, discarded and left out of the familial hold. They know that none of this is theirs.
Elijah is seated at the piano, playing humbly but beautifully, the songs a perfect backdrop to dignified mourning. She looks like she belongs here, and I can believe I’ve stepped into another world where this is something she does every week on a Sunday at church.
I take a seat next to Eve, and Emmanuelle takes a seat next to me. The minister rises to the pulpit and Elijah finishes playing to join us, taking a saved seat between Uncle Frank and her cousin, Magi, who we haven’t seen since she was eight. I notice the two of them holding hands, and I remember how much they used to play together as young things. Magi never minded that Elijah never or barely talked, content to lead my daughter around for hours and talk enough for the both of them.
“Good morning,” says the minister. “It is with great grief and sadness, but with complete submission to the will of the universe, which only allows any of us a small taste of this life, that we gather here today to mourn our beloved fellows, Sister Eudora and Brother Edward. Today, we will celebrate their lives as they lived it, together.”
I wonder if the minister will mention the circumstances of Mama’s and Pop’s deaths as he continues, knowing that Eve had worked with him profusely on what his messaging should be. Eventually, he alludes briefly to “tragedy” and things being “cut short” and how life’s beauties can often be “twisted by pain into something ugly” but otherwise says no more. Of course, everyone here already knows. Given the reporters outside, I wonder if the whole world does, if our agony has been laid bare.
The choir sings, and the music, of course, is stirring, each soloist dazzling in their talent, the harmonies conveying something of the divine.
Everyone who desires so is given a chance to speak, and first up is Pop’s brother, my uncle Del. When he first begins to speak, I’m afraid. He is a man lacking filter. But his words are beautiful. While his focus is on my dad as he was as a child, toward the end, he shifts to speak about my mother, too, how in love the two of them were, and how they were two people made softer, sweeter, and better by their togetherness. “I can’t make sense of none of this,” he says. “But I suppose it’s not mine to make sense of. The Lord do what he do, and why? Why?”
Several attendees shout amen, and I want to join them. The Lord does do what he does, and why? Why?
Though I am functionally an atheist, it still baffles, the way the world has plans for us so out of line with what we could have ever predicted. And it brings no relief to acknowledge that that is because there is no plan.
Mother is God, I’m her baby Job. She has let a devil ruin me—and for no reason but to remind me, nothing in this world is ours.
* * *
It’s not until Emmanuelle delivers her eulogy that I understand no peace will ever come. While the minister has had to help a few people down from the pulpit who devolved into sobbing fits during their speeches, that is part and parcel for these events. Emmanuelle is the one to break the seal, to speak the words Eve and I have dreaded she’d speak since the interview with the police.
“You will hear a lot of things about my parents over the next few weeks. In fact, you’ve probably already read things that have left you baffled and confused,” she says. “But I trust that if you are here in this room, you know better. You know who they were, what they believed. You know about their love for each other, and their love for us kids.”
“Oh, Lord,” Eve mutters under her breath. Like many here, she’s fanning herself with her program. The church’s air conditioner cannot live up to its purpose, not in this August heat, not with this number of people.
I take stock of the sanctuary. Many heads bob up and down in agreement with Emmanuelle, but others appear braced for upset. They’d been happy, only moments ago, to ignore any unpleasantness about the realities that brought them here. One can elide murder-suicide for only so long at the funeral of the murdered and self-murdered.
“My siblings and I grew up in terror, a terror that my parents tried desperately to protect us from,” Emmanuelle says.
Eve turns to me, eyes wide, mouth open slack in shock. “Okay, now she’s just lying.”
Emmanuelle speaks with conviction and surety. I know that there’s no glance I can throw her from down in the pews that will reach her, not in this state.
“And that same terror killed them.”
A hush descends over the sanctuary. Those who’d grown bored with the service perk up, soldiers at attention.
“What you will hear is a story that the police made up because they needed to make something unfathomable fathomable. They have asked me, and my siblings, to believe them, their words, their narrative, over our own eyes, our own history.” Emmanuelle’s speech is delivered with the care and intonation of someone who has rehearsed. While her career has given her skill in off-the-cuff articulation, I know a soliloquy when I hear one. She’s practiced this speech.
“Why does she got to bring us into this?” asks Eve. I should, perhaps, feel caught between my two sisters, but here, where I physically sit, next to Eve, is also where I metaphorically sit. I am firmly on her side, and decidedly against Emmanuelle, whose every word I cannot help but see as a betrayal. How dare she? How dare she speak upon my truth, a truth that is not hers to speak? She does not know what my eyes saw.
