The Evolution of Man

1. Real Estate

“What do you think?” the real estate agent asks, smiling bright-white teeth with a smudge of red lipstick. I can’t blame her for being a little faded. We’ve been all over Tanglewood looking for the perfect house. There are Victorians and chateaus and three-story high-rise condominiums. There was a beautiful mid-century modern that I probably would have chosen.

This decision isn’t up to me, though. Mom’s the one who chooses.

She’s the one who has to live here. And she’s the one who has to die here.

I wander up the steps toward the white columns that line the front. “It’s definitely big.”

That’s an understatement. Most of the houses in our price range are mansions, because we need the privacy more than the space. Large houses mean large grounds.

“Twelve bedrooms,” the real estate agent assures me.

Mom leans to smell a wide, blooming hydrangea. “What are you going to do with all that space?”

“They’ll be useful when we throw wild s*x parties,” I say lightly, because it’s easier to pretend everything’s fine than falling apart. “When people want privacy, they can go upstairs and leave a sock on the doorknob.”

The real estate agent can’t seem to figure out whether we’re joking. She fumbles with the lock for a moment, trying to juggle her phone and a folder with notes about the house. “Five acres,” she tells us. “And you saw the gate when we entered. The security system is completely updated.”

She finally gets the door open, and we step inside.

Mom sucks in a breath. “Oh my God.”

A large staircase covered in an antique rug curves up to a wide balcony. A chandelier made of crystal drops shimmers from the sunlight we’re letting in. Elaborate wood paneling covers the wall, made especially intricate around an archway.

The real estate agent nods. “It’s like the plantation house from Gone with the Wind. You can almost imagine that Scarlett will come running down the stairs with her sisters.”

The movie was actually filmed near where we lived, in the backyard of the filming studios, the house left to rot away once it had served its purpose. In contrast this house seems vibrant. It’s fitting that we would come from somewhere pretend to the real thing.

“Could you give us a minute?” I ask the agent.

When we’re alone, my mother lets out a blissful sigh. “It’s perfect.”

“Will you be comfortable here?” I ask because that’s all there is right now. Not time. Sand whips through the funnel at an alarming rate. There’s only comfort, and how much my trust fund can buy.

She gives me a rueful smile. “Now that I’ve seen this, I can’t imagine being comfortable anywhere else.”

I look at the staircase dubiously. It’s beautiful but not really practical, especially for someone who has stage four cancer. “Maybe we can have an elevator put in. Or one of those chairs that zooms along the balcony.”

A horrified look. “Don’t even think about it. You will not do anything to destroy these stairs. It would be a travesty. They’re so beautiful, Harper.”

“Oh fine, I’m sure we can rig some kind of pulley system.”

She laughs a little. “There won’t be enough time to worry about it.”

How can she laugh about this? It’s one thing to be flippant in front of the real estate agent, but when we’re like this, being honest, all I want to do is break down. My stomach flips over, and I have to look away through the arched doorway. “God.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, immediately contrite. “I know this is hard for you.”

“No,” I tell her, because hard is a test on calculus. Hard is knowing I’ll inevitably see Sutton or Christopher again. This is more than hard; it’s unbearable. “I’m the one who’s sorry. We can buy this house, stairs or elevator or pulley system. Or hell, we can buy the original set back in LA, if that’s what you want. We’ll still be able to get fresh wheatgrass delivered every morning.”

She smiles. “We should be here.”

My throat tightens up, because no matter how hard I try, I seem to mess this up. She could have asked me for every cent in the damn trust fund. I’d have climbed the highest mountain or crawled into the deepest cave to find a cure. Instead she asked for something else—acceptance.

“Why Tanglewood? You never even visited here before this week.”

“Because this city has what you need.”

I scrunch my nose. “The library? I don’t need to oversee the reconstruction personally.”

“Nonsense. This is your project. You should be here for it. And besides, it’s not only the library. Tanglewood has the people you love.”

“Mom, I told you—”

“You do love Avery, don’t you?” she asks, sounding completely innocent. “She’s your best friend, and she’s taking the semester off to work on her thesis. That means she’ll be in town.”

My throat feels tight. “I’m not going to suddenly get married and have a baby.”

My mom has never pushed me to settle down, because she knows the dangers of that more than anyone. And now she’ll never see me walk down the aisle. Never meet any grandchildren. The doctors have given her three to six months to live. Three to six months. How do they even calculate that?

There might have been three more months if she’d been willing to try their grueling treatment—or ironically, the treatment could have killed her faster.

She’s asked me to accept her decision, and mostly I have. There isn’t a protest I can stage that will change her mind. I’ve accepted it, but that doesn’t make it any less painful to bear.

“And Bea,” she murmurs, still pretending to be clueless. We’re staying with Bea and Hugo in their comfy penthouse until we find our own place. “You love her and Hugo. They’re a darling couple.”

I give her a droll look. “Is that the end of the list?”

“For now. I’m sure you’ll learn to love more people once you’ve lived in Tanglewood longer.”

The banister shakes a little when I touch it, and I think we’ll have to get a carpenter in here before it’s safe enough to move in. If my mother wants a grand staircase to descend every morning, then that’s what she’ll get. I can’t give her relief from the pain, but my God, I can give her stairs.

“I messed it up,” I whisper because she needs to understand.

I don’t know how to love someone without the taint of money. I don’t know how to have a relationship with a man where I’m not waiting for him to leave. There’s something dangerous inside me; it grows and grows, eating away at everything good and hopeful and trusting. I don’t know if I ever loved Sutton, if I ever could have loved him, but we didn’t get that far.

And as for Christopher? I’m not sure he’s capable of loving anyone.

Her hand covers mine on the gleaming banister. “Harper.”

The softness of her voice reaches deep inside me. We’ve lived in a hundred different houses. None of them were ever ours. They belonged to one of her husbands. Some of those men were upfront about not wanting a little stepdaughter underfoot. Others pretended to be interested in me. They bought me Barbie doll limos and stuffed dogs with puppies inside them, but eventually they were all the same.

They all kicked us out in the end.

“You don’t have to make my mistakes,” she says, except her eyes are the same hazel gold as my own. It’s like looking in a mirror. She’s somehow more beautiful with age, but it doesn’t make her happy.

“Don’t I?” I didn’t get left behind by one man, but two. She only knows about Sutton, but when I close my eyes there’s two men walking away from me. I have enough distance from what happened six months ago to know it was Christopher who I really wanted. Enough distance to know that Sutton is the closest I’ve ever come to really having love, the kind that is given and received and untarnished by money. I had him, and I let him go.

“Love isn’t supposed to be painful.”

“Then why does it hurt?” Christopher never did anything so mundane, so hopeful as ask me on a date. He never offered himself to me, so why did I keep choosing him?

Her small smile tears my heart in two. “I’m hoping you figure that out the way that I never could. I fell in love with the wrong man, hard enough that there was never any real chance with me and someone else after that. There’s still time for you, Harper.”

“I’m not here to date anyone. And definitely not Sutton.”

She makes a noncommittal sound. “Everything will work out.”

Except my mother has stage four cancer and refuses treatment. The library is broken beyond repair. Everything in my life is falling apart, so how will it work out? I touch a carved wood finial that’s part of the railing. It’s easier to lie when I’m not looking at her. “Okay.”

“Harper. Look at me.”

It takes me five seconds. I count down in my head. I can’t take anything for granted these days—not the ability to stand up straight or hold my head high. Not the ability to look at my mother without incriminating tears burning my eyes.

She gives me a gentle smile. “I talked to a hospice in the city.”

My heart does a strange pitter-patter, like it’s beating enough times for a year but all at once and uneven. Heat and cold courses through me, one after the other. It’s like my body’s electrical system is shorting out. “I thought you didn’t want that.”

“I don’t want to live there, but they have a home-based program.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, they have nurses who come help me.”

“I can do that.” Even though helping means watching my mom lose her functionality, piece by piece. Two weeks ago I had to help her open a jar of unsweetened organic peanut butter. And then I hid in the pantry and cried for two hours.

“You’re not here to wait on me,” she says with a laugh. “Anyway, I spoke to the care transition counselor on the phone. She’s coming to the house later this week so we can work on the Death Plan. That’s what they call it. Isn’t that funny?”

All the crazy electrical voltage disappears. There’s a flat line where my heartbeat had been. I might as well be made of stone, that’s how numb I feel suddenly. “What?”

“It’s just a name, Harper.”

“I’m not—No—”

“This is something that will help all of us. Especially you.”

“I will buy this house and I will live here and I will do anything you want, but I’m not going to make a Death Plan.” Even the library is a kind of tribute, whether she knows it or not—fixing the unfixable, bringing it back from the brink. I had to accept my mother’s decision to stop treatment, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to embrace her death. I’m not going to plan for it.