Page 74 of Gifted & Talented

69

It turned out Thayer merely wanted some sort of open mic night, a bring-your-own-compliments potluck in service to his life and achievements. Many, many people spoke very movingly, and thus many, many people were moved.

Eilidh, however, began to suffer a heightening anxiety she hadn’t had when she woke up that morning, when she’d thought all she’d have to do was make an appearance, put on a show. How do you celebrate a man who bangs his hot young assistant, even consensually? It was just so disappointing. A cliché, precisely as Meredith had said.

Eilidh looked over at Meredith, whose chin was held staunchly aloft. She and Eilidh still hadn’t spoken beyond normal questions, are you hungry, do you know where the rest of the guest towels are, who wants the Degas. “I actually hate that painting,” Eilidh had confessed in answer to that, and Meredith had looked at her sharply; inquisitively, but with an edge. Eilidh waited for Meredith to criticize, or, less likely, to ask, but instead Meredith merely shrugged and looked vaguely approving.

“We’ll donate it,” she said. “He’d shit his pants to have his name in the de Young.”

Meredith glanced bracingly at Eilidh then, as if she expected Eilidh to disagree, but Eilidh felt too tired. It was exhausting, the weight of disappointment. She didn’t know who she’d wanted her father to be, nor did she feel she knew any longer who he’d actually been. Was it ever love for him, or just convenience? She wanted to ask Dzhuliya, but at the same time the mere existence of the question made her physically ill.

Meredith was watching her now, as if Meredith could read her thoughts. Eilidh wondered if it had solved anything between them, the admission that neither of them had ever really gotten what they wanted, that they’d been at odds with each other because of the way one man had treated each of them, because what each one considered lucky was what the other had. But was that all? Was it only ever miscommunication?

No, probably not, because Meredith was mean and fundamentally uninterested in Eilidh as a person, and even sympathy had its constraints. Compassion didn’t live inside a vacuum. Maybe this relationship, strained but cordial, was the best version that could reasonably exist between them. Maybe all it could ever be was open envy and the vestiges of secret pain.

For almost a minute, the circle of grieving stood empty. It was someone else’s turn to speak, Eilidh realized, though nobody seemed to know whose.

“Perhaps his children might like to say something?” suggested the funeral director, the one who could no longer look Eilidh in the eye for having misidentified her. He directed the comment to Meredith instead, who seemed to shake herself forcefully awake.

“Right. Yes.” She stepped responsibly into the center of the circle, ever the eldest daughter. “Dad,” she said, “was… a great man. Well, he was a man,” she corrected herself in an unreadable tone. “And he was…”

She trailed off, staring into space, for a long time.

An uncomfortably long time.

Arthur took a step forward and reached out, touching Meredith’s elbow. “Do you want me to go first?” he asked her quietly.

The rest of the circle of onlookers seemed uneasy, fidgeting with a mix of disinterest and tension. Those who were paying attention seemed to restlessly hope this would wrap up quickly, resolve in some peaceable way. Next to me, near the back, one of Thayer’s golf buddies was checking stocks on his phone.

“No, no, let’s just get this over with. Let’s see.” Meredith nudged Arthur away and looked a touch manic now, as if something horrific had occurred to her. “Well, my father never liked me,” she announced.

The golf buddy looked up. There was a collective stirring of discomfort in the crowd at that, which Meredith acknowledged aloud. “No, no,” she assured everyone hastily, “it’s fine. He loved me, sure. But he didn’t like me.”

She paused.

“I disappointed him,” she admitted. “I didn’t listen to him. He saw most of what I did as a malicious betrayal, and maybe some of it was. Mainly, he just wanted me to fulfill a prophecy, a more conventional form of… I don’t know, greatness.”

Another pause.

“When my father did things, it was brilliant, it was necessary. When I did things, it was reckless, shortsighted, egotistical. I think he wanted me to fail.”

Meredith looked a little startled by her own admission, even to Eilidh.

“I spent my whole life thinking he wanted me to fail,” she said, “and then I did. So I guess that was my version of the prophecy.”