Page 83 of The Manor of Dreams

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

OBITUARIES

Los Angeles, CA—Richard Frances Lowell, aged 44, producer, director, and renowned Academy Award–nominated actor known for his roles in Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, and Fifty Days of Sun, among others, was found dead on Friday, August 17, in New York City at the Warwick Hotel. The cause was determined to be a possible accidental overdose. He is survived by his wife, actress Vivian Yin, and their children.

Vivian sat in the library armchair near the heat of the lamp. She looked over the uneven words on the pad of paper in her lap. She had written and then struck them through with enough force that the tip of the pen had torn into the paper. Ink bled into splotches. English words faded from her mind. She tried writing in Chinese instead, but she only managed ten characters before she slashed them all, too.

What could she possibly write about her late husband? How were widows supposed to grieve? This would be her most demanding role yet, she realized. She thought of the Greek myth he had told her about, the wife who had faithfully waited for her husband to return from war for twenty years. The woman who married Richard Lowell that day fifteen years ago would have waited lifetimes. She would have given herself to him, body and marrow, had he loved her like she had adored him. But he would have killed her. She would be the one at the morgue right now having her jaw sewn shut for the funeral, and her children would have been hurt just like she had been.

??. Vivian closed her eyes.Wake up, she used to beg herself. Wakeup, and maybe this will all be a nightmare. She would be sitting in his convertible, and he would be enchanting her with stories all over again. She would be on the front lawn, her girls small again, watching him race them across the garden, or patiently dividing their treats at dinner, so no one would feel left out. Wake up, and she would be tucked into his chest on a blanket on a day trip to Dana Point, listening to his steady heartbeat. Wake up, and they’d be across the room at movie premieres and events, their eyes meeting amid the camera flashes, with a thrill that at once felt exciting and ancient, like they had been searching all their lives for each other, and they couldn’t believe they had found each other, again, and again.

What a great lie. What a ruined promise.

At some point exhaustion overtook her. Her pen fell to the pad and blotted the paper.

She woke up to her husband standing in front of her.

He wasn’t more than a few paces away, pale, his skin almost translucent in a shirt that was open at the collar.

He came back.

“Richard?” she whispered.

But her husband did not speak. He did not move. He stared straight at Vivian.

Until he buckled to the floor. His eyes bugged out as he writhed, clutching his midsection, clawing at his throat. On his side, he convulsed and vomited onto his shirt. Vivian rose to her feet and swayed, clenching back a scream.

She started backing up, only to trip over the leg of the armchair and fall. She landed hard on her tailbone with a yelp of pain that was the only thing Richard seemed to register. He went rigid, staring at her. His eyes paled and then went milky before collapsing inside his skull. His flesh bruised and dripped away into the pool of vomit, until only the stark-white bone of his skull remained.

And when she thought it was over, his jaw unhinged and his teeth crumbled into dirt.

Vivian scrambled backward, shutting her eyes as she huddled against the shelves, clamping a hand against her whimpering mouth.

When, shaking, she finally opened her eyes, she was alone. The floor was bare where her husband had just been.

Paralyzing panic gouged through her. After what felt like hours of ragged, wheezing breaths, the most she had managed was to curl into the fetal position and weep.

She couldn’t wake her daughters up, but she shuddered with the force of her terror.

She had seen this before. It was always going to end this way. Ever since the night she won the Oscar. The night he almost killed her. It hadn’t just been a nightmare—it was a warning. And it was her doing all along.

thirty-one

AUGUST 1990

SOPHIEwore the only black dress she owned to the funeral. It wasn’t really even black; in the sunlight it was dark blue. She wore Ma’s cardigan over it and pulled it tight around herself.

She pressed a palm to her chest to calm her erratic heartbeat. She had the sensation of constantly falling. She tried to suck in small gasps of air in the heat, but ended up hunched over, trying to suppress the sharp, monstrous pangs that cut through her stomach. Elaine, who’d taken the train down for this, looked at her like she was crazy. Bà, who’d come home days earlier, now sat at the end of the row in his worn suit. He held Ma’s hand.

Sophie held a fistful of her dress in her hands and her fingers gripped it so tightly that her nail snagged and tore a hole in the pantyhose. She was sure she was going to pass out. The pastor was speaking, but the words drifted right through her. She could only focus, deliriously, on the figures in front of her. Vivian in the front row. Rennie leaned against her, sobbing to the point that she was hiccupping. Lucille sat stiff and unmoving. And Ada—Sophie could see her trembling.

Their dad was dead. Only hours had passed between waking up to Vivian’s screams echoing from the foyer and when the first cameras arrived. Sophie grasped what had happened through hushed whispers. Mr. Lowell had been found in his hotel room in New York the morning after a party. There was an open bottle of liquor and empty bottles of sleeping pills and painkillers. His heart had stopped. That was it.

She’d barely seen him that last weekend he was home. And now theywere in the cemetery under a cloudless sky in the late summer heat. Sophie’s dress clung to her back with sweat. Groups of people dressed in immaculate black suits poured in. A slow panic dripped through her.

“He was a loving husband and a devoted father of three daughters. He was the gifted son of the late Mark and Cecilia Lowell. He was a prolific actor, Oscar nominee, emerging producer, and one of the most beloved and influential members of the film community. He will be dearly missed.” The pastor spread his arms out. “Now, we will hear a eulogy from his wife, Vivian.”

Vivian rose. Gently she untangled Rennie from her. A sharp pain stabbed through Sophie’s stomach, and she lurched forward again. Her fingernails dug into her thigh. Vivian spoke, but Sophie couldn’t grasp her words. At one point, Vivian’s eyes settled on her, but she couldn’t meet them. She doubled over and squeezed her eyes shut.

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