by Geoffrey Orens
No one actually remembers much about Evelyn, although we remember her constantly: her portrait has been outside the Catholic church on Meserole for the last 25 years, forever enshrining her as a saintly 15-year old. Ever since that tragic hit-and-run that took away her life, she watches over us with a half-smile on her long face. Folks in the neighborhood cross themselves by her photo as if she had the power to cure ills or was a saint testing their faith, but what did she ever do in real life? I can’t remember, and I went to school with her. I asked her once if she knew what the biology homework was and she just quietly said, “I dunno,” and looked down. My friend Josh sat next to her in chemistry, and he recalls she might have said two or three words to him all of sophomore year. She was always kind of in between being asleep and paying attention. “Maybe that’s why she got hit by that car,” he half-joked once, then looked down guiltily.
Whenever I bring up Evelyn, people just say “oh that poor girl,” and bring up some banal memory that you would never remember about anyone else. It often ends with some sort of effusive praise such as “no one said ‘thank you’ with such grace” or “she looked back at me with a smile that I still treasure to this day.” Who would have cared about her if she hadn’t died though, I often think. She would have just been like all the other folks who you pass by on the street. She might have ended up like Rachel Johnson, who had a pretty similar lack of personality and still lives with her mother. Or maybe she would have grown to be like Samantha de la Fuente, who came out of her shell as a senior and now has a successful business. Samantha, though, is not talked about with the same reverence as Evelyn is, especially on the anniversary of the night she was hit by a car.
On that night, forever-15 Evelyn gets flowers placed on her picture. People light candles and even sing a few songs for her on guitar. Why? Is it because she died in front of the church as she was walking out? Is it because she was 15 and that she seemed like a blank slate? More than a few times, I’ve walked by her photo at night and asked her, “What did you do to deserve all this? All you ever did was just mope around with a sleepy look in your eyes!” The last time that happened, I realized that I was envious of Evelyn. She gained all this attention for being dead while no one seems more than half interested in the goings on of the living. But, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that at least I was alive to feel so resentful, and I actually started to tear up a little. So, now, every once in a while, I’ve started to leave a flower next to her photo as well. Nothing special, just something I pick at the park and pretend to drop as I pass by, so no one will notice.
Geoffrey Orens is a high school English teacher who lives in New York City. He has been previously been published in such publications as Star 82, Eunoia Review, Potato Soup Journal, and New Pop Lit. In his free time he loves to travel.
January House Literary Journal 
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