Evelyn, After: A Novel

by Victoria Helen Stone

  Steady. Like a rock. Or something dead.

  “Not tonight,” she answered. “I’ll decide tomorrow.” She hoped he was afraid. She hoped he was terrified.

  “Evelyn—”

  “Shut up.” She walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and past her son’s room. She closed the double doors of her bedroom very softly and turned the lock. Once she was alone, she fell to her knees and pressed her forehead to the soft gray carpet she’d replaced last year, and she cried.

  She wished she hadn’t asked.

  CHAPTER 11

  AFTER

  For the first time in months, Evelyn didn’t take a sleeping pill. She didn’t have time for one, because she always took it before ten so she’d have enough hours to sleep the drug off. Now it was ten thirty, and she was sitting on the floor of the guest bedroom, unwrapping paintings she hadn’t looked at in eighteen years.

  Gary knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for an answer. She shielded the small painting she’d just uncovered and glanced over her shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” She’d never have answered him that way before all of this, but what she did was none of his business now. They weren’t friends. He wasn’t her partner. He was just her cheating husband, and she was the woman who was choosing to forgive. Or trying to.

  He sighed. Not a natural sigh, but a pointed one. “You’re not planning to make me move in here again, are you?”

  “No.” He could sleep in their bed beside her. She didn’t care. He politely stayed on his side of the mattress these days. If he tried anything else, she’d shove him back.

  “Are you coming to bed?” he asked.

  “Not right now.”

  She felt him standing there for a long while, as if he weren’t sure what to say. Another new development in their marriage. Gary had always known exactly what he wanted to say to old Evelyn. Now he treated her like a feral, unpredictable cat.

  Good. She wasn’t tame anymore.

  He left without closing the door, and she was startled at the rage that welled up at that. It was just common courtesy to close a door you’d opened. He wouldn’t do that to one of the partners in his practice, but he’d do it to her.

  She got up and slammed the door, aware that her anger was disproportional to what he’d done. This obviously wasn’t about the door.

  She thought she’d been coming to terms with his infidelity, but her rage was back, and now it felt mixed up with disdain and disgust instead of sadness. Was that normal? She knew from what she’d read online that it often took a year to even begin healing from a betrayal like this, so surely some ups and downs were expected.

  They’d start therapy soon. Gary had resisted it, of course, dragging his feet, complaining that he couldn’t be expected to reveal his personal life to someone he might know professionally. He’d finally agreed, but only if they saw a common therapist who didn’t mix in his lofty circles.

  Evelyn had agreed to that. She’d also agreed that they wouldn’t speak about the accident and they’d say the affair was with a colleague instead of a patient. She’d spent a whole day researching marriage counselors in their area, and she’d given Gary a list to review. He had yet to give an answer. She’d pressed him several times, but it didn’t matter quite as much anymore. Her urgency had faded.

  She would give herself time to process this new anger, and they’d get to counseling soon enough.

  Rolling her shoulders, she took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. She stretched the fingers that were clasping the canvas to her chest, then held the painting out to look at it.

  “Oh.” She sighed. Nostalgia rolled over her in a bittersweet wave. She didn’t know if this was her best painting, but it had been her favorite. Yet she hadn’t thought of it in years. How was that even possible?

  She still vividly remembered the embarrassment of watching the model drop her robe and stand naked in front of the class. Evelyn had been in classrooms with a nude model before, but she’d never been in the front row. The front had been the only option in the small room that day. There’d been just six other students in the class, and Evelyn had ended up directly in front of the wooden dais.

  Even now her cheeks warmed at the thought of how the model had looked directly at Evelyn and nodded in greeting. It had felt so strange to nod back and then blatantly study the woman’s breasts for shape and size and coloring.

  Not that Evelyn’s work was photo-realistic or anything close to realism. She used wild brushstrokes that hinted at a woman’s face and form without giving much away, but the emotion was still there. The memory. The belief that she’d been looking at true beauty in the woman’s small breasts and shockingly furred armpits and her dark, bushy pubic hair. The model’s unselfconsciousness had seduced Evelyn, and she’d poured that onto the canvas, capturing her upraised arms and arched neck and the long line of her nude body all the way down to her thighs.

  She’d displayed it in the bedroom of the apartment she and Gary had shared for a year, but when they’d moved to this house, she’d hidden the painting at the back of the closet out of fear that one of their guests would find it or, God forbid, her child.

  She’d buried this, the work she’d been proudest of. The work that had inspired her to embrace her love of painting women. Women nude, women with babies, women alone, women laughing. She’d hidden a whole part of herself to fit in better with this neighborhood and life and family.

  She had the vaguest memory that she’d thought she should get her paints out again to capture Cameron when he’d been a baby, but she’d been so tired from late nights and breastfeeding. And the oil paints and solvents would be a danger, wouldn’t they? If the baby got ahold of them, he could get sick. At the very least, he’d ruin the carpet.

  But mostly . . . mostly she’d just been tired. And really, what kind of suburban housewife fancied herself an artist? There were real artists out there, and they didn’t use finger paints or work with safety scissors.

  It wasn’t until her text alert buzzed and she tried to look at the screen that she realized she was crying. The words blurred together into wavy hieroglyphics. She quickly dashed her tears away, hoping it wasn’t a message about some school activity.

  Are you thinking about it?

  Noah. She grinned in shocked delight that he was texting her so late at night. Shouldn’t he be in bed with Juliette already?

  Evelyn set the painting aside to answer. I’m going to pretend that doesn’t sound inappropriate.

  HA! Now I’m blushing. I meant your work. Are you going to let me see it?

  Still inappropriate.

  I had no idea your mind was so deep in the gutter. You seem like such a nice woman.

  That was the best part about this. She was a nice woman. A harmless, unnoticeable, middle-aged mom. But she’d somehow managed to find the courage to make Noah Whitman blush.

  She was flirting with him. There was no denying it now, not even to herself. She was married and he was married and it was a terrible, ugly situation that had broken her heart, and she was flirting. Yet it didn’t feel wrong. It felt light and happy and right. A sweet reprieve in an ocean of pain. Hadn’t she earned this?

  She’d been impeccably faithful to her husband for twenty years. She’d never once even fantasized about another man. And who knew how many women Gary had cheated with. She didn’t believe his promise that this had been the only time. She’d decided to forgive him, but she didn’t believe him.

  And she didn’t owe one damn thing to Noah’s wife. Juliette deserved this. She deserved worse than this.

  As for Noah . . . Well. He could stop interacting with Evelyn anytime he wanted. No one was being hurt here. No one who didn’t deserve it.

  Is it too late to be texting you? Noah asked.

  No.

  Can I call? I’m obviously not great at this texting thing.

  Could he call? Exhilaration crashed over her, spinning her into dizzines
s. Lights danced at the edges of her vision when she looked guiltily at the door. She couldn’t let him call, could she? The house was quiet. Someone would notice the sound of her voice, no matter how muffled it was. And then they’d . . . do what exactly?

  Her muscles ached with the sudden surge of power. Because this was power. The power to do exactly what she wanted and tell everyone else they could go to hell. She’d spent far too many years worrying about everyone else and not herself.

  You can call, she typed out quickly, unwilling to give herself time to change her mind.

  She scooted up on the bed and propped her back on the dozen decorative pillows that rested against the headboard. Laying the painting across the tops of her thighs, she stared at it and waited for her phone to ring.

  Despite that she was anticipating just that thing, the buzz still made her jump when it finally came. She answered with a cautious, “Hello?” as if she didn’t already know who it was. Her son laughed at that charade. He’d never lived in a time without caller ID.

  “Are you sure it’s okay to call?” Noah asked, and she smiled stupidly. “I’m not bothering you?”

  “No, it’s fine.” She pitched her voice low to match his. Was he hiding in a spare room too?

  “Are you the night owl in your house?” he asked.

  “Not usually.” Usually she was comfortingly drugged up. “Are you?”

  “Yes. Juliette gets up early to get ready for work, but I only need a few minutes to make the kids their oatmeal and wave good-bye. Then I have an hour to have coffee before I get ready to go to the gallery.”

  She winced when he said Juliette, but the pain faded quickly. After all, he was choosing to talk to Evelyn instead of Juliette, wasn’t he? How deliciously just.

  “That’s my favorite part of the morning,” she said. “Sending everyone off and having the house to myself. It’s peaceful. That’s why I prefer working in the afternoon.”

  “Peaceful,” he repeated. “Exactly. It’s heaven.”

  “You’re not still at the gallery, are you?”

  “No. I have an office in the basement.”

  Evelyn closed her eyes and imagined him there, feet up on a desk, phone to his ear, while Juliette sank into the untroubled sleep of a psychopath upstairs.

  “So you haven’t answered my question yet . . .”

  She smiled at the teasing warmth in his voice. “I’m still thinking about it.”

  “That’s progress. At dinner you told me no. Now you’re thinking about it?”

  She stroked her hand over the painting in her lap. It wasn’t on par with the work he displayed in his gallery. She wasn’t that good. “You look at amazing art all day. I’m sure you routinely reject artists who are far better than I am.”

  “I’m not hoping to discover the next Picasso. I’m just . . .”

  She snuggled a little deeper into the pillows and brought her knees up higher, keeping the painting close. “Just what?”

  “I guess I’m discovering you.”

  Evelyn pressed her lips tight together. Shook her head. There was that surge of power again, but this time it was shot through with an awful vulnerability. There wasn’t anything good in her to discover. She was just skin and bone and organs. If he discovered anything at all, it would be the lies she’d told him. The barbed and bloodied path she was leading him down. “I’m not—” she rasped, before realizing her throat was too dry and hot to work. She swallowed hard and tried again. “I’m not anything special, Noah.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just . . . lost.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you’re not lost at all. Maybe you’re wandering. Looking around. Taking stock. Isn’t that what a midlife crisis is?”

  Was that what she was doing? Taking stock? It did feel like she was making some sort of strange transition. She definitely wasn’t the same person anymore. She’d felt that immediately. And Noah was part of her world now, not because she’d asked the Whitman family into her life, but because they’d been forced on her.

  She didn’t have to feel guilty for trying to get something good out of this horribleness, did she?

  “I’m looking at my paintings right now,” she murmured.

  “Are you?” She heard him shift around. The squeak of a chair. “What do you see?”

  “I see my past. Who I was in college. Who I thought I’d be.”

  “An artist?”

  “Yes. I mean, I was realistic about it. I knew I’d have to have a day job. And I wanted to get married, have a family. I just thought I’d manage to . . . I don’t know. Stay interesting through it all.”

  “You did.”

  That wasn’t true, but she let it go. She didn’t want him to know how dull she’d been for so long. “And you?” she pressed. “Do you have a secret stash of rocks in your house? Will you bring your favorite geode to show me next time?”

  “You don’t know much about geology, do you?”

  If Gary had said that, she would have prickled and snapped at him in defense. But Noah’s laughing words made her chuckle along with him. “Are you saying there’s more to it than rock collecting?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty much the fiery birth and formation of the entire world over billions of years, all of it recorded in complex patterns of stone like a secret language.”

  “Ah.”

  “And yes, I’ve managed to pick up quite a few supercool rocks over the years, if you must know.”

  She laughed until tears leaked from her eyes, though she tried to smother any sound by turning her face into a blue satin pillow. “So,” she gasped, “can I see your amazing geodes sometime?”

  “God, that’s sexy,” he growled.

  She tried her best to ignore the way her body warmed at his words. He was only joking. There was no reason for her to be aroused. But she was.

  “Bring some of your work by tomorrow,” he insisted.

  “I don’t know if I can.” She’d already thawed the chicken she’d meant to make tonight. She’d have to make it tomorrow or it would go bad.

  “Try?” he asked.

  Yes. Yes, she’d try.

  They spoke about the latest books they’d read and even touched on politics, but at eleven fifteen, when Evelyn yawned for the fourth time, Noah chuckled and said he’d let her get to bed. She liked him saying that, liked him thinking about her undressing and getting under her covers.

  Just in case it mattered, she skipped the practical cotton nightgown and put on panties and a silky pajama top before she found her way through the dark bedroom and climbed into bed next to her husband.

  Gary turned one way and she turned the other, and she wondered what Noah Whitman was thinking about in bed next to a wife he only thought he knew.

  CHAPTER 12

  BEFORE

  Her head pounded and her mouth was bone dry. She’d forgotten to bring her normal tumbler of water for the bedside table last night, so Evelyn went to the bathroom and cupped her hand under the sink for a sip. She didn’t want to leave her room yet. The doors were still closed and locked tight, and she entertained a brief fantasy of staying there forever.

  She could hire a housekeeper to cook and clean and run errands. Her family would barely notice. Everything Evelyn did in this house could easily be covered by people working for minimum wage, or for much less if she ignored employment laws.

  Cameron might miss the hugs she still gave him every day, or maybe he’d be thankful to be rid of them. He didn’t seem to mind her affection, but perhaps he just felt sorry for her.

  Possibly the people at school would feel the loss. She did their grunt work, and for nearly minimum wage. And the PTO might miss her. A volunteer like her wasn’t easy to come by. Still, there was always someone who could be roped into it. The mother of a freshman, usually. That was how she’d come to the position. Regardless, the school wouldn’t crumble without her. If she keeled over today, her death would be a blip. A temporary stumble, even for the pe
ople she loved most in the world. Evelyn Tester was utterly replaceable.

  After drinking her fill, she brushed her sticky teeth and climbed back into bed. Gary’s side was still mostly made. She tugged the covers awry to destroy the reminder that she’d banished him to the guest room.

  Turning on the TV, she checked to see if the local news was on, but when she finally found it, they were already covering the weather. The only news they’d discuss after that was sports, so she opened the browser on her phone and went to the website of a local station. There were no updates to be found. No new clues. No name or picture of the girl who’d been killed.

  Evelyn wasn’t going to receive a sign about what her decision should be. No one would help her with this.

  If Gary was telling the truth, then it really had been an accident. The girl had been walking down the middle of a dark road on a stretch of highway with no houses, no lights. Any driver would be caught unawares. Surely even the police wouldn’t find Juliette at fault.

  But how could she know if Gary was telling the truth? He’d been lying to her for months. Probably years.

  Then again, what other story could there be? There were no businesses out there. Unless Gary’s mistress had deliberately swerved into a girl standing on the shoulder waving a flashlight, then no one was responsible. It was an accident. So did it need to be reported?

  Something inside her screamed, Yes! But Evelyn knew that wasn’t her moral center. It was hatred. Jealousy. Hurt. Somebody had to pay for this accident, because that somebody had been sleeping with her husband.

  Evelyn dropped her head into her hands with a cry of anguish. Why was she the one who had to make this decision? She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been a good wife, a good mother, a good citizen.

  “This isn’t fair,” she groaned, rocking against her hands, letting her fingers dig into her scalp over and over. What had she done to deserve this? “This isn’t fair!”

  She gasped out rough, animal sobs and pressed her fingernails hard into her head. The physical pain helped bring her back to reality, and she managed to gradually calm herself until she was panting instead of sobbing.