“Never said what?”
“That it doesn’t matter to me.”
“It certainly doesn’t seem to,” I said, no longer muting my anger. “Even if the father isn’t around, you show no interest in finding his family, other relatives who could help with the child.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know me. You certainly don’t know what matters to me.”
I’d grown tired of her obfuscations. “How could I, when you’d rather lie than tell the simplest of truths?”
“I don’t lie! I don’t ever lie! If the facts don’t match up with the truth, is that my fault?”
She was speaking in riddles, and I started to leave.
“Fine,” she said to my back. “You want to know a little something about me? You want the truth? Well, it matters to me who the father is. It matters a hell of a lot.”
I turned to her, studied the defiant set of her mouth. “You don’t know, do you?” My tone was more of wonder than judgment, and perhaps that’s what allowed what happened next.
She exhaled and palmed her belly. Rufus sidled up and nuzzled his head against her thigh. A gentleness entered her face. She didn’t look at me, just slid down the cabinets until she sat on the floor. Rufus rested his head on her lap, and she ran her hands over his ears and muzzle, over the muscular length of him, each stroke full of intention, as if her motions were words. Gathering his face in her hands, she turned it toward hers, their noses almost touching, and whispered, “That’s right. I don’t know. I don’t have the faintest idea, do I, boy?”
It was the first thing she’d said of any importance that I fully believed.
28
Evangeline stumbled into the kitchen the following Saturday morning—her hair uncombed, wearing sweats from the box marked K—and confronted Peter. He stood behind Isaac, who sat with an iPad at the kitchen table. When Peter looked up, her arms snapped around herself, an impulse to contain her braless breasts.
He smiled warmly. “I brought pastries,” he said, nudging a plate with an almond croissant and a maple bar. “Isaac told me you have a sweet tooth.”
When she hesitated, Isaac said, “A pastry won’t hurt the—” He caught himself. “Anything.”
Peter picked up the plate, held it toward her. His jaw looked different. Not as extreme as she remembered. It made her crazy, the way she couldn’t get him to settle into a specific form. “Thanks,” she said, snatching up the croissant and taking a bite.
“Why don’t you sit,” Isaac said. “Peter’s showing me pictures of work he’s doing on his cottage at Lake Chelan. Our families vacation there every summer. Even this past July . . .” He trailed off.
Evangeline settled into a chair across from them.
“We’ve been friends a long time, haven’t we?” Peter said.
Though he was speaking to Isaac, Evangeline believed he was making a point for her benefit, a terribly important point about where loyalties might lie.
“A decade at least,” Isaac said, swiping the screen with one of his crooked fingers. “Oh, that’s nice. Adding a bay will make all the difference.”
It surprised Evangeline they’d be talking about a place where Daniel had stayed. He hadn’t been buried a month. But maybe it was that very thing—remembering better times—that made Isaac almost normal, nearly happy, as he stared at the screen. She didn’t understand Isaac, or grief, or men like Peter.
“Next summer, you and I will be sitting there with a couple beers,” Peter said, “those windows thrown open, watching boats out on the lake. You’ll be grumbling about how you wished you could still water-ski.” Peter snorted. “Like you ever could.”
Isaac laughed, and Peter caught Evangeline’s eye. “Is it good?”
“What?” Evangeline said.
“The almond croissant. I’ve never tried one.”
Again she felt he was making a point, though she couldn’t quite sort this one out.
She shoved back, the chair screeching, and Isaac’s head popped up. “Something wrong?”
She took the last bite of croissant and picked up her plate. “Nope. Just think I’ll take Rufus for a walk, if that’s all right.”
Isaac seemed confused. She’d never offered to do that before. “Of course. Rufus loves walks. Bring some bags with you. You’re supposed to scoop.”
He saw her face and said, “I know, I know. All the other animals are pooping out there, but do it, all right?”
She was about to leave when Peter said to her, “Come on now, it couldn’t have been all that bad.”
Evangeline whirled toward him, fixed him with a stare. “What? What, exactly, wasn’t so bad?” If he was going to speak code to her, she would make him say it.
“The almond croissant you just polished off. I take it, it wasn’t so bad.”
* * *
—
THE FALL AIR SMELLED OF PINE AND WOODSTOVES. Rabbits darted into bushes, and squirrels leaped across branches. A jackhammer rattle raised her eyes to a pileated woodpecker working away with its bright red crown. Rufus, too, seemed livelier, his head lifting to scent the air, his walk nearly a prance.
They turned down a narrow path, and Evangeline noticed all the tunnels burrowed into the foliage: pathways for rats and voles and the small hopping birds she often saw, bigger ones for raccoons and possums, the occasional fox, and larger ones still for coyotes and bobcats and maybe the cougar that was rumored to stalk the area. Everywhere there was evidence of deer, fresh tracks where their hooves churned the mossy earth down steep embankments, across grassy fields.
Thinking of so many animals busy with their lives, all trying to eat while not being eaten, soothed her heart. She’d been one of them not long back. But she’d found her way out of the woods, into a house with food and a warm bed. At least for a while. Unless someone came along and screwed it up for her.
She wondered what Peter knew, when he had seen her with Jonah. She’d always assumed she was invisible. There was a loneliness in that, but a security too. Having been observed unaware made her a little nauseous, like discovering she’d been fondled in her sleep. And these thoughts filled those tunnels with eyes that watched her every move. She pivoted and retraced her path through the woods.
Back on the road, she veered down a new street on impulse. A few minutes later, her body jerked to a stop. She scanned the area, wondering why. She was blocks from home. Then she saw it, the small green house with yellow shutters. It was here. Here. This very spot where she had last glimpsed Jonah.
* * *
—
AFTER THEY’D RELEASED THE FROG, Evangeline spent one more evening with Jonah, a night so weighted with feeling, she had sworn off him. But she broke this promise to herself the very next day, returning to the park in hopes of seeing him again. She went the next night too, and the night after that, but he never showed.
When she saw the headline that Daniel was missing, she breathed a sigh of relief. Jonah must be out searching with the rest of the town. She didn’t worry about Daniel. He would show up. Terrible things didn’t happen to the Daniels of the world. But on the sixth day, with no sign of Jonah, she decided to start a search of her own. It was a bright Saturday morning and she planned to start at Daniel’s place. The boys had said they were neighbors. She assumed within a few blocks. If she could locate that big old house, she might spot Jonah’s truck somewhere near.
Finding a Victorian hidden on a couple of acres proved more challenging than she’d have guessed. The streets went off at odd angles, and dozens of vacant lots mimicked his. It was nearly noon before she spotted the long gravel drive and the chimneys peeking through branches. From there, she traced each block, crisscrossing the area several times.
An hour later, she’d seen nothing of Jonah. She was blocks from Daniel’s house, tired and thirsty and thinking of going to the park, when the old navy truck turned the c
orner, heading toward her. She shouted and waved, but it stopped three houses back.
She started jogging and was nearly to Jonah’s open window when their eyes met. If he’d rammed her, she wouldn’t have felt more overcome. She’d never seen eyes like that, desperate with grief and terror and love. He mouthed something. Two words repeated. Then he gunned the engine, tearing past her, gravel spraying against her bare calves.
She spun around, thinking something had spooked him. But the road and patchy yards and windows were empty. In fact, the way she remembered it, the noonday neighborhood was eerily still, not even a distant mower or a child at play. She trotted in the direction Jonah had disappeared, holding that moment in her mind, repeating it, embedding it intact, already a memory as distant and crystalline as the abandoned single-wide on that silvery July evening.
What passed between her and Jonah in that last moment was so layered and difficult, so full of everything that had happened in their lives and might happen in the future, it could not be dissected. Evangeline knew she would carry that look until she died—the loneliness and communion of it, both absolute, as if she and Jonah had met in a place where they understood that true meeting was not possible. It made no sense, but she thought some things were like that; they hold their meaning only when viewed in fleeting glances. Picked apart, the truest thing in the world becomes a lie. Or nothing at all.
* * *
—
SHE TURNED NOW, studied the small houses up and down the street. One of them must have been Jonah’s. His mother and sister had to be near.
29
The mudroom door still vibrated from Evangeline’s slamming when Peter turned to me. “Is it just me, or did she seem angry?”
“A little,” I said.
“About the forms?”
“Maybe, but she knows we got that worked out.”
He pushed back. “Ah, then it must be all those hormones.”
My hand jerked, slopping coffee on the table.
He grimaced as if in apology. “I know, I know. We’re not supposed to say things like that anymore. But you know perfectly well I say the same damned thing about the boys. They’re all nuts at this age. We were too.”
I let out a breath. “Can you stay for another cup?”
“Would love to, but it’s my turn to take Zoe to gymnastics. Did I tell you her coach said she’s never seen a three-year-old with balance like hers?”
* * *
—
THE PETER-EVANGELINE DYNAMIC was hardly the only mystery those days. The parentage of Evangeline’s baby appeared to be a secret even from her. Given the contents of her pack, I couldn’t ignore the possibility that the baby was Jonah’s. I believed Lorrie deserved to know, but I hadn’t seen her since Jonah’s funeral and had no idea how to approach her on the topic.
There’d been a time when I thought of the Geigers as close friends. I’m not sure why. A distance always existed between us. Though friendly as we chatted at our back fence, Lorrie and Roy never invited us over. Even when we dropped Jonah off after a playdate, we didn’t get beyond their door.
Katherine and I suspected it related to the disparity in our homes, so we were the ones to invite them for dinners and gatherings. While the three-year-olds became fast friends, Katherine never took to Lorrie. “She’s more like you than me,” she said once, and I understood that to mean she found Lorrie too quiet. As for Roy, he’d always bring along a six-pack and offer me a beer. We’d pop a couple open, stare at them vaguely a few minutes, and then he’d say, “Do you mind if I check out the game?” There was always a game on the radio or TV, and he’d help himself to ours.
Katherine and I worried about Roy. He was as soft as Lorrie was hard. His baggy pants slid under the weight of a large belly, and his eyes were bloodshot and tear rimmed, so much so I wondered if he had a medical condition.
As the years went on, our concern grew. Sometimes, when we were in the back lot, we heard loud swearing coming from their house. Once, Lorrie arrived at our door, jittery, her eyes inflamed, a dark shadow on her cheek. She said their phone wasn’t working and asked if she could use ours, “in private if possible.” We left the kitchen and closed the door. A few minutes later, she opened the door and thanked us, offering no explanation.
Roy committed suicide when Jonah was sixteen, his little sister twelve. We were visiting Katherine’s relatives in Spokane when Lorrie called. “Roy’s dead,” she said. “Killed himself. It was that back surgery years ago. . . . No job and all those pills. I didn’t want you hearing it from someone else. It’s a private matter. I hope you understand.”
It was a late-summer day, the sun burning, and Daniel and his cousins were blaring rap music and nursing Cokes on the covered patio. Katherine collected him, led him into the guest room we’d been assigned. When we gave him the news, his face didn’t change, but he seemed to have pulled back from his features somehow. “Shit,” he said, his breath shaking. “I mean . . . Shit.”
I suggested he call Jonah. “He needs to know he’s not alone with this.” Daniel promised he would, and though he was back on that patio in a minute, though I never heard him make the call, I believe he did. I believe that.
Around ten, I was heading down the hall when Daniel called from behind. “Dad.” I turned, and he approached, wrapped his arms around me. He held on like a frightened child, tight and urgent, no guarding of his body against mine. It was a long hug, nearly interminable, and I felt in it a request for more than I had. Then he went rigid as if stung and pushed away.
This is the last time I recall touching my son.
* * *
—
WHEN WE GOT HOME A FEW DAYS LATER, Janice Wilson, a gossipy neighbor prone to exaggeration and salacious content, made a beeline when she saw me collecting the mail.
“You heard about Roy? I don’t care what she says, it wasn’t any pills. He shot himself, that’s what he did. I heard it. Twice. When they hauled him away, that sheet was covered in blood.”
That couldn’t be true. Sheriff Barton would never have removed him like that. And the children had been there. If a shot had been fired, they’d have run to it, they’d have seen. No, Roy must have quietly overdosed, and Lorrie found him in their bedroom or bath. The children had been spared at least that.
* * *
—
A WEEK AFTER ROY’S BURIAL, I sat reading the paper early on a Sunday morning. Katherine was working, and Daniel still slept. I was enjoying the sound of rain dripping off the back eaves when someone knocked at the door. I opened it to find Lorrie. Her hair was soaked, her overalls splattered with mud.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, her voice quavering. “But I could use your help.”
I grabbed my rain jacket and followed her to the joint easement outside our fences. She pushed back brambles and stepped aside. Stretched savagely on the ground lay a torn and dismembered animal. I didn’t recognize Brody at first. I hadn’t seen their ancient chocolate Lab for some time. About a month before, I’d noticed the old guy outside, standing on wobbly legs, looking near collapse. It didn’t surprise me a predator had taken him down.
“Do you think a bobcat got him?”
She was crying now, visibly shaking. “No,” she said, wiping a dirty glove across her wet cheek, leaving a dark streak behind. “He died over a week ago.” Her face was a sea of confusion. “We buried him. Jonah and I. We buried him.”
She led me to the grave ten feet farther on, the spot where I’d found the mutilated fawn nearly a decade before. The hole was a good three feet deep, dug out in a fury, dirt and rocks scattered across an eight-foot radius. This was the work of scavengers, probably the coyotes we often heard yowling in the night.
Lorrie collapsed to her knees, heaving with great racking sobs, gasping that she couldn’t do it again, that it was too much. “I can’t ask Jonah, I can’t ask Jonah again,” sh
e kept saying.
I lifted her up, let her convulse against me. “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll rebury him. Deeper this time. Nothing will ever get to him again.”
After a moment, she collected herself and pushed away, swept her arm across her nose and mouth, sniffling, smearing more dirt across her face. She didn’t make eye contact after that.
She nodded, one tight little nod, muttered thanks, and turned away.
For days afterward, as I taught my classes, ate my dinner, showered before bed, I could feel her in my arms, the pure kinetic density of her. That tiny, hard thing.
* * *
—
I USED TO DREAM OF LORRIE, of holding her that day, the mist dissolving the dirt on her face. And then she, too, would dissolve, her fingertips and hands, her feet, then legs, her hair and face turning to a soft glow, until I was alone in those brambles, a mangled dog at my feet.
I’ve dreamed of Lorrie once since the murder. It started the same way: Lorrie tight against my chest. Only this time, it wasn’t mist but fire that flared between us, that burned her away.
30
In the next week, Evangeline walked the trails with Rufus each afternoon. It made him crazy happy. He’d forget his achy old body and pad through puddles like a young pup, leap storm-downed trees, dive after creatures not quite seen. Always he was scenting the air. Sometimes he’d land on an aroma so wild and rare it tensed every muscle, raised the hackles up his spine.
With Rufus at her side, the woods became a cauldron of mysterious life. As the light fell, she’d plow deeper into those dark trails, turn corners holding her breath. She searched out the edges of her fear like a tongue worming to a pulled tooth. It was a controlled fear, like a controlled burn, and it amplified the exhilaration of returning to a warm, lit house.
What Comes After Page 13
