“I guess. I haven’t ever needed to find out. He wouldn’t be the first person I’d go to.”
“Why not?”
“No reason. He just creeps me out,” Natalia said. “Not sure why. Most of the kids think he’s great.”
Masie came up, her long brown hair clinging to her skull like it hadn’t been washed in days, though if you really looked, you could see it was perfectly clean, only a little flat and thin. She set down her tray and leaned toward them, a giddy smile on her face.
“Hold up,” Jillian said, swinging into her seat. “I know that look.”
Jillian had two chocolate chip cookies on her tray, and Evangeline was certain she wouldn’t be offering them to anyone soon. She wondered why she had such judgment about Jillian’s weight when she didn’t have any about Natalia’s.
When everyone was sitting, Masie said, “Ben Grassley just asked Rebekah out.”
“Shit. What’d Ashley say?” said Jillian.
“That she couldn’t care less.”
Evangeline didn’t much like this kind of gossip. Sure, in part because she didn’t know who these people were and didn’t yet have her own grudges to pursue. But that distance helped her see how mean and gleeful it all was—these girls with their fathers and mothers and siblings at home. Masie often grumbled that her parents were divorced and she had to suffer two moms and two dads. All Evangeline could think was that she’d have given anything for one parent at all. She often had to contain an urge to shout over their lists of petty grievances and snarky asides, to ask if they’d ever gone hungry for days because they were alone without food.
“He just thinks he’ll get some,” Jillian was saying. “I mean, if she was into both Daniel and Jonah, she’s obviously flexible on her type.”
Evangeline, who’d been picking at overcooked beans, froze.
Masie added, “Ashley said if he wants to go out with that murdering slut, he’d better watch his back.”
“What are you talking about?” Evangeline asked.
“We told you about this,” Maisie said. “The murder-suicide that happened at the beginning of the year, remember? Everyone thinks there was a girl involved. Now someone claims to have seen Daniel with Rebekah right before the murder.”
“You mean Sammy?” Natalia had pointed out Samantha during Evangeline’s first week. She didn’t think Sammy was the beauty everyone made her out to be. If she were brunette, no one would have looked twice. But she had long blond hair and that stunned boys into awed submission.
“No. That’s the whole point. Daniel was with a different girl.”
“But did anyone see Rebekah with Jonah too?” she said. “Did they? Because if they didn’t—”
She stopped when she saw how the girls were staring at her. “I thought you hated shit like this,” Jillian said.
Evangeline realized how urgent her voice must have sounded, and she made an effort to slow down. “I just mean it doesn’t make any sense. So Daniel’s cheating on Sammy with Rebekah. Why would this Jonah guy kill Daniel over that?”
“You’d understand if you’d known him,” Masie said. “Rebekah probably flirted with him too. She’s a total cocktease. And Jonah . . . well, let’s just say he didn’t stand much chance of getting any if Daniel was around. Daniel made sure of that. Maybe Jonah thought he finally had something going with a girl, thought Daniel messed it up.”
Evangeline couldn’t breathe. Masie’s theory was precisely what she’d guessed about her own role in the boys’ deaths.
Natalia, who’d fallen quiet during all this, touched her arm. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Evangeline said, swallowing hard, as if something had gotten stuck. She cleared her throat, said, “Here’s what I don’t get: even if that’s all true, how does that make Rebekah a murdering slut?”
“She set them up,” Jillian said, scarfing down her second cookie, like they were discussing a plot point in a movie rather than the lives of two boys. “She wanted them fighting over her. She thinks it’s great two boys died over her.”
“She said that?”
“Yeah, right, like she’d say that straight out,” said Masie.
“Maybe she’s devastated,” Evangeline said, her words pressurized. “Maybe she cared about them or at least one of—”
“Right, that’s why she was screwing them both—”
“Whoa!” Natalia said. “His note didn’t even mention a girl. We all heard that. Now you’ve got Rebekah sleeping with them both? You’re getting played. You know that, don’t you?”
Masie and Jillian shrugged.
“I don’t want to argue about it,” said Masie. She took a bored bite of salad. “Okay, new topic: I heard Mr. Kirkpatrick is screwing Ms. Tobin.”
But no one took the bait, and they sat picking at rejected bits of food on their trays.
“Well,” said Masie after a minute or two. “It’s been fun but gotta run.”
Jillian stood, cookie crumbs still piled on her ample chest, and said, “Me too. There’ll be a line in the loo.” They turned to each other and burst out laughing. “We’re poets and didn’t know it,” said Maisie as they walked away.
When they were out of range, Natalia said, “They’re idiots, that’s what they are.” Evangeline laughed, but Natalia studied her gravely. “If there’s ever anything you want to talk about, you know you can tell me, right?”
“What would I want to talk about?” Though of course she wanted to talk about everything, like homelessness and love and abandonment, like how to survive in a parentless world. Most of all, she wanted to talk about the baby, how her child would need things—food, clothes, parental wisdom—things she had no way to provide.
The bell rang, and Natalia stood with her tray. “It’s just that you’ve been through a lot of crap.”
“I get by,” Evangeline said, gathering her things. “I feel sorry for Rebekah, though.”
“Why?”
“Everyone talking about her like that.”
Natalia laughed. “Rebekah’s the one playing those two. She’s the ‘someone’ who started the rumor about her and Daniel. Jillian’s right, she wants people thinking two boys got killed over her.”
“You don’t think a girl was involved?”
“Rebekah? No way.” They slid their trays into the collection rack. “Some other girl?” She paused, studying Evangeline. “Maybe.”
* * *
—
THEY WERE NEARLY TO THEIR LOCKERS WHEN NATALIA SAID, “You want to come over this weekend? Saturday, maybe? Make tamales with my mom and me? My little sister will be there too, but don’t worry, we can ignore her.”
It seemed such a normal thing, this simple invitation. It was a wonder Evangeline didn’t cry.
33
Judith, Peter’s secretary, buzzed me in the middle of class. There was a call for me in the office. As I headed there, I couldn’t imagine who would call the school, rather than my cell, with a message sufficiently urgent to require interruption.
On picking up, I heard the smoke-roughened voice of Harriett Spencer, a longtime friend of my aunt Becky, my father’s last living sibling. Harriett wanted me to fly to Pennsylvania as soon as possible. My aunt, nearly ninety and confused by multiple small strokes, was facing imminent foreclosure.
I wasn’t particularly close to Aunt Becky. She had worked overseas with American Friends Service Committee most of my childhood. But my father had loved her, and at any other time in my life I wouldn’t have hesitated to take family leave. I offered to handle things by phone, but Harriett insisted. Apparently, Aunt Becky was forgetting more than her mortgage. The prior week, she’d left a hamburger cooking on the stove and lay down for a nap, waking only when the fire alarm went off, the house filled with smoke. “Becky’s a tough one,” Harriett said. “She’s going to need some persuading, but if she doesn’t get into a special-care uni
t soon, I’m worried something far worse than foreclosure will happen.”
* * *
—
THAT EVENING, EVANGELINE PRATTLED ON ABOUT NATALIA. I was thankful that she was distracted and oblivious to my own preoccupations.
“Natalia said her mom makes the best tamales in the world. She’ll show me how to make them. Do you like tamales?”
She talked in an excited, girlish way I hadn’t heard from her before. These past weeks, she’d been so secretive and guarded. To see her relaxed, maybe thinking of my home as hers, helped to soften my bleak mood.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever had one,” I said, though of course I had.
Evangeline’s jaw dropped in feigned shock, newly playful, her cheeks flushed bright. I continued to exaggerate my lack of experience with Mexican food, and she gushed about its marvels.
“Could I go to Natalia’s this weekend? I could make you tamales for Sunday dinner.”
I told Evangeline about my aunt, my need to be gone. “I’ll try to get back as soon as possible, but it might take a week or so to find a placement for her.”
She stabbed a piece of cucumber, ate it, said, with forced indifference, “Why so long? I mean, couldn’t you just search online, make a few calls? Sounds like she won’t even recognize you.”
I must have looked surprised, because she scowled and said, “You’re the one who said she’s lost it, not me. You’re the one who’s just up and leaving because of some crazy old aunt you’ve never mentioned before. You haven’t even gone to your office to ‘reflect’ on it. I mean, you had to do your frozen-mummy-freak-show thing to decide if we could turn some lights on at night. But now, poof, you’re just hopping on a plane?”
It wasn’t the words so much as the savage way she flung them at me that made me see her as I had that first night—scared and wild and fierce.
“I’m coming back,” I said. “I promise. I’m coming back.”
She began gathering the dishes. “Hell yeah you’re coming back. You think I don’t know that? You’ve got this house and school to teach. I know how devoted you are to ‘your kids.’”
“You too. I’m coming back to be here for you.”
She went to the sink, muttering, “Like I give a fuck about that.”
I remained at the table, choosing to ignore the provocation while she snapped on the faucet, started banging dishes around.
“There’s the baby too,” I said.
She froze, then flipped round, flung suds across the floor. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? All this so-called generosity. You’re not looking out for me. You still think I’m carrying your grandkid. Well, what if I told you I’m not, that I thank God every day I’m not? What if I told you there were lots of guys and your son wasn’t one of them, that I hated your son? Then what? Would you be rushing back to make sure I was okay? Would I even be here now?”
She stood at the sink, her eyes filling with tears, her mouth mean and trembling.
I couldn’t respond. Not then, not without seeking Divine grace to mute the beast that had begun to prowl with the call this morning—a beast that used Evangeline’s incitements to break through my barriers, thrust me upright, and urge me to slap her hard across her face.
She stared at me, watching my struggle, and as she did, her lips transformed into an odd, self-satisfied smile. “That’s what I thought,” she said, and turned back to the dishes.
I left Evangeline and went to my office to engage in my “freak show.” Strange how it shook me, this materialization of part of my son’s hidden life. Her adamance that he wasn’t the father only increased my suspicion that he was. Her anger toward him, though played to wound me, felt visceral and real. And that, too, increased my suspicion, because it takes intimacy in one form or another to foster anger like that.
And I had my own anger to deal with. On a day when I faced yet more painful family traumas, I had to deal with the girl’s lies and outright hostilities.
* * *
—
EVANGELINE AND I TALKED LATER THAT NIGHT, not about her troubling statements—which I chose for the moment to ignore—but about logistics. She rejected my offer to find somewhere else for her to stay, pointing out that she’d survived on her own in far more challenging situations. Besides, she said, someone needed to take care of Rufus.
I agreed to let her stay alone if I could line up a responsible adult nearby. It needed to be a woman in the neighborhood, someone Evangeline could run to in case of emergency. There was old Janice Wilson, the neighborhood gossip, but I couldn’t bear Evangeline becoming the subject of malicious rumors. A couple of houses were rented by people I hadn’t gotten to know, leaving only Sharon Franklin at the end of the block and Lorrie next door. Sharon was a lovely woman, but she worked full time at the paper mill, and had three small children and a mother in hospice care. I couldn’t imagine adding to her burden.
The next evening, I kept putting off the request. Everything about it felt wrong. I had never called Lorrie to discuss the possibility that she might have a grandchild on the way. A couple of weeks back, I’d asked Evangeline if people knew she was pregnant.
“Gawd no!” she said. “That’s the last thing I need. You haven’t told anyone, have you?”
I assured her I hadn’t. “But at some point, won’t you—”
“That point is like months away. Winter is coming. I’ll be able to hide it for a long time. I may miscarry, right? That could happen.”
Did she want that? I couldn’t tell.
“Let me decide when I tell people, okay?”
I nodded. She stared at me fiercely, until I said, “Of course. It’s not my place.”
“That’s right,” she said. “It’s not your place.”
And even if Evangeline had granted permission, Lorrie had been avoiding me. Whenever she saw me at our mailboxes, she’d spin and retreat inside—behavior I found both offensive and thoughtful.
* * *
—
I MADE IT OVER TO LORRIE’S HOUSE around nine that night. The front doorbell was broken, and I went around back. She jumped when she saw my face at the kitchen door, and I was sorry to have scared her. Textbooks and notes covered the table, and the usual dark circles around her eyes were a deep purple now.
She opened the door, glanced back at the general disorder and the dishes in the sink, and said with obvious unease, “Isaac, come in.” She set about clearing the table, though I told her not to bother.
“Sorry everything’s such a mess. I have a microbiology test tomorrow. Oh my Lord, it stinks in here, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all.” Though of course it did. Nothing unsalvageable, no worse than cooked broccoli or a few days of food waste.
She offered me a cup of tea, which I declined. “I won’t keep you. It’s just that something’s come up, and I’m wondering if you could do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
She spoke with sincerity, almost urgency, and I understood that her avoidance of me had been for my benefit, not hers. I wondered if this urgency might be guilt, if she had seen me standing in the trees last September. But she couldn’t have, not with the dark and the fire twisting between us.
“I’m here to ask a favor for Evangeline.”
I realized too late that I didn’t know how much she knew. Nells was still in middle school. Without a link to the high school, Lorrie might not know that the girl was staying with me. As for a possible connection to the boys, that was less likely still.
“I have to fly to Pennsylvania. A family matter. I’ll probably be gone a week, maybe a little longer. There’s this girl who’s been staying with me . . .” I hesitated, wondering how to explain.
Lorrie looked at me curiously. “I know about Evangeline, Isaac. People talk.”
Strangely, coming from Lorrie, there was relief in that. “That so?”
She smiled. “That’s so.”
“Good. Good,” I said, collecting myself, trying to shake an unexpected shyness. “Evangeline’s remarkably self-sufficient, but in her condition . . .” I stopped, fearing I’d said too much.
“Is she sick?” Lorrie asked, a genuine concern there.
“Not sick exactly.”
She waited for more. When she realized, she said, “Ah. She’s pregnant.” Her tone was without judgment or alarm. I was glad. Evangeline had no need of that.
“It isn’t my place. I shouldn’t have said.”
“You didn’t say. But even if you had, you’d have been right in it. She needs an adult around who knows. There can be complications.”
We agreed Lorrie would stop by every couple of days to check on Evangeline, maybe bring her a green salad now and then as I was uncertain of her nutritional discipline in my absence.
When I stood to leave, Lorrie said, “Just wondering . . . when was it that Evangeline showed up?”
“A month or so ago, mid-October, I think.”
“And before? Where was she before?”
I hesitated. She sensed my discomfort. “No, it’s okay. Don’t worry. I’ll check in on her. In fact, if she’s scared by herself in that big old house, she can stay with us.” A thoughtful offer in my view, but she seemed suddenly aghast, mumbled, “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
She must have realized the only room available would be Jonah’s. I rushed to reassure her. “Or you and Nells could stay in my room. It’s a queen-size bed. There’s also a cot in the laundry room.”
“Well,” she said, straightening and looking directly at me with that stern dignity of hers. “If she needs us. We’ll see.”
* * *
—
ON THE WAY HOME, I went out the back gate, cutting through our joint easement. It was an odd decision. Though it was the shortest route, the wooded area had no clear path and was particularly treacherous at night. That evening, the trees cast shadowy figures that danced in and out of my vision. Halfway through, I stopped and stood very still, sensing someone near. Then I saw it, hidden in the shadows not four feet from me—a squat presence, solid and alive, a man or boy crouching there. Fear battered my chest, but I sucked in a breath and lunged toward him with a roar.
What Comes After Page 15
