What Comes After

by Joanne Tompkins

  Nothing. Not even a flinch. But then, the presence wasn’t a man or a boy, wasn’t a creature of any type. It was a rusted barrel, the one that had shot late-night flames the week Daniel was missing.

  I had struggled hard to forget that barrel in the past month. But that night, I made a decision, powered on my cell’s flashlight, and edged up to its dark lip. Terror gripped me again, as if the creature I’d first imagined were inside the drum ready to spring. It took me a minute to work up the courage to peek. Another to decipher what I saw.

  Of course, I had known all along what was there.

  Ashes. Nothing but ashes on a cold November night.

  34

  Evangeline didn’t mind being alone in the house. Which, she’d admit, was a little weird given the forbidden upper level and pictures of a murdered boy tracking her every move. But then Rufus was there, trotting at her side, lying at her feet.

  Evangeline had never had a dog before, and the discovery of such an uncomplicated, devoted love was more than she would allow herself to believe. Whenever she felt tenderness welling, she’d remind herself the dog was working a con, ensuring his next bowl of food, his warm bed, nothing more than that. Dogs knew how to pull people’s strings. She needed to stay smart. First you trust a dog, and then what? A man? No. She wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon.

  Still, she’d never known a creature so good at faking love. She kept remembering one morning a few weeks back. Isaac abandoned his breakfast, stomped to the back door, and yelled at Rufus. The dog had been barking nonstop at a deer, growling at it, generally being an ass. After Rufus trotted inside, Isaac returned to his cereal, ate a few bites, then said, “I’m just glad the old guy is still around.”

  When he saw her surprise, he added, “He’s never been that healthy. That nose of his has been running constantly for a decade. Even before Daniel died, he was failing. After . . . I didn’t think he’d make it.”

  He must have sensed she wanted to hear more, because he kept talking. Or maybe, though Evangeline doubted this, he needed to talk for his own reasons. “When Daniel went missing, Rufus searched everywhere for him—tried to get upstairs, poked into every nook and cranny on the property. He seemed sad but still himself. He probably thought Daniel would show up eventually.

  “But when we got the call from the sheriff, Rufus knew. Right away. Like he smelled it on us. I’d hardly hung up when he crawled to the back of the pantry and curled up under one of the shelves. I couldn’t coax him out except once in the morning and once at night. He’d go outside, take care of business, and crawl back under. I had to bring him water, set it by his mouth, hand-feed him kibble. I was sure I’d be burying him within a few weeks.”

  Isaac stood abruptly, dish in hand, turned away clearing his throat. As he walked toward the counter, he said—and she heard his effort to sound offhand—“Then you appeared . . .”

  The dog had grieved Daniel. And she knew he still did. Sometimes she found him slumped on his side in the hall, staring with dead eyes at the stairwell door. If a dog’s love were nothing but a con, why would he do such a thing?

  Despite her promise to never trust him, whenever Rufus was particularly lively or funny or snuggly, Evangeline would picture him growing thin in a dark corner of the pantry and whisper to the dog or to herself or both, “Then I appeared.”

  It was a mantra. A prophecy. The beginning of a new story.

  * * *

  —

  AS FOR THE BOY IN THE PICTURES, a boy laughing, playing Frisbee, braced at a sailboat’s wheel, he wasn’t the boy who had tunneled her into the woods. She would study the pictures and try to see the Daniel she knew, try to hate him or forgive him or feel something, anything, for a boy who had been slaughtered. But all she saw was a pattern on a flat plane, like a paper doll she might cut free and move about as she chose.

  Sometimes, before she went to bed, she too would go to the stairwell door. She’d place her cheek against its carved wood, pressing hard, as if to imprint it permanently onto her skin, as if she longed for its ornate patterns to tell the world all she had caused. Rufus would whine and poke the backs of her legs, trying to get her to stop. No matter the drabness of her mood, she’d end up laughing and pulling away.

  Still, she would stand there awhile longer, staring at the door, wondering if clues could be found above, some understanding of why a boy like Jonah would butcher a friend. Because, truly, even if Jonah had found out about her and Daniel, how could such violence be explained?

  Rufus would sit beside her, ears forward, head tilted, eyes locked on the handle, waiting for it to turn, as if Evangeline knew something he didn’t. But the door never opened, and no answers appeared in the carved wood, and Evangeline and the dog would sigh—often at the same instant—and go on to bed.

  * * *

  —

  ON FRIDAY EVENING, Evangeline was planning dinner when Rufus went nuts at the mudroom door. She opened it to find a small middle-aged woman wearing a man’s wool work shirt bunched at the wrists. Dead leaves swirled around her lug-soled boots as if she’d brought them with her. Everything about her was thin and tightly bound, her mousy brown hair strained taut in a ponytail, the muscles of her face and hands tensed as if in battle. Evangeline thought she was bracing against the cold, then decided no, her condition seemed permanent, as if her fight was with life in general. The woman clutched what Evangeline guessed to be a food offering.

  “I’m Lorrie,” she said.

  It took a moment for Evangeline to remember. “The neighbor lady Isaac told me about?”

  “I suspect, though I suppose there could be another.” She held out the lidded plastic bowl.

  “It’s a green salad with other things thrown in. If there’s anything you don’t like, just pick it out. The dressing’s in a small container inside.”

  Evangeline wondered if this woman was Quaker too, the way she spoke directly with nothing extra added. She took the container, remembering her manners only when the woman turned to go. “Would you like to come in? It’s cold out there.”

  “I’m only just next door. My daughter’s home, so I think I’ll head back.” She was about to leave but stopped and faced Evangeline. “Unless you need something. Do you need anything? You feeling all right?”

  So. Isaac had told this stranger about the baby. After he’d promised he wouldn’t. Why else would the woman ask such a thing? This invasion of her privacy annoyed her to no end, but Evangeline collected herself and said, “I’m fine.”

  “You sure? Because if you need anything, anything at all, I’m right there, in that blue house off your back field.”

  “I’m good.”

  The woman nodded, one quick, sharp movement, her eyes darting away modestly—like she’d been thanked and was saying don’t mention it, though nothing had been mentioned. “Well, good-bye then,” she said, and turned away.

  “Thanks for this,” Evangeline yelled, lifting the bowl to the retreating back, because probably, when she thought about it, she should have mentioned it.

  And there was that nod again, as if to herself this time.

  Back in the kitchen, Evangeline pried off the lid. Carrots and cucumbers, celery and cherry tomatoes had been tossed with the greens. She would eat this salad. She’d even eat the tomatoes, fast, mixed in with other things to camouflage their acidy taste and mealy texture. She didn’t mind eating gross things for the baby. She liked it, actually, how it mattered. Who else cared what she did or didn’t do? But the baby had only her to build its little bones and heart and brain.

  She dressed the salad, tossing it with a fork, and sat at the table. Her nausea was gone these days, and she was getting her energy back. Something new was happening, though, something worrisome. She’d started to spot blood on her panties. She wondered if she should have mentioned it to the lady. Isaac had said she was some kind of nurse. Lorrie, that was her name, right?


  Evangeline took a forkful of salad. The dressing was delicious, citrusy, a tiny bit sweet. As she ate, she mused about school. She’d have to get a tutor for trigonometry. Probably on the sly. Isaac had wanted to put her in algebra or geometry. She’d acted insulted, saying math was super easy for her, made it sound like she was some kind of math genius.

  She was smart, she knew that. She’d done well enough in geometry before her mother had yanked her out. But trig was different. The minute Mr. Tippet started going on about sines and cosines, secants and cosecants, her brain would shout over him, furious at the terminology alone. If she hadn’t ended up in this house with a science teacher, a man who made her feel that some good might come from learning useless things, she’d have blown it off. It wasn’t like she was heading to college anyway.

  But even as she thought this, she realized with a quiet thrill that she wasn’t so sure anymore. Which, of course, was insane. She wasn’t going to college before, but now that she was having a baby alone, she was?

  Thinking about it like that made her stomach sour, so she turned on the radio to drown out the thoughts. Some guys talking politics, going on about unprecedented this and unprecedented that. One claimed “our very democracy” was at stake. Evangeline couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t like that—one side accusing the other of destroying the country. The familiarity of the dire tones was a comfort as she finished her salad and toasted some seedy bread, slathering it with butter and honey for dessert.

  Sunday night, Lorrie was back at the door, wearing the same men’s work shirt, this time holding a metal mixing bowl covered with plastic wrap. Evangeline hoped it held something like stew or maybe a meaty pasta, but she could already see it was another green salad.

  Evangeline remembered to invite her in this time. Lorrie glanced back toward her house, then said, “Okay. That’d be nice,” and stepped inside. She walked straight through the mudroom into the kitchen and set the bowl on the counter. Turning, she asked, “Is there anything you want me to leave out next time? Or maybe something I could add?”

  “It’s really nice of you and all, but Isaac left me money. I can go to the store and buy what I need.” She hated putting the lady to so much work. And expense too. She’d learned how pricey produce was, which had surprised her. All the people she knew ignored the vegetables on their plates. She’d assumed you’d pretty much have to give the stuff away.

  “You didn’t like it? I can make other types of dressings. Or different vegetables?”

  “It’s just that I can take care of myself.” She didn’t get the tone right. Hurt flashed over Lorrie’s face, then a smile trying to cover it up, so Evangeline rushed to add, “Mine wouldn’t be as good as yours though. I ate that whole huge salad the very first night.”

  Lorrie smiled, a real one this time. “You did? The whole thing?” She didn’t look so tight anymore. In fact, she looked like a lonely kid being awarded a big prize. Evangeline was glad to make her so happy but sad that it did—because what did that mean about her life?—and also embarrassed for her, the way she was letting her feelings hang out naked like that, and in general more than a little annoyed she was having to feel all these things over a discussion about salad.

  “Yup,” she said, and left it at that. Enough was enough.

  “Okay then,” Lorrie said, beaming. “It’s settled.” She glanced around the kitchen as if admiring how clean it was. “I know you could handle it on your own. I can see how well you’re doing here. But Isaac has been a good friend over the years, and he asked me to do this. You’d be doing me a favor to let me.”

  Evangeline agreed. She wouldn’t eat so much salad on her own. And she had a budding sense that accepting things people want to give you, even if it rubs you a little wrong, is its own nice thing. Lorrie reminded her of Isaac. She would say they were both shy, but that wasn’t quite it. More like they didn’t want to impose themselves on anyone else. They were fine not being noticed, not getting credit. She thought about school, all the nonstop self-promotion, how even the “nice” girls made big shows of their niceness. Somehow this woman had made Evangeline feel like she was the kind one by accepting the salads and made her feel proud of the kitchen by simply looking around.

  Lorrie picked up the plastic container set near the phone. “Mind if I borrow this back?”

  “Oh, no. Of course not.” She wanted to say more, like thank you or you’re a nice lady, but she’d had more than her share of emoting for the evening. She almost brought up the bleeding, which was still happening though not getting worse, but that would require talking about the pregnancy, and besides, they were already at the mudroom door.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Lorrie said.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “If you can eat a big salad every day, then that’s what you’re going to get. Can’t hardly do anything better for the baby.”

  This blatant mention of the baby took Evangeline aback. Her surprise must have showed, because Lorrie said, “I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t supposed to know.”

  Her face was so exposed and undefended that Evangeline felt no urge toward battle. “No. It’s good you know. It just seems . . . personal.”

  Lorrie reached out and touched Evangeline’s arm. “Yes. About the most personal and—eventually—most public thing that can happen in a life.”

  35

  The morning I left for my flight back east, I was nearly to the garage, bags in hand, when Evangeline ran out in her pajamas, barefoot in that gray, damp morning. “I didn’t mean that stuff about Daniel. You know that, right?”

  At the time, I nodded. But in truth, I didn’t know that. As the plane lifted off that afternoon, I pondered why Evangeline’s claimed hatred of my son rang truer than her retraction. Daniel had changed his last few years. All adolescents do, but it seemed more pronounced in my son. With his beauty and athleticism, his easy humor and sociability, Daniel never once struggled for friends. Boys and girls—adults too, for that matter—were drawn to him. He grew to believe that his attentions toward others, no matter the form, would always be welcome.

  I suspect this latitude of behavior, not granted others, turned him careless. I witnessed several encounters that made me consider counseling my son—a rough and tumble, more rough than tumble; a verbal teasing a little too cutting—but each time I concluded I’d misjudged the situation. The boy involved would wrestle free laughing or shooting back his own retort, happy, genuinely happy, that Daniel’s notice had landed on him.

  Daniel’s general manner, one of casual familiarity, could also be problematic at times. Though he was that way with both boys and girls, more than one girl had become confused by it. Evangeline might have hated my son, but if so, it was likely grounded in a belief that he had promised something he never had.

  We reached altitude, and as the cabin lights dimmed, I leaned back and turned my thoughts to Aunt Becky. I hadn’t seen her in the five years since my father died. She had been the one who called the school that day. When I answered, she’d said simply, “Your father’s heart gave out.”

  “What do you mean his heart gave out? He was only seventy-two.”

  The line fell silent. I heard her breathing, a congestion in it. Finally she spoke. “Some hearts are stronger than others. I think every heart knows when it’s had enough, don’t you?”

  I could still feel the shock of those words, the way they implied volition. My father struggled with depression. He had suffered with it ever since my mother died decades before.

  “Are you saying he killed himself?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “No. Not that. His heart just failed. But sometimes you wonder what a man can decide.”

  * * *

  —

  THE SUMMER I TURNED EIGHT, my mother died of ovarian cancer. I was in the kitchen eating a peanut butter sandwich with my maternal aunt when my father came home from the hospital. He sto
od at the door. “Your mother left us today,” he said, speaking into the room as if to rid himself of it, refusing to meet my eyes. He retreated to the bedroom he had shared with her for more than a decade. And there he stayed for a week.

  That is what I most remember from those first days without my mother: my father on one side of a wall and me on the other. But he was a good man, my father. Despite his pain, he always did right by me. Without fail, he got up, fed me, went to work, and returned. Every night, as he had before, he went to the den to reflect for an hour or two. But something in him was missing, some spark or force he’d had before. At times, I would follow him into the den hoping to find it there. He’d sit in his desk chair, and I’d sit on the floor, resting my hands on my thighs in imitation of him. Despite the occasional mild scolding if I squirmed too much, I sensed he liked having me there.

  Once I set up a folding chair within a few inches of his, as if we were sharing a bench at meeting. Some time had passed when I noticed an odd jerkiness in his breath. When I snuck a peek, I saw tears on his cheeks. Just then, with his eyes still closed, he reached over and took my hand.

  All my life I had wanted my father to touch me, share with me the physical affection he showed my mother. His reluctance with me had nothing to do with our faith or parochial attitudes. At gatherings of Friends, fathers often embraced their sons or planted kisses on their heads. Sometimes Friends swept even me up in a random hug, trying to compensate for my obvious lack.

  But the evening my father grabbed my hand, everything in me froze, as if he were asking for something I had no way to give. He must have felt rejection in the rigidity of my response, and he quietly slid his hand away. After another few minutes, he sighed, and though we couldn’t have been thirty minutes in, he said, “Well, I think that’s enough for today.”