What Comes After
Page 23
“Jonah thrashed back to his kayak. But Katherine rolled out of hers, powered through the water, shrieking and splashing. Scared the crap out of those animals. They dove, and when they popped up a minute later, they’d fallen way back.”
I stopped. We sat in silence a long time.
George spoke first. “Why do you think you never told me the full story?”
This query was a breach of protocol, being more for himself—curiosity or wounded pride—than for me. But it was a good question nevertheless.
“Because I don’t know the whole story. Not who started the scuffle, or why, or what they yelled at each other. I don’t know why Daniel swam after the sea lions. Even if he hadn’t known they could be aggressive—which he definitely did—why would he abandon his kayak in open water like that? The only explanation he ever gave was that he ‘wanted to meet the sea lions.’” I fell silent a minute or two. “Mostly I didn’t tell the story because I don’t know what I was doing while my wife rescued our son.”
“You were collecting the kayaks and helping Jonah get back in his, then going to Katherine and Daniel—” This from Abigail, talking in a rush. George and I cut her off with a glance. “Sorry,” she said, and returned to her posture of thoughtful listening.
I took several deep breaths. “That’s probably true. We saved the kayaks and got the boys on board. I probably had something to do with that. But when I think of that day, I see only Katherine. She’s beautiful and horrifying. I don’t mean so much as a woman, though that way too, I suppose. But she was beyond that. She was this explosion of love and violence. Pure, unconstrained . . .” I searched for the word. A minute passed, then another. “Life. She was life.”
We sat in silence a long time after that, twenty minutes at least. I still had no idea what to make of the story. There’d been some scuffle between the boys. But there’d been many. Daniel had been wounded, but he recovered quickly. I was pondering these things when Abigail asked, “And what were you that day, Isaac?”
Answers are not required in clearness committees. The questions are solely for the person asked, to use as they see fit. I didn’t offer a response, and we spent the rest of the meeting in silence. But the question stayed with me, for I knew the answer all too well.
What was I the day the sea lion attacked Daniel? I was a worthless piece of flotsam, floating on a dangerous sea.
47
Day of My Death
For seventeen years, I was a boy named Jonah. Then one act and wham! I’m a murderer, a label that rings a lot louder than any name. The boy named Jonah? Turns out he never existed. He was only ever a killer, hiding, waiting, in a boy’s clothes.
That’s how it will be, right? When they find my note later this morning. Everyone tracing back through my life, looking for devil markings on my skin. I’ve been doing it too. For days, I’ve felt tender spots on my scalp like horns might be pushing through. But I keep thinking about something Mr. Balch said last spring when we were walking back from meeting.
I’d started jabbering on about politics, ended up saying a certain leader of ours was evil. Mr. Balch, who’d been quiet till then, stopped and turned to me, all urgent like he could get. “Evil isn’t a person,” he said. “It’s not a political group either. Or a religion like some people think. Evil is a force. Like gravity. It acts on all of us. We’re all vulnerable to it.”
I argued with him awhile. I could think of a ton of evil people in history. He listened intently like he always did, then turned and started walking again. With anyone else, I would think I was being dissed, but with Mr. Balch I knew he was processing things. Finally he said, “My mother died of cancer. The last time they cut her open, she was so riddled with tumors they closed her back up. The doctor said that’s all they found in there, just cancer as far as he could see.”
I kept expecting an explanation. After a few more blocks, I said, “I’m not getting it.”
Gravel crunched under his feet awhile, then, “My mother had cancer, she suffered cancer, but no one ever thought she was cancer itself.” He took a few more steps. “Despite all the evidence.”
* * *
—
I WISH I HADN’T QUIT GOING TO MEETING LAST SPRING. Those Friends sitting in that big plain room created a force field that blotted out the pain in my head. Most of the hurt was about my dad, the way I never knew who I’d get one minute to the next. And there was school, and friends, trying to pretend I belonged when I knew I didn’t. All the money stuff too, watching Mom struggle. Our lights and heat kept getting cut. Even to a kid, those unpaid bills were like monsters pounding at the windows, so noisy it was hard to think of anything else.
But in meeting, there were no monsters, no dad, nothing pounding at the outside of me. Just peace. In my life, peace of any kind was the strangest thing of all.
When I started showing up every week after Daniel quit, I worried he might be mad or think I was stupid. But he said only, “Suit yourself.” And I know Mr. Balch liked that I went. He isn’t a big smiler, but when he’d see me, it’d be like he couldn’t help himself; the corners of his mouth would curl up the tiniest bit. Afterward we’d always walk home together, and even when we were quiet, it felt like we were talking up a storm with our silent steps.
The year I turned sixteen, this weird thing happened at meeting. A light, a big glowing ball like a small sun, appeared a couple of feet over a Friend’s head. Then it descended on her, made her glow. It was one of the older ladies, her gray hair so thin she was almost bald. And right then, she started singing. The best part was she couldn’t sing to save herself and yet it was the most magical thing I’d ever heard. Pure off-key love. Another time, the glowing ball formed over the empty center. It grew and grew during the hour, until it hovered over the whole room, flashing like that spaceship in Close Encounters. As we were walking home, Mr. Balch said, “That was a covered meeting. Did you feel it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Saw it too.”
He looked at me like what in the hell was I talking about. “Do you know what a covered meeting is?”
“You mean the light?”
He was quiet a moment. “I guess you could put it that way. A covered meeting, some call it ‘gathered,’ is hard to describe. Time falls away. It feels like the Divine—the Light, you might say—rising up in the entire room, not just in one Friend. We all feel it.”
“Yeah. I felt it,” I said, and left it there. After that, I did some searching online. I didn’t see anything about glowing balls and Quakers, and no one ever mentioned them during meetings or after. Maybe I was the only one who saw them. The last time I saw one, the ball hovered over one Friend who broke the silence and then moved slowly to a different Friend who spoke too. Lots of times, though, Friends spoke and I didn’t see any ball of light. I never did see one over Mr. Balch’s head, though he broke the silence most of all.
I finally got up the nerve to tell Mr. Balch about it, just said it straight out. “Sometimes I see lights around people before they break the silence.”
He acted surprised, wanted a few examples. I think he was dying to know if I’d ever seen one around him, but he didn’t ask. I was glad. He would have been disappointed.
“Sounds like you’re a mystic,” he said.
I thought he was making fun of me, but he shook his head. “No, really. Many Quakers believe in mysticism.”
“Mysticism?”
He thought a moment. “I guess it comes down to a direct encounter of God. Union with the Divine.”
I still didn’t understand. “Does this have something to do with the lights?”
“It’s different for everyone. Some Friends hear God. Others are so overcome they actually quake. My grandfather did, pretty dramatic at times, made you think he was having a seizure. That’s where the term ‘Quaker’ came from. It was originally a form of ridicule—those damned ‘quakers’—but we adopted it as
a badge of honor. And a lot of mystical experience involves light. What you’re describing sounds like a vision of God.”
“Does everyone have these? Do you? Maybe not the lights but something like that?”
He pressed his lips tight. “No. Not everyone does.”
None of this was going like I wanted. I’d been hoping he’d say, “Oh, that light stuff. It happens all the time,” kind of bored, like it was so common why would anyone bother to mention it? I didn’t want to be some mystic. Wasn’t I enough of a freak already?
The last time I attended meeting, we were more than halfway through and it had been quiet. No lights. Nothing. Just some coughing and shifting around, a little more than normal. I thought it might be one of those meetings that never really gels, pleasant enough but time just ticks away one second after another, and we’re all just counting down until we’re done.
Then—though the windows held nothing but gray—a bright beam hit me, like clouds parting and God shining down. My legs started jigging, and my eyes quivered in their sockets. My hands lifted, lighting up the place. But none of that was even me anymore. I’d swear my skin had vaporized, that I was nothing but dancing atoms. Still, something of me was left, because when words pressed hard into my mouth, I decided no way was I going to let them out. I was still hoping no one had seen. Even if some Friends did quake like Mr. Balch said, I wasn’t Quaker, and I hadn’t ever seen them do it. I didn’t want them thinking I was a freak. Or worse, that I was mocking them.
I didn’t go back after that. I convinced myself everyone disapproved of me. Which is sad when you think about it, because if those Friends did disapprove of something, which I’m betting they didn’t, it was about me not going back.
48
Before the holidays, Evangeline rarely thought about Daniel’s old girlfriend, Samantha. They existed in vastly different realms. Sammy moved through the halls with her flashing blond hair, boys stopping in midstep as though tasered. When they crossed paths, Sammy’s eyes swept through Evangeline as if she wasn’t there. But when school started in January, the girl was staring at Evangeline every time she glanced up. Evangeline had thought her baby bump was well hidden, but apparently not, because it wasn’t her face Sammy was staring at.
The second week of January, as Evangeline carried her tray across the lunchroom, Sammy and her gaggle of friends stopped eating to stare disgustedly at her belly. Evangeline glared right back. They put on blank expressions and turned back to their food. But over the next week, the girls got bolder, muttering “fat cow” or mooing when they crossed paths. Jason Brewster, Sammy’s new boyfriend, rammed right into Evangeline during one of the rushes between classes, knocked her back a step. He smirked at her swollen middle and said, “Hope I didn’t hurt the killer’s baby.”
Evangeline asked Natalia, “Is he saying I’m the killer, like they blamed Rebekah? Or is he talking about the father?”
“I’m guessing he means the father,” Natalia said. “Amanda Bryant—you know, the one who wears those weird jumpsuits—she’s started telling everyone she saw you in the park the week before the murders.”
“And she’s only saying that now?”
Natalia took another bite of salad. “The pregnancy does add a new level of intrigue.”
“But wasn’t everyone looking for connections to the boys? If she saw me with Jonah—”
Natalia’s eyes shot up. “Who said anything about seeing you with Jonah?”
* * *
—
MASIE AND JILLIAN STARTED EATING AT ANOTHER TABLE, but Natalia stuck around. She had known about the pregnancy since right after Christmas. Evangeline had stayed overnight at her house. They’d ordered in pizza and watched The Princess Bride with Sophie, who kept laughing and shouting, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!” and “Inconceivable!”
Later they were lying on their backs on Natalia’s big bed, talking the usual trash about kids at school. Natalia rolled onto her side, reached over, and placed her hand on Evangeline’s belly.
“Yeah. I’m pregnant all right,” Evangeline said.
Natalia scooted closer, laid her head where her hand had been.
“Hear anything?” Evangeline asked.
“Some gurgling. Do you think it could be the baby?”
“Could be. I feel it moving around in there sometimes.”
“Now?”
“Not now.”
Natalia flopped back, stared at the ceiling. “I know it probably sucks,” she said, “but it’s kind of awesome too, don’t you think?”
Then it was Evangeline’s turn to stare at the ceiling. “Yeah,” she said. “It sucks and it’s awesome. That pretty much sums it up.”
Natalia patted her own stomach as if she too might be pregnant. “What about the dad? What does he think?”
Evangeline turned to face her. “He doesn’t know, and he never will. And don’t go thinking I’m saying it was Jonah or Daniel, because I’m not.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. Just don’t ask me, all right?”
“But—”
“Don’t even.”
It took everything in Natalia to stop. Evangeline could see that. But she did. She managed to keep her mouth shut a few minutes before saying quietly, “Maybe you’ll tell me later?”
Evangeline laughed. “Yeah. Maybe someday I will.”
* * *
—
EACH TIME NATALIA SET HER TRAY BESIDE EVANGELINE’S, she’d lean over and whisper, “Don’t worry about dumbshits,” and Evangeline knew she was talking about not only Jillian and Masie and Sammy’s nasty clique but the entire world. When Natalia finally broke down and asked her straight out if it was true about her and the boys, Evangeline muttered, “It might as well be.”
Natalia brushed a lock of hair off Evangeline’s cheek. “Yeah, might as well be,” she said.
Evangeline knew she understood and loved her for leaving it at that.
* * *
—
ON THE THIRD TUESDAY IN JANUARY, Evangeline went to Natalia’s house after school to study for a chemistry test. When she arrived home at seven, the house was dark, and a chill gripped her spine. She half thought she’d find the place emptied out, another adult having left her behind. But when she flipped on the lights, she saw the note from Isaac. He was at his clearness committee. She’d forgotten about that.
Everything still felt a bit off, but she was home, and that word “home” was a miracle. The breakfast dishes sat on the counter. And for the first time, she didn’t mind that Isaac hadn’t bothered to soak his bowl, that cereal was glued to the sides, and she turned on the water to fill the sink.
As she set the last cup on a towel to drain, a floorboard popped upstairs. She thought she should be scared. But she wasn’t. This ancient place was always adjusting itself like an arthritic old lady. Even if the house did have ghosts, she figured they were nice enough. The way she saw it, the house loved her. It kept her fed and warm and cared for.
Did Isaac love her too? He was good to her. She gave him that. Better than good. But love? She didn’t think so. He wanted to. In the name of the Lord, as evidence of Divine Light, he wanted to. But he didn’t. Maybe he couldn’t. He might have buried all his love with Daniel.
She started drying the dishes, and the house spoke again, louder this time, a full-on thud upstairs, heavy and muffled, like a sack of wet sand landing. She’d blame Rufus, but right then she heard the dog barking in the back field. Ah, so that’s what had been odd when she arrived home: Rufus hadn’t been there to greet her. Had he been out all day?
Another thud above. Isaac had asked her to leave that space alone, and she had obeyed. No matter how many times she’d gone to the stairwell door, she had never once opened it. But now the house was calling her, was being rather insistent in fact.
She stood a few seconds with her hand on the knob, then swung it open fast. Just an unfinished stairwell with rough-cut slats, scratched like someone had run up them wearing cleats.
“Anyone home? Isaac?”
The house, having drawn her attention, had gone silent. “Okay, house,” she said. “I’m coming up. That’s what you want, right?”
It didn’t answer, but the silence drew her up anyway, one slatted step at a time.
* * *
—
SHE STOOD AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS. A naked bulb swayed on a twisted cord, and somewhere in the dark rafters, wings beat and settled, a hard-edged cutting and folding of air. The frame of a bathroom stood before her, two-by-fours without walls, bare pipes rising from below. A shower, a flimsy one-piece plastic job with a mold-stained curtain, floated in that emptiness like an alien pod. To her right, someone had hacked a doorway through plasterboard. Her eyes jerked away—the sound had come from there. In this unfinished space, Daniel was fully alive, as if even now he might walk out of the darkness.
She’d often thought of Daniel since she’d moved in—how could she not?—though less and less over time. Sometimes she’d pick up his pictures and study them, wonder if her child would look like that, athletic and tall and good-looking. But each day the baby grew, it seemed more of its own making. She’d taken to thinking of the life inside her as an immaculate conception. Laughable or not, it felt simply true. Whatever the biological facts, none of the possible conception stories could be told in a way that didn’t take an innocent and impute another’s guilt.