What Comes After

by Joanne Tompkins

  Evangeline turned now, faced what she assumed was Daniel’s room. Something sharp jabbed her scalp and she slapped the spot, desperate to swat away whatever it was. A stinging insect? A protruding nail? But there was only her hair and a buried point of pain.

  She tried to get her legs to return her below, but they refused. In the end, she headed to Daniel’s room willingly. She believed in facing fear when there was no other option. When she got to the doorway, a bitter cold hit. She stood, attempting to discern shapes in the darkness, and heard what sounded like moist breathing.

  “Hello? Is anybody there?”

  Movement on the bed, something heavy and dense, and she marveled at how whatever it was changed the air, compressed its shape into the room. She could almost see it through the pressure on her skin.

  “Hello?” she said again, and this time she heard a rhythmic thumping.

  “Rufus?”

  The thumping picked up, and she laughed. “Rufus! You scared the shit out of me! Come on, now. Come on.”

  But Rufus didn’t come. She hesitated. Her eyes hadn’t fully adjusted and some doubt remained. Why hadn’t the dog greeted her when she came up? Why was he choosing now to disobey? And how did he get up here anyway? She’d never seen the door below open, and it’d been closed when she went in search.

  “Rufus! I mean it,” she said. “Come on. Right now!”

  The thumping stopped, and she heard only panting. She bolstered her nerve and strode in, but as she reached toward the dark bulk on the bed, she heard a low growl. Not ferocious, only a warning. Still, she snapped her arm back. A dog like Rufus could tear a limb right off. He had never before growled at her, and she half wondered if maybe this wasn’t Rufus after all but a ghost dog paying a visit. She noticed a nightstand lamp and switched it on, producing a dim light through a brown shade.

  It was Rufus all right, sitting on the bed, staring at her, the doubled reflection of the hall’s corded bulb swaying in his eyes. Evangeline stepped back, and he seemed suddenly apologetic. He dropped to his belly, pushed his hind legs straight back, and army-crawled forward to exaggerate the stretch. Then he rolled to exposed his naked belly, turned his head toward her, and whimpered, a look so endearing she went to him and stroked his chest.

  “Why’d you do that, boy? Why’d you scare me like that?”

  With her touch, he closed his eyes, and his lips curled as if in a smile. Evangeline sat on the bed. Even if the door below had somehow blown open earlier, even if a draft had closed it after the dog ventured up, hadn’t she heard Rufus barking in the back field?

  Then she saw the curtain billowing. No wonder it was cold; the window was open. Rufus had probably hung his head out, bellowing his indignation at deer in the field or perhaps announcing his entrapment above. She rose, and Rufus snapped onto his side, staring expectantly. She closed the window and said, “Let’s go, okay, boy?”

  The dog didn’t move. She would’ve grabbed his collar and guided him down, but that earlier growl made her hesitate. She sat next to him, getting a sense of the room. Though Rufus had mussed it, the bed had been neatly made. In fact, everything seemed arranged: a bouquet of dead flowers on the chest, college pamphlets on the desk, shirts hung on hooks on the far wall, track shoes and work boots lining a corner. Someone had tried to make it neat, as if hoping the occupant would return.

  Rufus resumed his whimpering, and she stroked his muzzle, his eyes gentle now. The dog could hypnotize you with his gaze, make your muscles go limp, your eyelids droop. She yawned, and he flipped the other way, let her curl against his back.

  When she’d slipped to that place between consciousness and dreams, another presence entered the room and sat on the bed. She tried to open her eyes, to see who it was, but her muscles refused her commands, as if her body had fallen asleep without bringing her mind along.

  At some point, all of her must have fallen asleep, because she startled awake when Rufus leaped off the bed barking. He’d probably heard Isaac’s car come up the drive. She jumped up too, a bit dizzy, swept her hand over the bed to straighten it, then snuck downstairs.

  Rufus had detained Isaac in an exuberant greeting. The man was kneeling, stroking the dog’s head. “Why so happy to see me, boy?” When he saw Evangeline, he frowned as if worried. “Tired?”

  “A little groggy,” she said. “Guess I fell asleep.”

  He stood and scanned the counters. No sign of food prep. “Rufus eat yet?”

  She shook her head no.

  “You eat?”

  She shook her head again.

  “It’s after nine. You really did fall asleep. Why don’t you feed Rufus. I’ll grill us turkey-cheese sandwiches.”

  “You sure? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

  “You’ve made dinner the last couple of nights.”

  Isaac looked tired too, a gray weariness around his eyes, but there he was, already pulling out what he’d need. Evangeline wondered if she’d been wrong about him, wondered if love could look like that, like a tired old man searching through his refrigerator for meat and cheese.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER A QUIET MEAL EATEN AND CLEARED, she lay on her bed, Rufus in his usual place at the foot. Everything felt different. She hadn’t imagined the other presence in the room. Daniel had been there. She had, for a brief time, been Daniel with his pumped-up power and sense of destiny. But these entitlements seemed forced, as if not quite believed. And rumbling beneath them, she’d felt insecurity and shame and a nagging loneliness. Some great sadness too, as if his heart had been broken. Yet she struggled to believe this could be true for Daniel, to believe that a boy like that—the whole world ripe for his picking—could have suffered too.

  She examined the clues for the millionth time. Sammy claimed she had dumped Daniel right before the murder. And that night in the woods, he’d said, “You want me, you want me,” his eyes watery and strange. She tried to create a new version of that night, one that caused her less pain. But nothing worked. Even if he hadn’t meant to hurt her, he’d been blind and reckless and indifferent. He’d treated her as if she were nothing more than a prop in some story of his own.

  Daniel had raped her. There. She allowed herself the word. She might not have been screaming, but she had not been confusing or vague. She was no longer going to tell herself she had been. Lying to herself hadn’t made her feel better. Though she’d been his victim, she had not been weak. And she was not a victim still. She’d been strong. She’d taken the control she could.

  It was strange how admitting this, seeing it for what it was, didn’t make it harder to forgive Daniel. In fact, she felt an opening she hadn’t before. She’d been battling herself, forcing herself to forgive him without admitting what he’d done, afraid that if she dared acknowledge the truth, even to herself, she’d be lost forever in anger at the boy who might be the father of her child. But now she understood. You can see the crimes that people commit, see them in their clear brutality, and yet someday, somehow, forgive. It might be the only way. How is forgiveness of what is not acknowledged forgiveness at all?

  But knowing this didn’t mean she’d actually done it. So she tried one last thing. She pictured Daniel as a little kid, the boy who’d lain on that bed for years, his arm thrown over a foul-smelling pit bull. She didn’t mind that boy so much. Tomorrow, she’d take another stab at it and imagine him a little older. She’d build him day by day. At some point, he’d be the boy who tunneled her into the woods. She couldn’t fix that, but by then he’d be other things too.

  It was weird how desperately she wanted to forgive him and weirder still that she almost could. This wasn’t for Daniel’s benefit. What use could he make of it now? She had to save her own heart. It came down to that. She’d been feeding herself poison for years, annoyances and resentments, bitterness and rage. Before, if she killed off her heart, so what? It had been nothing m
ore than a ticking menace that stabbed at her, wanting, wanting, always hungry and angry and lost.

  But now, now, it had to be saved for the baby. The baby needed her heart. One way or another, doesn’t a mother’s heart always end up beating inside her children?

  So she would work on forgiving Daniel, and then she would turn to forgiving herself. And hadn’t she already made progress? No longer taking blame for Daniel’s acts? Which left the myriad small crimes and self-indulgences she’d engaged in all her life.

  Of course, she’d be left with her trip to Bremerton. If she could forgive herself for that, she might find true relief. But how was that possible? She would always see herself opening that car door and climbing in, knowing full well what was on the other side. Where was the latitude in that?

  Evangeline closed her eyes, trying to blot out the memory. She had forgotten about Rufus when he began crawling up the bed. He stopped halfway and lay with his nose inches from her belly, staring at the mound that was the baby.

  It was as if he were seeing into someone’s eyes.

  49

  Once, in my late thirties, I kissed Abigail Groff. We were both married, and it never went further. But as the clearness committee continued, as Abigail raised her ever-thoughtful questions, I found myself wondering what my life would have been like if we hadn’t stopped things where we did. Increasingly my attention during these sessions was plagued by pointless fantasies of a life I hadn’t had.

  Over the next few meetings, the focus of my concerns narrowed to my failure to protect Daniel from his friend. I convinced myself my greatest fault lay there. For the fourth meeting, I came prepared, having scavenged my memory for images and snippets proving the danger posed by Jonah. I described him at five, hysterical after losing a board game; at eight, holding Daniel’s model airplane, its wings cruelly smashed; at ten, standing behind Daniel in choir, knuckling him so hard he yelped. I didn’t feel anger at Jonah for these things. The rage I felt was at myself for missing the signs.

  The three Friends listened with respectful attention, but I felt strongly that they were failing to see the urgency, were mistakenly interpreting these vignettes as the stuff of normal boyhood. This attitude was reflected in questions that seemed increasingly pointed: “Can you recall Daniel ever doing anything similar?” Ralph asked.

  Grasping for something they’d understand, I said, “He hurt Rufus.”

  Theirs heads darted up with new interest. They’d probably heard that psychopaths often practiced their sadism on animals. I told them another story. One I’d convinced myself was true. They hardly needed one more tale about Jonah. Nor did I. But I had created a thesis and become obsessed with marshaling evidence in support.

  When the boys were twelve or thirteen, Jonah wanted Rufus to join them in the tree house. The boys tried to recruit me to hoist him up, but I declined, not seeing how any good would come of it. Sometime later, I glanced out and saw Rufus dangling in midair. They had rigged a sling padded with towels, created a harness out of rope, and tied it to another rope they’d tossed over a branch. Daniel was using his weight to offset the dog’s as Jonah, braced in the clubhouse door, pulled him up. By the time I got out, Rufus was barking away up there.

  “There wasn’t much I could do at that point, so I went back inside. About an hour later, Daniel came in to tell me they couldn’t get Rufus down. They’d get the sling on him, but he’d panic at the door. I said I’d be right there, and Daniel ran ahead.

  “I was putting on my coat when I saw Jonah and Rufus at the tree-house door. Then Rufus was falling. It had to be a good twelve feet down, so I raced outside.”

  I stopped there. Three sets of eyes lifted, waiting for more.

  After a few minutes, George said, “I know this isn’t quite in the spirit of this thing, but what in the hell happened?”

  “I’ve told you what matters.”

  “But was he okay? What’d Daniel say?”

  George was right. These weren’t proper questions, but I understood where I’d left them. “Rufus was fine. A little dazed, but he was sitting there wagging his tail. Daniel, though, was a mess. He was crying and laughing and hugging the dog. When he finally calmed down, he said that Rufus had fallen somehow, tumbled in the air. He thought Rufus would die or at least break his legs. But he claimed Rufus landed in a kind of stuntman roll and bounced right back up. He said it was ‘totally awesome.’”

  By their faces, I could see they’d gotten distracted by the happy ending, so I added, “Here’s the thing, though. The very next day, Daniel dove from the dining-room table and dislocated his shoulder. He was reenacting the dog’s landing for Jonah.”

  George glanced quizzically at the others. After a while, Ralph asked, “And how does this story relate to your struggles?”

  I’m sure I sounded frustrated when I pointed out that Jonah had talked Daniel into putting Rufus in danger, then almost certainly pushed our dog out the tree-house door. And if that weren’t enough, he’d convinced Daniel to do something hazardous for his own amusement. Yet despite all the evidence, I’d failed to recognize Jonah’s danger.

  “Ah,” Ralph said.

  Abigail was particularly quiet during this fourth session. She didn’t ask a single question until the end, when she said, “If you had to describe Jonah in a word, what word would that be?”

  She thought I would say “murderer.” I’m sure of it. She was wrong. The word I’d likely have chosen was “troubled.” I didn’t answer her. Back then, I saw the question as a clever trap. A seemingly open question, but one in which Abigail thought she knew my answer. The question wasn’t a question at all but a statement, one that said, You have limited a child of God to one word, a word that reduces an entire life to a single moment, one that ignores that of God in him.

  I raised my eyebrows at George, wondering if he would, at last, intervene in these gross breaches of protocol. He watched me placidly. I thanked Abigail for her question and said I’d reflect on it. I requested we spend the remaining time in silence and declined to have any mirroring back.

  I was furious at Abigail. The one Friend I was sure I could count on had as much judgment as the rest. What right had she? Had she lost a child? Had that child been murdered by a boy she’d long treated as a son? I fumed until the meeting was over. I thanked them politely for giving so generously of their time and left without further good-byes.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN I GOT HOME AT NINE FIFTEEN, Lorrie was in the kitchen drying a large pot. Since Christmas, she’d been coming over more frequently. The woman used every variety of excuse: delivery of cookies and casseroles, helping Evangeline with school projects, or just chatting with the girl. If she planned to stay more than a few minutes, she’d bring Nells along. More than once, I came home to the three of them working away at the dining-room table. But this was the first time I’d found her alone in my kitchen this late at night. I entered still wearing my coat.

  She turned and smiled. “The girls and I cooked up a pretty darn good stew. There’s lots left over if you’re hungry.”

  “That was thoughtful of you.”

  Though I had spoken gently, her hands stopped drying. She turned her back to me as if this were necessary to set down the pot. Over her shoulder, she said, a tad too cheerfully, “Not so thoughtful. Evangeline did most of the work.” There being no further excuse with the pot, she faced me but kept her gaze down. “I didn’t want to leave a mess behind.”

  “Again, very thoughtful of you.”

  She lifted her head. “Is everything okay?”

  “Of course. I’m just wondering where the girls are.”

  “Evangeline’s in her room finishing some schoolwork and Nells headed home a few minutes ago. Why do I have the feeling something is bothering you?”

  I was still agitated from the meeting, static roaring in my head, but I would never take my anger
out on this poor woman, a woman who had clearly misinterpreted my prior charities. I said with the most benevolent voice I could muster, “I’m worried I’ve somehow misled you.”

  She held my gaze. “No. You’ve not misled me in the slightest.” The words arrived under great pressure, and I heard the accusation: Believe me, your lack of generosity could not have been clearer.

  “Then I’m confused,” I said, allowing an edge to sharpen my words. I waited a few beats, relishing that moment before the strike. “Why are you here, when your young daughter is all alone at your house?”

  * * *

  —

  DID I UNDERSTAND THEN HOW CRUEL I WAS BEING? I did. I remember a certain pleasure in seeing Lorrie’s face blanch, in the rising and falling of her chest as she regained command of her features, the effort it took for her to fold the dish towel, set it on the counter, and walk out.

  She was halfway through the door when she stopped and marched back in. “You think this has been easy? Coming over here? To this house, knowing how you feel?” Her voice was shaking. “It hasn’t been easy. Every time, there’s dread, every time I have to talk myself into it.”

  I stood glaring at her, no longer willing to deny my rage. “And do you think it has been easy for me to see you in this house, to come home and find you here, knowing what you did?”

  “What did I do, Isaac? Tell me. What have I ever done but shown you kindness?”

  Her cheeks were red with anger, and I saw there her face from that September night, the night I saw her at the barrel. It was a few days after Daniel’s disappearance. We didn’t yet know he was dead. I was sitting in the dark of the kitchen around eleven at night, exhausted after a long day’s search. That’s when I noticed the smoke coming from Lorrie’s back lot. A transient had burned down the Wileys’ shed a few months before, so I pulled on a jacket and wandered to the border trees. As I approached, a bizarre thought churned my mind. I would find Daniel at the fire. I was certain. He’d been grievously injured and built the fire as a signal.