What Comes After

by Joanne Tompkins

  And those heartfelt words turned Evangeline into a different girl too, because instead of going in for the kill after all those weeks of torment, she said, “I appreciate that.”

  Evangeline was thinking maybe she’d taken this whole forgiving thing a little too far when Dr. Taylor walked in, scanning her chart.

  “In for the twenty-eight-week check, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You empty your bladder?”

  Dr. Taylor wasn’t one for small talk. Evangeline tried to picture her without the chart and the white coat, without her regal posture. She tried to imagine her having fun, but the only thing she could come up with was a serious, stiff-backed woman in casual clothes.

  “Yup. All empty.”

  “Good. Okay. Going to open up the gown now.”

  The doctor started palpating her abdomen, mainly about her umbilicus. Evangeline liked using words like that in her head. “Just finding the fundus,” the doctor said.

  Top of the uterus, Evangeline thought.

  “You eating right? Getting moderate exercise?”

  “Yup and yup. I almost like vegetables now, and I walk a lot. Walked here today.”

  The doctor squeezed some cold gel onto her belly and slid the Doppler until they heard the baby’s heart beating away. It was always so fast, like it was running and running, but the doctor said that’s exactly what she wanted to hear.

  “Good,” she said, wiping up the gel. “Now let’s get your fundal height.” She ran a measuring tape from Evangeline’s belly button to the top of her pubic bone. Checked it and ran it again. “Remind me. When’s your due date?”

  “June ninth.”

  The doctor flipped back through the chart. “The first time you came in, you seemed pretty certain of your last period. Can you tell me about it? What was it like?”

  “Like?”

  “Yes. Was it lighter than usual? Heavier? Anything like that?”

  “It was light for me.”

  “How light? A day or two of spotting?”

  “Maybe a day. But there was definitely bleeding.”

  “All right,” she said. “And before that? When was the last period before that?”

  Evangeline shifted. She didn’t like being interrogated. “I don’t know. I’m not very regular. I just happened to remember that last one.”

  “Okay. Let me check a few things,” the doctor said, scooting back. She stood and told Evangeline to get dressed, that she’d be back in a minute.

  When Dr. Taylor returned, she said, “Everything sounds fine with you and the baby. But your fundal heights are off for the expected due date. They can vary by one to three centimeters, but yours have been consistently on the high side. Nothing to worry about, but at this point I’m pretty sure that what you thought was your last period was actually implantation bleeding, spotting that happens about a week or so after fertilization. That date would make a lot more sense for what we’re seeing here.”

  “So how far off is the due date?”

  “My best guess—around three weeks.”

  “Three weeks? Like maybe I got pregnant three weeks earlier than I thought?”

  “Yes. But as I said, let’s see how things go at the next visit. A number of variables can affect fundal height.”

  * * *

  —

  WHEN EVANGELINE GOT HOME, she was shaking, cold to her bones. Dr. Taylor had to be wrong. Hadn’t the doctor admitted she wasn’t sure? Daniel was a big guy. Wouldn’t his kid be big too? Maybe her own dad had been a large guy and passed those genes on to her.

  She longed to be with a friend, someone who would see that she was upset but not insist on knowing why. Someone who would let her talk, or not, up to her. Not Natalia. Evangeline loved her, but friendships at their age were about the disclosures, the proving of trust through intimacies. It was Lorrie she needed. Lorrie with her quiet acceptance of whatever was offered.

  She thought about running next door, but she couldn’t. After the night they’d made stew, Lorrie had fallen off the face of the earth. Well, not quite. Her tired old Toyota came and went, and Evangeline sometimes saw Nells riding her bike on the road. In late February, when Lorrie had been missing only a few weeks, Evangeline headed over to her place. But halfway there, she turned back, too scared to risk it. And now it had been so long, how would she ever explain herself?

  Evangeline tried to take a nap to forget things for a while, but she tossed and turned, the baby throwing some kind of fit. A new due date would ruin everything, not only with Lorrie but with Isaac. She knew he hoped the baby was Daniel’s, and she needed that possibility too. The baby had always made it right—this house, this home. Only now the baby had not the slightest tie to any of this.

  She swept her eyes across the room she’d lived in for the past five months. Nothing appeared the least bit familiar, not the ornately carved door, not the elaborate chandelier, not even her own clothes strewn on the floor. She saw what she was, a dirty splinter that had slipped under the skin of the house and started to fester.

  A pressure was building. Any moment, the house would start squeezing her out.

  Part

  Three

  53

  Sometimes I think I knew before I entered the school that morning in late March. There was a muffled quality of sound in the parking lot, the early hellos muted as if under water. The building itself seemed denser, hunkered into itself, and as I approached those front doors, I felt eyes on me, knew Carol Marsten was waiting.

  She stood vacant faced and ashen at the front desk. Without a word, she led me into her office, closed the door, gestured for me to sit. She pulled a chair close, her breath quick and faintly sour.

  “Do you know about Peter?”

  Her look was one of announcing the dead, and I shook my head, everything in me falling.

  “He resigned this morning.”

  And even for the shock of it, I felt buoyant. He was alive. A resignation could be reversed. Only later did it seem strange how readily I’d believed he was dead.

  “Do you know about the women?”

  Again I shook my head, this time whispering, “No.” And I didn’t. But a nausea rose in me as if, somehow, I really did.

  “Seems he was having affairs with two of the mothers here. One became suspicious and followed him, got pictures of him heading into a motel with the other. Went to Newland with it.”

  I was seeing Peter in my kitchen over the holidays, Mia on his hip yelling for Rufus, Zoe bold on his thighs, snorting about Hannah. And his eyes so intent on Elaine. There was love there. Definitely love.

  “That can’t be right. What does Peter say?”

  “I haven’t talked to him. I only heard about this an hour ago when I got a text from his attorney.”

  “His attorney?”

  “Larry Hallstrom is representing him.”

  “I thought Larry only did criminal work.”

  “I’m still trying to sort it out. But I know how close you two are. I wanted you to hear it from me. By noon, it’ll be viral.”

  I made it to my classroom and locked the door. Though Peter didn’t answer my calls or texts, I remained certain as to his innocence. Unhappy parents plagued every principal. These claims were likely made in spite, and Peter, always thinking of others, was stepping down temporarily so as not to be a distraction while his name was cleared.

  At noon, other teachers discussed the news in the faculty lounge. Though I planted myself in a corner alone, Connie Swanson dragged a chair over and set her sacked lunch on the coffee table between us. “It’s not just the two moms,” she said.

  I was well-known for avoiding gossip, and few approached me with it. That’s why I assumed Connie’s words had something to do with me, and a loud buzzing started in my ears.

  “Peter was stopped in Bremerton
last night.”

  “Connie, I don’t need—”

  “He was picked up with an underage girl who has a history of prostitution.”

  I stared at Connie’s lips. They had produced gibberish, and I was waiting for them to laugh it off or add words that would create meaning. With nothing further, I stood, collected the remnants of my lunch. “I’d be careful of passing on such malicious gossip. People get sued for less.”

  “It’s not gossip, Isaac.” She spoke calmly, as if correcting me on the time of a staff meeting. “He was arrested. That’s why Larry Hallstrom is involved. That’s why Peter is gone. Just like that.”

  I sat back down. “He resigned over the affairs.”

  “A mother did talk to the superintendent. That was months back. She was married and not all that eager to go public. She just wanted Newland to force Peter out. He convinced her that he was ‘investigating.’ He wasn’t. He was protecting his friend.”

  “Maybe Peter was vindicated.”

  She shook her head. “No. We’d never have heard about the affairs if it hadn’t been for the arrest. But now the affairs look good compared to an underage hooker.”

  I was stunned that Connie would accept such a story. “You really buy that?”

  “I do.”

  “But how . . . ?” I searched for the words. “How is it you don’t seem surprised?”

  She ate a piece of celery, and though she was simply a woman finishing her lunch, I saw her teeth working away, mindless like a squirrel, and I battled an urge to slap her. She swallowed and said, “Of course it’s shocking. Of course. I never once consciously thought anything like that. But I must have unconsciously. All those rumors over the years, you know, about him and women.”

  “There are rumors like that about everyone.”

  “Not everyone. I’ve never heard that kind of gossip about you.”

  “Even so. An affair is one thing. But an underage girl?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. You said I didn’t seem surprised. And you’re right. I wasn’t surprised. That’s what surprised me.” She kept chomping, saying between bites, “Let’s just hope none of our kids are involved in any of this.”

  * * *

  —

  OVER THE COURSE OF THE DAY, I tried repeatedly to reach Peter. I wanted to be of help. After his faultless career, to be facing these kinds of allegations was beyond anything I could imagine. After classes, I drove by his place, but his car was missing, and no one answered the door.

  * * *

  —

  AT DINNER THAT NIGHT, Evangeline picked at a piece of rotisserie chicken, staring blankly at her plate. I was trying to come up with a topic to discuss when she said, “You heard about Principal Thibodeau?”

  “Of course.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You heard about the girl too?”

  “What girl?”

  “The one he got stopped with in Bremerton.”

  It shocked me that the news had permeated the student body so thoroughly.

  “Do the students think it’s true?”

  Evangeline’s head jerked. “What’s to think? He was arrested with a minor who was hooking.”

  “He was terminated for his affairs with two mothers.”

  “That’s the cover story, sure. But he was arrested. Wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. Even if he was, there has to be an innocent explanation. It’s just not possible.”

  Evangeline ate a few bites of oversteamed broccoli, clearly holding her tongue.

  “You actually believe it?” I asked.

  She set down her fork, slowly, as if deciding something. “I don’t need to believe it,” she said. “I know it’s true.”

  An error of youth, this certainty based on nothing more than gut dislike. She’d thought the worst of Peter since he’d raised the issue with the forms.

  “Unless you were there, you can’t possibly know.”

  She glared at me. A challenge in it. “What if I told you I was there?”

  This stopped me, but I thought back. “I’d say you couldn’t have been. You were here with me last night. And that’s when he was supposedly arrested.”

  She stood, picked up her half-eaten dinner, tossed the plate loudly on the counter. “I’m going to my room. It’s your turn to clean.”

  I’d lost my appetite too and went to the sink, faced the greasy plates. I had just been administered a test. And though I couldn’t understand its purpose, I knew I had failed.

  54

  Evangeline woke on a Saturday in early April, victim to her baby’s anger-control problems. The baby veered toward combat, battling cramped conditions with sharp-edged kicking and punching, as if hoping to expand territory by busting out a few of her ribs. Evangeline’s previously underappreciated bladder and lungs were relegated to a fraction of their former space, forcing her to breathe double time up hills and race to the bathroom every ten minutes.

  Her heart too was burdened by the alien’s demands. No longer able to fully circulate fluids, it allowed them to remain boglike in her ankles and feet. She’d press a finger into the bloat of her lower legs and the dent in her flesh would stubbornly persist, a warning that vanity—for Evangeline had always been proud of her slim ankles—was something she would have to set aside.

  At nine thirty, Evangeline arrived in the kitchen to find a note from Isaac: Out walking Rufus with George. Have fun in Silverdale. Natalia was coming by at ten for a shopping trip. She wanted Evangeline’s help picking out a dress for prom. Evangeline wasn’t going, though Scottie Wilkerson had asked her, and he was nice. She didn’t even mind his stutter, but she couldn’t imagine finding a dress that would fit. Besides, she liked how disappointed Scottie had looked when she turned him down. It gave her hope.

  She hadn’t slept well, and after having to pee for the third time in a half hour she called Natalia and said she was sorry, the baby was bouncing on her bladder like a trampoline and wouldn’t let her go. Natalia laughed and said she’d miss her. Evangeline returned to her room and crawled under her covers. She nearly cried at the comfort of this place, at the thought that she might lose it.

  She patted the bed, coaxed up Rufus. He made the leap, but his hind legs didn’t quite catch, and he tumbled to the floor. “Rufus!” she laughed. “Come on. You can do better than that.” He fixed his eyes on her, pumping his hind legs. This time, he caught enough of the bed so she could grab him and give him a boost.

  She studied him. His nose was as runny as ever, and his expression seemed slightly alarmed, probably from the fall. When she thought about it, he might have lost a little weight, but still, he was the same dog he’d always been. She pulled him into her. “I have you no matter what, don’t I, boy?”

  More and more, she made a point of listing what she had. She would look around her room, at all she’d been given, and let it sink in, these signs that someone cared for her. For months, she’d dismissed it, assumed it was some new manipulation, refused to feel the love offered her. She regretted that now.

  The night Peter resigned, she had wanted to force Isaac to choose between his friend and her. But even as she’d started to speak, she realized the universe had already made the choice for him, had revealed Peter for what he was. Thank goodness she’d been so vague and nonsensical that she could forgive Isaac his lack of belief. Thank goodness she could still tell herself, I have Isaac! I have Isaac! I have Isaac!

  Only she knew she didn’t. Not really. During these early-April days, as nonstop rains sent grasses springing waist-high in the fields and left jackets and shoes continually damp, an impossible swamp grew between her and the man. There was a fundamental truth she had yet to speak: the baby wasn’t Daniel’s, wasn’t either of the boys’. This past week, Dr. Taylor had changed her due date from June 9 to May 19. There’d been no talking her out of it.

  Evangel
ine pictured herself three weeks before she met the boys. She’d snuck onto that bus to Bremerton, a naval town ninety minutes to the south. She had told herself she was going because a girl needed to get out of town once in a while. If she’d heard of a street where a girl could make a tidy bundle in an afternoon . . . well, that was just an interesting cultural aside.

  A draft lifted her bedroom curtain until it curved pregnant with the empty air, and she let herself picture the man. The man was not Peter. True, Peter had stopped that August afternoon. He’d leaned over and opened the car door, and she had slid in. His hands gripped the wheel, but he didn’t pull out. He stared straight ahead, something desperate in that adamant blindness. Then he turned to her and his hands dropped.

  “How old are you?”

  “How old do you want me to be?” she said.

  He shook his head, his mouth rigid, his eyes returned to the distance. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were someone else.” She got out, and he sped off. But she saw him stop a block down, by a girl who’d done herself up to look older. That girl must have known the answer he wanted, because she climbed in and they drove away.

  The man Evangeline had to picture now pulled up not ten minutes later. He didn’t ask her age or anything else. He simply told her to get in. She remembered his thinning hair, the way his pale, nearly pink scalp showed through the long dark strands. She had focused there, not wanting to know the shape of his lips or the color of his eyes, realizing only now that his naked scalp was the most intimate of all, the way it forced her to feel his insecurities and vanities, his longing for what had been lost.

  He offered her an extra forty if she’d “skip the rubber,” said he was a family guy, that he never did this type of thing, that he was “very clean.” She calculated how much food she could buy with that, then tried to remember where she was in her period. It’d been weeks, and she’d had some cramping earlier in the day, so she said okay.