But now she had reached Isaac’s gravel drive. She shut Viv out of her mind, imagined Isaac instead, his surprise when he took his first bite of her delicious chicken piccata. A warmth came over her again, like that coat tossed over her shoulders, and she felt almost . . . she struggled for the right word. Loved? Like family? The closest word was “safe.” She could hardly believe it. For the first time in what seemed forever, she was feeling the tiniest bit safe.
21
I strode down the corridor, Peter’s final words looping in my mind: Who knows what we’re dealing with here. I almost went back, threw open his door, and shouted, “We never know what we’re dealing with! Don’t you get that?”
A year ago, my wife of twenty years informed me that she’d been having an affair, packed her belongings and moved across the state. Then my son, my powerful, indestructible son, was slaughtered by a small, unathletic boy, a gentle boy, a boy I knew to be devout.
I kept shouting it in my head: We never know what we’re dealing with! We never know what we’re dealing with! The problem wasn’t in the not-knowing. The problem was believing that I should. Peter was right. I didn’t know what I was dealing with. Not with Evangeline, not with my wife or the boys, not with Peter or my students, not with Rufus. Not even with myself.
I had almost escaped the building when a classroom door burst open and Samantha Askelson, Daniel’s longtime girlfriend, nearly knocked me down. She lurched back, kids piling up behind.
“Mr. Balch,” she said, untangling herself and moving off to the side.
“Hi, Sammy.”
Her fair skin reddened. “I meant to stop by your classroom today.” She spoke fast, her eyes skittering. “You know, to say hello. I mean, I heard you were back, but then Mr. Nelson—”
“I’m sure you knew my first day back would be swamped.” I rarely cut people off, but there are times when it’s a gift.
She managed to settle a little, meet my eyes. “How are you doing? I mean is everything . . . ?” She trailed off, ran a hand through long blond hair.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I saw in the paper that you took first in freestyle at the last meet. Sounds like you have a shot at the state record.”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling a little. We’d always been our best when talking about her athletic endeavors. “In fact, I’m doubling up on my practice time, kind of heading to the pool right now. So . . . I should probably . . .”
“Oh, sure, go,” I said. “It was good to see you. Stop by the classroom anytime. Or the house. Rufus would love to see you.”
She said she would with such sincerity that, for a second, I thought she actually might.
* * *
—
AS I DROVE HOME, I again went over what I knew of Sammy. She and Daniel had been a couple since the end of their sophomore year. If my son had ever been in love, it had been with her. She was tall like Daniel, as popular as he, with fine skin and the sculpted limbs of a swimmer. They made a striking couple. And while that was important to Daniel, it was more than that. Sammy had a sharp wit. Whenever she got going on one of her stories, Daniel would step out of the limelight and watch her with a fascinated pride.
When Daniel went missing, Sammy told investigators she had broken up with him “for good” that very afternoon. At the time, I wrote it off as Sammy being Sammy. The girl needed to be the axis around which every story turned, and Daniel had said nothing of them having troubles. But I wasn’t so sure anymore. Daniel had been agitated that last week, particularly that last morning. Perhaps he knew what was heading his way.
After the murder, a new rumor started—some claimed by Sammy herself—that Jonah had a secret crush on her and that his jealousy of Daniel caused the murder. It was true that Jonah was jealous of Daniel. I think he had always been. But not about Sammy. Once, when Jonah and I were walking home from meeting, I mentioned her. I don’t remember why. He shrugged and said, “I don’t get the whole Sammy thing, why everyone thinks she’s so amazing. I mean, I know she’s pretty and all, but is it weird that she just doesn’t appeal to me?” This wasn’t sour grapes. He was simply confused. So no, Jonah didn’t kill Daniel in a jealous rage over Samantha. But still, I wondered if she’d played a role somehow, set the sequence of events into motion.
I pulled into the drive, unsettled. Nothing made sense. And for every mystery Samantha held, Evangeline, behind her curtain of lies, held a dozen.
* * *
—
I SET UP IN THE KITCHEN AS I HAD BEFORE, wanting to catch Evangeline as soon as she walked in. When twenty minutes passed without her arrival, I wondered if she had beaten me home and gone down for a nap, suffering as she did with the fatigue of early pregnancy. I went to her room and knocked. With no response, I stepped in.
A glance made clear this space was private. Katherine’s old nightgown lay wadded on the floor, and little bits of makeup—blush and a tube of lip gloss—were tossed on the unmade bed with a small mirror. The box with Katherine’s clothes had been dug through, its contents left in a pile. Several outfits had been laid out in a corner, a combination of Evangeline’s new things and Katherine’s, tops knotted at the waist, pant legs rolled. I imagined Evangeline standing over them, mixing and matching, picturing how she would look.
I told myself to leave. It wasn’t that Evangeline might catch me. Rufus would make a fuss at her return, and she would never suspect me of trespass. But it was that very trust I didn’t want to breach.
Still, I stayed. When I moved, it was to invade her closet. The large walk-in was all but empty. A few tops and the dress she’d bought hung from the rod. A small pile of clothes lay in the back. I assumed they were dirty, yet on closer inspection I could see they were summer items, worn but clean tank tops and shorts.
That’s when I noticed a strap poking out from under the pile. I nudged the clothes with my shoe, averting my eyes as if to disavow a foot that had gone rogue. When I checked again, the duct-taped backpack, the one she’d carried everywhere when she’d first arrived, lay exposed. No longer bursting, it wasn’t empty either.
Again I tried to leave, to end my violations, but my eyes kept returning to it. Who was this girl? If she had known Daniel and Jonah, been with them in their last days, then her falsehoods were not minor misstatements of personal history but lies as to her very purpose in my house. And she was long overdue. For all I knew, she’d decided to move on. Or maybe something had happened to her. Perhaps an old boyfriend was stalking her. Didn’t I have an obligation to discover who she was and why she was here? Not only for my own protection but for hers?
I lowered myself to the floor, placed the backpack in my lap, feeling its weight. She had so little she could claim as her own. I was returning it to its original spot when I grabbed the toggle and unzipped it, fast and violent, a kind of slashing, leaving myself no time to change my mind. Inside I found the jar of peanut butter I’d been missing, a few stale cookies I’d forgotten about, some energy bars I didn’t recognize. This hoarding of food despite its ready availability, storing it in dark corners like a rodent that could be stomped, saddened me enough that I almost stopped there. I almost put everything back and left. I almost did.