In a nearby pocket park, we settled on a bench facing a small patch of grass. At the far end, a metal sculpture spun in the breeze. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, the way it kept blurring into different shapes. We ate in silence. We could do that. Sit quietly. Peter was my only non-Quaker friend who could. That day though, my mind was anything but still. I finished my sandwich and said, “Was there something in particular you wanted to talk about?”
“Not really,” Peter said. “It’s just been months since we had any relaxed time together. By some miracle, my calendar was clear. And this weather. I know you love to be out when it’s like this.”
We were sitting side by side, talking as if to the sunlit park. “I thought this might be about Evangeline,” I said.
“Only if that’s on your mind.”
Of course she’d been on my mind. I had decided to tell Peter about her pregnancy. He already knew the most damning part, that she’d lied about the boys. I needed to convert Evangeline in his mind from a girl likely tied to a murder to someone more akin to family. I’d convinced myself the revelation wouldn’t be a breach of her privacy. Wasn’t Peter, as principal, a type of guardian?
“She is, as a matter of fact,” I said. “When you told me about seeing her yesterday, I didn’t handle it very well—”
“No. No,” he said, cutting me off. “I’m the one who messed up. I don’t know what came over me. How crazy that I’d believe some new memory over the one at the time. It was Derek I saw. I’m sure of it. It’s just that we all had this narrative going that a girl must have been involved. I can only imagine how upsetting this has been for you.” He dug out an oatmeal cookie and handed it to me. “It’s yours.”
I thanked him and took a bite, more to give myself time to think than anything else.
“To be honest,” he said, “that’s the reason I wanted to talk with you. To tell you I was wrong. That I’m sorry.”
Though I take no pride in admitting it, with this surprising shift, Evangeline’s right to privacy took on renewed importance, and I decided to let Peter continue to believe she had no connection to the boys.
I checked my watch. “We’d better head back.”
We deposited our trash and started out. As we crossed onto the street, I said, “There is one other thing.”
“Sure.”
“The DSHS forms.”
“What about them?”
“She’s pretty upset at the thought of notifying the state. I have a feeling she came from an abusive situation. I worry she’s been hurt. She could be hiding from someone dangerous.”
Peter kept walking, then said, “This is pretty important to you? This issue with DSHS?”
“It is.”
He nodded, his lips twisting as if debating with himself. “Here’s a thought,” he said. “I have a longtime friend in Nevada. Maggie Jensen. I’ve talked about her before. Her daughter just moved out. She happened to call last night, mentioned she was thinking of fostering again. I couldn’t imagine anyone better. If the girl’s not here, there’d be no forms to fill out.”
“But what about Nevada’s forms? She’d face all the same issues there. And Evangeline doesn’t need a place to live.”
“Doesn’t she?”
“She can stay with me. Besides, Nevada? Why so far away?”
“No reason other than my friend happens to live there. It may not solve all her problems, but if she’s in danger here, wouldn’t she be safer out of state?”
I couldn’t argue with his logic, not without telling him of her pregnancy, so I said only, “I’ll talk to her, though I’m pretty sure she’d rather stay here.”
“Okay,” Peter said lightly. “It’s only an option. I was just thinking a girl her age . . . she might be more comfortable with a woman.”
I understood the subtext. It looked bad for a middle-aged man, a teacher no less, to take in an adolescent girl. But Peter knew that popular opinion, if used as an argument, would only make me more intractable.
“Wise counsel,” I said. “All things to consider.”
Peter stopped and faced me. “You’re not even going to talk to her about it, are you?”
“No,” I said. He had always seen me clearly. “I’m not. I’m not going to shunt her off like someone else’s problem to be solved. And you know she’d hear it that way. If I started talking about Maggie in Nevada, I’d just be one more adult abandoning her, making promises she has no reason to believe. One more adult saying she isn’t wanted where she is, how she is. Maybe we haven’t been together long, maybe she’s not attached to me, but she is to Rufus. And even that, having a dog that loves her . . .” I turned away, afraid of the pressure in my throat.
After a moment, Peter said softly, “Okay. I hear you.”
We resumed walking in silence, the sun turning edges sharp, the wings of birds slicing the air. A block from campus, we’d yet to resolve the issue of the forms. I was about to raise the topic when Peter said, “I’ve heard there’s been a problem at DSHS lately.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Lots of data falling through the cracks. Forms are filled out, everything by the book, yet somehow the information never makes it into the system. A lot of complaints about that. Apparently it happens more than you’d think.”
We’d almost reached the front doors. I turned to him. “You’re a good man, Peter.”
He held my eye. “Just remember that, okay? Remember that if I’m ever held to account.”
27
That afternoon, I told Evangeline she wouldn’t have to worry about the state. She bit her lip, then burst out laughing. “Shit can have its upside!” She flung her happiness at Rufus, giving him an exuberant hug.
A half hour later, as I was pulling chicken out of the fridge, she shooed me away, said she would cook “something amazing” in celebration. “I don’t suppose you saved any of those capers from yesterday?”
I laughed. In a day, I’d gone from a fucking bastard to a man deserving a special meal. “Not a chance,” I said. “You got them to cook for me?”
She blushed. “Just chicken piccata. It’s not that hard. It’ll be okay with lemon and Parmesan. We have butter, right?”
I nodded, the word “we” blooming in my chest.
* * *
—
I’M NOT SURE WHY I REFUSED TO LET THINGS BE. At least for that one night, at least for the dinner she’d stolen ingredients to prepare for me. I’d have to talk to her about the stealing. Even that would have been a better topic than the one I chose.
I had finished my second helping of chicken and once again exclaimed that it was delicious, a true marvel. Evangeline’s face was lit with the delight of having pleased me when I said, “Tell me about Jonah.”
She coughed, and I could see her mind scrambling for a story. She swallowed and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Jonah? The Jonah?”
I nodded.
“Wasn’t he your son’s friend? Your neighbor? What could I possibly know?” She spoke not to me but to the remnants of chicken on her plate that she pushed around with a fork.