She was smart, she knew that. She’d done well enough in geometry before her mother had yanked her out. But trig was different. The minute Mr. Tippet started going on about sines and cosines, secants and cosecants, her brain would shout over him, furious at the terminology alone. If she hadn’t ended up in this house with a science teacher, a man who made her feel that some good might come from learning useless things, she’d have blown it off. It wasn’t like she was heading to college anyway.
But even as she thought this, she realized with a quiet thrill that she wasn’t so sure anymore. Which, of course, was insane. She wasn’t going to college before, but now that she was having a baby alone, she was?
Thinking about it like that made her stomach sour, so she turned on the radio to drown out the thoughts. Some guys talking politics, going on about unprecedented this and unprecedented that. One claimed “our very democracy” was at stake. Evangeline couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t like that—one side accusing the other of destroying the country. The familiarity of the dire tones was a comfort as she finished her salad and toasted some seedy bread, slathering it with butter and honey for dessert.
Sunday night, Lorrie was back at the door, wearing the same men’s work shirt, this time holding a metal mixing bowl covered with plastic wrap. Evangeline hoped it held something like stew or maybe a meaty pasta, but she could already see it was another green salad.
Evangeline remembered to invite her in this time. Lorrie glanced back toward her house, then said, “Okay. That’d be nice,” and stepped inside. She walked straight through the mudroom into the kitchen and set the bowl on the counter. Turning, she asked, “Is there anything you want me to leave out next time? Or maybe something I could add?”
“It’s really nice of you and all, but Isaac left me money. I can go to the store and buy what I need.” She hated putting the lady to so much work. And expense too. She’d learned how pricey produce was, which had surprised her. All the people she knew ignored the vegetables on their plates. She’d assumed you’d pretty much have to give the stuff away.
“You didn’t like it? I can make other types of dressings. Or different vegetables?”
“It’s just that I can take care of myself.” She didn’t get the tone right. Hurt flashed over Lorrie’s face, then a smile trying to cover it up, so Evangeline rushed to add, “Mine wouldn’t be as good as yours though. I ate that whole huge salad the very first night.”
Lorrie smiled, a real one this time. “You did? The whole thing?” She didn’t look so tight anymore. In fact, she looked like a lonely kid being awarded a big prize. Evangeline was glad to make her so happy but sad that it did—because what did that mean about her life?—and also embarrassed for her, the way she was letting her feelings hang out naked like that, and in general more than a little annoyed she was having to feel all these things over a discussion about salad.
“Yup,” she said, and left it at that. Enough was enough.
“Okay then,” Lorrie said, beaming. “It’s settled.” She glanced around the kitchen as if admiring how clean it was. “I know you could handle it on your own. I can see how well you’re doing here. But Isaac has been a good friend over the years, and he asked me to do this. You’d be doing me a favor to let me.”
Evangeline agreed. She wouldn’t eat so much salad on her own. And she had a budding sense that accepting things people want to give you, even if it rubs you a little wrong, is its own nice thing. Lorrie reminded her of Isaac. She would say they were both shy, but that wasn’t quite it. More like they didn’t want to impose themselves on anyone else. They were fine not being noticed, not getting credit. She thought about school, all the nonstop self-promotion, how even the “nice” girls made big shows of their niceness. Somehow this woman had made Evangeline feel like she was the kind one by accepting the salads and made her feel proud of the kitchen by simply looking around.
Lorrie picked up the plastic container set near the phone. “Mind if I borrow this back?”
“Oh, no. Of course not.” She wanted to say more, like thank you or you’re a nice lady, but she’d had more than her share of emoting for the evening. She almost brought up the bleeding, which was still happening though not getting worse, but that would require talking about the pregnancy, and besides, they were already at the mudroom door.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Lorrie said.
“Tomorrow?”
“If you can eat a big salad every day, then that’s what you’re going to get. Can’t hardly do anything better for the baby.”
This blatant mention of the baby took Evangeline aback. Her surprise must have showed, because Lorrie said, “I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t supposed to know.”
Her face was so exposed and undefended that Evangeline felt no urge toward battle. “No. It’s good you know. It just seems . . . personal.”
Lorrie reached out and touched Evangeline’s arm. “Yes. About the most personal and—eventually—most public thing that can happen in a life.”
35
The morning I left for my flight back east, I was nearly to the garage, bags in hand, when Evangeline ran out in her pajamas, barefoot in that gray, damp morning. “I didn’t mean that stuff about Daniel. You know that, right?”
At the time, I nodded. But in truth, I didn’t know that. As the plane lifted off that afternoon, I pondered why Evangeline’s claimed hatred of my son rang truer than her retraction. Daniel had changed his last few years. All adolescents do, but it seemed more pronounced in my son. With his beauty and athleticism, his easy humor and sociability, Daniel never once struggled for friends. Boys and girls—adults too, for that matter—were drawn to him. He grew to believe that his attentions toward others, no matter the form, would always be welcome.
I suspect this latitude of behavior, not granted others, turned him careless. I witnessed several encounters that made me consider counseling my son—a rough and tumble, more rough than tumble; a verbal teasing a little too cutting—but each time I concluded I’d misjudged the situation. The boy involved would wrestle free laughing or shooting back his own retort, happy, genuinely happy, that Daniel’s notice had landed on him.
Daniel’s general manner, one of casual familiarity, could also be problematic at times. Though he was that way with both boys and girls, more than one girl had become confused by it. Evangeline might have hated my son, but if so, it was likely grounded in a belief that he had promised something he never had.
We reached altitude, and as the cabin lights dimmed, I leaned back and turned my thoughts to Aunt Becky. I hadn’t seen her in the five years since my father died. She had been the one who called the school that day. When I answered, she’d said simply, “Your father’s heart gave out.”
“What do you mean his heart gave out? He was only seventy-two.”
The line fell silent. I heard her breathing, a congestion in it. Finally she spoke. “Some hearts are stronger than others. I think every heart knows when it’s had enough, don’t you?”
I could still feel the shock of those words, the way they implied volition. My father struggled with depression. He had suffered with it ever since my mother died decades before.