“Are you saying he killed himself?”
“No,” she said quietly. “No. Not that. His heart just failed. But sometimes you wonder what a man can decide.”
* * *
—
THE SUMMER I TURNED EIGHT, my mother died of ovarian cancer. I was in the kitchen eating a peanut butter sandwich with my maternal aunt when my father came home from the hospital. He stood at the door. “Your mother left us today,” he said, speaking into the room as if to rid himself of it, refusing to meet my eyes. He retreated to the bedroom he had shared with her for more than a decade. And there he stayed for a week.
That is what I most remember from those first days without my mother: my father on one side of a wall and me on the other. But he was a good man, my father. Despite his pain, he always did right by me. Without fail, he got up, fed me, went to work, and returned. Every night, as he had before, he went to the den to reflect for an hour or two. But something in him was missing, some spark or force he’d had before. At times, I would follow him into the den hoping to find it there. He’d sit in his desk chair, and I’d sit on the floor, resting my hands on my thighs in imitation of him. Despite the occasional mild scolding if I squirmed too much, I sensed he liked having me there.
Once I set up a folding chair within a few inches of his, as if we were sharing a bench at meeting. Some time had passed when I noticed an odd jerkiness in his breath. When I snuck a peek, I saw tears on his cheeks. Just then, with his eyes still closed, he reached over and took my hand.
All my life I had wanted my father to touch me, share with me the physical affection he showed my mother. His reluctance with me had nothing to do with our faith or parochial attitudes. At gatherings of Friends, fathers often embraced their sons or planted kisses on their heads. Sometimes Friends swept even me up in a random hug, trying to compensate for my obvious lack.
But the evening my father grabbed my hand, everything in me froze, as if he were asking for something I had no way to give. He must have felt rejection in the rigidity of my response, and he quietly slid his hand away. After another few minutes, he sighed, and though we couldn’t have been thirty minutes in, he said, “Well, I think that’s enough for today.”
My father never again reached for my hand.
* * *
—
I WAS CONSIDERING ALL THIS AS I TRAVELED TOWARD my childhood home, sensing as I often did in flight that I had escaped the planet with its artificial dividing lines—cities and states and countries, skin colors and genders, religions and political tribes, animal, mineral, plant. At thirty thousand feet, these distinctions fell away. But even at that lofty height, I believed with unquestioned certainty that a boundary could be drawn around a small group of people and labeled a family. My family. Yours.
Except mine no longer had a past to which I could return nor a future beyond my own depleted life. There was only my aunt’s disintegrating mind and a grave barely a month old.
36
On Monday night, Lorrie arrived in the pouring rain, the hood of a purple rain jacket cinched tight around her face. Evangeline invited her inside. This time, Lorrie didn’t hesitate, handing Evangeline the container so she could slip off her dripping coat.
Once they were in the kitchen, Evangeline felt shy. Should she offer to share the salad with Lorrie?
“You need anything else?” Lorrie asked.
“This is so nice,” Evangeline said, but it sounded stiff, like they were on a bad first date.
That nod again, then, “School going all right?”
Lorrie was probably wondering if she had made any friends, and that made Evangeline uncomfortable, though things were fine that way. Saturday at Natalia’s had been fun. Her mom had to go into work at the last minute—she was some kind of lawyer—but Evangeline and Natalia cooked tamales anyway. They enjoyed teasing her little sister, Sophie, who kept shouting that they were stupid even as she insisted on hanging around.
“It can be hard starting in the middle of things,” Lorrie said softly.
Evangeline realized she hadn’t answered, so she said, “School’s okay. Chemistry is kind of boring, but don’t let Isaac know I said that.”
Lorrie laughed. “Tell me about it. I’m trying to get through my nursing prereqs. That stuff is hard.”
“I thought Isaac said you were already some kind of nurse.”
“Not a nurse,” she said, lowering herself onto a chair. “I’m just a CNA, a certified nursing assistant. We change diapers and clean up puke.” She glanced at the bowl. “Sorry, not really dinner conversation.”
Evangeline lifted the lid of the Tupperware and peeked at the salad, disappointed to see more than the usual rash of cherry tomatoes. “But you know some things, right? Some medical stuff?”
“A little, I guess. Why? You worried about something?”
“Not really.” She glanced toward the salad. “Maybe lighter on the tomatoes?”
“What?”
“You said before. You know, if I didn’t like something, I could tell you.”
“Oh. Sure. No tomatoes.”
“No. Some tomatoes. I’m practicing eating disgusting things for the baby. Just not so many.”
Lorrie laughed, and it was easy, natural, like they’d been friends a long time. “But I think you’re worried about something else. Something medical?”
“I guess. It’s nothing really. Just a little bleeding. You know. On my panties.”
Lorrie’s brows furrowed. “How far along are you?”
“Ten, eleven weeks, something like that.”
“When did this start?”
“About five days ago. Just spotting. A little worse today. I put a tampon in just in case.”
“When did you do that?”
“A couple of hours ago.”
Lorrie sat up straighter, all those lean muscles kicking in. “Okay. That’s fine. But first, do you have any pads?”
“Yeah. There’re some in the bathroom.”
“Good. Why don’t you go take care of the tampon, see if there’s much blood, and then put on a pad instead. You want to be able to see what’s happening, and tampons are breeding grounds for bacteria. You don’t want that near the baby. While you’re doing that, I’ll call the after-hours line for your OB. The number is by the phone, right?”
Evangeline nodded, worried now.
“It’s not an emergency,” Lorrie said. “I’m pretty sure anyway. A lot of women spot in the first trimester, but since you’re at the tail end of that, I’d feel a lot better if we checked in with your doctor.”
When Evangeline returned a few minutes later, Lorrie was sitting at the table pretending to read the local paper.
“What’d they say?” Evangeline asked.
“I decided to wait to hear what you found. How was it?”
“Kind of the same, just a little reddish-brown stuff.” She wasn’t embarrassed to say things like this to Lorrie.
“Good. Now I want you to call the after-hours line and tell them what’s going on. I’ll be right here.”
“Really? Wouldn’t it be better if you did? I don’t want to bother them.”
“It was wrong of me to say I would. You need to see how easy it is to call if you’re worried. Besides, they might have questions I can’t answer. You’re not bothering them. That’s what they’re there for.”