“What did you say?”
“When he asked about Jonah?”
Lorrie nodded.
“I yelled at him. Well, actually, I called him an effing bastard but, you know, the whole f-word.”
Lorrie laughed. “Doesn’t sound all that informative.” She set down her tea. “Here’s what I know about Isaac: If he doesn’t know for sure, he’d never speculate with someone else. He’s not one to spread tales. Personally, I’d trust a discreet man over a gossipy one any day.”
Maybe Lorrie was right, but it seemed a risky business, Isaac going out of his way to throw them together without filling them in.
They sat with that awhile, gripping their cups like buoys in a rough bay. Evangeline guessed all kinds of things were going through Lorrie’s head right then, like whether Jonah was the father of her baby and did she have anything to do with his death. At least that’s what was going through hers.
Finally Lorrie said, “Jonah told you about Nells?”
“Yeah.” Evangeline said. “I wish Isaac had told me Jonah lived next door. I might have put it together if I’d known. Though Jonah doesn’t look much like you—well, in build, maybe.”
She’d made a mistake with the present tense. Evangeline saw it in Lorrie’s face, but it couldn’t be taken back.
“He looked like my dad, actually. Dad was wiry like that. As for Isaac, I’m sure he did what he thought best. Or maybe he was too overwhelmed to think clearly. This past year, the poor man lost his wife and his son. His mother died when he was eight, and his dad about five years back. Now his father’s last sibling is failing. It’s a lot for a body to handle.”
Evangeline hadn’t thought about any of that. Not really. Shit. What did it mean about her that she could be so self-absorbed?
Maybe Lorrie read her mind, because she said, “And you. All alone and pregnant. Only sixteen. You must be scared out of your gourd. I don’t know your story, but I do know you’re tough.” She let her eyes rest on Evangeline. “I know tough when I see it, and you’re it.”
Evangeline wondered if Lorrie meant cold or mean or rough, but she knew she didn’t. Lorrie meant she was strong, that she and the baby would make it.
“If you’d be willing, I’d love you to tell me about Jonah sometime,” Lorrie said.
“Tell you?” What could she know that his mother didn’t, except for things she couldn’t say—like how his mouth tasted of cinnamon or that they’d had sex only that one time and he’d been so embarrassed because he’d come practically on entry, and how none of that mattered because when his eyes met hers, it was as if he had entered her everywhere all at once.
“Only if you want,” Lorrie said. “There might be private things between you two—or not—but you know, how you met, what you talked about, that sort of thing. It would be like . . . I don’t know, like finding pictures of him I’d never seen.”
Evangeline said she’d have to think about it. Lorrie didn’t press, and they spent the next half hour talking about school and the hassles of pregnancy. When Lorrie left around four, she said, “See you at six?” and Evangeline nodded yes.
* * *
—
THAT NIGHT, Evangeline went into her closet and fumbled at the back of a tall shelf until she felt the bracelet. She’d hooked it over a nail up there so it wouldn’t get lost.
The day after Jonah had tied it on her wrist, Evangeline decided to stay away from the park. While she would take pleasure in breaking some boys’ hearts, she had no interest in hurting Jonah. His nerves were already primed to ignite, and he wore his love for his sister and his mother like wounds. All that intensity. It made her body buzz as if a million bees had landed and might begin to sting.
But at six, as evening closed in, she couldn’t stand the thought of him searching for her not knowing what had happened. Earlier in the day, she’d thrown the bracelet in the garbage. She dug it out, rinsed off what might have been ketchup, and tied it back on. She walked to the park and waited. With no sign of Jonah, she started home at eight, trudging up the forested road, twirling the bracelet, wondering for the thousandth time if she’d misread his feelings.
She was huffing, nearly home, when she heard thrashing in the woods. She stopped and the racket grew louder, limbs snapping, feet or hooves pounding closer and closer, echoing on ground that seemed hollow. Then the trees exploded, the monstrous thing bursting from the branches.
It landed not ten feet from her, solid as a wall. A big buck. Powerful shoulders and haunches and neck, a spiked and dangerous rack. They stared at each other, the deer’s eyes wide. It hesitated, then took a step toward her. She leaped back, and it went rigid, the two of them frozen like that. Then, ever so slowly, as if she could be fooled into not noticing, the animal lifted a front hoof and moved it forward one fraction of an inch. She wanted to shout, You know I can see you. I’m standing right here. And maybe it read her mind, because the leg froze. Then bam! The leg went down and propelled the beast airborne, where it vanished into the trees.
Her heart was still racing when she made it home, her sweater soaked through despite the cool night. Even the mail with its bold red notice of pending electrical shutdown seemed unworthy of note, and she tossed it aside. She wondered why the buck had upset her like that. This was hardly the first one that had burst from the trees. Cars were always hitting deer on the dark back roads.
It wasn’t until she climbed into the broken sofa bed that she noticed the bracelet was missing. She thought back and could almost feel it flying off when her arms had flung in surprise. Just as well. It’d been a mistake to accept the thing. But she kept touching her wrist, expecting to find it in her fingers.
She had just fallen asleep when the buck landed before her again. A dark oiliness spread at its neck, and its nostrils flared in effort. Buried in its exhalations was an odor bitter with adrenaline. Then a sudden noise, a harsh, guttural clunking like a machine irreparably broken. She woke panting, a branch scraping across the metal roof.
The next morning, she retraced her steps, but everything looked different in the day. It was pure luck that she glanced over when she did, saw the pathetic rag of a thing caught in a thicket. She clambered up and almost had it, but on a final thrust, her foot slid from beneath her. When she regained her balance, the bracelet had fallen deep into the long-thorned brambles, well beyond her reach.
* * *
—
NOW EVANGELINE RETURNED IT TO THE NAIL ON THE SHELF, glad she had managed to retrieve it. She would tell Lorrie about the bracelet. The tenderness of it—Jonah’s love for Nells and maybe the tiniest bit for her. Lorrie could know that.
41
Day of My Death
Nells is mumbling in her room. She does that sometimes, talk in her sleep. I snuck in once, hoping to get some dirt to harass her with. She was whimpering, jerking and twisting her sheets. She kept muttering no and stop it, but it didn’t seem to be doing any good. She looked defenseless, like a blind baby animal. I felt more ashamed standing there than if I’d seen her naked.
There’s nothing I can do about Nells’s demons now, but she has Mom, and that should get her through. For everything my father wrought, it was my mother I always saw as a god. She might have let my father hit her, might have covered his dirty tracks, but you’d be wrong in thinking she couldn’t take care of herself. Or us.