When I hung up, my mother turned to me. Right off, I noticed her weird tone, a tone that said better listen up or things could get ugly.
“They want to talk with me also,” she said. “Too bad I was studying at the library that night. I won’t be any help to them.”
Later, as I was walking out the door, she used that tone again, saying, “It’s been such a long, long time since you’ve brought home venison, Jonah. Maybe when deer season starts up.”
I thought she was worried about my out-of-season kill, and I took her lead, telling the police that after I’d dropped Daniel at the store, I’d gotten in a little target practice off the trails near town, something I had in fact done a few nights before his death. After dinner that night, I thanked my mother for not mentioning the deer to the police. She kept mending an old wool jacket she hoped would get me through the winter. Without looking up, she said, “No point in sending them off on a wild-goose chase out in those woods.”
* * *
—
I’VE BEEN TELLING MYSELF MOM DOESN’T KNOW, that she’ll be shocked tomorrow when the sheriff finds my note. I want to think she couldn’t imagine me doing such a thing.
But she can, and I have the saddest, clearest feeling that she does.
51
The Monday after the debacle of a clearness committee, I called George and told him I wasn’t feeling well enough to meet that week.
“Next week then.”
I wanted to say no, not that week either, or the one after that. Instead I said, “We’ll see.”
“Isaac.” I could sense him calculating his words. “I hope we continue our work. You know that resistance is a sign you’re getting close.”
“Getting close to what? More pain?”
Again the long pause, then, “I think in the face of great loss, we’re often distracted—”
“Dear God, just say it! You think my focus on Jonah is . . . what? A false narrative? The boy who slaughtered my son isn’t a psychopath? That the guilt I have for insisting my son spend time with his murderer is a trivial distraction?”
He didn’t speak for a good minute. When he did, he sounded more himself. “Not trivial at all. But I think you’re dancing around something deeper. And before you ask, I have no idea what. But I feel it there. And I’m guessing you do too.”
I wanted to shout that I was done with their smugness and judgment. I was done with the Quaker faith and its false promise of Divine connection, its hidden arrogances and silent withholdings. What had it done but estrange me from my wife and son? What had it done but leave me utterly alone?
“Thank you for your insights, George,” I said, “but I think I’ll pursue a process of discernment on my own.”
* * *
—
WITH THE CANCELLATION OF THE CLEARNESS COMMITTEE, I had removed myself from all aspects of my meeting. At home, I had to confront Evangeline’s confusion and grief about Lorrie’s sudden absence, a distress that manifested in offhand comments: “I think Lorrie said something about working extra shifts,” and “You know, Nells is going through a tough time. Probably really needs her mom there.” She wanted so desperately to explain it to me, this woman abandoning her.
But how could I discuss Lorrie with her? Whenever I thought of the woman, my heart spasmed. I had wanted to believe I’d misinterpreted what I’d seen, but when confronted, Lorrie offered no defense. And there were her words: If it was Daniel’s blood, I knew he was already dead. How does that not become the evilest of earworms, rising and tormenting you at the mere mention of the speaker’s name? Yet I had not gone to the authorities. I kept picturing Nells shuffled off to a distant relative or into foster care. How could the world bear yet one more parentless child?
School was lonely too. Despite the promise of the holiday visit, Peter seemed altered in the new year. He was off campus with increasing frequency, and he often appeared stressed when I found him, sneaking discreet glances at clocks, trying to stop a nervous jiggle of his foot. Though he mentioned “administrative hassles” in connection with his absences, he never explained what they were. He no longer asked about Evangeline, and when I inquired about Elaine and the girls, he’d brushed me off with, “They’re all good. Thanks for asking.”
On a Friday in late February, Evangeline texted to ask if she could stay the night at Natalia’s. I told her she could, then messaged Peter, suggesting we grab a beer downtown. I suspected that Peter had become distant because he didn’t want to burden me with his own troubles. If we could have some relaxed time together, he might open up.
When Peter didn’t respond, I called his cell, but it rang straight to voice mail. The man sometimes forgot to charge his phone, and I decided to stop by his house, arriving around seven. He lived in one of the town’s few neighborhoods where all the houses are well kept, yards filled with groomed plantings and neat walkways to front doors. Though Peter’s Volvo was parked in front, the house was dark, and I saw no sign of Elaine’s Subaru. I assumed the family had gone out together and was about to proceed on when a light came on in the living room.
I parked and walked up, noting that the blinds were drawn. During all the meals and games and conversations I’d had in that house over the years, I couldn’t remember a single blind being pulled. I rang and knocked but no one answered. I yelled, “Peter! It’s me, Isaac!”
Minutes went by, and then a shadow passed the front window. I yelled again. In response, the living-room light went out. Such a strange thing, that vanished light, as if I might forget it had ever been on.
* * *
—
THE NEXT DAY, I called Peter again. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry about missing your message. My phone can’t seem to hold a charge.”
“I worried about that.”
“A beer would have been great, but I couldn’t have gone anyway. The Uptown was playing one of the old How to Train Your Dragon movies for family night. Elaine and I took the girls.”
“You were gone last night?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”
“I stopped by.”
“Shoot. Wish I’d been here.”
“Someone was,” I said.
“Ah,” Peter said. “So she was up. When we left, Elaine’s sister, Josie, was down with a migraine.”
“A migraine? She must have loved me knocking and ringing and yelling through the door.”
“Don’t worry about it. Even with a migraine, if she was up, she should have answered the door.”
I told him migraines can be pretty debilitating and asked him to apologize for me. “Do you want to schedule a time to catch that beer?”
“Sounds great,” Peter said. “This next week is pretty crazy, but maybe the one after. Check in with me then—lots of things up in the air.”
* * *
—
PETER WAS RIGHT, a lot of things were up in the air, like why he would lie about tiny Josie being there. The shadow that had crossed the blinds before the light went out? It had the shoulders of a bull.
52
Evangeline lay on her back, wearing one of the clinic’s gowns, her head propped on a pillow. It was mid-March, and a drizzly gray pressed against the exam room’s window.