She got up again, needing to pee, wanting to stop thinking of all her lies and how they’d poisoned what might have been. On her way back, she heard George and Isaac talking in the kitchen. She was shuffling up in her stocking feet when she heard her name. She stopped. There it was again. She realized Isaac must think she was on her way to Silverdale and inched forward, pressing herself to the wall just outside the kitchen door.
“You’re right, but I can’t be her mother. I’m an old man.”
“Fifty hardly makes you old. You’re the same age you were with Daniel.”
“Look at these hands. They belong on a ninety-year-old. But you’re right. Maybe it’s the thought of the baby that makes me feel old.”
They were quiet a few moments, just the sound of mugs being lifted and set down. “This thing with Evangeline. It was a mistake. She—”
Evangeline didn’t hear what was said after that. She tried but couldn’t. A voice in her head was mocking her. How many times would she be made a fool! She retreated down the hall, threw herself onto her bed. She began beating her thigh with her fist. Harder and harder, not able to stop. She needed to prove she was real, made of blood and bone and flesh that could bruise. She beat herself until she was certain of the proof, then let her arm fall limp at her side.
She stayed in her room, sore and exhausted, staring at the ceiling. She stayed until she risked peeing right then and there, barely making it to the bathroom in time. When she came out, Isaac stood in the hall.
“I thought you were in Silverdale.” An accusation.
“I canceled. I was awake all night, so I went back to bed after breakfast.”
He searched her face. “You okay?”
“Sure,” she said. She walked toward the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “When is George going to take us out on his boat again? That was fun.”
“You know,” Isaac said, his voice brighter, “I didn’t ask him, but it’s a good idea. You think you’d be up for it?”
She said absolutely, though this made no sense. She couldn’t manage a shopping trip with Natalia. Isaac followed her into the kitchen, as if to examine her features in better light. The pleasant expression she planted on her face must have been convincing, because he gave a relieved sigh and said cheerfully, “I’ll ask him. I will.”
He started to leave, then turned. “In fact, he invited me over for dinner tonight. I’m sure he would have invited you too, but I told him you planned to eat on the way home. Should I give him a call?”
Evangeline said no thanks, she was still pretty tired and thought she’d head to bed early.
“I’ll stay and fix dinner.”
“No,” she said. “You go.”
“You’re sure?”
She said she was, and he said well, okay.
Her room, when she returned to it, appeared no more real than the set of a childhood play, the chandelier and carved headboard mere props. How strange that she’d ever believed she belonged to this place. Isaac was right: any thought that she had, that she was a relative of sorts, was based on a mistake.
She took a deep breath and released it into the room. So, she thought, this is my last day with the man.
55
With Peter’s resignation, the faculty lounge transformed into an amphitheater where tidbits of information—the age of the girl, other affairs—were tossed into the ring to be salivated over and torn apart. I began isolating myself, eating lunch in my locked classroom, entering and leaving the school through a service door.
More and more, the one relief of my day was arriving home to Evangeline and Rufus. But George too was a source of comfort. Since halting the clearness committee, I’d seen more of him than I had in years. He’d stop by in the evenings with a quart of ice cream or a mini-cake from Safeway or both. Each time we dug into the caramel swirl or layers of gooey chocolate, I’d look at that belly of his and think it couldn’t be doing him any good.
While he enjoyed sharing a vice, it was more than that. He hoped to persuade me to reconvene the committee. But when I said no with firm conviction, he never raised it again. Freed of that tension, our conversations took on a more relaxed shape, and I remembered how close we’d once been.
One evening after Evangeline had gone to her room, he stretched his arms across the back of the sofa as if planning to stay awhile. He talked about the aging of our meeting, the loss of the young people, and questioned how our meeting could continue in the decades to come. I expressed regret that Daniel had quit years before.
George was quiet for a bit. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think any of my children will continue as Quakers. Not after they leave home. It’s not that they disapprove or are rebelling. Nothing like that. It’s just that silence doesn’t speak to them.
“Sometimes I wonder what is happening to their brains, the way our devices are making us all ADD. We’re like birds pecking at a feeder for the next fix of seed . . .”
George went on like this, the lilt and gravity of his ponderings familiar. Sounding, I realized, like my father. And I remembered then the times my father had not been silent, the times he opened his heart and mind to me. That night, I entered a room I’d forgotten was there. It’s hard to fully express the feeling it roused in me, being in my home with this man named George, this man who, though never having learned the lyrics or melody, was somehow singing a lost song from my childhood.
* * *
—
I DIDN’T USUALLY SEE GEORGE on the weekend and was surprised when he knocked at the door on a Saturday morning in early April. When he landed at the kitchen table and helped himself to the buttered toast I’d planned to eat, I suggested we take Rufus for a long walk.
A few minutes later, the dog was trotting down the trail before us, the alder and birch in tender leaf, bush roses starting to bud. We talked about his wife’s job as comptroller for the hospital and struggles with his kids—an adolescent crush, a disappointing SAT score. It’d been a long time since anyone had talked to me about their own concerns, particularly about their children. It was the most generous thing he could have done.
When we arrived home, I poured him a final cup of coffee, and he asked how I saw things going after the baby arrived. I told him I was feeling a little overwhelmed, that Evangeline desperately needed a woman in her life. I worried I’d made a mistake taking her in.
“I was certain God sent her to me for a reason. I’d just lost Daniel, and there she was. Alone and pregnant.”
“You knew about the baby?”
I nodded. “From the first days. But I still don’t know who the father is,” I said. “I don’t think she does either. She did know the boys though. She met them shortly before the murder.”
“And what about Lorrie? Does she know about the connection?”
“I think so. She and Evangeline got pretty close when I was in Pennsylvania.” I puffed out a laugh. “You should have seen them together, the way they would talk.”
“What happened to her?”
“To Lorrie?” I was being purposefully dense.
“Yes, Lorrie.” He lifted an eyebrow. “The woman in Evangeline’s life. Didn’t you just say she needs one?”