Mr. Balch says your only hope is to listen to your soul. But best I can make out, your soul is kind of a wuss, whispering so quietly you have to have silence to hear it. It does work, though. Going still. I learned that in those Quaker meetings with him. I wish I’d kept going these last months. None of this would have happened if I had. All that quiet calmed me, opened things up inside. I didn’t feel so small anymore. If only I hadn’t gotten spooked that last meeting, hadn’t worried that Friends had seen me shaking, my hands lifting to the sky.
But on this last morning of my life, it doesn’t matter what anyone made of me that day. I’m giving it one more shot, this silent listening, hoping that what I need to know—what Red needs to know—will soon appear.
8
Jonah’s service took place a few days after Daniel’s last. It was a desolate affair with a few dozen people scattered in the funeral home’s burgundy-carpeted chapel. Katherine didn’t attend. “Let the woman bury her son in peace,” she said, and drove back to Spokane.
I didn’t speak to Lorrie that evening, choosing to sneak in a little late and leave a few minutes early. I’m not sure why I went. It did nothing to bring either of us comfort. Perhaps I wanted others to see me as spiritually enlightened. That sounds very much like me.
* * *
—
IT WAS EIGHT WHEN I UNLOCKED THE MUDROOM DOOR. Though I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, I forced myself to sit in the living room with the local paper, hoping an article on a boat race to Alaska would offer distraction. But I kept seeing Lorrie in that front row, her profile severe and sorrowful, as if her very bones had molded to her grief. And perhaps they had. I knew of no one who had suffered more. Only a year back, her husband, Roy, had killed himself. He’d endured a decade of agitated depression, one in which I’m certain Lorrie often paid the price.
Rufus trudged in and swiped a paw at the paper, knocking it to the floor. He crawled onto me and laid his head against my chest with a low moan. Eighty pounds of muscle hardly made him a lapdog, but he managed it, using his body like a sponge, as if to draw from me all that made me hurt.
As Rufus began to snore, as he dripped snot onto my funeral shirt, I thought about Jonah. From the time he was six until nearly fifteen, Jonah slept at our house most Saturday nights. If Daniel went to Quaker meeting with me in the morning, Jonah did as well. At fourteen, Daniel declared meeting a waste of time, and the boys took to sleeping in. But one Sunday, as I was about to leave, I saw Jonah sitting quietly in the living room. I asked if he’d like to join me, and he grabbed his jacket.
After that, I found him ready every Sunday, even ones when he hadn’t slept over. There he’d be, waiting outside in the pouring rain or howling wind, skinny and hunched in his too-thin jacket. Something pathetic in it, how eager he was for fatherly attention, even before his dad died.
Afterward Katherine would often ask, “How’s your wet kitten?” This was her term for the strays, whether animal or human, that I had the habit of adopting. I believed that God sent them to me for a reason. Even Rufus, a pit bull mix, had been my “wet kitten” when I brought him home sick and skinny from the pound.
From the beginning, Jonah impressed me at meeting. At twelve and thirteen, the boy could sit in preternatural stillness for an hour on that hard bench. He possessed an affinity for the Divine, a portal most of us are denied. This must sound crazy when speaking of a murderer, but it was true. He witnessed things I have only dreamed of.
The April before Daniel’s murder, Jonah stopped attending. Though he never told me why, I suspect that his last meeting shook him. A blast of Divine light inside oneself can be overwhelming. At least that’s what I’ve been told.
After that, the boys spent less time together. Jonah was a shy, unathletic boy, and I understood why he might be excluded from Daniel’s group. It wasn’t until late July, when I ran into him working at the local hardware store, that I understood how distant they’d become. We chatted briefly, and as I was leaving, he said, “Tell Daniel hi for me,” as if they hadn’t spoken in some time.
That evening, I lectured Daniel. “Our lives speak. It doesn’t matter how popular you are. What matters is how you treat others. Particularly those in need, like Jonah. You know how rough it’s been on him since his father died.”
I reminded him that I’d promised Lorrie we’d be there for Jonah. Daniel grumbled he shouldn’t have to live up to a promise he hadn’t made, but in those last few months he did exactly that. He often invited Jonah to join other friends at our house. He’d tease him like he did all the guys, and I’d see Jonah laughing, glad to be one of the group. Sometimes, though, I’d find him sitting alone in a dark corner. He’d say he was tired or not feeling well. When Daniel headed out with the other boys, Jonah inevitably chose to go home.
The boy was lonely. I couldn’t understand why he would reject the friendship offered him.
* * *
—
IT WAS A LITTLE AFTER NINE, and my legs had begun to cramp. I eased Rufus off me. I had yet to eat dinner and couldn’t remember if I’d had lunch. Though food held not the slightest appeal, I headed toward the kitchen as Rufus trailed behind. I remembered then how the dog had often followed Jonah through the house. Only a week before the murder, I’d seen Jonah on the living-room couch, Rufus in his lap, the dog’s full weight pressed against the boy.
Maybe Rufus had sensed Jonah’s inner disturbance, as tonight he had sensed mine.
9
Evangeline stood buried in the border trees. She’d found the man’s place straightaway, as if she’d been there a thousand times. As if she were coming home.
The night wind sliced into her, and she dug the denim jacket from her pack. As she layered it over her cardigan, the town’s bell tower began to toll. On the ninth and final ring, something soft brushed her lips, tender, hesitant, like the kiss of a shy boy. She swiped a filthy hand across her mouth, the taste of decay seeping onto her tongue. She scanned the lights below. There had to be a home or a shelter less haunted. But where else could she go? Where else did she have the slightest connection? She touched her belly. No. There was nowhere else. There was only here.
She forced herself onward, ignoring blackberry vines that grabbed at her hair. The drive was longer than expected, curving upward in a gentle slant. As she cleared a large cluster of firs, she saw it, a sprawling plain-faced Victorian. The house was dark, no light on in the place, and she found herself wondering if the man were dead in there, if rats were feasting. She thought that because . . . well, that’s how she thought these days.
How stupid she’d been, thinking she could imagine the boys alive and just out of sight. The moment she stepped onto the property, she’d understood that everything there, the grasses and trees, the house and patio, all the rooms inside—each thing knew exactly where the boys were and how they’d last been found.
An ancient tree with twisting limbs stood guard near a large stone patio, and she settled beneath it. She had made a decision: She wouldn’t sneak in. She wouldn’t even knock. No matter how cold or wet or inhospitable the night became, she would huddle alone outside. She would wait as long it took to be found. To be invited in. Her arrival had to appear unplanned. This was crucial. People were suspicious of unwashed girls with plans.