In truth, when she woke in a sea of sweat with a fever of over a hundred and three and her skin turned gray, she knew her body was under a fierce assault. And the doctor told her after the surgery how terribly sick she’d been. So when Isaac hadn’t called Lorrie, hadn’t so much as let her know where Evangeline was, she was filled with a kind of fury she’d never known, a fury not for herself but for her baby.
She wasn’t going to let Isaac keep Emma from someone who would love her, would care for her, because Emma, with an abandoned sixteen-year-old girl as her mother and no father around, hadn’t exactly been dealt a great hand, had she? Evangeline would tear apart anyone who attempted to interfere with love from any source.
Sure, she was scared. What did she know of being a mother? All the more reason she wasn’t going to let Isaac drive away the only woman who’d acted as one to her this past year. Evangeline had been watching Lorrie with Nells for months, saw when Lorrie reached out or held back, when she pulled up firm or softened, how she held the reins of distance between herself and her daughter. At first, Evangeline thought it was a formula she might learn. But it didn’t take long to understand that there was no recipe or equation. Parenting was a river of moment-by-moment decisions, intuitions, a balancing of one’s own needs, which did factor in somehow, with those of the child. But mostly it was being there, truly there, with all your senses. Trusting the heart knowledge that arises with full attention. Lorrie had that. She had a gift for attention of the heart.
As for Isaac, Evangeline trusted he wouldn’t leave her. She believed this despite knowing the anger he had to battle. Lorrie had told her about burning Jonah’s clothes, about Isaac seeing. She’d told her not to burden her but so Evangeline would know “who to blame” for Lorrie’s prolonged absence in her life. “I can’t live with any more secrets,” she’d said.
Evangeline didn’t blame her. Or Isaac. Even in these first days with Emma, the love that rose up nearly choked her with its abundance, and she knew anything would be possible in defense of her child. With a love like that, she might have done what Lorrie did. And if she were Isaac, she might not forgive. She saw the impossibility of the four of them together, her and Isaac, Lorrie and Nells. Which is what she wanted. Yet she refused to believe it so. The baby had lit her on fire with love, and how could that not make the impossible possible?
Emma was sleeping now, her lips making soft burbling sounds. Evangeline whispered to her, “I don’t know shit, you know that, right? But I’m trying to arrange things the best I can.”
She didn’t say she’d be the mother she had wanted for herself, because she wasn’t sure she could manage that. She only knew she would try.
The nurse returned with a bottle of warm formula. Evangeline unwrapped the baby, stroked each perfect limb and the soles of her feet. The baby cried and made rooting motions with her head. Evangeline laid her against her bare belly and breast, tickled her nose with the bottle’s nipple until Emma latched on. And though it wasn’t her own breast, though it’d be another five days of throwing her milk away, Evangeline felt each tug of the baby’s mouth and her milk let down again, though she had pumped only a half hour before.
She heard Lorrie and Nells coming up the hall toward her room. She stroked the baby’s downy head, this child that was her and not-her and everyone else all at once, and a ferocity of love flashed through her like lightning.
Emma. This sudden bright meaning of her life. This life. This life she was holding now.
73
The house was waiting when I arrived, one side shining in the gold light of a waning sun, the other in shadow. I stood before it as I had last fall, only this time not even Rufus waited inside.
It’s a monstrous thing, really, this empty Victorian. It resides heavily on the land, alive with the terrors and joys of its passing inhabitants, not only humans and their animals but all the wild creatures that burrow under floors and creep between walls, that nestle into dark basement corners. The house breathes with the earth, sits without judgment of those who travel through.
I enter, slip off my jacket. My eyes fall on baby bottles in the sink, a spit-up rag on the arm of Rufus’s old chair. It’s an effort to breathe. I try to relax into this place, let it breathe for me. The walls expand and contract, expand and contract, and a low beat thrums in a steady rhythm as if I’m residing in an enormous heart.
Words echo from years ago. Some hearts are stronger than others. I have a choice to make, and it is much larger than the one Evangeline has set for me. I must decide how strong my heart is. How strong I want it to be. I can choose. And knowing this, I have no excuse. My life depends on it. Other lives too. Likely more than I know.
I rise. I make it up those slatted stairs to Daniel’s room. The space is musty. Dead. I go to the window and lift off the rod with its heavy dark curtain, lay it on the floor. Though it is early evening, light floods the room.
I picture the walls mudded and painted, a door installed. I go to the landing, and in the dim expanse of the second floor I see a study, another bedroom, a family space of some type. More windows form in dark walls, and from the rafters skylights appear, dispensing brightness like a blessing. The voices of a woman and a girl sing from a dark corner, and a baby coos nearby.
The house is lifting, drifting on the promise of an approaching summer. And I remember the months each year when windows and doors are thrown open, when the house billows with the slightest breeze, transformed into a vessel with sails, its occupants in glorious flight.
I return to the bedroom and open the window to cleanse the stagnant air. The back field radiates a stunning teal, and beyond that, Lorrie’s kitchen shines like a star. Even as my eyes rest on all this, the fence between our lots begins to shimmer, then disappears. A dog barks, and a small girl laughs, their shadows darting between the border trees.
* * *
—
I AM DOWNSTAIRS NOW. I hesitate by the phone, my hand unwilling. But I manage it, those last few steps. I pick up and dial. It rings three times without answer. I worry she’s seen my name and is refusing the call. The fourth ring breaks halfway through.
“Isaac?” Her voice is breathless, as if she’s dashed to catch the call. “Isaac? Are you there?”
I hear the Divine seeking a response to all that has been offered. Am I here? Am I willing to be truly alive to what is before me?
My heart answers yes, pummeling my ribs with a percussive rhythm so fierce I am certain Lorrie can feel it in her own chest. I try to shape words, but my lips are trembling, vibrating with the ferocity of the Divine. At long last, I feel God beating my heart, and I understand. God has been in me all these years, never once leaving me. God has been waiting patiently all this time, waiting for me to say yes.
“Lorrie,” I say, and my heart finds a sudden calm, an unexpected peace. I take a breath, and it’s easier now. I hear Emma mewl, a soft whimper, so close. She must be in Lorrie’s arms.
“Lorrie,” I say again, her name spoken as benediction, as proof of what is possible. I pause and feel inside me the pulse and weight of this woman and child. When I speak, the words form a prayer.
“I know it’s getting late, but I’m wondering if I might stop by.”