Epilogue
I shatter, and in that moment I see myself for the first time. I am an ocean of light. My Jonah mind is there, but it feels ridiculously small, as if I’ve been stumbling around this whole time in bottoms made for a newborn when I’m so huge there isn’t anything anywhere that could hold all that I am.
Not that this is news. Prophets and mystics are always talking about this stuff. Hell, Mr. Balch’s Quakers could never get enough of the One, going on about how we’re all part of a greater Divine. Only I didn’t think they meant it literally. And I definitely hadn’t put together that I was two guys: the baby-pants guy and the guy carrying a sun in him, one that could blind the world with its light. I didn’t see either of those two coming. Seems like information I could have used before now.
This being I am, this One, is surrounding that tiny human mind, swallowing it, and it’d be easy to lose that lone consciousness, like misplacing a particular grain of sand on a thousand-mile shore. But I cling to it—that puny Jonah mind—longing for one last moment of small-scale tenderness. It’s probably nothing more than a habit of desire or maybe the reflex of a dying organism. But that’s not how it feels. It feels like love, like truth, which are just different ways of saying the same thing.
See, once you understand what you’ve been all this time, understand your true dimensions, you feel sorry for what you’ve missed, for living your life completely blind. You want to tell someone you love so they won’t miss it too.
I decide to go one more place with that Jonah mind, because it turns out far more is possible in death than I imagined. I search the ocean of light for Red and find her on a boat eight months from now—or, in truth, at this very instant, because all of it is here, caught in this moment, the past and the future. She is late in pregnancy, and I am neither surprised nor unsurprised. I do not wonder who the father is. The child is mine, has to be mine. Given who I am, this One, it couldn’t be otherwise.
I feel the draw away from this pinprick consciousness, back to my true oceanic self, but I stay with that floating dot of a mind long enough to sweep into the boat. I will say the words that filled me in Quaker meeting a year ago. Words I refused to speak because I did not understand them, because I did not believe that God would choose someone like me, because I felt too small to pronounce them.
Isaac is in the salon, waiting, and Red is in the bow berth, waiting too. With the last trace of this old consciousness, I draw close to Red. I whisper into that salted air, air as thick as the sea itself, the words I was chosen to speak.
The syllables multiply a thousandfold and land on the sails and pillows, on the book Red is reading, on her wondrous hair. They glisten on the lashes of her eyes and on her warm lips, they quiver delicate and alive as if she is the one who has spoken them.
I am glowing. You are glowing.
The entire world is aglow.
Her hand goes to her belly, and she coos to the baby. Then she rises and moves toward Isaac in the salon, who glows with his own quiet light.
Acknowledgments
If ever there was a novel that has been blessed with every conceivable type of support, it is What Comes After. It started at Goddard College, where the dedicated MFA faculty—and in particular my gifted advisers, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Victoria Nelson, and Aimee Liu—urged me to remain open to my story’s mysteries even as they assisted me in finding its shape. My book then had the good fortune to land in the in-box of Mariah Stovall at Writers House, who found it in the slush pile, saw merit in that early draft, and put it before the woman who would become my wonder of an agent, the remarkable Susan Golomb. Susan and the brilliant Genevieve Gagne-Hawes helped me restructure and refine the work before sending it out into the world. Other members of the incredible Writers House team include Maja Nikolic, Peggy Boulos Smith, Natalie Media, Ana Espinoza, and Jessica Berger. And how lucky to have Rich Green representing media rights, a man with the heart, vision, and skill to help my characters find life in a new form.
There are so many to recognize in my writing life, including Jentel Artist Residency Program; the Friends at Pendle Hill, who surrounded me with stillness and loving hearts; and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, where I met Jordonna Grace and Kim Rogers, two amazing writers who have provided friendship, insight, and love for more than a decade. And I must thank the many other wonderful writers who have provided critique and support along the way. These include my Goddard cohort and alums, my Seattle and Fort Mason writing groups, and the entire Port Townsend writing community. Particular thanks are due to Nancy Kepner, who is singularly responsible for guiding me into the writing life, and to Karen Clemens, Mark Clemens, Ellie Mathews, Carl Youngmann, Debra Borchert, and the late John Zobel.
There are many family members and friends who read my work and provided much needed feedback and encouragement, in particular: Alexa Curry, Susan Smith, Becky Fulfs, Ray Tompkins, Jen Schorr, Kris Houser, Larry Cheek, Al Bergstein, Liz Leedom, George Finkle, and the late Rosselle Pekelis, who was my staunchest ally from my earliest writing attempts and whom I miss terribly. Jon Schorr should be singled out for his decades of moral support, for his joy at my slightest success.
Which brings me to Riverhead Books and the entire Penguin Random House team. I cannot imagine a better experience as a debut novelist. I have been given the highest possible level of editorial assistance, production design, and marketing. I have been treated with great kindness, respect, and responsiveness. Many thanks to Geoffrey Kloske, Jynne Dilling Martin, and Kate Stark for their faith in this project, for their work in seeing it into the world. Thanks also to Alison Fairbrother for her insightful editing, Randee Marullo for missing nothing, Helen Yentus and Lauren Peters-Collaer for their gorgeous design work, Shailyn Tavella for helping this work find readers, and Delia Taylor for making my life easier throughout this process.
And, finally, my deepest gratitude to the incomparable Sarah McGrath, my editor at Riverhead, for sharing her heart and vision and extraordinary talent with me, for challenging, guiding, and inspiring me every step of the way. What Comes After is very much Sarah’s book too.
About the Author
JoAnne Tompkins was inspired to become a writer by the human resiliency she observed in her first career as a mediator and judicial officer. She lives in Port Townsend, Washington.