EVAN CRUISES SLOWLY by Frank Smith’s house, which he finds on an annoyingly pleasant, shady block among other modest houses with perfectly pruned lawns, about a half mile off of Main Street, Walla Walla. The house is a characterless late-fifties ranch-style, most likely outfitted with all the conveniences one would expect of generic Middle America: cable TV, a dishwasher, a microwave oven, and a basement full of canned goods in the event the civilized world were to end tomorrow and they were forced to fend for themselves for a year until the Lord came down to save them.

The street is lined with cars, evidence that the reception is at the Smith house and not at some undisclosed neutral location. He circles around and drives by again. He can see people inside, standing by the window, drinking punch and holding plates of food. Proof positive. Now what is he supposed to do? Crash the party? Not likely. As much as he would love a crustless egg-salad sandwich and a warm bottle of Perrier, he generally draws the line at crashing funeral banquets.

He pulls around the corner and parks. He’ll wait it out. He rolls down the windows, hoping to catch a breeze, reclines his seat, and closes his eyes. He’ll rest a while, then try again.

THEY USUALLY SPENT part of the night together. He preferred going to her house, based on some youthful notion that it would be better to be caught by her father and die a quick death from a bullet wound than it would to be caught by his own parents and die a slow death by guilt. He also preferred her house because it was darker and thicker, almost warrenlike in its depth, and completely different from his parents’ sterile, brittle, strained home.

He sneaked out of his house when all was dark and walked fifteen minutes down unlit streets until he got to hers. He climbed in her window. They fooled around, fumbled with each other, quick sessions that were silent and largely unappreciated. Sex for sex’s sake. Sex because they could. They could, and they did. Fucking for sport, she told him. Funny.

Afterwards, Tracy indulged in contraband. A pint of Seagram’s perhaps. Some Marlboros. Maybe some pot. Evan never joined in. He knew what it was like to be out of control, and didn’t seek it out voluntarily. It would be many years before he would realize the medicinal qualities of marijuana and look back on that time as a missed opportunity. But there had been so many missed opportunities; what was one more?

She told him things. She told him what she wanted out of life. He learned that her dream house was one with a white picket fence and a green, green lawn. Her dream vocation was to be a writer. Her dream family was two boys, a girl, and a dog. Her dream man was—

I’m late.

She was a half a head shorter than he was. Her hair was long, curly, thick and ash-blond. She sometimes referred to herself as Cousin It.

How late?

Late enough.

A full year older, she was a senior, he a junior. She was one of the smartest people he knew. Intuitively smart, not like his father or his brother, who were book-smart. He once overheard a teacher call her “gifted, ” and it surprised him—not that she would be gifted, but that she had never mentioned it to him.

Are you sure? Mr. Hill in Health said that some girls are too thin— girls who do gymnastics—

I took a test.

She told him once—her dream man was tall. He kept his hair cut short. It was black hair, very neat. She watched him shave every morning; his face was soft. His breath smelled like autumn leaves. He stood very straight, but not stiffly, and he wore dark suits. When he came home from work he opened the white gate and stepped sweetly up the flagstones to the stoop. He played with his children, fed the dog, drove the car, fixed the sink, and mowed the lawn. Evan was disappointed; her dream man wasn’t him. He wondered why she told him this, but he knew it was to keep him honest, to make sure he understood that his was a temporary harbor.

I’m pregnant.

They were an old couple at age seventeen, having dated since his freshman year. He loved Tracy. But he knew that he loved her more than she loved him.

Marry me.

Very funny, Evan.

Marry me.

Evan, seriously—

Yes, seriously. There was a child involved now. They could raise a child together. And that would be some great kid. Some great family, a family of love, Evan’s music and Tracy’s gift and the baby. He would be a cool kid, asking questions about everything he saw, playing ball, learning to read, to climb trees. Evan suddenly felt so tremendously happy thinking about the future. They would live in a little house, they would raise their kids, and most of all, they would be happy. They would be so happy.

Evan, Tracy said forcefully, I got accepted to Reed.

Reed College. That’s where the gifted people go.

I got accepted.

Of course she did. They would be fools not to accept her.

That’s great.

A long pause.

I’m not going to college with a baby.

He studied her face at length and knew that she was right. She couldn’t go to college with a baby. Of course not. And how would it work, anyway? How could Evan make his end of it work? He would go to his parents, lay himself at their feet, confess his sins, more sins than they could possibly have guessed. They would be disappointed in him. They would feel let down by him again. His father would accuse him of having done it on purpose. He would say something like, You sure know how to stick it to us, don’t you, Evan? Or he would look out at Evan from under his dark brow and say, I suppose when you don’t have to clean up after yourself, you don’t care how big a mess you make, isn’t that right, Evan?

How could Evan disappoint them again? First the accident, a family-shattering event. Now this. A child at seventeen? How could he let them down again?

I have money, he said. I can give you money.

She didn’t answer.

It’s the best thing, right?

Again, she didn’t respond.

It’s the best thing, he said again, trying to convince himself that it was.

Is it what you want? she asked.

It wasn’t what he wanted, no. Not at all.

Yes.

Are you sure?

Yes, he said. I’ll pay for it. It’s what I want.

A LASER BURNS his eyes. He brings a hand to his face and squints through his fingers. The reflection of the late afternoon sun off a car mirror. A burgundy minivan pulls out from a driveway. What time is it? His watch says five. That was some nap. He’s starving, but otherwise he feels good, refreshed.

He pulls around the corner and finds the street almost completely deserted. That’s good. That means the party’s over. He parks across the street and surveils the house for a few minutes. It’s quiet.

Finally, after what he thinks is long enough, and eager to get on with it, Evan pops open the door to his car and steps out into the newly energized air around Walla Walla.

Yes, that’s right. Something electric. About the situation and about the air. lonized. Tingly. For the instant Evan climbs out of his car, the front door of the Smith house opens and out comes Dean. He’s changed out of his black suit and into something a little less formal. He’s carrying an old push broom, and he begins to sweep the porch. Doing chores, even on the day of his mother’s funeral. Give the kid a break already. Still, it offers Evan the perfect opportunity.

Without thinking he swoops across the street and up the walk, hops the two steps onto the porch. He doesn’t want to think too much about it, about what he will say or how he will act. He just wants to do it. He has his feeling he can rely on. The electric feeling, the tingling, like something good is bound to come of it all. It quashes all of his natural inhibitions. It allows him to bound into a stranger’s life. Bound right in and change it all around.

“Dean, ” Evan says, arriving on the porch, looking at the thin boy, fourteen, but boyish, his chopped-salad hair, his pimples, his magnetic eyes that are like emeralds, glowing across the porch at Evan. His small hands and pink fingers, chewed fingernails, gripping the old shop broom. Feeling comfortable in his old clothes, ripped jeans cut off just above the knee, washed out black T-shirt with a Nine Inch Nails logo on it, skateboard sneakers without socks, chicken legs, knobby knees, not really comfortable in his body yet. It occurs to Evan that when he was this boy’s age, he was having sex. He was putting his erect penis into a girl. But, oh, how he would try to prevent this boy from doing the same, if he were this boy’s father. Do what I say, not what I do. Be what I should have been, not what I am.

Dean looks up at Evan, waiting for an introduction of some kind. Any kind. And Evan starts to give it. But it never finds its way out of Evan’s mouth. God damn. This isn’t stage fright. This isn’t being overcome with emotions. This is a seizure.

Makes sense. The sense it makes is too clear now. A little baby seizure, a so-called simple partial, is flipping its way though the railway that is Evan’s brain, hitting switches in the wrong direction, firing synapses out of turn and, all-in-all, causing a veritable cacophony of electrical impulses that freezes Evan in his tracks, nails his tongue to the roof of his mouth, and prevents him from speaking to his son. His own son, now not more than ten feet away.

“You’re a friend of my mother’s, ” Dean says, puzzled by Evan’s lack of presentation.

Evan stands before Dean, shaking his head. The only thing he can do. Shake his head, frustrated, angry at the implacable little fucker of a seizure rendering him mute.

“I met you at my mom’s funeral.”

The crying shame of it all. Being where you want to be and not being able to take advantage of it. Evan holds his finger to his lips. Shhh. A gesture of quiet. Shhh. It will all pass. He holds his finger to his lips and hopes that Dean will understand. No questions now. No talking. It will pass. It’s a baby. A simple partial seizure. Really very elementary when you understand the pathology of it. It begins with a misfire.

“Why are you here?” Dean asks. Evan shakes his head.“What do you want?” Shhh. “Who are you?” No.“Grandma.”

No. Not grandma. No. It’s going. The electrical firestorm. The giddy feeling that Evan had attributed to the excitement of the moment had actually been an aura preceding a seizure. He should have known. He should have sensed it. So easy. A lab rat would have known. There will be no cheese for you!

“Grandma!”

Ellen appears. It’s almost gone. Bad timing.

“Go inside, Dean, ” Ellen says sharply. She walks toward Evan. “What are you doing here?”

Finger to the lips. Shhh. It’s okay. Really. It isn’t contagious. It’s called epilepsy.

“Frank’s sleeping, ” Ellen says. “You don’t have to worry about him waking up, he took a pill.”

That’s not it.

“How did you know?” she demands.“Was it Brad?”

Evan nods. Yes, yes, it was Brad. Brad told him everything.

She allows herself a burst of rueful laughter, which seems to expel some of the anger from her system and soften her demeanor a bit. She runs her hand up her forehead. It brushes against her stiff hair. It’s been styled. Not like when she was young and Evan would see her around Tracy’s house, back in high school. She smoked back then for one thing, and drank. White-trash Mormon. Now she’s reformed.

“He looks like you, ” she says rather sadly.

The words are almost free, almost turned loose by the brain. Evan strains. He tries to speak. “Gaaa, ” is all that comes out.

Ellen looks at Evan strangely, but she ignores his sound. She’s obviously wrestling with demons of her own. Her glance darts from Evan to the door and back.

“I think you—” She stops, squeezes her eyes closed, composes herself.“You haven’t come to take him away, have you?”

He shakes his head. No, no. Not that.

“Because I don’t know what I’d do if . . . I can’t lose him again.”

Again? Lose him again? What does that mean?

She takes a deep breath and resigns herself to something.

“Please don’t make trouble, Evan, ” she says. “Tell him you’re a friend of Tracy’s, all right? Tell him you and she were very close. But—Please. Don’t take him away from me.”

She disappears into the house. A moment, then Dean emerges.

“Who are you?” Dean asks.

Evan’s ready. It’s gone. He knows he can talk if he wants to. But his confidence is understandably low. He needs a few more seconds to get things together. He motions for Dean to follow. Dean does. Evan leads him to his car, a place where he feels safe, where they are both protected. He gestures for Dean to get in; he does. They sit for a moment.

“Who are you?” Dean asks again.

Evan turns to him. The tip of his tongue.

“I’m getting out if you don’t tell me who you are.”

Evan closes his eyes. It’s right there. The tip of his tongue.

“I’m your father, ” he says softly, amazed, himself, that anything came out.

A moment of shock flashes across Dean’s face. But only a moment. Then a half-smile.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

Where are they going? He hadn’t thought they were going anywhere.

Dean snaps on his seat belt and looks forward.

Evan, startled, mimics Dean’s movements. He starts the car. Evidently they’re going somewhere. He shifts into first and pulls away from the curb. But where? He laughs to himself. He doesn’t know.