That afternoon, I told Evangeline she wouldn’t have to worry about the state. She bit her lip, then burst out laughing. “Shit can have its upside!” She flung her happiness at Rufus, giving him an exuberant hug.
A half hour later, as I was pulling chicken out of the fridge, she shooed me away, said she would cook “something amazing” in celebration. “I don’t suppose you saved any of those capers from yesterday?”
I laughed. In a day, I’d gone from a fucking bastard to a man deserving a special meal. “Not a chance,” I said. “You got them to cook for me?”
She blushed. “Just chicken piccata. It’s not that hard. It’ll be okay with lemon and Parmesan. We have butter, right?”
I nodded, the word “we” blooming in my chest.
I’M NOT SURE WHY I REFUSED TO LET THINGS BE. At least for that one night, at least for the dinner she’d stolen ingredients to prepare for me. I’d have to talk to her about the stealing. Even that would have been a better topic than the one I chose.
I had finished my second helping of chicken and once again exclaimed that it was delicious, a true marvel. Evangeline’s face was lit with the delight of having pleased me when I said, “Tell me about Jonah.”
She coughed, and I could see her mind scrambling for a story. She swallowed and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Jonah? The Jonah?”
I nodded.
“Wasn’t he your son’s friend? Your neighbor? What could I possibly know?” She spoke not to me but to the remnants of chicken on her plate that she pushed around with a fork.
Had she not seen his bracelet on the table? “I recognized Jonah’s bracelet. And Peter—Principal Thibodeau—saw you get out of his truck shortly before the murder.” I chose not to mention Peter’s recanting.
She looked startled but collected herself, her expression turning to cool interest. “Yeah? Did he say that at the time? I heard everyone was pretty hell-bent on finding ‘persons of interest.’”
“The baby. Is it Jonah’s?”
She wiped her hands on the napkin, slowly, deliberately, and said, “My sex life isn’t exactly your business.”
I managed to sit there, my heart pounding, the confusion and anger and grief from the prior night rearing up, more powerful for a day of denial. Why such a rage gathered now, why it battered the cage bars of my ribs, set everything to rattling, I didn’t understand. I jerked upright, my chair crashing back. Rufus lunged at me, howling as if I were the danger. “No!” I shouted. He sat in reflex, but the muscles of his forehead and the bulk of his haunches remained tense as he kept a fierce gaze on me.
Fury poured into my legs, paced me about the room.
“Why don’t you just say it?” Evangeline shouted. “You want me gone and I’ll go. I won’t ask one more lousy thing of you. Then who is or isn’t the father of my baby will be of no concern to you.”
I wheeled to face her. “Unless it’s Daniel’s. Unless it’s my grandchild. Then it is my concern, don’t you think?”
She smiled, a mean-edged iciness lighting her face. “That so?” she said. “Grandparents have legal rights here? Grandparents can order parents around? Because it seems to me, whoever the daddy is, that daddy isn’t here, and as I’m pretty clearly the mama, I get to call the shots.”
I sat and steadied my breath. This cool control was an aspect of Evangeline I hadn’t seen, though it didn’t surprise me. How else had she survived on her own?
“Are you saying I am a grandparent?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No. You didn’t.”
She pushed back from the table and stood as if to leave.
“I want you to stay.”
She’d set her mouth in a tight, cruel line. It faltered, then hardened again. “Let me get this straight. You think this may be the baby of your son’s killer, and you want me here?”
“I don’t know what I think. But I do know that whatever happened isn’t that baby’s fault.”
She remained standing as if willing to be persuaded, her mouth and eyes softening, and though I’d said all that mattered, I started rambling as people do when they’re at a loss. “I know that baby deserves a warm home and good nutrition and doctor checkups. I know you’d do anything for that baby, Evangeline. I see that in you.”
She lowered herself, picked up her fork, and took the last bite of chicken. “Okay, I’ll stay for the baby, I guess.” Her tone was weary, as if having a warm bed and ample food were a sacrifice only love for her child would allow her to bear.
“We’ll get it worked out,” I said. “You and I. We’ll figure it out.”
We finished our dinner peaceably, and Evangeline insisted on washing up.
“But you cooked,” I said. “You know the deal. Whoever cooks, the other one cleans.”
“I feel like it, okay?”
This felt like an apology, so I said, “That’s nice of you. Thanks.”
I set about clearing the table as she filled a dishpan full of hot, sudsy water and begun scrubbing the sauté pan. That’s when the beast reared again, this time in the guise of fake indifference. “It doesn’t matter who the father is,” I said. “Not to the baby it doesn’t, at least not for now. And if the father can’t be around, I’m glad it doesn’t matter to you either.”
“I never said that!” she snapped, pulling her hands from the water, wiping them on her jeans as if readying for battle.
“Never said what?”
“That it doesn’t matter to me.”
“It certainly doesn’t seem to,” I said, no longer muting my anger. “Even if the father isn’t around, you show no interest in finding his family, other relatives who could help with the child.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know me. You certainly don’t know what matters to me.”
I’d grown tired of her obfuscations. “How could I, when you’d rather lie than tell the simplest of truths?”
“I don’t lie! I don’t ever lie! If the facts don’t match up with the truth, is that my fault?”
She was speaking in riddles, and I started to leave.
“Fine,” she said to my back. “You want to know a little something about me? You want the truth? Well, it matters to me who the father is. It matters a hell of a lot.”
I turned to her, studied the defiant set of her mouth. “You don’t know, do you?” My tone was more of wonder than judgment, and perhaps that’s what allowed what happened next.
She exhaled and palmed her belly. Rufus sidled up and nuzzled his head against her thigh. A gentleness entered her face. She didn’t look at me, just slid down the cabinets until she sat on the floor. Rufus rested his head on her lap, and she ran her hands over his ears and muzzle, over the muscular length of him, each stroke full of intention, as if her motions were words. Gathering his face in her hands, she turned it toward hers, their noses almost touching, and whispered, “That’s right. I don’t know. I don’t have the faintest idea, do I, boy?”
It was the first thing she’d said of any importance that I fully believed.