Evangeline was unlocking the back door after school when a voice came from behind. “We need to talk.”
She spun around. Lorrie sat in a patio chair, overgrown shrubs having blocked her from view as Evangeline approached. “Jesus! That’s a shitty thing to do.”
Lorrie stood and said, “Shittier than lying about not being here? Shittier than ignoring someone bringing you food?”
“I wasn’t here! I have friends, you know.” Evangeline heard how childish she sounded, and she looked away, which was as much of a concession as she was willing to make.
Lorrie studied her. “Of course you have friends.” Her tone had softened, like she was sad Evangeline had to lie about such a thing, and this made Evangeline want to shout, I do have friends, I do. I was at Natalia’s house on Saturday. But she’d only be defending one lie while confirming another.
“Let me come in, okay?”
Evangeline turned, then stopped, said, “Hey. Why wasn’t Rufus going bonkers with you out here?”
“Rufus never barks at me when the house is empty. No one to protect, I guess. That’s how I knew you were here last night.”
Evangeline’s face was burning as they entered the kitchen. Once inside, Lorrie asked if she wanted tea or a glass of milk, as if this were Lorrie’s house and Evangeline the unexpected guest.
“Tea sounds nice.”
Lorrie was an ocean wave, a gravitational force you would cede to in the end, and Evangeline decided to give in early, felt calmer for relinquishing control.
Once they were seated with their teas, Lorrie said, “This is about Jonah, isn’t it? You didn’t know I was his mother?”
Evangeline nodded.
Lorrie’s mouth went slack. “So. You did know Jonah?”
“Wait. What? But you knew. Didn’t you? You were fishing just now?”
She half smiled. “I had a hunch. I’d heard the rumor about Rebekah Miller but never believed it. I’m not sure why. I don’t know her at all, but she doesn’t seem like a girl Jonah would fall for. When I met you, my first thought was that Jonah would have liked you. Then your reaction with Nells.”
Evangeline let out a breath. “I only met Jonah a few times.”
Lorrie gazed at her tea. “Sometimes it only takes once.”
Evangeline didn’t know if she was talking about love or sex or something else entirely. “Did Isaac tell you anything more about me? Other than about me being pregnant, I mean.”
“No. He didn’t tell me about your pregnancy either, not exactly. I figured it out. He was concerned about your health and nutrition.”
“Isaac’s a bastard,” Evangeline said, her heart not in it.
“For being concerned about your health?”
“Not that. I don’t know. I feel like he set us up.”
“Does he know about you and Jonah?”
“He asked me about him.”
“About Jonah? Why?”
Evangeline fidgeted with her cup. “I’m not sure.”
“What did you say?”
“When he asked about Jonah?”
Lorrie nodded.
“I yelled at him. Well, actually, I called him an effing bastard but, you know, the whole f-word.”
Lorrie laughed. “Doesn’t sound all that informative.” She set down her tea. “Here’s what I know about Isaac: If he doesn’t know for sure, he’d never speculate with someone else. He’s not one to spread tales. Personally, I’d trust a discreet man over a gossipy one any day.”
Maybe Lorrie was right, but it seemed a risky business, Isaac going out of his way to throw them together without filling them in.
They sat with that awhile, gripping their cups like buoys in a rough bay. Evangeline guessed all kinds of things were going through Lorrie’s head right then, like whether Jonah was the father of her baby and did she have anything to do with his death. At least that’s what was going through hers.
Finally Lorrie said, “Jonah told you about Nells?”
“Yeah.” Evangeline said. “I wish Isaac had told me Jonah lived next door. I might have put it together if I’d known. Though Jonah doesn’t look much like you—well, in build, maybe.”
She’d made a mistake with the present tense. Evangeline saw it in Lorrie’s face, but it couldn’t be taken back.
“He looked like my dad, actually. Dad was wiry like that. As for Isaac, I’m sure he did what he thought best. Or maybe he was too overwhelmed to think clearly. This past year, the poor man lost his wife and his son. His mother died when he was eight, and his dad about five years back. Now his father’s last sibling is failing. It’s a lot for a body to handle.”
Evangeline hadn’t thought about any of that. Not really. Shit. What did it mean about her that she could be so self-absorbed?
Maybe Lorrie read her mind, because she said, “And you. All alone and pregnant. Only sixteen. You must be scared out of your gourd. I don’t know your story, but I do know you’re tough.” She let her eyes rest on Evangeline. “I know tough when I see it, and you’re it.”
Evangeline wondered if Lorrie meant cold or mean or rough, but she knew she didn’t. Lorrie meant she was strong, that she and the baby would make it.
“If you’d be willing, I’d love you to tell me about Jonah sometime,” Lorrie said.
“Tell you?” What could she know that his mother didn’t, except for things she couldn’t say—like how his mouth tasted of cinnamon or that they’d had sex only that one time and he’d been so embarrassed because he’d come practically on entry, and how none of that mattered because when his eyes met hers, it was as if he had entered her everywhere all at once.
“Only if you want,” Lorrie said. “There might be private things between you two—or not—but you know, how you met, what you talked about, that sort of thing. It would be like . . . I don’t know, like finding pictures of him I’d never seen.”
Evangeline said she’d have to think about it. Lorrie didn’t press, and they spent the next half hour talking about school and the hassles of pregnancy. When Lorrie left around four, she said, “See you at six?” and Evangeline nodded yes.
THAT NIGHT, Evangeline went into her closet and fumbled at the back of a tall shelf until she felt the bracelet. She’d hooked it over a nail up there so it wouldn’t get lost.
The day after Jonah had tied it on her wrist, Evangeline decided to stay away from the park. While she would take pleasure in breaking some boys’ hearts, she had no interest in hurting Jonah. His nerves were already primed to ignite, and he wore his love for his sister and his mother like wounds. All that intensity. It made her body buzz as if a million bees had landed and might begin to sting.
But at six, as evening closed in, she couldn’t stand the thought of him searching for her not knowing what had happened. Earlier in the day, she’d thrown the bracelet in the garbage. She dug it out, rinsed off what might have been ketchup, and tied it back on. She walked to the park and waited. With no sign of Jonah, she started home at eight, trudging up the forested road, twirling the bracelet, wondering for the thousandth time if she’d misread his feelings.
She was huffing, nearly home, when she heard thrashing in the woods. She stopped and the racket grew louder, limbs snapping, feet or hooves pounding closer and closer, echoing on ground that seemed hollow. Then the trees exploded, the monstrous thing bursting from the branches.
It landed not ten feet from her, solid as a wall. A big buck. Powerful shoulders and haunches and neck, a spiked and dangerous rack. They stared at each other, the deer’s eyes wide. It hesitated, then took a step toward her. She leaped back, and it went rigid, the two of them frozen like that. Then, ever so slowly, as if she could be fooled into not noticing, the animal lifted a front hoof and moved it forward one fraction of an inch. She wanted to shout, You know I can see you. I’m standing right here. And maybe it read her mind, because the leg froze. Then bam! The leg went down and propelled the beast airborne, where it vanished into the trees.
Her heart was still racing when she made it home, her sweater soaked through despite the cool night. Even the mail with its bold red notice of pending electrical shutdown seemed unworthy of note, and she tossed it aside. She wondered why the buck had upset her like that. This was hardly the first one that had burst from the trees. Cars were always hitting deer on the dark back roads.
It wasn’t until she climbed into the broken sofa bed that she noticed the bracelet was missing. She thought back and could almost feel it flying off when her arms had flung in surprise. Just as well. It’d been a mistake to accept the thing. But she kept touching her wrist, expecting to find it in her fingers.
She had just fallen asleep when the buck landed before her again. A dark oiliness spread at its neck, and its nostrils flared in effort. Buried in its exhalations was an odor bitter with adrenaline. Then a sudden noise, a harsh, guttural clunking like a machine irreparably broken. She woke panting, a branch scraping across the metal roof.
The next morning, she retraced her steps, but everything looked different in the day. It was pure luck that she glanced over when she did, saw the pathetic rag of a thing caught in a thicket. She clambered up and almost had it, but on a final thrust, her foot slid from beneath her. When she regained her balance, the bracelet had fallen deep into the long-thorned brambles, well beyond her reach.
NOW EVANGELINE RETURNED IT TO THE NAIL ON THE SHELF, glad she had managed to retrieve it. She would tell Lorrie about the bracelet. The tenderness of it—Jonah’s love for Nells and maybe the tiniest bit for her. Lorrie could know that.