Evangeline woke on a Saturday in early April, victim to her baby’s anger-control problems. The baby veered toward combat, battling cramped conditions with sharp-edged kicking and punching, as if hoping to expand territory by busting out a few of her ribs. Evangeline’s previously underappreciated bladder and lungs were relegated to a fraction of their former space, forcing her to breathe double time up hills and race to the bathroom every ten minutes.
Her heart too was burdened by the alien’s demands. No longer able to fully circulate fluids, it allowed them to remain boglike in her ankles and feet. She’d press a finger into the bloat of her lower legs and the dent in her flesh would stubbornly persist, a warning that vanity—for Evangeline had always been proud of her slim ankles—was something she would have to set aside.
At nine thirty, Evangeline arrived in the kitchen to find a note from Isaac: Out walking Rufus with George. Have fun in Silverdale. Natalia was coming by at ten for a shopping trip. She wanted Evangeline’s help picking out a dress for prom. Evangeline wasn’t going, though Scottie Wilkerson had asked her, and he was nice. She didn’t even mind his stutter, but she couldn’t imagine finding a dress that would fit. Besides, she liked how disappointed Scottie had looked when she turned him down. It gave her hope.
She hadn’t slept well, and after having to pee for the third time in a half hour she called Natalia and said she was sorry, the baby was bouncing on her bladder like a trampoline and wouldn’t let her go. Natalia laughed and said she’d miss her. Evangeline returned to her room and crawled under her covers. She nearly cried at the comfort of this place, at the thought that she might lose it.
She patted the bed, coaxed up Rufus. He made the leap, but his hind legs didn’t quite catch, and he tumbled to the floor. “Rufus!” she laughed. “Come on. You can do better than that.” He fixed his eyes on her, pumping his hind legs. This time, he caught enough of the bed so she could grab him and give him a boost.
She studied him. His nose was as runny as ever, and his expression seemed slightly alarmed, probably from the fall. When she thought about it, he might have lost a little weight, but still, he was the same dog he’d always been. She pulled him into her. “I have you no matter what, don’t I, boy?”
More and more, she made a point of listing what she had. She would look around her room, at all she’d been given, and let it sink in, these signs that someone cared for her. For months, she’d dismissed it, assumed it was some new manipulation, refused to feel the love offered her. She regretted that now.
The night Peter resigned, she had wanted to force Isaac to choose between his friend and her. But even as she’d started to speak, she realized the universe had already made the choice for him, had revealed Peter for what he was. Thank goodness she’d been so vague and nonsensical that she could forgive Isaac his lack of belief. Thank goodness she could still tell herself, I have Isaac! I have Isaac! I have Isaac!
Only she knew she didn’t. Not really. During these early-April days, as nonstop rains sent grasses springing waist-high in the fields and left jackets and shoes continually damp, an impossible swamp grew between her and the man. There was a fundamental truth she had yet to speak: the baby wasn’t Daniel’s, wasn’t either of the boys’. This past week, Dr. Taylor had changed her due date from June 9 to May 19. There’d been no talking her out of it.
Evangeline pictured herself three weeks before she met the boys. She’d snuck onto that bus to Bremerton, a naval town ninety minutes to the south. She had told herself she was going because a girl needed to get out of town once in a while. If she’d heard of a street where a girl could make a tidy bundle in an afternoon . . . well, that was just an interesting cultural aside.
A draft lifted her bedroom curtain until it curved pregnant with the empty air, and she let herself picture the man. The man was not Peter. True, Peter had stopped that August afternoon. He’d leaned over and opened the car door, and she had slid in. His hands gripped the wheel, but he didn’t pull out. He stared straight ahead, something desperate in that adamant blindness. Then he turned to her and his hands dropped.
“How old are you?”
“How old do you want me to be?” she said.
He shook his head, his mouth rigid, his eyes returned to the distance. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were someone else.” She got out, and he sped off. But she saw him stop a block down, by a girl who’d done herself up to look older. That girl must have known the answer he wanted, because she climbed in and they drove away.
The man Evangeline had to picture now pulled up not ten minutes later. He didn’t ask her age or anything else. He simply told her to get in. She remembered his thinning hair, the way his pale, nearly pink scalp showed through the long dark strands. She had focused there, not wanting to know the shape of his lips or the color of his eyes, realizing only now that his naked scalp was the most intimate of all, the way it forced her to feel his insecurities and vanities, his longing for what had been lost.
He offered her an extra forty if she’d “skip the rubber,” said he was a family guy, that he never did this type of thing, that he was “very clean.” She calculated how much food she could buy with that, then tried to remember where she was in her period. It’d been weeks, and she’d had some cramping earlier in the day, so she said okay.
When she climbed into that car, she had no home, no family, no friends. No one in the world who cared what happened to her. As far as she could tell, no one knew she existed at all. She had started to wonder if she did. Condom or no, how could it possibly matter?
When it was over, when he’d come in a burst of rigidity as if electrocuted, she retrieved her panties and her small purse that’d fallen to the floor. Beneath the seat was a Barbie wearing a sparkly pink gown. She pulled it out. He took it from her and held it, looking small and ashamed. He smoothed down the doll’s dress, almost tenderly, then set it on the backseat. He peeled two more twenties from his money clip and tossed them into her lap, his gaze, like Peter’s, fixed in the distance. It was as if he were throwing money into an empty seat.
And that was that. Her one and only john. She could not survive more. Her mother had undoubtedly managed the life longer. Maybe her mother had been stronger. Or weaker. Maybe it was all the men and the universe of ways they had restrained her, entered her, spewed on her, that had made it not only possible but necessary to leave her teenage daughter.
The baby shifted. Evangeline rubbed her belly, cooing, and the baby stilled. Had she known for a while that neither boy was the father? Sometimes she thought she had. That she had purposefully fooled herself. She needed one of the boys to be the dad. Why else would Isaac or Lorrie care about her? Sometimes she thought she’d known she was pregnant before she ever met the boys. Maybe that’s why she’d been so reckless with Daniel and eager with Jonah. Maybe she’d wanted to create other possibilities for her child.
She got up again, needing to pee, wanting to stop thinking of all her lies and how they’d poisoned what might have been. On her way back, she heard George and Isaac talking in the kitchen. She was shuffling up in her stocking feet when she heard her name. She stopped. There it was again. She realized Isaac must think she was on her way to Silverdale and inched forward, pressing herself to the wall just outside the kitchen door.
“You’re right, but I can’t be her mother. I’m an old man.”
“Fifty hardly makes you old. You’re the same age you were with Daniel.”
“Look at these hands. They belong on a ninety-year-old. But you’re right. Maybe it’s the thought of the baby that makes me feel old.”
They were quiet a few moments, just the sound of mugs being lifted and set down. “This thing with Evangeline. It was a mistake. She—”
Evangeline didn’t hear what was said after that. She tried but couldn’t. A voice in her head was mocking her. How many times would she be made a fool! She retreated down the hall, threw herself onto her bed. She began beating her thigh with her fist. Harder and harder, not able to stop. She needed to prove she was real, made of blood and bone and flesh that could bruise. She beat herself until she was certain of the proof, then let her arm fall limp at her side.
She stayed in her room, sore and exhausted, staring at the ceiling. She stayed until she risked peeing right then and there, barely making it to the bathroom in time. When she came out, Isaac stood in the hall.
“I thought you were in Silverdale.” An accusation.
“I canceled. I was awake all night, so I went back to bed after breakfast.”
He searched her face. “You okay?”
“Sure,” she said. She walked toward the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “When is George going to take us out on his boat again? That was fun.”
“You know,” Isaac said, his voice brighter, “I didn’t ask him, but it’s a good idea. You think you’d be up for it?”
She said absolutely, though this made no sense. She couldn’t manage a shopping trip with Natalia. Isaac followed her into the kitchen, as if to examine her features in better light. The pleasant expression she planted on her face must have been convincing, because he gave a relieved sigh and said cheerfully, “I’ll ask him. I will.”
He started to leave, then turned. “In fact, he invited me over for dinner tonight. I’m sure he would have invited you too, but I told him you planned to eat on the way home. Should I give him a call?”
Evangeline said no thanks, she was still pretty tired and thought she’d head to bed early.
“I’ll stay and fix dinner.”
“No,” she said. “You go.”
“You’re sure?”
She said she was, and he said well, okay.
Her room, when she returned to it, appeared no more real than the set of a childhood play, the chandelier and carved headboard mere props. How strange that she’d ever believed she belonged to this place. Isaac was right: any thought that she had, that she was a relative of sorts, was based on a mistake.
She took a deep breath and released it into the room. So, she thought, this is my last day with the man.