What Comes After

Isaac returns to his job teaching at the high school on the same day that Evangeline is supposed to start classes. She insists on walking, and he panics after she leaves, driving all the possible routes to school and believing that she’ll never come back. When he arrives at school, he feels a sense of anger at the building—at the idea that the community has let their children down out of selfishness. When he goes in, he sees Peter, who expresses concern and relief at seeing him. To Peter’s knowledge, Evangeline hasn’t arrived at school. Isaac’s colleagues express sympathy, which makes him uncomfortable. He sits in his classroom, waiting for his students to arrive, and recognizes that he’s angry at God and feels that God is mocking him after taking everything from him.

Evangeline leaves Isaac’s house intending to go to school but finds herself on a trail to a lookout above the school. She thinks about how much she wanted to go to school and how her mother had threatened to leave if she’d started school. Evangeline obeyed, but her mother left anyway. She thinks about how Isaac cares for her and treats her like a mother should: worrying about her well-being, making sure she eats, and insisting that she be home on time. She realizes that she’s afraid of what accepting this care will mean. The realization pushes her to stand and walk down to the school.

Isaac sees Evangeline in the lunchroom, and Peter asks him to point her out. When Peter sees her, his expression changes, and he asks Isaac about her past. Peter tells Isaac that there’s more he needs to know and asks Isaac to see him during his free period.

When Isaac meets with Peter, Peter tells him that he saw Evangeline get out of Jonah’s truck with Daniel a few days before Daniel was murdered. He originally thought that the figure was a boy with long, red hair who goes to the school, but the police questioned the boy, and he wasn’t with Jonah and Daniel. Peter tells Isaac that they need to contact Child Protective Services and find her a foster home, but Isaac resists, saying that his home is good for her. Peter argues that the school could get in trouble but agrees to wait a few days as long as Isaac is careful.

At lunch, Evangeline meets Natalia, who seems like she could be a friend to Evangeline. As she walks home, she considers telling Isaac about Natalia. She remembers that he was thawing chicken breasts and makes a detour to shoplift ingredients for chicken piccata. She learned to cook while her mother worked, and chicken piccata was the best thing she made. She thinks about that time with her mother and how they almost got closer until her mother began a relationship with a man named Gus. When Gus moved in, he began to look at Evangeline in a sexual way, and her mother got jealous and abusive. Evangeline shakes her head and thinks instead about how she’s starting to feel loved and maybe safe with Isaac.

Isaac walks down the school hallway, distracted by his conversation with Peter, and almost walks into Samantha, Daniel’s former girlfriend. She told the police that she broke up with Daniel, and a rumor held that Jonah killed Daniel in jealousy over Samantha, but Isaac didn’t believe that. Isaac chats with her for a minute and invites her to come to the house sometime to see Rufus.

When he gets home, Evangeline is still out. He looks in her room and feels compelled to look through her things for signs that she may have bad intentions. He looks in her backpack, finding various food items. He almost stops to avoid violating her trust, but he justifies his actions and continues “for her own good” (106).

Evangeline returns to the trailer that she and her mother lived in. When she arrived at Isaac’s house, he had Jonah’s bracelet and the newspaper clipping on the table, waiting tensely for her to return. She backed out of the door, and Isaac called after her to wait. She slammed the bottle of capers on the driveway and called Isaac a “fucking bastard” before running away into the woods. The trailer’s owner boarded up the trailer and put all of Evangeline and her mother’s things on the front lawn. Evangeline lies down on the sagging couch and thinks about what happened. She gets up and heads back to town, where the pizza place is likely throwing out leftover slices. The kid who works there gives her a pizza, and she searches for somewhere dry to spend the night.

The day after she went to the woods with Daniel, Evangeline was going to stay away from the park but decided that she shouldn’t have to give it up. When Jonah pulled up in his truck beside her, she was ready to be angry at him too, expecting him to behave like Daniel. However, Jonah was nervous and excited to see her, enjoyed talking to her, and had a gift for her. He had caught a frog and created a jar terrarium for it. She was entranced by the magical world in the jar and thanked him, but they decided to let the frog go. She felt closer to Jonah, and he checked on her when she started to get scared, earning more of her trust. She recalls how, when they released the frog, she felt magic in the night.

In Jonah’s recollection of the night at the lake with Evangeline, he felt at peace and felt that he must hold onto it. After they released the frog, they drove into Jonah and Daniel’s neighborhood. When he told her where Daniel lived, she sounded impressed, and he felt inadequate and self-conscious. They talked about their families, and he told her that his father shot himself in front of the whole family. She told him that her mother had her at 14. While sharing painful memories, he kissed her, and the world melted away. She grabbed his genitals, and he jumped, so she wiped her hand and pretended nothing happened before jumping out of the truck and disappearing. He wanted to follow her but decided to wait. She didn’t come back, and he thought he’d never see her again.

Isaac reflects on the confrontation with Evangeline. He cleans up the glass from the shattered caper jar and looks at the kitchen, seeing with new eyes what he presented Evangeline with: her only belongings strewn about like trash weighted with judgment. When he looks at Jonah’s bracelet and the news clipping, though, he feels justified because she lied to him, making him feel betrayed.

A couple hours later, he regrets his choice, recognizing that Evangeline is a child, and he takes Rufus out to try to find her. The weather is bad, and they can’t locate her in the yard, so Isaac puts Rufus inside and gets in his car, planning to check the park that she claimed she mistook his driveway for when she arrived. When he pulls into the park, Evangeline sits up in the backseat and asks if he’s looking for her. She almost jumps out of the car, but he tells her to stay. She prods him to take them home, but he yells at her to be quiet while he tries to quell his rage. They sit in the car in silence for an hour, and then he drives her to his house.

The next day, Evangeline meets Isaac in the kitchen, and he offers her breakfast, but she refuses, saying that she can make it herself or get some at school. He tells her that they must fill out forms about her abandonment, and she panics, asking if he wants her to stay. He insists that he does want her to stay but that the principal needs the forms filled out for legal reasons. He tells her that he’ll see what he can do about delaying the forms, and she leaves for school.

She remembers Social Services intervening when her mother went to rehab and sending Evangeline to foster care. Her mother came out of foster care as a born-again Christian, but Evangeline lost any sense of faith when her prayers repeatedly weren’t answered.

When Evangeline arrives at school, she goes straight to the principal’s office, and when she sees Peter, his face goes pale. She thinks she remembers him picking her up two months earlier. She isn’t certain that it’s the same man but uses a carefully veiled suggestion to push him to let the paperwork go. He changes his attitude quickly and welcomes her to the school, telling her to take any issues to the vice principal.

Isaac, concerned by Evangeline’s resistance to state involvement, finds Peter after school, and they go off campus. They sit quietly at first until Isaac asks if Peter wants to talk about Evangeline. Peter says no and apologizes for the previous day. He says that he’s now sure it was the boy he saw getting out of the truck, not Evangeline. Isaac initially planned to tell Peter about the pregnancy but decides not to in order to let Peter believe that Evangeline has nothing to do with Jonah and Daniel. Isaac tells Peter that he’s worried that Evangeline may be in danger from a former abuser, and Peter suggests sending her to live with his friend in Nevada who fosters teens. Isaac refuses, arguing that Evangeline has a place with him and that he doesn’t want to send her away as though she’s unwanted. Peter cautions him to consider what people might think of a single man taking in a teen girl, adding that Social Services forms are often misfiled and lost, suggesting that the form can be put off. Isaac thanks him and says that he’s a good man, and Peter asks him to remember that.

That evening, Isaac tells Evangeline that the state won’t be involved any time soon. She laughs with relief and cooks the chicken piccata she intended to make the previous night. At dinner, he brings up Jonah, and she’s evasive. He tells her that Peter saw her get out of Jonah’s truck and asks if the baby is Jonah’s. She gets defensive, saying that it’s none of his business, and he gets angry again, pacing around the kitchen. They argue, but when Isaac tells her that he wants her to stay, she calms down and they finish dinner. She offers to do the dishes, and he says that it doesn’t matter to her who the father is, which angers her. She insists that it does, and he realizes that she doesn’t know. She sinks to the floor with Rufus and admits that she doesn’t know.

The following Saturday, Evangeline discovers Peter and Isaac in the kitchen discussing Isaac’s lake house. Peter offers her the pastries he brought, and she hesitantly takes one. He seems to talk in code, demonstrating his closeness with Isaac. She offers to take Rufus for a walk and leaves. Walking through the woods with Rufus, she finds herself on a road that she remembers from the last time she saw Jonah. She thinks that his mother and sister might live near this spot.

When she read that Daniel was missing, she went looking for Jonah near Daniel’s house. She looked for his truck for blocks but saw no sign of him. She was about to give up when she saw his truck driving toward her. She tried to get his attention, but the truck stopped, and she ran toward it. Their eyes locked through the windshield, and he mouthed something and sped off, spraying her with gravel.

After Evangeline leaves, Peter asks if she seemed angry and blames it on hormones. Isaac wonders about the relationship or lack thereof between Peter and Evangeline. He connects this confusion to the question of who fathered her baby. This leads to thoughts about Jonah’s family. Isaac thought of them as friends, but when he reexamines their relationship, he recalls that the Geigers were secretive, and Roy’s behavior sparked concern for both Isaac and Katherine. Lorrie’s hardness also bothered Katherine. When Roy died by suicide, the Balches were away, and Lorrie called to tell them. After Daniel learned about it, he hugged Isaac for a long time—possibly the last time they ever touched.

A few days after Roy’s death, Lorrie asked Isaac to help her re-bury their family dog, which scavenger animals had dug up. She broke down at the thought of having to bury the dog again, and Isaac held her. He now has a recurring dream of holding her and seeing her slowly melt away.

Evangeline begins taking Rufus for daily walks to help her concentrate on her math and science homework. She sits at her new desk trying to puzzle through homework and looks for a pencil in her backpack. She finds Jonah’s bracelet and washes it, remembering that he told her she couldn’t wash him out of it.

The night after they released the frog, she returned to the park and found Jonah in his truck in the same spot. She hopped in and asked if he’d been there all night. Their exchange was initially awkward, but when she mentioned the frog, he relaxed, and their connection returned. They drove to the pond and had sex in the front seat of the truck. Evangeline felt loved and safe, but she tried to keep herself from feeling happy. Six weeks later, she felt justified in avoiding that happiness because she was alone and pregnant. She remembered seeing the interaction between Jonah and Daniel on the first night and realized that Daniel felt a sense of ownership over Jonah. She wondered if Jonah always hated Daniel.

Jonah didn’t hate Daniel; he loved him. On a day at school shortly after his father died, Daniel called him over to where he was sitting with other guys from school. He made fun of Jonah’s clothes, getting the other guys in on it, and for a moment, Jonah started to feel normal. However, he also saw Daniel’s look over his head at the other guys that seemed to communicate that Jonah was a loser but that they needed to be nice since his dad died. Jonah loved Daniel but never felt that Daniel loved him back.