What Comes After

Evangeline is supposed to go prom dress shopping with Natalia, but the pregnancy is causing frequent bathroom trips and insomnia, so she cancels. She recalls what happened in Bremerton three weeks before she met Jonah and Daniel. Peter picked her up, but when she wouldn’t reveal her age, he let her out, choosing a girl further down the street. Another man picked her up and paid extra not to use a condom. That man is now more likely to be the baby’s father than Jonah or Daniel since the doctor has officially moved up her due date by three weeks. She gets up to go to the bathroom and overhears Isaac telling George, “This thing with Evangeline. it was a mistake” (312). He says more, but she can’t hear it. She retreats to her room, planning to leave the next day and berating herself for believing in love and family.

School becomes a difficult place for Isaac as he tries to avoid the gossip about Peter. However, he increasingly spends time with George, seeing something of his father (who was also named George) in his friend. On the day when Evangeline overhears him, he’s telling George that he’s overwhelmed and worried that he made a mistake with Evangeline because she needs a woman in her life. He also says that he doesn’t care who the father is. George challenges him to bring Lorrie back into Evangeline’s life and invites Isaac to dinner. The next morning, Isaac discovers that Evangeline is gone. She left a note saying that she didn’t want to be his mistake and took $100 from him, leaving a second note promising to pay him back. He throws furniture and slams doors in fury.

Evangeline runs away to George’s boat, The Simplicity, hiding out there overnight and into the next day. She wishes that she stayed with Isaac but feels like she must face the truth that no family is real, at least not to her. She initially planned to catch a bus to the Seattle ferry, but the baby and people she knew derailed her. She thinks about stealing the boat but stays, waiting for Isaac to find her. That night, he does, and he insists that she’s not a mistake. Before they go home, she sees him brighten with an inner light, like his whole being is smiling.

Isaac talks to George, offering to replace anything Evangeline took or possibly broke, and also asks to reconvene the clearness committee. He admits in the first meeting that he knew Daniel could be cruel but that he refused to intervene, writing off the instances as youth or blaming the other parties. He admits that he admired Daniel for his aggression.

A week after Daniel’s death, Jonah decides to die by suicide, using the gun his father used. He remembers his father’s pride in the gun and how his mother wrapped the gun in the towel she used to clean up after their dog. She kept the gun after Roy’s death, and though Jonah questioned it, Nells defended the decision fiercely. Jonah compares Evangeline and Nells: Both have experienced too much and became tough as a result. He thinks of Brody, their dog, and how his death may have prompted Roy’s death. Jonah finds the gun but hides it when he hears Nells come home.

Evangeline and Isaac paint her room and set up the walk-in closet as a nursery. She again allows herself to believe that Isaac can be her family. One morning, she finds a note wishing her luck on a chemistry test and glows at the affection in it. She bends to say goodbye to Rufus, and he sneezes blood onto her and begins to hemorrhage from his nose. She runs and bangs on Lorrie’s door. Lorrie comes and helps her take Rufus to the emergency vet, who says that Rufus likely has cancer and will need surgery to reduce his suffering. Lorrie says that she’ll talk to Isaac and asks the vet to keep Rufus comfortable until he hears from Isaac.

At the school, Isaac meets Lorrie in Peter’s old office. She apologizes for destroying the evidence of Daniel’s murder. Isaac is cruel at first, but when she tells him about Rufus, he feels ashamed. Evangeline and Isaac decide to lessen Rufus’s discomfort. One night, while Evangeline is away at Natalia’s, Rufus shows signs that he’s close to death. Isaac walks toward Lorrie’s house and sees her and Nells through the window. He watches their affection and intensely feels Evangeline’s loss of a mother.

The sheriff took Jonah’s truck for processing. Jonah was sure that it would lead to an arrest, but they called and apologized, returning the truck. For Jonah, realizing that Daniel’s body might not be found, that the Balches might be left wondering forever, and that he could walk the streets as a ticking bomb were unbearable. His decision to die was primarily based on the desire to keep his loved ones safe. He wrote a note saying that he was sorry and leading the authorities to Daniel’s body. He also wrote down the reasons and what could have prevented the murder but ripped that up and flushed it down the toilet. He hugged his sister and his mother goodnight. His mother turned and stared at him, perhaps knowing what he was going to do and trying to see a way out. She couldn’t. He said goodnight and went to his room.

Isaac goes to Peter’s house, now knowing that Peter did all the things he was accused of. Peter tells him the truth about Evangeline: how he saw her while picking up a sex worker and later saw her getting out of Jonah’s truck but kept it to himself to avoid getting caught. Isaac sits with him, allowing silence to pull tears from Peter and offering forgiveness and an embrace.

In the next clearness committee meeting, Isaac says that he doesn’t know God. Through that admission, he realizes that he’s been searching for God using his ego rather than allowing God into his life. He wanted to be shown how special he was, so he spoke at meetings even though he was never moved to do so. Admitting this to the three Friends in front of him, he expects condemnation but receives love.

George, Ralph, and Isaac work together to renovate the closet into a nursery. In the process, Jonah’s bracelet is buried in the rubble. Evangeline almost goes digging for it but lets it go, choosing the life she has over the life she almost had. Isaac arranges an impromptu baby shower with Lorrie, Nells, Natalia, and Natalia’s mother and sister. Evangeline is overjoyed to have Lorrie in the house again and sees that the problem was between Lorrie and Isaac and had nothing to do with her. Them pushing past their own discomfort to give her a baby shower leads her to decide to tell them the truth about the baby’s father—to take a risk to save them from pain.

Isaac struggles to invite Lorrie to the shower, rewriting the note four times before delivering it. He forces himself to remember her at the burn barrel and to keep Daniel in his thoughts.

After the shower, Rufus’s health seriously declines. His inner eyelids stay out, and Evangeline cares for him, administering drops and feeding him from a syringe. Cancer has destroyed his sense of smell, and Isaac knows that his time is short. He comforts Evangeline and Rufus, embracing them both.

One day, after being carried outside and unable to get onto Evangeline’s bed, Rufus gets up and walks steadily to the door. Isaac watches him revisit all his old spots in the yard: the back gate, the treehouse, and the plum tree where he found Evangeline. When he comes back inside, he scratches at the upstairs door, and Isaac lets him upstairs. He goes to Daniel’s bed, and when Isaac follows him up, he sees that the vitality Rufus regained has disappeared. Isaac carries him downstairs, setting him gently on a fresh blanket on his favorite chair and singing to him.

Evangeline wakes from her nap and hears Isaac singing. She goes into the room, stopping for a moment because of a contraction, and then kneels next to Isaac, joining him in singing to Rufus. Rufus opens his eyes at the sound of her voice, holding her gaze until he dies. She throws herself on him, sobbing, allowing the grief to flow out of her.

Feeling another sharp pain, Evangeline slips to the floor, and she can’t stand when Isaac tries to help her. He calls 911, and they discover that she’s bleeding. The paramedics arrive, suspecting a placental abruption, and rush her to the hospital. She realizes that they think Isaac hurt her, given all the blood and the dead dog in the chair, and tries to convince them that he didn’t do anything.

Jonah prepares to die and remembers the day his father died. Roy was pacing around the kitchen, railing about politics. Tears were welling up in his eyes, as he was drunk already in the morning. When their dog, Brody, lost control of his bladder and slipped and fell in the puddle, Roy got his gun and shot the dog. Nells screamed and threw herself on the dog, and Roy hauled her up, holding the gun to her head. Lorrie calmly talked him down, reminding him of their lives, and he released Nells. Looking at his family, he pointed the gun at himself and pulled the trigger. Jonah interpreted this as his father winning the battle over evil, making sure that he could never hurt his family again.

Jonah puts his note in his pocket, drives to the sheriff’s station, and lines the seat of the truck with plastic and duct tape to keep the clean-up simple. He plans to have the sheriff find him to save his mother the pain.

The medical staff rushes Evangeline down a hallway to an operating room. They give her an epidural and perform a C-section. As she lies on the table, she yearns for her mother and feels acute loneliness. Isaac appears at her head, holding her hand and comforting her. The baby, a girl, is born but is immediately rushed away for observation. Evangeline is stitched up and is desperate to be with her baby.

When Evangeline wakes up, she names the baby Emma Lorrie McKensey and begs to hold her as soon as possible. Isaac watches them bond. He goes home, expecting the carnage of Rufus’s death and Evangeline’s bleed, but Lorrie took Rufus’s body to her garage and cleaned up the blood. He calls Lorrie, tells her about the baby, and thanks her. She asks if she can bury Rufus, and he agrees, saying to bury him next to Brody on the easement.

Isaac visits Evangeline the next day and holds Emma, feeling a sense of unity with life in her small form. He tells the school that he’ll be taking family leave when Evangeline is out of the hospital. When he visits her again, she tells him that he doesn’t need to stay. He asks to stay, saying that it’s too empty in the house, and tells her what Lorrie did for him.

The next time Isaac visits Evangeline, she tells him that it’s scary to be a mother, and he tells her that he’ll be home to help. He asks if Daniel is the father, and she says that he isn’t but doesn’t explain further.

Lorrie brings over some clothes, toys, and other baby items. Isaac is cold and cruel to her again, and she insists that they talk through the problem. He asks her if she thought Daniel was beautiful. She says that both Jonah and Daniel had beautiful souls but that adolescence can be violent and that Daniel could sometimes be “brutal.” Isaac breaks down, and Lorrie holds him, but he apologizes and asks her to leave.

The first week that Emma and Evangeline are home is harder than Isaac expects. Lorrie comes over with salad but never stays too long, even when Evangeline tries to convince her to stay. One night, Evangeline wakes Isaac in the middle of the night to take her to the emergency room: She has an infection. They admit her, and Isaac must take Emma home with him. Evangeline makes him promise to call Lorrie to get help with Emma, but he doesn’t.

When he returns to the hospital with Emma, Evangeline is confused that Lorrie hasn’t visited, and Isaac admits that he hasn’t called her. Evangeline is angry with him, and they argue. She tells him that neither Jonah nor Daniel is the baby’s father and that if he doesn’t let Lorrie into their lives, she’ll make a choice between him and Lorrie. She then tells him to leave.

Evangeline has some time alone with Emma while she waits for Lorrie to arrive. She didn’t intend to send Isaac away, but she now trusts him not to leave her and is unwilling to allow anyone to take love and protection away from her daughter. She understands what Lorrie did when she burned Jonah’s clothes and how difficult it must have been for Isaac to forgive Lorrie for that action. However, she wants Lorrie’s love for her and her daughter and will do what is necessary to secure as much support as she can for Emma.

Isaac goes home to a completely empty house. He realizes that he has a choice to make and walks upstairs to Daniel’s old room. He takes down the curtain to let the light in and walks through the upstairs, imagining what it could be. He looks out the window, hears the echo of a dog’s bark and a girl’s laughter, and watches the fence between his and Lorrie’s properties disappear in his imagination. He calls Lorrie. He hears Emma in the background and asks Lorrie if he can come over. For the first time, he feels God’s presence within him.

Jonah clings to his consciousness, drifting forward to Evangeline in the bow of The Simplicity. His spirit whispers to her, showing her the beauty of existence. She rises and joins Isaac, glowing with love.