For our fifth date, Evan invited me to his house so he could cook me dinner. In the three weeks since the morning I’d boldly given him my number, we’d met for coffee two times, and he’d taken me out to lunch twice—all were limited, casual interactions that left me wanting to know him better. I had learned that he was forty-one, nine years older than me. I knew his father taught him everything about being a mechanic and that his mother had died when he was thirteen years old. I knew he moved to Phoenix when he was twenty-six, following a girl he ended up being married to for ten years, and then divorcing five years ago, about the same time I was released from prison. I knew he had a brother he wasn’t close to and that losing both of his parents had left a black mark on his heart. I knew that Scout was his best friend.
As was my habit, I’d used broad strokes to paint the picture of my past. He knew that my father had left my mother and me when I was twelve, and that now, my mother had remarried and we were estranged. He knew I considered Randy and Lisa the family that I’d chosen, and that training service dogs and my work with animals in general was what fed my soul.
“Dogs are the best,” he said. “Pure, unconditional love. You can’t get that anywhere else.” I told him I one hundred percent agreed.
Luckily, Scout had responded well to the first course of meds, and ended up only having to board at the clinic for three days. Randy guessed he’d eaten something rotten; sometimes food poisoning in dogs manifested with the same symptoms as an infection.
He showed no signs of it now, as he greeted me, barking and tail wagging in a circle when I climbed out of my car. I opened the rear door and let Trixie out, too. When Evan had invited me over, he’d insisted that I bring her along. The house his father had lived in and had left to Evan was about ten minutes from my place, and was located on several acres of flat, lush land. The house itself was a newer rambler with lots of windows and a porch that circled around the back. The enormous gray outbuilding that served as Richmond Automotive was about a hundred yards away from the house and had its own driveway. There were a variety of vehicles parked by what looked to be a rolling garage door; Evan had said since he’d taken over for his father, business was as strong as ever. His brother hadn’t even come to their father’s funeral; apparently, he was a financial adviser who worked on Wall Street and told Evan to ship whatever token his father might have left him. I found it comforting, actually, that Evan knew a little about dysfunction, that he didn’t have some picture-perfect family. It made me a little less self-conscious about my own. I doubted that I could tell him about Brooke and Natalie—I hadn’t even told Randy and Lisa about the daughters I’d given up. Just the thought of mentioning the loss of my children made me feel as though I were teetering on the edge of a dark abyss. Uttering a single word about them might cause me to plummet.
I made my way up the walk to the house, holding a plateful of brownies I’d baked for our dessert, trying to erase a twitchy sense of uneasiness. I hadn’t told Evan about the years I spent in prison, either. I wasn’t sure if there was a protocol for that kind of thing—was incarceration a fifth-date conversation or something that should come later? Should I have done it right away? I wasn’t even sure what it was about Evan that had made me give him my number, let alone say yes when first he asked me out. All I knew was that from the minute I saw how he was with Scout, the unabashed tears he’d shed in worry over the animal he loved, I felt as though I’d met someone who might understand me.
I knocked on the door, both Scout and Trixie dancing excitedly at my feet, and a moment later, Evan answered. “You made it,” he said, giving me a big smile that helped assuage my nerves. He stood back so I could enter, then took the plate I carried from me. “These look amazing. So do you.”
My cheeks flushed and I dropped my eyes to the floor. “Thanks.” I’d worn a short black skirt, black tights, and a purple sweater. I forced myself to look up at him again, taking in his casual outfit of jeans and a dark green pullover. “You look nice, too.”
He closed the door behind me, leaving Scout and Trixie outside to play. The stereo was on, and Eric Clapton crooned the chorus of the heartbreaking “Tears in Heaven,” a song that always made me think about my girls, because even though Eric Clapton’s son had died and Brooke and Natalie were still alive—at least as far as I knew—I had lost them all the same. There was a large plaid cushion that rested in front of the fireplace—Scout’s bed, I assumed. The living room wasn’t huge, but it was filled with a comfortable-looking brown leather couch, a couple of recliners, and a standard coffee table, which was littered with newspapers, several automotive magazines, and a coffee mug.
“I hope you don’t mind I didn’t pick up,” he said. “I actually think it’s a good idea for people to see how the other really lives. I’m not a slob, but I don’t exactly keep things neat.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Are the dogs going to be okay out there?”
“They should be,” he replied. “Scout already knows this property like the back of his paw.” He smiled, and so did I.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked as we made our way into his kitchen.
“A beer would be great,” I said, eyeing what looked to be a simple but functional galley kitchen. The walls were painted light blue, the appliances were white, and the cupboards were oak. The air smelled of onions, garlic, and some kind of citrus.
Evan set the plate of brownies on the counter and then reached into the refrigerator to pull out a couple of Coronas. “Would you like a glass?” he asked, and I shook my head. He smiled again, popped off the caps on both, and then handed me one of the bottles. We clicked their long necks together as we both said, “Cheers.”
I took a swig and then glanced at the stove top, which had a large pot on the front left burner. “What are we having?” I asked, grateful for the warm, soothing sensation that filled my body after that first swallow. I wasn’t a big drinker, but I did enjoy a beer or glass of wine on occasion. Especially on nights like tonight, when my nerves were a little on edge.
“Tortilla lime chicken soup,” Evan said. “I don’t know why it’s called that because there aren’t any tortillas in it, but I think I remember you saying that Mexican food is your favorite, so I thought I’d give it a go.”
I smiled, flattered that he’d remembered something I’d barely mentioned during one of our dates, then took another sip of my beer. “Do you like to cook?”
“I do.” He paused to take a drink, then pushed a bowl of chips and another of salsa in my direction. “What about you?”
I nodded, embarrassed to tell Evan where it was that I’d learned to cook, and who had taught me. “But since I live alone, sometimes it feels like too much work, you know? It’s easier to order takeout.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” he said, smiling.
We both grabbed for a chip, and then he motioned for me to taste the salsa first. It was a spicy explosion of sweet, fiery tomato, garlic, onion, jalapeños, and fresh cilantro. “Oh my god,” I said, holding a hand in front of my mouth as I spoke so I wouldn’t spit out any crumbs. “Did you make this?” He nodded again and tried some as well. “It’s phenomenal,” I said. “Seriously. You could bottle and sell it.”
“Thanks,” he said, clearly pleased. A few minutes later, after we’d talked about how our workdays had gone, he pulled a couple of soup bowls from the cupboard and used a ladle to fill them with the soup on the stove. There was no dining room, but there was a table in the kitchen, which I just then noticed had two small votive candles burning in its middle. “Let’s eat,” he said, carrying the bowls over. I picked up the chips and salsa and followed him, only to be interrupted by the sound of a dog whining and scratching at the back door.
“They must have sensed it was time to clean up anything we happen to drop,” Evan said as he set the bowls down and took a couple of steps over to open the back door. Scout trotted inside with his white-tipped ears perked, still whining at his master. He was alone.
“Trixie!” I called out, hoping she was just outside, behind her playmate. I whistled, the short, sharp noise I used to call her in when we were at our own house. She didn’t appear. “Oh, no,” I murmured, dropping the two bowls I carried to the table. Salsa spilled out onto the light blue tablecloth, a fact I barely registered.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Evan said, but we both ran out to the back deck. It was already dark and there was no moon. The sky was inked with heavy clouds.
“Trixie!” I yelled again. “Come here, girl!” I whistled again, but the sound broke. She can’t be gone.
“Wait just a sec,” Evan said. He turned around, went back into the house, and quickly returned with our jackets and a flashlight. He helped me on with my jacket, then put on his own. After closing the back door, we both headed into the yard, calling out Trixie’s name.
“Where is she?” I asked, unable to keep the panic and desperation from my voice. My head began to spin. Oh, god. Is it happening again? I hadn’t felt this way since the morning in the park with the little girl who fell down, all those years ago. Despite the icy air of the February evening, I started to sweat.
“She couldn’t have gone far,” Evan said. “Has she ever done this before?”
“No!” I said. I peered into the field, unable to see more than ten or fifteen feet in front of us, even with the flashlight. “I shouldn’t have let her stay outside. We have a fence at home. Maybe she got confused. What if she’s gone? What if she got hit by a car?” I began to feel as though I couldn’t catch my breath. I bent over, my hands on my knees, my heartbeat pounding between my eardrums. “No!” I cried. “No, no, no! I can’t lose her!” All I could think about was Brooke and Natalie, the last time I held them. The day the social worker carried them away.
Evan stepped over and crouched next to me, putting his long arm over my back. “Hey,” he said. “It’s okay. Come on now. We’ll find her. I promise. You have her chipped, right? If she’s lost, someone will take her to the shelter.” His words were distorted, sounding as though they were traveling to me underwater.
I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut, feeling as though my skin had been shrink-wrapped and was now too small for my body. This is my fault, I thought. I shouldn’t have stepped outside my routine. I never should have given him my number.
And then, I heard a familiar bark. My head snapped up, looking with blurry eyes in the direction from where the sound had come. “Trixie!” I yelled, and less than a minute later, she appeared, racing toward us, tail wagging. I threw my arms around her, and she licked my face, trying to wriggle away. She was wet and smelled horrible, as though she’d found something foul in which to roll. “How dare you do this to me?” I whispered against her fur. “I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
After a moment, I managed to stand up. My face was hot and I was still shaking. Evan stood only a couple of feet from me. His brow was furrowed. “Let’s go back inside,” he said, and I shook my head.
“I think we should probably just go.” I held on to Trixie’s collar so she couldn’t take off again. “I’m sorry. I don’t think this is going to work for me.”
“What isn’t going to work? Dinner?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said again. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. All I knew was I needed to leave. I needed to be back in my house.
“It’s freezing out here,” Evan said. He put his arm around my shoulders, and to my surprise, I didn’t push him away. I let him lead us back to his deck and into the house, mostly because I wasn’t sure I was in any shape to drive. Scout and Trixie wiggled around in the kitchen like they’d been apart for years. Evan removed our jackets and led me to the living room, where he sat me down on the couch. He pushed a blanket toward me, then turned to the fireplace, pressed a button on a remote control, and it roared to life. I stared at the clutter on his coffee table, feeling numb, as Evan grabbed a few old towels from his linen closet and dried off Trixie’s fur. When he was finished, apparently exhausted by their outing, Trixie and Scout both lay down on the enormous dog bed in front of the fire, and Evan came over to sit by me.
He was quiet a moment, then finally spoke. “Can you tell me what happened out there?” When I didn’t answer, when I simply pulled the warm blanket up under my chin, he sighed. “Are you mad at me? Do you think it’s my fault that she ran off?”
This got my attention. “No,” I said. “Of course not. It’s just . . . it’s me.”
“What’s you?” His voice was so gentle, so kind, it made me want to weep.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I said, keeping my tone low and controlled. “I don’t . . . I haven’t talked about it with anyone. Ever.” Am I really going to do this? Am I going to tell him about my past?
“You can talk to me,” he said. “Maybe it would help.”
I finally looked at him. His dark blond hair was slightly wavy and grew just over his ears; he needed a haircut. “I don’t know if I can,” I said.
“Try,” he answered, and so along with my heart, I opened my mouth, and told him everything I’d done wrong. I told him about Michael, about my first pregnancy, how my mother pushed us away. I told him about living in my car, begging for money; about getting pregnant with Natalie and everything that came after the night I was arrested at the grocery store.
When it came to describing the decision I’d made about giving up custody of my girls, my voice took on a slightly robotic tone, as though a computer were dictating the details of the experience to Evan instead of me. I used the same tone to tell him the rest of my story, how I ended up back in prison, about the little girl in the park and how sure I’d been she was my older daughter. I explained how Randy took me under his wing and how Trixie basically saved my life when Blake beat me. I told him how I kept my life simple now, as a way to keep myself safe. I told him that when Trixie had disappeared tonight, I’d felt like I did the last day I’d seen my daughters—like my edges had worked loose and I was about to come undone.
Evan didn’t say a word while I spoke. He didn’t interrupt, he didn’t ask questions. He kept his eyes on me the entire time. His face simply held an expression of concern, of interest in what I had to say. When I finally quieted, we both sat in silence for a few moments, and I waited for him to tell me that I should leave and not come back. That I clearly had issues I needed to deal with.
Instead, he reached out to pull down the blanket I’d tucked around me so he could hold my hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
“For what?” I asked. The words came out strangled. Sorry he met me? Sorry this wasn’t going to work?
“For everything you’ve been through,” he said. He reached up with his free hand and cradled the side of my face. His skin was warm and callused, but I found myself closing my eyes and pushing my cheek into his palm.
“Quick,” I said. “Tell me something horrible about yourself.” I was only half-joking; part of me really wanted to know Evan’s ugliest mistake—that he, too, knew what it was to feel a brutal sense of shame.
He dropped his hand and sighed. “Well,” he said, “I cheated on my ex-wife.” He waited a moment. “With her best friend.”
“Lots of people cheat,” I said, thinking that his one transgression didn’t even come close to matching all the things I’d done wrong.
“Yeah,” he said. “But that doesn’t make it any less shitty. I hate being that guy . . . the cheating asshole cliché. If I could go back and change it, I would. But since I can’t, I had to learn to be okay with the fact that I fucked up, because at some point, everyone does. I think the key is to learn from what you’ve done wrong, and try to do better.” He locked his eyes on mine. “Which it sounds like you’ve done. You’ve had to be so strong.”
“I’m not strong,” I whispered. “I’m a mess.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned in toward me and put his lips on my own, kissing me until my entire body warmed and finally relaxed. When he stopped, he rested his forehead against mine. “Weren’t you listening?” he asked, glancing toward the coffee table. “Messy is kind of my thing.”
• • •
We were married seven months later, in late September, at Randy’s house. It was a small ceremony, with only the clinic’s employees and Evan’s coworkers in attendance. I wore a fitted, simple white sheath and held a bouquet of pale pink roses, and Evan had on a pair of black slacks and a button-down that matched the flowers. Trixie and Scout sat next to us as we stood in front of the fireplace, and we laughingly referred to my girl as the mutt of honor and Scout as Evan’s best dog. Randy and Lisa served as our witnesses. During the reception, as soon as the music started and after Evan and I had our first dance, Randy approached and asked if he could have the pleasure of the second.
“You’ve come such a long way,” he said as we moved across their enormous deck. One end was covered in four round tables where people were eating and the other was empty to leave room to dance. It was a gorgeous, sunny fall day—the sky was a striking shade of blue and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The trees that lined Randy and Lisa’s backyard were a wild mix of gold, red, and green—a treasure trove of jewel tones. “It’s been a pleasure to watch you come into your own.”
“Stop it,” I said. “You’re going to ruin my makeup.” I looked over to where Evan stood holding a beer as he chatted with a few friends from work. His smile was wide and his eyes were filled with the kind of love I still couldn’t believe was meant for me.
Since that night when Trixie had run off, when I opened my soul to Evan and let all the pain in my life bleed out in front of him, I’d grown to feel lighter, more capable of moving around in the world without fearing I was, at any moment, about to fall apart. Evan saw who I was—he saw everything about me, good and bad—and loved me, still. And I saw everything about him. Because he understood what I’d gone through in letting go of my girls, knowing it would be too agonizing for me to revisit that loss as I would if I had another baby, it was easier for him to confess that he’d never really wanted children of his own. Like me, he was content with his work, happy to lavish his affections upon his dog, and now, me. Before I’d moved in with him in June, he had a huge parcel of the land around the house fenced in so I’d never have to worry about Trixie disappearing. Neither one of us was perfect, but we seemed to be perfect for each other.
“You picked a good one,” Randy said, watching this silent, loving moment transpire between Evan and me. “We’re so happy for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, standing up on my tiptoes so I could kiss his pink cheek. “For everything. I wouldn’t be here without you.”
“Aw, I just gave you a nudge in the right direction. You’re the one who’s done all the work.” He paused, looking pensive. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking—”
“Uh-oh,” I said, fondly.
“No,” he said, laughing. “This is actually one of my better ideas. Now that you’ve got your bachelor’s, I think you should consider getting your doctorate. You already have more than enough undergraduate work credit hours. Someday Lisa’s going to make me retire, and I’m going to want to sell my practice to someone I trust.”
“Are you serious?” I’d been toying with the idea of going back to school to become an actual, accredited veterinary doctor instead of just a trainer and technician, but wasn’t sure if I could handle the intense course work on top of having to work full-time. I also wasn’t sure I could afford the tuition. But now that Evan and I were sharing expenses, it was possible I could make it happen.
“Of course,” Randy said, spinning me around, “I can’t think of anyone better suited for the job.”
We continued to dance then, both of us quiet, as I considered how lucky I was that Myer had chosen me to meet with Randy in the prison’s community room those many years before. Maybe I could learn to be okay without knowing what happened to my girls. I could continue writing them letters, even knowing they would never be read. Brooke and Natalie were the only people missing from this special day, and I couldn’t help but feel an all-too familiar ache in my chest when I thought about them.
But then it struck me that if I hadn’t let go of my children, I might not have the life I had now. I might not have found Evan. Maybe that decision, however heart-wrenching, was meant to be made. To shift the course of my life and put me right here, exactly where I belonged.
