After (18 page)

“No, I didn’t! I wasn’t
having
sex, Dom.”

“Okay, fine. That may be
technically
true; you were not
currently
sexually active. At least, that’s the story you’re telling me.” Dom waits, lets the words stick.

Dom thinks she’s lying again. What kind of person does she think Devon is? Her mom’s clone? Sleeping with any guy who looks her way? Devon’s eyes find an ink stain on the tabletop to examine. Is this a new table? Because she’s never noticed the stain before. It’s shaped like a stretched-out heart. Twisted and warped.

“Maybe your words were meant to deceive,” Dom continues. “Maybe you wanted him to conclude that you’ve
never
been sexually active. You definitely wanted any further discussion of sex to end right then and there, that’s obvious. You were pretty frantic about it. Why? That’s what I’m trying to figure out here.”

Devon traces the ink heart with her index finger. “Because it’s embarrassing, talking about that stuff! To a man, especially. And I think that any other kid my age would feel the exact same way.” Devon flicks her eyes toward Dom. “I bet
you
felt the same way when you were my age!”

Dom watches Devon trace the ink stain over and over for a moment without saying anything. Then she shrugs. “Okay, point taken. But . . . you were wearing a sanitary napkin. Why? You weren’t having your period.”

“Because, I told you, it’s embarrassing. I didn’t want him looking . . . down there.”

“That’s it, huh?”

Devon looks over at Dom. “Plus, my mom suggested that I—”

“So, you’re the kind of girl who gets embarrassed easily, huh?” Dom raises an eyebrow. “So shy and innocent—”

“Yeah, maybe I am!” Devon jumps off her stool, starts pacing the room. “You think you’re so smart. You think you know everything. Well, you
don’t
know me!” She slams her back to the cinder block wall, hugs herself. “You know nothing about me. Not! A! Thing!”

Dom smacks the tabletop. “Okay, then
tell
me! If I’m missing something, Devon,
fill me in
! Because if I don’t know it, the judge at the hearing on Tuesday won’t know it. And the twelve people who may be sitting in the jury one day if this case goes to trial won’t know it, either. But they will know the facts. And right now, the facts are all against you. Shall I list them?”

Devon drops her head back then, looks up at the ceiling, at the pattern its cracks make. Crisscrossed, like lines in a palm. The lines that hold a person’s destiny.

“They’ll know that you went to a doctor when you were approximately five weeks pregnant. They’ll have heard that doctor’s testimony. They’ll know that he examined you, that he noticed you were wearing a sanitary napkin in your underwear, that you
told
him you had just started your period that very morning when you hadn’t. They’ll hear everything you told the doctor—about being fatigued, about your frequent urination problem, about being nauseous, how you threw up in the morning before you went to the appointment. By the way, all of these symptoms happen to be symptoms of pregnancy, and the jury will know that. The prosecution will have an expert testifying to
make absolutely sure
that the jury understands that. The jury will see the medical records, which state that you had a slight fever and high blood pressure. High blood pressure, by the way, is an indicator of extreme nervousness or stress. They’ll know that you panicked when the doctor wanted to ask you some personal questions relating to your sexual activity. The doctor will testify that you refused to give him a urine sample during your appointment and that you did not follow his instructions to return a sample to his office or schedule a follow-up visit.” Dom places her hands flat on the tabletop, pushes off her stool, and walks over to Devon, who still has her back to the wall. “So. How do you think that will play to the jury, Devon?”

Devon drops her head, looks down at her feet. “I don’t know,” she whispers.

“No? Well, let me help you out then.” Dom puts her index finger under Devon’s chin and raises her face so Devon is forced to look Dom directly in the eyes. “Those twelve people will draw the obvious conclusion. That you, Devon Sky Davenport, knew you were pregnant that morning—”

“No, Dom!” Devon squeezes her eyes shut. “I didn’t—”

“That you did absolutely everything you could think of to hide this information from the doctor—”

“No! That’s not true!”

“That you continued to hide this pregnancy for the next eight months—”

“No!”

“—and then, when the day finally came that you gave birth, you attempted to hide that evidence, too. You put that baby in a trash bag and tossed it in a garbage can and left it to
die
!”

Devon is trembling. Even her teeth chatter. She tries to jerk her head away, but Dom’s finger is anchored there, too strong.

“These are steps, Devon. When you have steps, you have a plan. When you have a plan, you have what’s called premeditation. Premeditation points to guilt. And guilt equals going to jail. For a long, long time.” Dom pulls her finger away from Devon’s chin and takes a step back. “That, right there, will be the prosecutor’s argument.” Dom crosses her arms. “And right now, even
I’m
buying it.”

Devon’s head drops. She wraps her arms around herself tighter, trying to control her shaking. Her breaths come rapid and ragged. “I didn’t know any of that, Dom. I swear. I didn’t know I was pregnant.”

Dom throws her hands up. “When, Devon? When didn’t you know you were pregnant? During the appointment? Because—”

“Ever!”

The word startles both Dom and Devon with its intensity. Dom takes another step back.

Devon swallows. “Okay? I didn’t
ever
know I was pregnant, Dom. Not until . . . until That Night when . . . when . . . all that stuff happened.”

“What ‘stuff,’ Devon? Huh? Quit hiding behind words.” Dom yanks off her warm-up top, tosses it onto the floor. Puts her hands on her hips.

Devon says nothing. Just breathes. She feels something coming, something dark and ominous sneaking out of some cubby in her mind. She shakes her head, flinging it back and away. Back to its shadow, its hiding place.

Dom takes in a deep breath, lets it out. She drops down onto the stool that Devon had just vacated. “So, you’re saying that you didn’t know you were pregnant until you gave birth. That’s your story?” She closes her eyes. “You know, Devon, I’m sorry, but I’m just not convinced. And if I’m not convinced, well . . . it’s pointless going over all that again.”

Devon slides down the wall to the floor. She hugs herself into a tight little ball, her chin resting on her knees. “I think I was . . .
afraid
. . . that maybe . . . that I might be . . . pregnant,” Devon finally says, the words a whisper.

“Okay,” Dom says, pausing for Devon to continue, but she doesn’t. “So, if you were afraid that you could be pregnant, Devon, that usually means sex was involved. Right?” Dom’s voice is gentle now, her words creeping across the room to where Devon sits. “You know—a boy, a girl, together. You’re a girl, so . . . can you tell me about this boy?”

Devon buries her face into her knees.
Please don’t make me.
She’s cold suddenly. The floor, the wall, is too cool. Her skin is moist, she realizes then. She’s been sweating.

Dom stands, moves toward Devon, sits on the floor beside her. All very slow and cautious, like approaching a bird with a broken wing. “Was it rape, Devon?”

Devon shakes her head vigorously no.

Dom rests her head on the wall, looks up at the ceiling. “Okay. Then, it was . . . consensual?”

Devon starts to cry. Little sniffles, muffled by her knees.

Dom touches Devon’s back, rubs it gently, little circular motions.

Finally, Devon raises her head, turns to look at Dom sitting beside her. “I think”—Devon’s voice catches—“I’m ready. To tell you . . . about”—she sighs deeply—“about him.”

“Then I’m ready to listen.”

Devon rests her forehead on her knees and stays like that for a long time. When she finally starts, she’s speaking to her lap. “So, last summer. I babysat these two little kids. Twins—a boy and a girl.”

Dom waits. Then, “How old?”

“Three. I would take them down to the Tacoma Swim Club every morning to go swimming if the weather was nice. It wasn’t far from their house, so we would walk down there. They’d always pick flowers out of people’s yards even though I told them not to.” Devon makes a small laugh. “They were—
are
—really cute kids.”

Devon hears Dom take a long breath and let it out slowly. “Go on.”

“Anyway, they’d swim and play around in the toddler pool, and I’d hang out on one of the lounge chairs and read and watch them. Sometimes I had to break up their fights. They fought a lot. Not bad fights or anything, just normal little-kid fights. Sometimes I played in the water with them. It just depended. We’d stay there until it was lunchtime, and then we’d go home.”

Devon can sense Dom’s growing impatience, feels her body restless beside her. “Good. Keep going.”

“Well, one day,” Devon says, “this guy was there. He was swimming laps in the big pool. They have lap swimming there before nine every day, and then they pull the lane lines out and have open swim for the kids. Anyway, his towel and stuff were on the chair next to mine, and when he came over to dry off, he saw the book I was reading—
The Kite Runner
by that Afghani guy. He told me he had read that book, too, for school; he thought it was awesome. But when they watched the movie in class afterward, he didn’t think the director did the book justice. And then we started talking about all this other stuff, like for the entire time I was there. We really connected for some reason. But then I had to go because I needed to take the kids back home for lunch and their naps.”

His eyes. Green with hazel flecks. Beautiful. Those too long lashes, wasted on a boy. His eyes had said more to Devon than any words his lips ever spoke.

Devon and Dom sit there in the quiet of the room for a moment. Then Dom clears her throat. “And this is the boy, Devon?”

Devon, her forehead still on her knees, nods yes.

“And how old is—or was—he?”

“A little older than me.” Devon pauses. “He was going to be a junior. In high school.”
He could drive.
But Devon doesn’t add this.

“Okay, and can you tell me his name?”

“Do I have to?” Devon whispers.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Devon feels Dom’s body grow tense beside her. “Because I’m your attorney, Devon. I have to know everything. Every single little thing.”

“But he doesn’t even live here. So why does it matter—”

Devon feels Dom looking at her. “What do you mean he doesn’t live here?”

Devon hesitates, turns her face from her knees to look at Dom. Should she be saying any of this? What if Dom finds him, figures out where he is, and tells him? Devon doesn’t think she’d survive that happening, having him know what happened. The trouble she’s in. “I mean, he doesn’t live in Tacoma. He lives in . . . in another state.”
Colorado
, she thinks. Denver, specifically. But Devon doesn’t say this. “He only comes here to visit his dad in the summers.”

Dom nods slowly, narrows her eyes.

Devon can see something going on behind Dom’s eyes, see her putting things together. Devon turns back to her knees, stares at the tops of them. At the outline of her kneecaps against the orange fabric of her jumpsuit, the sharp flatness of them.

“So when was the last time you saw him?”

Devon shrugs. As if she’s trying to remember, to conjure up the answer. But it’s there, the memory is right there, vivid and real.

The silent drive back, Devon looking out the passenger window, her forehead pressed against its cool glass. The geography they pass in the darkness—the shimmery water of the Sound, the moon shrouded with wispy clouds, the succession of glowing ovals slanted across the asphalt from the streetlamps. The shadows from the Japanese maples and rhododendrons stretching across the yards in front of cedar-shingled houses. They’d sat in the parking lot of her apartment complex when he’d stopped, both staring out into the night, he straight through the windshield and she through the passenger-side window. Each absorbed into their individual thoughts, the car idling.

“Do you want me to walk you up to your door?” he’d asked finally. These were the first words between them since she’d dressed back at his dad’s condo, and he’d said them now with an awkward politeness.

Devon had shaken her head no, didn’t look over at him. Then she slowly reached for the door handle, quietly opened the door, and stepped out into the night, filling her lungs with the cool air. Closed the door behind her and moved away from the car. She’d heard the sound of a window rolling down then, the passenger-side window, the window that still held the steamy imprint of her forehead.

“Devon.”

She stopped then, looked back over her shoulder toward his voice. He was leaning forward across the front seat, looking at her through the open window. His eyes were shimmery, like the Sound reflecting moonlight, concerned and confused, his eyebrows crimped over them.

“Are you . . . okay?”

Devon dropped her head, looked at the gravel under her feet, swallowed down the ache in her throat, and shrugged. Then she faced forward again, her eyes focused on the stairwell, the stairwell that would take her to her apartment, to her empty apartment on the second floor and then to her room. She moved quickly—left foot, then right, then left. When she’d reached the first step, she heard the tires of his car crunch over the gravel, pulling away from her.

She looked back over her shoulder again, saw his right turn signal flashing. And then he was gone.