What Comes After (34 page)

I tried to imagine a life in Maine after all I’d been through here — tried to imagine myself back playing center field again for my old high school. Littleberry looked over, saw me at the kitchen window, and waved.

“I wanted to tell you something else,” Beatrice said in a shakier voice. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. For everything. For being such a bad friend. For letting you down. For my whole family letting you down. We just got caught up in our own stuff, you know? We should have been there for you — I should have been. But everything got all twisted up.”

“I know,” I said, and I realized that for the first time in a long time I wasn’t mad at her. “Life and all that.”

“Yeah. Life and all that.”

I had all but given up on our friendship, but suddenly I wasn’t so sure. This sounded more like the Beatrice I had known all my life, and talking to her now, hearing a different voice, I thought maybe I
would
see her again. Maybe I would go back to Maine. At least for a visit. Someday.

Tammy came over to the fence then, probably to see where I’d gone off to. She crammed her head through and of course got stuck. She
maa
ed in her usual desperate way, and the other goats crowded around, too, as if they hadn’t seen it all a dozen times before. Littleberry stopped playing with Gnarly and ran over to help her. I was starting to wonder if Tammy didn’t do it on purpose, like a little kid who just wants attention.

I told Beatrice I had to go. She sounded genuinely disappointed until I promised I’d call her back, that we would talk again soon and I’d tell her everything that had been going on with me. I said there was something I had to take care of right at the moment, though.

I said it was a goat thing.

I could not have written this book without the help of my friend Lee Criscuolo, who generously shared her stories, time, expertise, cheese, and goat poo samples — and who didn’t lecture me too much about my bumbling attempts at milking. Thanks also to Mehitabel, who was the unrivaled star of our goat party, and to the late Rosie, Lee’s no-nonsense herd queen. Both were kind and patient despite my clumsiness and showed great restraint in not hooking me with their horns or butting me out of their barn. I’m just sorry that Rosie didn’t live long enough to see this book in print and to have the opportunity to eat it.

Thanks to Marie Rizza for her beautiful, operatic rendition of the goatherd song, and to the Padovan-Hickman family, who taught the viewers of
Wife Swap
all they needed to know about contra dancing and living off the grid in King George County, and who also taught me a thing or two about goats. Thanks to my many friends at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fredericksburg, who cheered this book along, and thanks to my friend Jill Payne and the staff and volunteers at CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) who believe that every child matters and who show it every day through their amazing work and dedication.

Thanks to my agent, Kelly Sonnack, who wasn’t able to make it to the grave-digging party for Rosie, but who has been there for everything else — and for me — throughout the writing of this book. Thanks to my wife, Janet, who read countless drafts of
What Comes After
and helped shape the manuscript in countless ways. Thanks of course to my own goat girls — Maggie and Eva and Claire and Lili — who remind me every day how blessed I am. Thanks to Maryellen Hanley for all her brilliant work on the haunting, resonant cover and design, and to all the good people at Candlewick Press for believing in this book and in so many wonderful books by other writers that might never have been published without their faith and vision.

Thanks especially to my editor, Kaylan Adair, who could not possibly have done more for a story and its author. I am forever grateful for her kindness and support — and for her fierce and loving pen.

Finally, thanks to a girl whose name I don’t know but who inspired this book, and who has had to go through a lot more in life than anyone ever should. I pray that she has found her own goat family, her Mr. and Mrs. Tuten, her Mr. DiDio, her Littleberry and Dr. Herriot and Shirelle, and that her story turns out to be as hopeful, and full of promise, as Iris Wight’s.

STEVE WATKINS
is the author of the Golden Kite Award–winning novel
Down Sand Mountain.
He is also the author of both a nonfiction book and short-story collection for adults and is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize.
What Comes After
was inspired by an article he read about a girl who was placed in foster care after an assault. “I recognized her — and others like her — through my work as an investigator and advocate in the juvenile justice system,” he says. “I knew her story deserved to be told.” Steve Watkins teaches journalism, creative writing, and Vietnam War literature at the University of Mary Washington. He also teaches Ashtanga yoga and works with the child advocacy organi zation CASA. He lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with his family.