Hush

In early January, Coach Leigh takes the team to an outdoor track, where they are asked to run five laps of a quarter-mile track. When Evie showed up, Coach Leigh asked if she was going to stay this time. Upon her confirmation, he handed her a pair of red-and-white spiked shoes, which she now wears. At Coach Leigh’s whistle, Evie takes off as fast as she can. As she runs, she feels her surroundings melt away. In their place, she sees the Rocky Mountains, Lulu smiling, Grandma holding Matt Cat, and her father with his bandaged arm waiting at the finish line, with two girls beside him: “Evie and Toswiah, blurring into each other” (168). Evie feels an overwhelming sadness at this last sight.

Evie finishes first at the end of the first lap and begins to jog slowly as she starts her second. Mira and some of the other girls catch up to her, congratulating her on the run. They pick up the pace, and Coach Leigh encourages Evie to keep running, as she still has four laps to go.

In class, the teacher explains the impact of air on blood. A daydreaming Evie remembers a song she heard on the radio that morning, in which the singer claimed to be two different people at different times and asked her lover if he liked or loved “either or both of me” (171). She resonates with the lyrics, the feeling of being two people. Carlos, the boy seated in front of her, turns and smiles at her, placing a chocolate kiss on her table. The teacher begins to talk about the wonders of the human heart, and Evie marvels at how hers is still beating seven months after having left Denver: “I am no longer who I was in Denver, but at least and at most—I am” (171).

Shirley silently reads and rereads the letter from Simon’s Rock that Anna presents to her. Evie waits for her mother to start yelling, while Anna preemptively asserts that she is going. Shirley finally looks up from the letter, and Anna shakily reasserts her desire to go. With tears in her eyes, Shirley responds, “Of course you are” (173). She hugs a smiling Anna and cries, while Evie contemplates her role as the younger daughter, the quieter sister who will still be here when Anna is gone.

Jonathan shows Evie the scar across his arm and reassures her that he is getting better. They walk across the hospital together, where Jonathan, as “Evan,” introduces Evie to one of the nurses; even here, in this setting, she is proud to be called his daughter. Jonathan tells Evie that the surgery to repair the damaged nerves in his arm was successful, affirming that he is glad to be alive.

Jonathan tells Evie that she has every right to be angry about his decision to testify. However, Evie confesses that she is not angry anymore. She isn’t certain about what she wants, but is starting to form some ideas. Coach Leigh believes Evie can break records one day with enough practice, and this lights a fire in her. Evie recalls Shirley and Anna’s belief, that things happen for a reason, and wonders if in the middle of her old life, “God changed His mind […] [and] came up with a better idea” (180). She asks her father when he first knew he wanted to be a police officer. He smiles, and father and daughter stare at each for a long time, lost in shared memories.