Every Moment After

by Joseph Moldover

  “Matt, my boy, come and sit down.”

  The room is less neat than when I was last here, and I have to sit at the end of a couch, closer to Mr. Gerber than I’d like. From here I can see that his eyes are red-rimmed, and I can smell that the drink in the mug isn’t coffee.

  “You’re here to see Paul again?”

  “Yes. I thought I would take him out.”

  “Hmm. He was out of sorts after the last time. But perhaps that’s normal. I think you may remind him of his brother.”

  “I don’t have to take him if you don’t want me to.”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s good for him to go out. It’s good for Ruth and me to have some time. We can’t avoid these issues forever, can we?”

  We sit quietly for a moment as Mr. Gerber sips from the mug. I want to get up, get Paul, and leave the house, but before I move, he starts in again.

  “Matt, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”

  Don’t ask me about the shooting, I think. Please don’t ask me a question I can’t answer.

  “Do you mind? Do you have a moment?”

  It’s probably not about that. He probably wants to talk baseball. I nod.

  “Matt, where were you sitting on the morning when it happened?”

  Whatever limited air was available goes out of the room.

  “I wasn’t there, Mr. Gerber.”

  “What do you mean, you weren’t there?”

  “I was in that class, but I was home that day. I was home, sick.”

  “Sick? Sick with what?”

  What a bizarre question. “It was my diabetes. My mom was worried about my sugars.”

  He shakes his head. “Unbelievable. I’d always thought . . . well. I suppose I must have known that once, mustn’t I? It’s funny what the mind remembers and what it forgets.”

  The smell. Not Mr. Gerber’s liquor, something else. Something less familiar. I put a hand over my mouth and nose, but it doesn’t help.

  “Didn’t you usually sit next to Andy, Matt?”

  “Yes. Or Cole.”

  “Where do you think Andy would have been sitting?”

  “It would have depended—​it depended on the activity, on when it was . . .”

  “Eleven thirty-two.”

  “I’m not sure, Mr. Gerber. I’m sorry.”

  Mr. Gerber leans back in his recliner and sips again. His eyes leave my face and unfocus, scanning the middle distance in front of him.

  “Maybe I should go check on Paul?” I say.

  Neither of us moves. Mrs. Gerber’s voice rises from upstairs. It sounds like she’s helping Paul in the bathroom.

  “Do you know that Paul should have been in that class?” Mr. Gerber asks.

  “No.”

  “Well, of course he should have been. He would have been there, but the school insisted on putting him into a special-needs classroom. We didn’t want them to do it, but we finally gave in that winter and let them move him. He would have been sitting there, next to Andy.”

  Just like with Sarah, I don’t know what to say. I never know what to say. What’s the point of these fucking conversations, these memories that can’t be changed, these things that can never be fixed?

  “They had all these counselors around afterward,” Mr. Gerber continues. “They did some groups that people went to, special ones for us parents who had lost a child. People wrote things, a few people were interviewed for the Times, and then later on, that asshole wrote his memoir. I didn’t pay much attention, but I know what they said. They said, ‘We didn’t know. We didn’t know that we had it so good. We didn’t know how fragile it all was. We didn’t know that it could come apart in an instant.’ ” He takes another sip from his mug, more of a gulp this time. “Can I tell you something, Matt?”

  I nod because I can’t think of what else to do.

  “I knew.” He leans in toward me, elbows on his knees. “Every moment I had those two little boys, I knew exactly how much I loved them and I knew exactly how fragile they were. And it bought me nothing. I had to suffer the loss along with all the ones who didn’t know, who didn’t appreciate what they had. I had to be taught a lesson that I already knew. Knowing didn’t change anything. I had to live through that moment anyway, and I’ve had to live through every moment after.”

  He drains the rest of his mug, sets it down on the coffee table, and rises unsteadily to his feet. “Paulie!” he yells. “Get the hell down here! Matt’s going to take you out! You want to sit around in your dirty underwear all day?” He burps and makes his way around the table and out of the room, fumbling to tie his bathrobe.

  I sit alone, rubbing my face. I can’t stand the smell. I sniff my own shirt and then look around. There’s the mug, but it’s not the smell of liquor. It’s getting deep into my throat, almost burning me. I stand, turn one way and then the other, and make my way over to the window, pulling hard to open it and then stooping to stick my head all the way out. The breeze is a relief on my face, and I take it in deeply through my nose, afraid that I might vomit.

  “Matt?”

  I reluctantly duck back inside.

  “What are you doing? Are you all right?” Mrs. Gerber asks.

  “Do you smell that?”

  “Smell what?” Her nostrils flare.

  “That . . . I can’t describe it.” It’s almost like pee. “Do you have a dog?”

  She shakes her head. “Do you want to go home, Matt? You look like you could use some rest.”

  “I’m okay.”

  She seems to have her doubts, but she also looks desperate to get Paul out of the house, and so ten minutes later, we’re driving away in the Explorer, and a few minutes after that, we are standing in a roadside park that I’ve driven by a thousand times without stopping at. It’s on the way to the lake, but I don’t want to go back there, and I can’t think of anyplace else to go.

  We wander, side by side, through rusted teeter-totters and swings with broken seats. It seems like the town has upgraded most of its playgrounds, but for some reason this one’s been allowed to fall apart. I sit on the only working swing and push myself back, bracing my legs, looking down at a patch of dry dirt where who-knows-how-many kids dragged their feet when their mothers told them it was time to go home. I look around; the parking lot, my car the only one in it, lies across a small field, and on the other side are the woods and, somewhere beyond that, the river. Paul shuffles through a patch of dandelions. A car goes by on the road, and then it’s quiet again. I close my eyes. It’s better here; the air is cleaner. It’s still. It has the feeling of a place whose time is past.

  “Paul?”

  Paul kicks at a dandelion head and doesn’t respond.

  “Do you remember what Andy used to say?” I ask. “That thing he used to say, whenever we went anywhere or did anything? He’d shout it like he was a superhero. It was from a movie.”

  Paul is standing still. He rarely makes eye contact, but he is coming close to it now, studying my lips.

  “I had forgotten for a while, but I remembered last night. He used to shout, ‘To infinity . . . and beyond!’ Do you remember that?”

  “To . . .” Paul trails off.

  “That’s right, ‘To infinity . . . and beyond!’ ”

  Paul frowns.

  “I want you to say it,” I tell him. “Try to say the whole thing.” I repeat the phrase again, slowly, with emphasis.

  “To . . . inf . . .” The four syllables aren’t coming together in his mouth.

  “Say it, Paul. I want to hear you say it one time. Shout it!”

  He finally raises his eyes to mine and shakes his head no.

  “Andy used to say it all the time. It was from an old movie. We thought it was the funniest thing, the way he’d say it and then jump off his bed or run out of the room, pretending he had a cape on.”

  I don’t know why I need to hear Paul say it, but I do. Maybe it’s like Chris needing to hear my stories about Rosie. Maybe we’re all stuck ob
sessing over the things we can’t have, the experiences we can’t go into, as though looking and hearing and thinking about them will help the pain of wanting.

  There’s a moment of silence as we stare at each other. I push myself farther back on the swing with one toe, gripping the chains with both hands.

  This isn’t going to help.

  “I want to hear you say it, Paul. Say it like Andy said it.”

  “I can’t.”

  I stare at him for a moment, and then I laugh. I don’t mean to. I’m not laughing at him. I’m laughing at myself, at the situation, at the whole goddamned world around us, but looking at Paul, I know he thinks that I’m laughing at him, and that even if I try to explain it, he’ll never understand, which is almost as bad as laughing in the first place.

  He turns and walks away from me, and I let him go. I’ll let him have his space for a minute. There’s no one else here; he can’t get into any trouble.

  I lift my foot and allow myself to swing forward, bending my knees so that I don’t hit the ground, up and then back and then forward again, swinging by myself in the late summer heat.

  Fifteen

  — Cole —

  Last night was a busy one at the pharmacy, and there was a long line of people snaking all the way back through eyewear and family planning. I took my spot at the end of it, next to a colorful display of Trojans, which made me think about the still-unsolved mystery of the condoms under the couch. I looked past the people in front of me and spotted Kiernan, hustling behind the counter, along with another pharmacist. I didn’t like the look of her; she looked like someone who took her job seriously and would phone in any irregularities just because she was supposed to.

  I finally made it to the front of the line, and the woman waved me forward. I turned around and looked at the guy behind me, who was holding an obviously sick toddler in his arms. “Go ahead,” I said with a smile.

  “Oh, God, thank you,” the man said as he carried the kid up to the counter, where the lady pharmacist looked back at me and smiled in appreciation as well. I felt awful. Doing good things for the wrong reason is worse than not doing them at all. Then Kiernan was free, and he beckoned me up to his window. I dug the remaining prescriptions out of my pocket as I approached.

  “Hey,” I said. “Listen, I was in a while ago with some prescriptions for my dad, and—”

  “Yeah, I remember you.” The guy’s face and voice were both flat. He was staring right at me.

  “Yeah. Right, so I was just wondering—”

  “Are those more prescriptions?”

  “Yeah.”

  “For your dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right. So, listen, I think that you ought to leave.”

  “Please, is there anything you can do?”

  Kiernan’s eyes darted to his left, down the counter toward the lady pharmacist, and he leaned close to me and whispered, “Listen, asshole, do you know how much trouble I was in over those pills I gave you? I could have lost my job.”

  “I’m really sorry, I just—”

  “Are you some sort of a moron? Why would you come back here? There are, like, a dozen pharmacies in a ten-mile radius.”

  “Yeah, I just thought that you—”

  “Me? You thought I would hook you up?” He was still whispering, but the lady leaned back and looked down the counter at us, and he shut up.

  I should have just gone, but I was desperate. I knew it was my last chance.

  “Is there anything I can do to make this happen?” I asked him.

  He burst out laughing, no pretense of secrecy at all. Then he looked back over my shoulder at the growing line and called “Next!” I felt my face flush hot and bright as an elderly man made his way to my side. Kiernan looked at me one more time and leaned over the counter. “Dude,” he said, “you are, honest to god, the world’s worst dealer, second to none.”

  That was it, right there. Absolute truth. He was right; there are lots of other pharmacies around, but he was also right about me not knowing what I was doing.

  So I went home. I hardly slept at all, though. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t write, though I tried. I lay in bed, thinking about Viola flying over the ocean, Conrad beside her, tall and handsome, one hand on the controls and the other on her knee. I thought about Matt, shacked up with Sarah Jessup somewhere, fucking her brains out. I lay in bed, rehearsing the poem I’d written for the thousandth time. I lay in bed, hating my best friend, hating my life, burning up inside.

  I finally dozed off, fully dressed and on top of my covers, and now I’m waking up and it’s already past noon. It takes me a moment to realize that my phone is ringing. I fumble for it and hold it to my ear.

  “Cole?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Simpson.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I was just calling to check in on Matt.”

  My eyes dart around the empty room. “He’s . . . fine.”

  “He hasn’t been answering his phone.”

  “Yeah. Uh, he’s asleep. His phone must be on silent.”

  “Good. Good. I know he was having a hard time last night. How’s his—”

  “Fine. His phone says ninety-eight.”

  Silence for a second. “Thank you for being there for him, Cole.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  “Tell him to check in with us soon.”

  “I will.”

  I say goodbye and hang up. Then I call Matt, but it goes to his voicemail. I need to find him, find out if he has anything for me to give Eddie tonight, the way he said he would. The way he’s been saying all summer, telling me not to worry about it, telling me to trust him.

  I wash up, change, check on Mom—​her door’s closed—​and then I go out, get in my car, and start driving. Matt’s supposed to be at work. He probably spent the night with Sarah and let the battery on his phone run down.

  I’m almost at the grocery store when my phone rings.

  “Cole, it’s Mr. Finn. How are you?”

  “Fine . . .”

  “Listen, Cole, Matt wasn’t feeling well today and I sent him home. I have an appointment later on this afternoon and could really use the help. How do you feel about some extra hours?”

  “Matt isn’t there?” I pull the car over to the side of the road. I can see Finn’s sign maybe a hundred yards farther on.

  “It seemed like he’d had a long night. Cole? Are you there?”

  “I’m here, Mr. Finn, but I’m sorry, I can’t come in. I . . . have an appointment too.”

  “All right. Give me a call if anything changes. I may have to close the store early today.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Finn.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I hang up, make a U-turn, and drive back the way I came. I know where Sarah Jessup lives and I go by her house, but her driveway is empty. Maybe they went somewhere for the day? Could they be at the lake? I start to drive in that direction, but before I get there, I spot his truck in a parking lot off Route 21. I pull in beside it and there he is, swinging by himself across an empty field. I kill the engine and get out of the car.

  He’s all alone, looking up at the sky, pumping his legs to make himself go higher, like he’s a little kid who was forgotten here by his parents but who isn’t too worried about the situation. I stop in front of him, and he looks at me but doesn’t stop.

  It’s very quiet; the only sound is the squeak-squeak of the chains on his swing.

  “Do you know,” I ask, “what a tremendous asshole you are?”

  He keeps swinging and doesn’t answer right away. “What’s the matter, Cole?” he finally asks. He’s infuriatingly calm.

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “I have five hours. Five hours until I’m supposed to meet Eddie.”

  “I know.”

  “And?”

  He grins. “And, I have something for you.�
�� Matt jumps off of the swing, lands in mid-stride, and is off toward the parking lot. “Come on!” I follow him to his truck. He opens the door, reaches into the glove compartment, and comes out with a bag that is full—​and I mean full—​of pills.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “What is it all?”

  “It’s the good stuff.” He looks at me and laughs again. “You are one crazy son of a bitch, Cole. I thought you were going to hit me!”

  “Well, I thought you’d—”

  “What, you thought I’d forgotten about you?” He hands me the bag. I gently squeeze it, feeling the sheer mass. There are pills of all different shapes and sizes. Little square brown ones, and oval blue, and circular pink. It’s beautiful. Put together with the bit I have left in the freezer, it’s not quite enough to be half, given what we already turned over to Eddie, but it’s a lot. It should be enough.

  “You look disappointed,” Matt says.

  “Disappointed? No. Just . . .”

  “You know what I think?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “I think you were kind of hoping that this was going to fall through.”

  I look at the bag and don’t say anything. It’s not the kind of psychological insight Matt is prone to, but I can’t deny that it’s true.

  “She’s probably not going to be there, anyway,” I say. “She’s probably already gone. Her family decided to leave for vacation early. She’s probably, you know. Gone.”

  Matt shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe she is. And maybe she’s going to be there tonight, you know? I mean, who the hell knows? Just do one thing. Do one thing for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  He puts one hand on my shoulder. “You gotta show up.”

  “Yeah. I know. I told her I’d be there, no matter what.”

  “No, promise me.”

  “I will. I just said it. I will.”

  “No, I mean: Show. The. Fuck. Up. Like, all the way.”

  I look back at him. His eyes are red all around the edges, like he hasn’t slept much. “I’ll be there. I’ll show up.”

  “All the way.”

  “All the way,” I say, half understanding what he means but wanting him to let go of my shoulder.