After the Moment Read online

  "I'm sure Seth's school will want to do something," Lillian said. "Tell her..."

  Leigh knew his mother was inviting Millie to stay with them in case Clayton and Janet didn't offer to accompany her up to the city for her father's service.

  "I will," Leigh said. "But I think Dad, at least, will come to the service."

  Leigh didn't want to think about how people were going to bury Seth. It felt like a great betrayal to Millie. If she had no idea her father was dead, then no one should be making plans until she knew.

  Lillian booked a train ticket online for him and then insisted on coming down to Penn Station. These days Penn Station, Grand Central, and the airports were crawling with police and National Guardsmen. There was no safer place to be in the city than at one of its exit venues. Normally, Leigh might have persuaded his mother to stay home by asking if she didn't trust him.

  But he knew the news of Seth's death had brought with it the type of fear that proximity to misfortune often carries. It was ridiculous, of course, but Leigh was as glad of his mother's company that night as he had been at the age of ten when he was routinely woken up by the sound of his own screaming voice.

  "Bad dreams," Lillian would say, turning on the light, helping him out of bed, and fixing him hot milk with honey. "It's just bad dreams."

  ~~~

  When he finally got to his father's house, Leigh took a pillow and a blanket from the guest room and stretched out on the floor next to his sister's bed. When Millie woke up, he would be there, as Lillian had always been for him. He wouldn't be able to ease the end of a bad dream, but he had vague plans about cushioning the beginnings of his sister's grief.

  Whatever his intentions had been, they all vanished when he opened his eyes to find her staring down at him.

  "I knew you'd come," she said.

  Leigh was quiet, not sure how to tell her what she apparently knew. Later, the details of her hellish night would leak out (overheard phone calls and an endless computer search until a local paper in Kansas posted the story). Right now what he focused on was that his sister had known he would come and he had.

  During some of the months to follow, her faith allowed him a place on the right side of the line separating men you could trust from men you couldn't.

  chapter two

  neatly divided

  Millie slept for most of the day, getting up once or twice to say that she wanted to walk the dog. Leigh would find the leash, slip biscuits into his pocket, and call for Bubbles, the family's slobbering but affectionate mixed breed. By then Millie would have become exhausted looking for her shoes or hairbrush and returned to bed. Her eyes were red, but he'd not seen or heard her cry, and worried that she was doing it in her sleep.

  Janet stayed home from work but had told Clayton to go to his office.

  "Leigh and I will be fine," she said. "There's nothing you can do for Millie."

  Leigh watched, unable to believe that his father was picking up his car keys and travel mug of coffee.

  Clayton ran the legal department of Byre Consultants Group. It was a lobbying firm founded by a retired secretary of defense who had also served in the Senate for eighteen years. When married to Lillian, Clayton had worked for Exxon, and Leigh thought it was possible that oil executives were less demanding than politicians. But maybe his father just worked all the time because if you didn't write romance novels work was like that.

  Clayton's father had been a lawyer, and both of Lillian's parents had worked for a chain of hardware stores. Most of the parents of Leigh's friends at school were lawyers or doctors (a lot of those were psychiatrists) or banker types. Janet Davis was a nurse, and Leigh knew that her mother was an interior designer somewhere in Texas.

  Whenever Leigh tried to imagine his life being shaped by any of those careers, he felt as if the map he'd been following his whole life had suddenly faded from view. He knew it was a matter of continuing to do the right things: study and apply to colleges, as well as keep old friends and make new ones. But even with all that as a given, he couldn't picture himself working at something that mattered.

  Leigh didn't think the law was interesting, even if it did dictate how the world was run. He hated his science courses, which ruled out becoming a doctor, and he didn't care enough about anything to teach it. Everyone said that college was to help focus his plans for the future, but Leigh wondered how he could focus what he didn't have.

  He sometimes worried that he'd be one of those people who drifts through life, selling advertising space in a trade journal or something equally sad. He saw himself as forever waiting to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up. Some of Leigh's private worries about his future—which struck him as monstrously selfish to be dwelling on so soon after Seth's death—must have shown in his face, because Clayton put his keys down.

  "I could easily work from home," he said, and then disappeared into the sun porch, where he had a small study.

  Leigh thought that Clayton should have the decency to be too upset to work. But he also envied his father's ability to remove himself from Millie's clear if not yet stated needs.

  Janet, who had a suitably distracted air about her, hauled a bag of clothes up from the laundry room and set about mending them. Leigh took the garbage out and caulked two ill-fitting storm windows. He was worried that he might start mopping the floors, he was so desperate for something to do.

  "I made curtains for our first apartment," Janet said when he spread his schoolbooks out across from where she was sewing. "They were yellow, and Seth thought I had performed a miracle by bringing light into a place that faced an alley."

  "It was in Chicago, right?" Leigh asked.

  He knew the story from Millie. Her parents had met in Chicago just as Janet was deciding that she didn't want to be a doctor but a nurse. She married Seth while still in school, and Millie was born within a year.

  After Janet graduated from college with a BSN instead of a pre-med degree, Seth quit his teaching job and they went to live in Czechoslovakia. Millie was a year old when her parents lived there, both of them teaching English, and she could never quite forgive herself for having no memory of it.

  "Yes, Chicago," Janet said. "I never made curtains in Prague."

  They came back to the States, Leigh knew, to get divorced, with Seth settling in New York and Janet taking Millie to Maryland.

  "God, I wish his mother were still alive," Janet said, putting down a sock and taking up a shirt with missing buttons.

  Leigh had never thought before about Seth's having parents. It was enough, he'd thought, to have registered that Seth's life had extended to Millie, his students, and Janet. But everyone had parents, and Seth himself had once been only seventeen.

  "Why his mother?" Leigh asked, because if they were going to wish that someone dead were alive, why not start with Seth?

  "To keep Millie company," Janet said. "She knows that we're only sad for what she's lost."

  Leigh supposed that was one way to put it. True, he was sad for Millie, but he was also sorry that Seth was dead, and he'd probably seen Seth not twenty times in his life. Janet was surely even sorrier.

  "You'll be good company," Leigh said. "Millie knows you're sad."

  "Your heart can break a thousand times," Janet said, "but never more than once for the same person."

  Meaning, he supposed, that Janet's heart had broken when she and Seth had divorced and could not, therefore, break again because he'd died. Also meaning, Leigh thought, that his father should not be working but spending time with Janet. Because maybe no one could help Millie, but Janet, neatly divided between sorrow and guilt, could probably use her husband's company.

  ~~~

  Clayton must have figured this out on his own, as he stayed home again the following day. Leigh was tired from two nights of sleeping on Millie's floor, and not sure he was making a huge difference, although she had followed him into the guest room that morning and pulled a box of romance novels from the back of the closet. Li
llian sent her books to Millie, who loved them, and Leigh supposed that his sister bought others in the grocery store or wherever.

  "Daddy always said these would rot my brain," she said, leaning against the sofa bed, which Leigh had yet to pull out. "But when I was sick or got really good grades, he'd let me read them."

  Leigh sat down on the floor next to her and pulled on the ends of her hair.

  "Your brain's never going to rot, Mill," he said.

  "I feel sick," she said. "Like I want to throw up, but can't."

  He sat with her until she fell asleep, and he lifted her onto the couch, unfolding a blanket and turning out the light.

  After eating lunch, Clayton asked if he wanted to get some driving in. Leigh had gotten his permit in August, but although the required six months had passed, he hadn't completed sixty hours of supervised driving. If it hadn't been for soccer, he and Clayton would have finished the remaining two hours of daylight and seven of nighttime. Leigh was desperate to get his license. It was unnecessary at home, but having to be driven places while visiting his father was unbearable. He hated himself for saying yes, believing that a better brother would not so eagerly get into a driver's seat after what had happened to Millie's father.

  Clayton, unlike Lillian, was a good driving teacher, never losing his temper or displaying any alarm at poorly executed stops or awkward turns. Leigh's father was not an expressive man, and Lillian often said that Clayton was emotionally autistic.

  "He can only show love by solving a problem for you," she told Leigh once. "He won't sit with you while you cry, but he will try to fix whatever's making you cry."

  Janet, however, felt that Clayton's mother had been the one responsible for making him so shut down.

  "Your grandmother was very WASP and New England," Janet said. "She could never tell your father she loved him."

  Leigh didn't much think about which of them was right. Mostly, he suspected that Clayton's complete lack of affect served him well at work. It made knowing his own father close to impossible, but he would learn to drive because of it. As Leigh pulled, very carefully, into the garage next to Janet's car, Clayton said, "Well done, nice work. I don't think you'll have any trouble with the road test."

  "Thanks," Leigh said. "Just have to log those hours."

  He turned the engine off, remembering to take the key out so that the car wouldn't produce a series of beeps when he opened the door.

  "It was good of you," Clayton said. "Coming here was good of you. It means a lot to Janet that you'd do that."

  Leigh barely noticed how his father kept himself out of the whole equation, simply saying, "Of course I came. I love Millie."

  Clayton got out of the car, quickly, and spent the remainder of the day working in the sun porch, which pretty much defeated, Leigh thought, the point of staying home.

  ~~~

  Upstairs, he checked that Millie was still sleeping in his room, then went into her bedroom to call his girlfriend. Leigh knew he should have called before now and told her about Seth. Astra Grein was always puzzled and, in her way, annoyed at how little he had to say about his father or his periodic visits to Maryland. Leigh could never fully convince her that there was nothing to say. But maybe it was a weird girl thing to be obsessed with other people, because normally Millie wanted to know everything about Astra.

  How had Leigh decided to ask her out, was she pretty, did she laugh a lot, how long was her hair, and what were her hands like? To which Leigh had said, She kind of asked me, Very pretty, No, not so much, Long enough, and Her hands? Millie, they're hands.

  Millie never asked the questions that would allow Leigh to explain how he felt about Astra. She was more than pretty: she was drop-dead beautiful, popular and smart. Leigh knew that every guy in school would trade places with him in an instant. Being with Astra was like having won a prize, which was, perhaps, not the right way to think about one's girlfriend. As a result, he always felt a little guilty around her, but she was sweet on the phone when he told her about Seth.

  "I'm glad you're there," she said. "How's she holding up?"

  "I'm not sure yet," Leigh said.

  "Well, you will be," Astra said. "You're good at figuring things out."

  This might have been a compliment, but maybe she couldn't think of what else to say. The fact that Leigh couldn't tell probably meant his girlfriend was wrong about what he was good at.

  chapter three

  the train wreck

  Millie finally agreed to go out at around four-thirty, after eating some toast with butter and cinnamon on it. Leigh got her coat, the leash, the house key, dog biscuits, and the dog. Millie sat on the piano bench, pulling on her socks. She kept patting Bubbles's head, making the dog overly excited about the walk, and as Leigh was trying to keep Millie's shoes away from the dog, someone thumped on the front door.

  "It's open!" he called.

  The door thumping sounded again.

  "Open, come on in."

  This was the kind of thing you could say in Calvert Park, Maryland, but not at home in New York, unless you were very sure who was standing in the hallway outside your apartment. Leigh heard Janet coming out from the kitchen.

  "Jesus, it's open," Leigh said, starting to haul Bubbles to the door, but Millie darted past him, shoeless, into the small, cold front hallway.

  "It's Maia," she declared before flinging the door open.

  "She doesn't touch doorknobs," Janet said softly, standing behind him.

  They both watched as the girl, who Leigh guessed was the famous Maia Morland, put her hands on either side of Millie's face. If Maia said something, Leigh didn't hear it, but Millie nodded and then, without warning, burst into the sobbing the whole house been waiting for since the news of Seth Davis's death had first leaked into it.

  Maia put her arms around Millie, taller by just enough to provide what looked like comfort and support.

  Janet touched Leigh lightly on the shoulder and motioned toward the kitchen. He took off his coat, let Bubbles out the back door, and was, as he watched the dog run to the bushes where she'd been trained to confine her business, ashamed of his gratitude that Millie had broken down on someone else.

  Let Maia Morland be stuck with saying all the ridiculous things no one could believe. It'll be okay, I'm so sorry, You'll be fine. I really, really liked him. Janet was right—if your heart wasn't broken at the news, what good could you be to the person whose heart was?

  Bubbles bounded back in and Leigh followed her into the kitchen, where Janet was making what looked like dinner, although it wasn't yet five. Because Lillian worked mostly at home, she and Leigh ate dinner whenever they felt like it. This could be at five in the afternoon or, on occasion, at ten in the evening. He usually wound up eating while he and his mother watched the half-hour BBC World News. Leigh liked how the British accents could make the most horrible news (famine, flood, or the death of an entire crew on a damaged submarine) sound like shiny items available for purchase.

  Dinner at his father's house, however, followed a schedule. Even if Clayton worked late, the table was set at seven and food was served at seven-thirty.

  "We eating early because Dad's home?" Leigh asked.

  "No, I'm making a meal for Maia," Janet said. "She grew this fall so she's had to up her calories. Poor thing, she'd finally hit her goal weight and then had to go back on the feeding plan."

  Leigh, who by the eighth grade was sick of listening to girls talk about food, weight, and diets, thought this was a bit unusual.

  "Listen, I want the girls to have time alone," Janet said. "Being able to help Maia gain weight is one of Millie's greatest joys. She considers it a huge privilege."

  "Is Maia sick?"

  "Anorexic," Janet said, "although to hear her tell it, she just stopped eating by accident. That girl's a train wreck, but your sister loves her."

  No kidding, Leigh thought, recalling all the times Millie had said, as if reporting from the Divine, Maia thinks and then whatever it was
Maia had thought.

  When the girls came into the kitchen, Maia introduced herself by saying, "Hi, you must be Leigh."

  "Nice to meet you," he said, holding his hand out in greeting, and was surprised when his sister swatted it away.

  "She doesn't shake hands," Millie hissed.

  He could tell he was staring at Maia in a way that didn't even feel polite, but he was remembering an interview that he'd read with Donald Trump. In addition to putting his name on buildings and almost running for president, Trump had a huge germ phobia.

  "Not a problem," Leigh said, calling up a detail from the Trump article. "In Japan, people bow, and no one shakes hands."

  Maia—who was one of those girls with skin so pale, you could see the blue of her veins—turned a red that was almost purple before the blush vanished as she held her hand out toward Leigh and said to Millie, "Don't be silly. That's only true with strangers, and I almost know your brother, you talk about him so much."

  Leigh took her hand, only aware when he let go of it that he'd had no reaction. There was something off about her. She was pretty, but not ... not attractive. She had black hair held back with these sparkly barrettes all the girls at school used. Her eyes were light brown, and her nose was long and didn't quite fit the way her face was arranged. Still, he couldn't recall the last time he'd met a girl without assessing her in terms of how much she made him want to touch her.

  If Astra Grein took away his ability to think of anything but touching her, Maia Morland made him think of everything but touch. It wasn't that she was so skinny, although she was, which you could tell even though her body was covered up in a baggy dress and huge sweater. Instead of tights or leggings, Maia had on a pair of bright blue and red socks. There was a gap of bare skin between her ankles and her dress, making Leigh look away, as if he had seen something he shouldn't.