Before & After You

by Michelle Chamberland

  “For the little Miss,” he says, holding the flowers out towards Charlee, and she doesn’t even bat an eye as she takes them from his hand and bounds away.

  “I approve!” she yells from the kitchen, and I laugh.

  “And for you.” He hands me the chocolate cake. “If my memory serves me correctly, dessert is your one true kryptonite.”

  Dessert, yes. And you. No big. My heart beats faster, and I will it to calm.

  I take the cake from his hands, biting back a mischievous smile. “Thank you,” I say. “But where’s the cake for you and Charlee?”

  “You know,” he laughs, “I seriously considered bringing two.”

  And then I laugh, too. “Kidding. I can share. I suppose.” I jokingly shrug and set the cake down on my entryway table, holding my front door open wider for him. “Come on in.”

  He steps through the threshold and into my house, somehow stealing my oxygen in that one quick, seemingly ordinary move. But Greyson in my home, in my space, standing two feet away from me, is clearly not something I sufficiently prepared myself for.

  I swallow thickly, clasping my fingers together to keep my hands from subtly shaking. Why am I so damn nervous?

  He looks around the space, slowly taking in my living room. Turquoise suede couches, vibrant Persian rug, macramé curtains…

  I watch him the entire time.

  When his eyes find mine, I can immediately recognize that this moment is surreal for him, too. Heavy. A little overwhelming.

  It selfishly helps ease my nerves a bit.

  But I’d still like to slide my hand across his chest and feel how hard his heart is beating. See if it matches the quick pace of my own.

  “We’re making pizza! Come on!” Charlee slices through our connection, refocusing our attention entirely.

  “Mmm, I love pizza,” Greyson says excitedly for Charlee’s benefit, and he trails her into the kitchen with a soft smirk.

  But what just happened there? That smirk? It doesn’t help my racing heart at all. And my mind has immediately latched onto the vibrato of the single sound he uttered before “I love pizza.” And my god, but I am in so much trouble here.

  I follow them into the kitchen, clearing my throat and attempting to clear my mind, but my eyes zero-in on his left hand without my permission.

  Yep. Still there.

  It’s that reminder alone that settles my thoughts and emotions into an easy calm. For the most part, anyway.

  “These are all our topping choices!” Charlee says, gesturing to the smorgasbord of them laid out on the counter before us. “You can put as many on your pizza as you want,” she adds, as if it’s the best kept secret on the planet, and I smile. She always insists we lay out as many topping options as possible even though she goes for pepperoni and pineapple every time, without fail.

  And Charlee, as expected, decorates her pizza into a face with pepperoni eyes and a pineapple smile. I load mine with veggies and quietly watch as Greyson tops his with the same, before adding some pepperoni and pineapple at Charlee’s insistence.

  I laugh under my breath. She’s a bulldozer, this one. And she already seems to be wrapping him around her tiny, six-year-old little finger like she has with the rest of us total suckers.

  We throw our three pizzas into the oven and clean up our mess, and Charlee wastes no time dragging Greyson into the living room to set up for a first round of Mario Bros. 3.

  Apparently, her and Greyson are going to play as a team, while I’ll be stuck as Luigi on my own. Traitors, the both of them.

  I smile as I set my sponge down in the sink and rinse my hands, gazing out the window and into my backyard. I take a grounding, steadying breath, watching my overgrown grass swaying in the wind. Up and down, and up and down, like the ripples in an ocean.

  It feels like this—all of it—has been a long time coming.

  Inevitable, even. Years in the making. Made even more confusing and obscure by that ring on his finger.

  What is he doing here?

  What does this mean? To him? To me?

  Does his wife know he’s here? Does he even have a wife? Is he married?

  One thought rolls into the next, and I feel suddenly impatient for the moment Greyson and I will be alone again—to air out everything between us. To finally rip the band-aid off and find a way to move on from here.

  I take another deep, calming breath and make my way into my living room. When I spot them both on the couch, game controllers in hand, Charlee giggling and him with an open smile, I stop to lean against the threshold, watching them.

  I can’t help but wonder if, in a different world, this could’ve been us. A family.

  Or if now, in this lifetime, he already has one.

  Forty-seven After

  CHARLEE IS FAST asleep on the couch when the ending credits of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban roll through the screen—her favorite of the series, of course.

  “You impressed her, you know,” I say quietly to Greyson without taking my eyes off of her sleeping form. She’s bundled up, taking up more than her share of the couch her and Greyson are sitting on.

  “Did I?” he asks, and it feels like he’s asking more than meets the eye. Hidden questions buried beneath unspoken words and even more questions.

  And here we are, somehow. Hovering in the moment I’ve been waiting for.

  It came too fast. But I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for this conversation, if I’m being honest.

  It feels oddly like reading a good book—the few and far between kind; the kind you can open up and lose yourself in entirely. The ones you nearly devour in a day, but at the same time, you spend half of the next picking it up and finishing it by only a sentence or two at a time, because you can’t bear for it to be over yet.

  It’s a lot like getting to know Greyson again.

  The knowledge of who he is and what his life looks like has been at my fingertips all this time, I just didn’t want to look.

  I’ve preferred these small amounts of exposure, the tiny slivers of who he is slowly presenting themselves to me without giving away how the story unfolds, because I think I’ve known all along that once I find out the truth, I’ll be forced to close these pages of my life forever.

  And I don’t want this to be over. I’m not ready for whatever this is that still lives and breathes between us to end.

  “You did,” I finally answer Greyson’s question, suffocating the rest of my thoughts so they don’t have enough air to breathe. “I don’t think we’ve ever made it to the last world without giving in and using the whistle at least once…” I say, still a little more than distracted. I will my heart to stop racing. And my thoughts, too.

  “Honestly, I think you might’ve reached hero-status in her eyes in the span of one night,” I continue, “and that is not an easy feat when it comes to this girl.”

  “Good to know,” he says with a half-smile, genuine.

  We both glance over at Charlee again, and the look I’ve seen a few times tonight flits across his face—a curiosity in his eyes, and a hesitant tilt to his lips.

  “She’s a sweet girl.” He clears his throat. “Is, uh…” And he clears his throat again, looking slightly nervous. It makes me a little nervous, though I’m not sure exactly why. “Is her father in the picture?” he asks.

  That takes me off-guard. What an odd, intrusive question to ask.

  “Um…yes. Fortunately,” I eventually answer him.

  He nods, looking mildly uncomfortable.

  “He’s an amazing father, actually,” I add, though it doesn’t seem to make him any less uncomfortable.

  Charlie’s dad really is good to her, though. He just happened to be a more than shitty husband. He had cheated on Maggie, and she’d been blindsided. Hell, even I had been blindsided. Not one of us saw it coming. He didn’t seem like the type. Not even close. But I guess we never really expect these kinds of things from the people we trust. So, we all lost a friend in him when it happen
ed.

  It was just after Charlee’s third birthday when Maggie found out. She kicked him out, but he begged her to let him try and keep his family together, promising counseling and a whole other slew of empty assurances, so she took him back. Only to quickly find out he’d also been trying to mend things with the woman he’d been cheating on her with, and then she kicked him out for good.

  “Shitty husband. But a great father—thankfully,” I give voice to my thoughts.

  Greyson quickly looks over at me, his eyes wide and surprised. He clears his throat uncomfortably for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, looking uneasy on an entirely different level. “I had no idea you’d married,” he says, his voice rough.

  What? Me? “What?” Oh. Oh! And I draw it all together. “No.” I laugh on an exhale. “Not me,” I say with a hand pressed against my chest. I can feel my heart beating a mile a minute beneath my palm. “Charlee isn’t mine.” I shake my head. “Oh my god.” And I can’t help but laugh again. “Is that what you’ve been thinking this entire time?”

  He nods, his eyes slightly narrowed in confusion.

  I know I need to pull myself together and clarify, but oh my god, this is kind of hilarious, isn’t it?

  “No. She’s my friend’s daughter,” I manage. “Maggie? Her daughter.” And I look around the room, imagining toys and a little castle tent and a chaotic mess of things strewn across the space if she were actually mine. If I had a kid.

  Someday, maybe, my living room might look like that. But that day is not today. I would’ve thought that would be a huge clue that she wasn’t mine, but what do I know?

  “Oh,” he says, clearly relieved, taking a deep breath as he runs both of his hands through his dark hair. “Have you been married?” he asks.

  “No…” I shake my head. “I haven’t… But…” And here we go, because if there were ever a more perfect opening, this would be it. “I’ve noticed that you are,” I point at his wedding band, finally giving air to the elephant taking up space in the room—in my mind, my heart. My future.

  My throat tightens in anticipation of his impending answer.

  “No,” he says, looking down at the dark band, and then he laughs, too, bright and weightless, and our roles completely reverse between one moment and the next. Because now I’m confused. “I haven’t been married,” he adds. “Honestly, I forgot I had this on.” He twists it around and around his finger before meeting my eyes again.

  But mine pull together in suspicion without my permission, fully giving away my apprehension, because ring, plus ring finger, usually equals one thing: Marriage. If not in the present, then at least in the past. Unless it’s a purity ring, I briefly think to myself. But I happen to know firsthand that that is not the case.

  So I sit here and silently wait for him to elaborate.

  He quickly does, much to my relief. “It was my grandfather’s ring,” he says. “He passed it down to my mother, and she held onto it to give to me.

  “She gave it to me after my first tour overseas, actually.”

  Okay. I swallow, overwhelmed by the thoughts and emotions swarming through me all at once—relief, nerves, a shaky fluttering in my chest. I believe him, but…

  “And you wear it now, because…?” I ask. Because a girl could get really confused when you wear something like that on your finger, I don’t say. Clearly!

  And am I a complete idiot? Wasting so much time dreading the what ifs when I could’ve just asked him as soon as I saw him again at the coffee shop?

  I don’t know.

  Maybe. Probably. Definitely.

  His green eyes don’t stray from mine, and I watch as his lips tilt into a slow smile, as he chuckles softly and shakes his head. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding like an asshole, but…” He shrugs. “It keeps me from being constantly hit on. Not that it deters too many women backstage.”

  I bark out an involuntary laugh. At him. At me. Who knows at this point? I sure as hell don’t know, but my relief is palpable. “Must be nice.” I sigh, pressing my back into my couch cushions as I reign all my thoughts back in. “So they come flocking in by the dozens then, huh?” I ask with an amused smile, and definitely a tiny hint of jealousy.

  “You could say that,” he offers with a small smirk. “I’m not too interested in other women, though.”

  “You’re not?” I manage to respond through my rapid heartbeats and shallow breaths. I don’t mean to jump to conclusions or anything here, and assume what I think he’s insinuating, but what else is that supposed to mean?

  “No.” His Adam’s apple slides up and down his bare throat. I can’t take my eyes away from the movement—until he says, “There’s only one woman I’ve been interested in connecting with for the past eight years, and I think we both know that’s you.”

  And my eyes snap back up to his.

  Forty-eight Before

  “JESSICA, STAY BEHIND, please. I’d like to speak with you for a moment,” my photography teacher announced just before the bell rang.

  I waited for everyone to file out before I stood from my desk and made my way over to her. Sara hadn’t so much as glanced over at me as she left, so I doubted she was outside waiting for me.

  I slowly stepped up to the edge of Ms. Greenburg’s desk and watched as she pulled three large versions of a couple photos I had taken from a manila envelope. She set them down on the desk between us.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she started, but I wasn’t sure what there was to mind yet… “but I enlarged a few of your shots.”

  I slid them closer, glancing over them. Elizabeth in the kitchen, looking flustered as my dad kissed her cheek, Ashton and Reagan still wailing at her front and back in their carrier. Sara lying in the wildflowers behind our school, one held up to her nose as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. A football player with his head buried in his hands, the loss of his game written in the harsh lines of his features, highlighted by the dirt and grass stains that marred his uniform and arms. I’d played with the lighting and contrast, editing them in darker, muted tones.

  Ms. Greenburg smiled as I looked back up at her. “You took a unique approach to this project. I appreciate your alternate view on the topic.” I tried to grasp onto what she was saying, but I wasn’t quite following. “Any of us can freeze-frame a snippet of time in a photo,” she continued, “but what you’ve done here…there’s a stillness in these shots that go beyond simple photography. You’ve captured “Life in Action” in a way we can all connect with. These quiet, private moments that propel life forward.”

  My mind spun around in a slow circle, sliding over each of her words. She liked them? Pride bloomed in my chest.

  “These photos view like the work of an experienced and well-known photographer, Jessica. You have something beautiful here, and I’d like your permission to enter them into this year’s DEMA Award. I know a few people, and they’ve already approved them for entry. All you have to do fill this out.” She slid a paper towards me. “There’s a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship on the line.”

  My mouth fell open. What? She was serious?

  “It’s an esteemed award, I know. But I think you truly have a shot here,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt to try.”

  I don’t know why, but it felt like she was handing me a lifeline that day. Another sliver of hope in a world opening itself up to me. It meant a lot, just that she’d thought my pictures were that good.

  So I nodded, a smile pulling at the edges of my lips, and filled out the papers she’d handed me.

  I was a little high in the clouds when I walked through the front doors of my dad’s house after school that day. He was finishing up a call in the kitchen, his deep and steady voice traveling through the walls. I went to make my way upstairs but paused, turning on my heel and walking into the kitchen on a split-second decision instead.

  I sat down at the table directly across from him and cleared my throat. Now or never, Jess, I swallowed. “I’d like to take yo
u up on your offer…for counseling…if it’s still on the table,” I said, my heart racing a mile a minute.

  He slowly slid his glasses down his nose and set them on the table in front of him. I hadn’t noticed before, how alike we looked. Our dark hair and dark eyes, the small freckles over the bridges of our noses. The features of my own face I could see in his older, worn ones. I guess it was the first time I’d actually taken the time to truly look at him.

  And in that moment, he seemed…relieved. “Of course,” he said. “Of course it is. I’ll call and make an appointment for you right now.”

  I could’ve left it at that, said my thank you and walked away; at the time, I probably thought that I should’ve. But I still found myself asking him, “Was Mom always like that…an addict? When you knew her? When you guys were…together?” I realized that I didn’t even know if they ever had been together. How sad was that?

  But my mom didn’t talk about much of anything of importance with me, and especially not the topic of my father. I’d learned a long time ago to drop the subject of him altogether. So, I honestly didn’t know what their story looked like.

  Had my dad been an addict too, at some point? And this was some old, sad and worn tale of two junkies who got together and accidentally had me? Or did he know a version of my mom I never knew? A sober version of her I’d imagined so many times but had never once truly seen? I honestly couldn’t picture it.

  He took a long time to answer me, long enough that I found myself fidgeting in my chair, uncomfortable that I had asked in the first place.

  But then he took in a deep lungful of air, squeezing the space between his neck and shoulder with one hand as he looked me in the eyes. “We grew up together—your mother and me. So, no. She wasn’t always an addict. But we both…grew up in our own difficult situations. Your mother had a lot to be angry about; we both did…

  “I’m not proud to tell you that we both ended up in the wrong crowd together, trying idiotic things we never should’ve been touching at any age, let alone at fifteen-years-old, to try and numb ourselves.