All the Joy

A grin on his face, Ludwig ran around the living room with his plastic rifle, yelling out bits and pieces of the things he’d heard in a western he watched with his dad. ‘I know you’re there!’ He pointed the gun at the sofa. ‘ Come out with your hands in the air!’ 

Conrad watched, as his son made a plethora of gun sounds jumping around, grabbed his heart, falling to his knees and gave out a long, high-pitched ‘no,’ before plummeting to the ground.

‘Ludwig!’ A voice came from the front of the house. ‘Matt is here!’

In an instant the God’s hand resurrected the fallen cowboy. ‘Coming!’

Being fed up with the news, Conrad turned off the TV and followed the outlaw to the front door. There, Helena was kneeling down to tie Ludwig’s shoes.

‘He really should be doing this on his own, you know.’

‘Oh, hush, you. He’s only five. He’s got plenty of time to learn,’ she said, and pinched her son’s cheek. ‘Don’t you, honey?’

Ludwig nodded, and giggled at the sound of pecks Helena gave him. 

They had had countless talks about how to raise their son. Mostly because as soon as Conrad’s mother had “used her sixth sense” as she called it, and had understood Helena was pregnant, she wouldn’t stop talking about all the best brands of diapers, foods, clothes, best methods for discipline, fun, teaching. She was a walking library filled with indisputable knowledge about babies. When Ludwig was born, she had used up all her annual leave to coach the new parents on all the tiniest details, insisting to teach Helena how to breastfeed, change diapers, even how to properly hold the baby.

‘Now, remember.’ She zipped up his jacket. ‘Be careful, always stay close to auntie Carol and uncle Greg. No running off, you understand?’

While the usual lecture was taking place, Conrad walked around the pair and out the door. In front of his cut and vibrant-green lawn waited a Honda Civic. ‘How you guys doing?’ He leaned over as the car window went down. ‘Hey Greg, you still up for Friday?’

Carol looked first at her husband, then at Conrad. ‘What’s on Friday?’

‘Oh, just a guys night out, you know.’

‘Please don’t tell me it’s another poker night, honey.’

Greg stroked her thigh. ‘It’s not a poker night.’

‘You’re terrible at it; you always lose. We can’t afford to lose a hundred dollars a week.’

‘I don’t always lose,’ Greg said, putting an emphasis on “always.”

Conrad chuckled. ‘You pretty much do.’ 

‘Hey! Whose side are you on?’ 

Matt giggled from the backseat in unison with Conrad. He knew what losing a hundred dollars felt like. One time at the park, he made a bet with Ludwig using the dollar his parents had given him for ice cream. He was certain Ludwig wouldn’t dare petting their neighbors’ Doberman, and with a slick smile watched his friend approach the beast step by step, already feeling the additional dollar burning a hole in his pocket. Not in a month would he think the madman would actually get closer to an animal twice his size, let alone pet it. He imagined the anger he had felt was pretty close to what his dad must feel on those ‘poker nights,’ whatever poker was.

Behind him, Conrad heard a series of quick steps. ‘Hello!’ Ludwig yelled, his cheeks spread so much his face was just lips. ‘Hello, aunt Carol.’

Carol ruffled the child’s hair. ‘Hello, sweetie. Hop in.’

Helena joined in and put an arm around Conrad. ‘You’re a pair of saints, guys.’ 

‘Don’t mention it, it’ll be fun. The fair’s gonna be even bigger this year; some big band is coming to town. Besides, you guys deserve a little time off.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you. We haven’t gone on a date for months.’

‘Well, you could convince Conrad not to be so harsh on my little loser when they get together.’

Greg shifted in his seat and turned the ignition key. ‘You all set back there? Super, we’ll get Ludwig back by midnight. Bye, guys!’

At first Conrad scoffed at his friends, telling him that a child would come between him and his wife, that he’d have to get reacquainted with his hand and forget about Helena’s attention, which would be completely directed at the new family member. Time proved him more wrong than he’d care to admit. Which was why even if Bob Dylan himself came to sing at the fair, Conrad would still choose his wife over him. Of course, when his friends would ask why he missed one of the biggest nights in the city’s crappy social life, he’d use the one immortal excuse every husband can use for missing out on his friends’ society. ‘You know how women get. It was either that or getting nagged for weeks.’ He would never admit he sometimes preferred her to them. 

‘The lobster was really amazing.’ Helena buckled her seatbelt, and looked out at the beams of light cutting up the dark sky in the distance, where almost everyone from the city had gathered to loosen up after another long winter. ‘But didn’t we spend a little too much?’

Conrad shrugged. ‘Don’t care. It was all Greg’s money, anyway.’

They laughed as the car started purring. A careless laugh they had almost forgotten could exist in between all the sacrifices of their new life. Even after five years of having Ludwig, they still sometimes reminisced about the early days, when, straight out of high school, they would climb into Conrad’s dad’s old Ford and cruise absentmindedly around Vermont’s countryside, after a whole summer of saving up the few dollars they could get from mowing lawns or waiting tables. Their eyes fresh with affection, they’d sit under lonely oak trees getting ready for the fall, and talk about their future together. About the careers they would have, the countries they would visit. And although he would never admit it even to himself, some nights, after the movie they had been watching ended, and Helena fell asleep on his chest, Conrad wished the kid was never born. Caressing her soft, blond hair, he imagined once again being able to just jump in their car and go wherever the wind took them.

The laughter had died off and given its place to the somber afterthought that comes every time something’s ending. ‘It’s a pity we can’t do this more often.’

Conrad braked at a stop sign and took her hand into his. ‘Just you wait, in a couple of years Ludwig will be out every day, getting drunk and chasing girls. We’ll have all the time in the world.’ They chuckled at the thought. A chuckle ending in a sigh. ‘You wanna ride around a little? Midnight’s still an hour off, and I’m not that sleepy.’

She looked at him, and saw the boy her chemistry teacher had yelled at for sneaking into the class to hand her a note, inviting her to the fair that year with him. ‘Let’s phone Carol and ask her to have Ludwig over for the night.’

A slow grin spread over Conrad’s face. 

Helena pointed to a point in the sky. ‘There, that’s Pisces.’

Try as he might, Conrad could see none of the constellations. He stared upwards, moving his head about, trying to align his eyes with Helena’s finger and asking, ‘where?’ constantly, but all the stars looked the same, and in the end settled for an ‘oh, I see it’ and another sip of the wine they had picked up at a tattered 7-Eleven by the side of the road leading out of town.

‘You’re full of crap.’ She laughed and snatched the bottle out of his hand. ‘Gimme that.’

A gust of wind, still heavy with the winter’s bite, blew down from Meehan’s Hill. The few slim trees scattered around them rocked a little, along with the many clumps of high grass. Leaning forward, Conrad took off his jacket, laid it across their laps and settled back onto the tree, as Helena cuddled up to him.

Conrad planted a kiss on her forehead, making her look up. ‘You remember? We had our first time here,’ he said, and continued to the sound of Helena’s giggling: ‘we had ditched school on a Wednesday, I think, and came here in my dad’s Ford.’

‘The piece of crap almost broke on us.’

‘We were lucky it didn’t.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I think so,’ he said, and lowered his head for a kiss.

‘And what exactly did we do?’ She half-whispered, leading her fingers across his chest in circles.

A shooting star fell across the field’s sky, bright with the promise of a wish; a heavenly genie. No one was there to make a wish, however. Or rather, the only two people the star seemed to be meant for and could’ve used it had their eyes closed on all the world. Closed on all its problems and the duties it imposed, in a moment of perfect passion: a time capsule they’d open from time to time, sitting alone on their porch at night. A memory you shouldn’t remember often, for fear of it losing its magic.

Panting, they lowered themselves onto the grass, snuggled in a makeshift bed made of their clothes. As the exertion left their breaths, they stared up at the sky again.

‘I still can’t find that stupid Pisces. How do you do it?’

‘You really think that?’ She blurted, her hand squeezing his. ‘That we’ll have what we had before?’

He turned to look at her, his brows closer together.

‘I never told you this, but . . . I don’t know, sometimes I wish—I wish we gave ourselves more time, you know? Before the wedding.’

‘Do you? . . .’ He said in a low voice, his eyes jumping between hers.

Her hand caressed the side of his head. ‘No, dummy. I don’t mean I had any second thoughts about you. But it would’ve been nice to have a summer or two more, you know? Maybe go to California, or Mexico. See the skyscrapers, the beaches,’ she said, smiling, as a film came over her eyes.

He brought her closer to himself, running his hand up and down her bare arm. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll have time. How about we look for a summer camp for Ludwig? We’ll go both to California and Mexico, and Miami too, wherever you want.’

Tears rolled down her eyes. ‘Am I a bad mother?’

He turned onto his side. ‘Absolutely not. Why would you think that?’

‘I love him, you know that. But sometimes . . . Sometimes I really wish we had had more time,’ she said, and hid her face on his chest, as her back shook with quiet sobs.

‘Hey, hey, hey, look at me.’ He raised her head, his hand under her chin, and focused on her bloodshot eyes. ‘It’s okay. I wish we had more time, too. And we will. We’re still young. Besides, remember when we wanted to visit Bangor? Half-way through the trip we had to stop because all our money had ran out. That won’t happen now, us having good jobs and all.’

A chuckle brightened her face again. ‘We had to clean that awful motel for two weeks before we could get enough cash for gas to get back.’

‘Remember the manager when that lady brought her dog with her? ”No pets allowed! You tie that thing outside!”’

The chuckle became a high-pitched laugh. ‘”Oh yeah? Fuck you, then!”’ Helena tried making a Maine accent.

‘”What’re you looking at? Get back to work!”’

Their laughing ran far out onto the field. And just like that, the secret they both had been hiding for years, while still a secret, lost some of its weight. It wouldn’t gnaw at their thoughts, late on the sleepless nights.

The sun was already on its way up, when Conrad pulled up to the curb, and within seconds saw Carol open the front door, and Ludwig running out and bobbing from side to side with each step.

'Mommy!'

Helena sprung out of the car and picked him up into her arms. 'You had fun?'

His head jumped up and down. 'The fair was great! There was this band, and the wheel that made you see so far, and I shot cans with a real rifle! Then Aunt Carol let us stay up till late and watch movies and eat so much popcorn I couldn’t eat anymore!'

'Oh my, are you serious?' she said, her eyes wide. 'So I guess you won’t eat for at least a month now?'

'I don’t think so,' he said, as Conrad came up to them and mussed up his hair.

'How’s my little buddy?'

'Daddy!'

'I hope my little cowboy didn’t give you any trouble?' Helena said, seeing Carol and Greg come out with Matt.

'Trouble?' She patted the back of Ludwig’s head. 'The boy’s an angel. And did you two have fun?'

'Oh, yes.' Helena turned to look at Conrad. 'Yes, we did.'