Nineteen Minutes: Part 1, Chapter 5: The Day After Summary & Analysis

A handwritten note meditates on the question of free will versus fate. The writer speculates that some people will say those who died in the shooting were just “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” and that the same could be said for the writer themselves.

On his sixth Christmas, Peter got a fish as a present. Even as a child, he was disturbed by the fact that the fish spent its whole life confined to the same bowl. Now, sitting in Grafton County jail, Peter thinks about the fish, trying to remember its fate. He is on suicide watch, which means he doesn’t have a mattress or pillow, just a wooden bench. A correctional officer comes to tell Peter that he has a visitor. Suddenly, he remembers that—horrified by the fish’s captivity—he decided to flush it down the toilet, sending it (he believed) to freedom. After he told Joey this, Joey informed him that he’d actually killed the fish. 

When Jordan (Peter’s lawyer) arrives at the jail, he struggles to get any of the guards’ attention—they are all glued to the news coverage of the shooting. The news broadcast explains how Ed McCabe threw himself in front of his students. Lewis, meanwhile, misses a lecture for the first time in his career as a professor at Sterling College. He and Lacy watch helplessly as police carry all of Peter’s belongings out of the house. Lacy asks if Lewis thinks they’re to blame, and Lewis wonders if they mollycoddled him, or if they should have paid more attention to what he was reading and watching. He thinks about how, as parents, he and Lacy have “failed miserably. Twice.”

Lacy asks Lewis about Hitler’s mother. Lewis recalls memories of Peter, and thinks that Peter is still his son, even if he has committed an unthinkable crime. He starts having a panic attack, and at this moment an officer comes over. He asks if the firearms from the basement belong to Lewis, and then asks him to check and see if all his guns are present. Lewis looks, and tells the officer that some are missing. At the jail, Jordan tells Peter that he will be arraigned tomorrow, and that he won’t get bail. The next morning, they will go over the charges together. He asks Peter if he has questions, and Peter initially doesn’t reply. Then, just before Jordan leaves, Peter asks, “How many did I get?” 

Dr. Ervin Peabody is a professor in the psychology department of Sterling College who once coauthored a paper on school violence. A reporter interviews him, asking about warning signs of school shooters, and Ervin lists social isolation, fantasies of self-harm and harming others, and poor discipline in school. Seeking reassurance, the reporter asks if there is a typical profile of a school shooter. Ervin replies, “You could make that argument.” Back at the Houghtons’ house, Lewis pauses outside Peter’s room, where he usually says goodnight to his son every evening before bed. He hears the sound of talking and finds Lacy watching the news on TV. She says, “They keep calling him a man […] but he’s only a boy.”

Josie has been listening closely to discussions in the hospital in order to make a “mental list of the wounded.” Those wounded from her social group include Drew Girard, Emma, and John Eberhard. Among the other people she knows are Natalie Zlenko, Coach Spears, and the “golden senior couple,” Brady Pryce and Haley Weaver. There are also others whom Josie doesn’t know, but with whom she’s now “linked forever.” It is difficult to find out who is killed, although she thinks she’s heard that Mr. McCabe and Topher McPhee are both dead. It still doesn’t feel real that Matt is also gone.

At 7 a.m., Alex enters and, with a “fake smile,” asks if Josie is ready to go. Josie feels annoyed with Alex and her offers of support, which she does not want to accept. Josie has been crying so much that she doesn’t even notice it anymore; now, her mother promises that she’ll feel better when they get home. As Josie leaves, she spots a clipboard outside one of the other patients’ rooms that reads HALEY WEAVER. Haley is a senior and has been homecoming queen for the past two years in a row. She and her boyfriend Brady are “the Brangelina of Sterling High.” The other students are always discussing the romantic intensity of their relationship, although Josie knows that most of the stories are “bullshit.”

Haley’s parents move away from the door, and Josie catches a glimpse of Haley, who has bandages across her face and whose hair has been shaved. Through tears, Haley tells Josie that Peter killed Courtney and Maddie, and that he tried to kill Haley but Brady stepped in front of the gun. Haley asks Josie to honestly tell her if her face has been ruined, but Josie lies, saying it hasn’t. Walking away, Josie wonders if her whole life is now going to be “a string of lies.” Meanwhile, Sterling High has been turned into a “spiderweb” of white lines. Patrick steps over them, thinking about gathering the testimony of the crime’s 1,026 witnesses.

Having put Josie to bed, Alex briefly watches the news coverage of Peter’s arraignment, before turning it off to preserve her own objectivity. She knows some people will say she shouldn’t work the case simply due to the fact that Josie attends Sterling High. At the same time, in this small town, it is common for judges to encounter people they know in the courtroom. Alex herself feels convinced that her input will be essential to delivering justice. Unexpectedly, she finds Josie in the kitchen, fresh from the shower and asking if she looks alright for the arraignment. Alex says she can’t go, and when Josie asks Alex to come with her Alex explains that she also can’t, as this will be her case.  

In this moment, Alex wishes she was more like Lacy, who she feels is a gentler, more natural mother. She suggests that they make pancakes, or chocolate chip cookies, and Josie asks if she is “on crack.” Alex then suggests scrabble, but Josie also refuses.

Patrick falls asleep at a traffic light, immediately having a nightmare that he is a student caught up in the shooting. When he arrives at the technicians’ lab, his favorite tech, Selma, accuses him of “napping.” Selma shows him the results of their tests, which indicate that the fingerprints on all the guns match those of the suspect, except one, Gun B, which features “partial” fingerprints that have not been identified. Selma says that Gun B appears to have been fired, and that the bullet from Matt’s stomach could have been from Gun B or another gun. Patrick thinks it’s unlikely Peter would have switched guns to fire a single shot.

On the news, a reporter announces that it has been revealed that Peter was a fan of a punk band called Death Wish. Violent lyrics from a song called “Judgment Day” are shown onscreen. Although Peter doesn’t feel like he sleeps that night, he is awakened by correctional officer entering his cell and giving him a bulletproof vest to wear to court. Later, Jordan arrives and tells Peter that he’s been charged with ten counts of first-degree murder and nineteen of attempted first-degree murder. He says that they are going to enter not-guilty pleas to all, and he asks that Peter say nothing during this process. Although Peter agrees calmly, Jordan sees that his hands are shaking.

The narrator lists items that the police removed from Peter’s bedroom, including video games, posters from gun manufacturers, a Bowling for Columbine DVD, and a Sterling High Yearbook. In the yearbook, several faces are circled. Josie’s face has been circled but then crossed out, and the words “LET LIVE” are written beneath. When Peter arrives in the courtroom, Diana is surprised by how young he looks. Cameras from four different news networks are all trained on him. Jordan announces that he waives the reading of the charges, and that he is entering not-guilty pleas for all. Judge Albert mentions the charges in passing, which pleases Diana, and tells Jordan that Peter will not be granted bail. Peter is taken back into custody.

Diana immediately speaks to the reporters, assuring them that she is “prosecuting this case vigorously.” Jordan then speaks, expressing condolences to the victims’ families, but reminding everyone that “what you see is not always what it seems to be.” Shortly after, the governor of New Hampshire gives a press conference, expressing his own condolences and saying that the students of Sterling High are “all our children.” Back at home, Josie has learned that she can get Alex to leave her alone by announcing that she wants to take a nap. She lies in her room with the curtains drawn and touches the bag of pills she keeps under her drawer.

Josie thinks about how stupid she’d been to think of suicide as a statement and to assume that, if she killed herself, she’d be able to “watch everyone else’s reaction.” She tries to make herself swallow five of the Ambien, but ends up spitting them out and flushing the rest. Hearing her daughter crying, Alex comes upstairs and rubs Josie’s back. Meanwhile, Yvette Harvey—Kaitlyn’s mother—speaks to a producer from the Oprah Winfrey Show. She tells the producer that, while everyone has been saying Peter had no friends, in reality this was true of Kaitlyn, not him. Kaitlyn was truly an outsider, whereas Peter is “just evil.” The grief counselor told her that Kaitlyn was shot first, but Yvette soon became aware that the counselor had been telling all the parents that.

Soon, everyone in Sterling gets used to the constant presence of the media and the fact that every day brings a new funeral. At Matt’s service, a group of Sterling students attend wearing hockey jerseys with his number, 19. Josie and Alex sit at the back, and Josie wonders if it is possible to grieve when she can’t even remember what happened. She finds Alex’s doting sympathy disturbing. Last year, when they had been studying the death rituals of the Ancient Egyptians, Matt promised Josie that when he died, “I’m going to take you with me.” Matt’s father starts talking, and before she knows what she’s doing, Josie gets up and approaches the casket.

Matt’s father asks if Josie is ok, and if she wants to say anything about Matt. Josie starts crying and apologizes. Alex immediately comes to her side, and Josie accepts the Kleenex her mother offers her. Meanwhile, in his cell in maximum-security jail, Peter hears someone murmur, “I know what you did.” When Peter replies, the voice introduces himself as Carnivore and tells Peter to stop being a “fucking baby” and crying. Carnivore says that he has been in prison for ten months, and that his trial is next week. He explains that “they say” he raped and killed a waitress. Peter is shocked by the idea that maybe everyone in prison thinks they are innocent. Carnivore keeps talking, but Peter ignores him.

When Patrick arrives at Alex Cormier’s door, he is surprised by how young she looks. Frostily, Alex tells him that Josie doesn’t remember anything, but he says he has to speak to her himself. Josie takes Patrick into the kitchen and requests that Alex stay with them, but Alex says she can’t. Once Alex goes, Josie accuses Patrick of faking interest in her wellbeing, but Patrick insists he really does care.

Josie tells Patrick that the whole day of the shooting has been blanked out in her memory; Patrick knows that this is a normal response to trauma. He asks why Peter didn’t like Matt, and Josie replies that everyone teased Peter, not just Matt. She mentions that she used to work with Peter at the copy store in town, and that once, after he lit a fire at work, Josie told on him and he got fired. Patrick asks if the two of them were friends before his incident, and Josie says they weren’t.

Lacy brought homemade muffins, books, and magazines to give to Peter in jail, but all of this was confiscated by the correctional officer. A frightening-looking man with a swastika tattoo approaches Lacy, before greeting the woman sitting next to her as “mom.” Lacy thinks about the fact that “Everyone […] is somebody’s son.” When she sees Peter, she smiles, attempting to conceal her horror at the situation. They hug until a correctional officer tells her to let go. Peter asks if the police came to his house, and he is angry that Lacy let them take his things. When she mentions the guns and the bombs, he tells her, “You wouldn’t understand.” He accuses of her of not even being able to look at him, then starts crying.

Lacy thinks about the way that everyone in Sterling will judge her parenting, blaming her for what Peter has done. She thinks that while it is easy to love a popular, successful kid, there is something noble in loving someone whom everyone else hates. She embraces Peter, determined not to let go until the officers wrench her away from him. Meanwhile, Patrick watches the surveillance footage from the shooting and is horrified to see Peter sitting down to eat a bowl of Rice Krispies after shooting kids. His ex-girlfriend calls him, asking how he is doing.

The FBI’s investigatory report on school shootings identifies certain patterns among the “family dynamics” of shooters. There is usually a “lack of intimacy” at home, and no restrictions on TV or computer use. Shooters tend to behave poorly at school, watch violent movies and video games, consume drugs and alcohol, and leave clues suggesting that they are fantasizing about committing mass murder.

Lewis likes to stick to a routine, believing that this is an important component of happiness. For this reason, he returns to work soon after the shooting. Yet when the chair of the Economics department, Hugh Macquarie, sees him on campus, he is taken aback and urges Lewis to take more time off. When Lewis replies that he thinks it will make him feel better to be at work, Hugh rephrases his statement, saying that Lewis cannot be at work.

Patrick goes to see the tech workers whose job it is to search computers for criminal activity. One of them tells Patrick that Peter was a skilled programmer who made his own computer games. He would post these games onto forums for others to use and he had the username DeathWish. In one of Peter’s posts, he complains about a craft festival occurring in Sterling and promises to hide behind bushes and use the festival attendees as “target practice.” The tech worker also explains that Peter hacked into the school’s computer system. When the first bomb went off, every computer screen in the school displayed the message, “READY OR NOT… HERE I COME.”

Jordan goes to see Peter, and Peter immediately complains about the fact that he is in jail, which he believes is unfair. Peter explains that he’s being punished for having been bullied by others. Jordan realizes that Peter is lucid about his actions, but still believes that he is the victim. Peter accuses Jordan of not really caring about him, which Jordan confirms is true, though he also says that it is his job to get him out of jail. Peter expresses confusion about why anyone is sad that “those jerks are dead.” He says that they bullied him every day of his life, simply because ganging up on someone else made them feel better about themselves. Peter notes that the kids also cyberbullied him, for example by sending a personal email he wrote to everyone in school.

When Jordan asks further questions about the email, Peter says he doesn’t want to discuss it. Jordan finds himself thinking about the struggles his elder son had trying to fit in during middle school. Peter asks if Jordan has kids, then says that he must understand. Every parent wants their child to grow up to be successful, but far more kids end up unliked and bullied. Jordan is momentarily speechless, lost in thought about his own sons.