In the Echo of this Ghost Town

by CL Walters

  She gets out of the car, throws the door closed, and walks back into the house.

  Even though every part of me stretches to go after her, I don’t. Instead, I yell at the top of my lungs in the confines of my car, hit the steering wheel until it hurts, then lean forward to cry. I can’t face her because I’m right—I don’t deserve her—and she’s right—I didn’t trust her—so I drive home.

  When I get there, I walk into an empty, dark house. The silence and loneliness greet me and sort of smile a dark smile, as if to remind me this is exactly what I’d accepted all those months ago. I pick up the discarded jacket on the chair. I am now alone. I walk through the hallway like a ghost. When I make it to my bedroom, I cocoon myself in the blankets on my bed, shivering, and wish for the relief of sleep so I don’t have to feel anything at all.

  * * *

  1

  “Griffin?”

  My mom is on the other side of my door. She’s knocked several times today. This is her fourth time, and this is the fourth time I don’t respond.

  “Griffin? Cal called.”

  His name makes my stomach ache. I was supposed to help him the rest of the break with the upstairs bathroom. I haven’t shown up. Partly because of Max, but a lot because of him, too. I haven’t called. I’m afraid to look into his eyes having broken his daughter’s heart. I hate me for it. I’ve fucked up all around, and there isn’t anything to do to fix it. No hammers, no drywall, or the ability to call the electrician or plumber. It’s just like that old wood that isn’t salvageable. I’m that old wood to haul to the dump.

  The door creaks open. I’m facing the blank wall where the poster once was. The paneling is rather intricate. The fake wood grain and the grayish tone. It’s amazing how studying it for a while makes your brain tired and sleep easier.

  “Griffin?”

  The bed depresses at my feet, and I know Mom’s sitting there, waiting for me to respond. Here’s the thing, I figure I can outlast anyone.

  “Hon? What’s wrong?”

  At first, I decided not to talk to anyone. Since fighting with Max a few nights ago, New Year’s has come and gone. Mom and Bill, Phoenix and now even Tanner have checked in, but aside from words to keep them at bay and pacify their worry, I’ve insulated myself.

  The semester starts next week, and I know that Cal will be putting Max on a bus today to return to campus. The thought of what’s happened is like a vine of thorns tightening around me. Even if I wanted things to be different, I can’t. I’ll be ripped to shreds to even try.

  “Griffin. I need you to talk to me.”

  How am I supposed to talk to her? Her one direction: Don’t you ever bring a girl home pregnant, or I will knock you into next year. How do I come clean? It isn’t because I don’t want to. I could use some guidance here, but I just don’t know what to say. I’ll just disappoint her. I’ll prove her right. I’m a fuck up and couldn’t make it past the sins of my own father. Bella may have absolved me of being involved, but it doesn’t feel like absolution. It feels like as much of a prison sentence as my father.

  When I turned thirteen and Phoenix spilled the beans about our dad’s other family, I remember vowing to never be like him. Short of drawing blood in some ritual I’d made up in my head, I’d written it somewhere. Fuck Jaxon Nichols. I will never, ever be a shitty dad to my kids. I will be there for them. I won’t cheat on my wife. I won’t do drugs or go to jail. I’ll do the right thing. Signed, Griffin Nichols.

  And I failed.

  All around.

  And Bella absolving me feels just more of the same shit.

  Griff is the economy car.

  Griff is a douche.

  Griff doesn’t need to be held accountable; he’s going to prison anyway.

  Griff is a low-class piece of shit.

  Griff isn’t worth it; he’s worthless.

  I don’t realize I’m crying until my mom has crawled into the bed behind me and has wrapped her arms around me. She’s cooing like she used to when I was eight and would wake up to nightmares after my dad had been arrested. “Baby. I’m here,” she says over and over, and I cry and cry and cry. I can’t seem to staunch the flow of this river of shit coming out of me.

  I don’t know how long she lays there.

  Sleep creeps in to bring me relief and rest.

  The next time I open my eyes, she’s walking in again, and I wonder if it’s Groundhog Day, except there’s a blue tinge to the room, because the sun has gone down. Now, I’m facing the door.

  “Sit up,” she says.

  I listen, feeling clearer. “Don’t you have work?”

  “I called in. Family first.” She’s carrying a tray, well, something flat functioning like a tray. “Make a space for this.”

  I flatten out my legs, and she sets what looks like a framed mirror on my lap. “Was this hanging in the living room?” I ask.

  She chuckles. “Yeah. I needed something to put the soup on. Works, right?”

  It makes me smile even though the rest of my face feels like I’ve been repeatedly punched.

  There’s a steaming bowl of chicken soup, a napkin, a sleeve of saltine crackers and some milk. I’m not sure I’m hungry, but it’s nice. Nice to have my mom here. Nice to have someone taking care of me. “Thanks.”

  She sits on the bed at my feet. “It’s a bribe.” She offers me a grin. I’ve seen it on Phoenix’s face, even on my own. “You’ve been holed up in here for days, and it’s time to talk.”

  I pick up the spoon to the right of the bowl and slip it into the hot liquid to stir it, which helps me to keep from looking at her. I don’t say anything.

  She sighs. “Griffin. I have always afforded you your privacy within reason. I can tell this isn’t within reason, son. I know you’re an adult and can make your own decisions, but just because we’re old enough in the eyes of the law, doesn’t mean we’re ready. That’s what your parents are for.”

  My eyes flick from the bowl and its rotating liquid back to her face. I can see her worry there, the way the corners of her eyes are weighted. The taut stretch of her mouth. But she doesn’t look angry, which is her usual emotion with me. She’s holding her hands in her lap, squeezing her fingers together, releasing and squeezing. Worried.

  “Okay. Maybe I haven’t been the best parent in the guidance department. But I’m here to be your mom. There’s been so many things I’ve done wrong and haven’t been able to be, but I’m here.”

  “You’ve always been here,” I say, to pardon her of the times she’s been gone.

  She shakes her hand. “Not enough. I mean, it was a necessity, but it ate at me how little I could be with you and Phoenix because we had to make ends meet. Wishing doesn’t change shit, but I’m here now.” One of her hands wraps around my ankle.

  I need to say it, as terrified as I am to say it to her. I can’t hold it in anymore. “I got a girl pregnant.”

  Her face relaxes and takes on a neutral quality which looks weird on her, and I curl in on myself in preparation for her to unload.

  “It was an accident,” I add, as if it makes it okay.

  She begins nodding and glancing about the room as if trying to locate something she’s misplaced. “Shit. Okay. Shit. Okay.” She stands, crosses her arms over her chest, and walks out of the room. It isn’t a split second before she walks back in. “Okay.” Her arms drop to her sides, and she returns to the end of my bed.

  “Mom?”

  Her gaze finally connects to mine, her eyes full of tears, but they aren’t falling, just shining there. She smiles through them. “It’s okay. It will be okay. Is it Cal’s daughter?”

  I shake my head. “No. No.”

  She presses a palm to her heart.

  “We ended things.” I’m not sure if it was officially ended or more just me disconnecting after facing her sadness, but Mom doesn’t need the details.

  “Who is it?”

  “A girl from high school named Bella.”

  “And does she know wha
t she wants to do?”

  “Keep the baby.”

  “Okay,” she repeats again and takes a giant breath as though she’s trying to fill her tightening lungs with oxygen. “God. I could use a cigarette.”

  “You quit.”

  “I know.” She pinches the bedspread fabric between her fingers. “And what do you want?”

  A harsh breath tears through my chest. This is the first time anyone has asked me what I want. The question puts my body in suspended animation. Bella didn’t. She made her choice to keep the baby, which I get is within her rights. It’s her body, after all. Tanner didn’t ask. Max was blindsided. I haven’t even thought about what I want or that I had a choice in the matter.

  I don’t know what I do want, but I know what I don’t want. “I don’t want to be like Dad.”

  She tilts her head. “What does that mean?”

  “Bella said she didn’t want anything from me, but that isn’t what I want, I don’t think. I don’t want to not be a dad for my kid.” I think about the list I made at 13 and failed. I think of how things are with my dad. “I want to have a relationship with my kids. I want to be a real dad, not just an idea of one.”

  The tears in her eyes spill down her cheeks, which is strange to see because my mom doesn’t cry. She swipes at the tears on her cheeks, sniffs, then smiles. “Don’t hold these tears against your mom, okay?”

  “Are you mad?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I’m worried, but I’m proud of what you just said.” She smiles again. “You need to let the girl know how you feel.”

  I look at the soup again. “Yeah.”

  She stands and swipes her hands over her thighs. “I’m glad you told me.” She leaves the room but then pokes her head back in. “What are you going to do about Cal?”

  About this issue, my stomach turns, and I haven’t even eaten anything. I set the cracker down on the napkin and swallow my feelings. “I’ll call him back,” I say.

  She nods and leaves me alone with my thoughts.

  Calling Cal will be one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life. I want to avoid it at all costs. Besides hurting Max, I’ve broken his trust. I’ve let him down, and the last person besides Max I would have ever wanted to hurt would be Cal. Facing that feels like a giant mountain I have no idea how to climb.

  I think of Bella standing at my door the other night. Of her hesitancy and her fear, but also of her bravery to come to see me rather than to share the news over the phone or text.

  I pick up the cracker again.

  As terrifying as it sounds, I need to face Cal face-to-face. It’s the right thing to do. If I can’t do that, how could I ever look myself in the eye again?

  2

  I text Max:

  I’m lost.

  She doesn’t answer.

  A couple of days later, I text her again: I’ve gone round and round about what happened when I went to see you.

  I’d like to tell you, but I don’t know if any of it makes sense.

  I told my mom about the pregnancy. I expected her to flip out. She didn’t.

  She was really helpful, actually, and it made me wonder how many other times I iced her out when she could have been there for me.

  The thought made me circle back to you and what you said...

  that I hadn’t trusted you to be on my side…

  My mom was on my side and I told her the truth. She asked me a question no one else did: What do I want?

  I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to be like my dad.

  I want to be like Cal.

  I don’t want to always push people away. I don’t want to be THAT version of Griffin anymore.

  I’ve decided to tell Bella what I want.

  She doesn’t answer. I’m not sure I expected her to, but I miss my friend.

  The next day I text her: When Bella showed up at my door, I’d been getting ready to come and get you for our New Year’s Eve date.

  There she was and I freaked out because I didn’t want her there. I wanted our date.

  I tried to get rid of her, but then she dropped the news about the baby. I didn’t do a very good job of hearing it. When am I ever very good at the emotional stuff?

  She told me I didn’t have to be involved just that I should know. The first place I went was to Tanner’s.

  Yeah. Weird huh?

  From a fight—and we don’t talk for six months—to me showing up on his doorstep.

  You know, he wasn’t mad. I said I was sorry, of course, but he apologized too. I told him about the baby and about you. And you know what he said,

  that I needed to tell you and trust you to know what you needed.

  I thought he made sense and I planned to do that.

  I stood outside your door trying to find words to tell you. Then I freaked out because none of them worked in my head.

  And when you followed me, you looked so amazing—you always do—and I wasn’t prepared to face you. I was prepared for the worst-case scenario in my head—you not being a part of my life—because there wasn’t a best case.

  There usually isn’t a best-case scenario in my head, ever, so I’ve always made the worst case happen.

  That’s how I ruin things.

  I don’t blame you or anything for leaving. I blame myself for pushing you out the door. I don’t hold you to what you said, you know, about not leaving. I made it so you didn’t have a choice.

  She doesn’t answer.

  3

  Bella lives in a little house on the opposite side of town. It’s a rundown version of a little bungalow with arched windows and doors and a plaster exterior, but it lost any luster it once had. A light brown color with dark brown trim where the wood flower boxes and trim are peeling and rotted, and the plaster is flaking away, leaving exposed patches.

  Those need to be fixed, I think.

  Evergreen bushes dot the perimeter of the house, but their lack of shape makes them appear like dark green globs of ink leaking through a thin page. The lawn—or the weeds, since it’s hard to tell which—is brown and overgrown in its drab winter coat sprinkled with mounds of intermittent snow. It’s the first time I’ve been to Bella’s, though there were many times when I’d tried to get here. Now that I am, walking up the sidewalk and into the alcove of the recessed front door, the daylight reveals a reality rather than the fantasy of what Bella once represented to me.

  I knock on the door. The pounding of my knuckles against the wood matches the rhythm of my heart. My nerves are exposed and vulnerable, so I bounce on the balls of my feet while I wait. They aren’t enough to make me run like I might have once done, however. I know I need to talk to Bella for me. If I keep my mouth closed and avoid the truths on my heart about this baby, I’ll regret it forever. So nervous bouncing seems a good compromise.

  The dark brown door with a little caged peep window opens a crack to a child’s face, a little blond girl maybe nine or ten years old who reminds me of a mini-Bella. “Who are you?”

  “You shouldn’t open the door to strangers,” I tell her.

  She shuts the door.

  “I’m looking for Bella. I’m Griffin. Is she home?” I say to the now closed door.

  The girl yells at Bella on the other side of the door that her baby daddy is here.

  After that announcement, I’m not sure Bella will even show up, but a few moments later, the door opens.

  Bella steps out, shrugging into her jacket, and closes the door behind her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Can we talk?”

  “Oh? You’re ready now?” She crosses her arms, the sound of the slick fabric of the coat hushing both of us.

  I take a calming breath to wrangle my nerves, my thoughts, my patience, and catch movement in the window behind Bella. The little girl I think is probably Bella’s sister is staring out at us through the glass. I refocus on Bella. “Are you upset I needed time to process?”

  She zips up the coat, shoves her hands into the pocket
s, and shakes her head. “No. I guess not.”

  As much as I want to rush through this, the blue eyes pinned on me through the glass feel invasive. “Want to walk?” I nod toward the face in the window.

  Bella glances behind her, then turns to look out at the street where my car is parked in front of her house. She starts down the steps to the sidewalk. I shove my hands in the pockets of my coat and follow until we’re side by side. We start down the street, walking slowly as if out for a summer stroll, but the January cold tightens cords around us. From the white steam of breathing to the grays of the world around us, the world feels stripped and ready to be filled in with color.

  “I probably shouldn’t have surprised you like that,” she eventually says.

  I consider her words. “I think it would have been a surprise no matter how you told me.”

  We walk on, the sound of our shoes crunches the loose asphalt and reconstituted snow.

  “I didn’t—you know—surprise you because I wanted to pressure you or anything. I just felt like it was only right to tell you.” She stops for a moment. “I meant it when I said that I don’t expect anything from you.”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Oh?”

  I stop. I need energy to formulate my words, but I can’t look at her. I don’t want to lose my nerve. Not because of her so much as this version of me she knows. Bella has been mean, and I didn’t expect any better, more acquiescent to the idea that she is somehow better than me. My response with her has always been to find the hard shell. It’s safer under there. I commit to holding onto vulnerable Griffin, the one Max saw and liked. The one Mara said she’d like to befriend. The one Tanner forgave. “You didn’t ask what I wanted.” I glance at her now.

  “It doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m the one who’s pregnant.” She’s stopped a few paces away, facing me, but she isn’t looking at me either. She’s staring at something in the distance.