Nothing Like the Movies

Wes

I wish I believed in ghosts.

I sat there, on the one remaining chair in the Secret Area, wishing I could feel my dad’s presence. It was the last time I’d ever be out there in the dark by the fire, the last night I’d ever see the inside of that house, and I knew if I were in a movie, I’d find his old steel-toed boots and somehow know he was proud of me.

That he forgave me for what I’d done.

But nah—it was just me and the quiet as I said my goodbyes.

The Secret Area had been taken over by thistles and milkweed—and moles apparently, I thought as I looked down at the dug-up dirt beside the overgrown bush. It felt like some sort of depressing analogy for my former life as I pressed the soil back down with my shoe.

But I chose not to overthink it as I chucked a few more sticks into the fire.

It was childish, my plan to spend the night in the house, but I couldn’t resist. I was a sentimental dipshit who wanted one final sleep in my childhood bedroom before someone else lived there. Noah offered to come over because he was that kind of friend, but I preferred to be alone. If it was Sarah, I would’ve said yes because she’d been a part of this Teal Street life, but anyone else would just feel like an intrusion.

And my mom had zero interest.

Finding my dad in the living room had destroyed the house for both of them.

I opened Spotify and scrolled for something that my dad would’ve liked, but nothing sentimental enough to make me cry.

I was already on the edge.

Bingo. Foo Fighters, the guy’s guilty pleasure. I clicked on “The Deepest Blues Are Black” and wondered when the hell it’d gotten so cold. I’d only left a few weeks ago, but this breeze was packed with autumn’s chill.

Which seemed appropriate.

Saying goodbye to a lifetime of memories was an activity meant to be wrapped in bone-chilling cold, right? My fingers were freezing when I left my house keys with my dad an hour ago. The new owners were rekeying the place, so they only needed one set of copies to get them in tomorrow, and it felt wrong to just toss the keys I’d had since I was seven or eight years old, so I gave them to Stu.

I felt like the key chain would’ve made him happy.

You know, as happy as a dead man can be.

It was asinine, the way I felt when I visited his grave. It’d become a habit that was somehow comforting, even though it was like the polar opposite of how Liz had once explained her daily visits to her mother’s grave.

When Liz used to visit her mom, she would sit down beside the headstone and talk to her mother like she was talking to her best friend. She told her what was going on in her life, and I remember Liz saying it made her feel like her mom was still involved in her world, even though she was gone.

My trips to the cemetery were a little different.

I pretty much just sat down on the grass beside the STUART HAROLD BENNETT headstone and stared into space, thinking things and assuming somehow the ghost of ol’ Stu could drill into my thoughts. I knew it was absurd, but I also knew that I always felt a little better when I left.

I’d spent so many panicked hours there at the beginning, right after his massive heart attack rocked our world, desperately seeking guidance from the grave because his headstone was the only place I could turn. There was no one else to tell me how to make enough money to pay the mortgage, what I was supposed to do when my mom wouldn’t come home, or how the hell to install a new starter so I didn’t have to take my car to a garage that we couldn’t afford, so I left it at Stu’s feet.

Sometimes, like earlier tonight, I just found a Cubs game on my phone and put it on speaker. I didn’t necessarily believe in the romanticized notion of dead relatives hanging out with us, but I also knew there was something about listening to a game there that made me feel closer to my dad.

But whenever I allowed myself to feel closer, to let all the memories rush in, the voice in my head whispered the reminder that always made me want to run and hide.

You’re responsible.

Because I was. It was just a fact.

I leaned my head back and remembered that phone call like it was yesterday. It’d been two days before the exhibition game, my first freshman year, and I’d told him, “I don’t think you should come.”

“Save it, Wesley,” he’d said dismissively. “Your mom and I are leaving in a few hours. The car’s gassed up and everything.”

I remember taking a deep breath and powering through the words, forcing myself to do it. I didn’t want to hear him lose his shit, but I needed it for my mental health. I’d said, “Please don’t come. It’s just an exhibition game, Dad—I don’t want you to spend the money for a game that doesn’t count.”

“A game that doesn’t count?” he’d come back with, sounding agitated. “Do you know who you sound like right now? Like a pitcher who’s gonna blow it in the exhibition game. This game counts the most because it’s your first time on the mound in college.”

I’d been so stressed at the time, so nervous I was going to let everyone down, that I kind of snapped.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” He wasn’t even there yet, and he was making me more stressed about a game that I was already out-of-my-mind stressed about, and it’d been too much. “I’m just saying you guys don’t need to drive twenty hours for it.”

“If I don’t make the drive, kid,” he’d insisted, “who’s going to make sure you’re ready? Not your coaches. They’ve got you doing yoga and writing in goddamn journals instead of throwing the baseball.”

“Dad—”

“And not you. No, you’ll be playing grab-ass with the redhead instead of focusing—”

“I don’t want you to come,” I’d blurted, yelling over the phone even though I’d never yelled at him. “Okay? I’m already stressed about this game, so the last thing I need is you in my head. Just stay home for this one. Please.”

“Listen, kid, you’ve got to channel that psychological nonsense and stop being a pussy. Do you think—”

“Just stay away, okay, Dad?”

I rubbed the back of my neck and stared into the fire, still able to hear the argument like it’d just happened. I’d sounded exactly like him when I shouted, “You’re the worst part of baseball for me, and I dread seeing your face in the stands—is that what you want me to say? Because it’s the truth. I don’t want you there.”

It was dead quiet after I said that, and my heart had been pounding out of my chest. He was going to go apeshit on me for talking to him like that.

But… he didn’t.

He didn’t say anything. I could hear the TV in the background, so I knew he was still there, but he didn’t say a word.

And then the call was disconnected.

“Screw this.” I stood and poured water on the fire, my gut roiling as sweat beaded on my forehead in the cold breeze.

I didn’t drink anymore, not really, but tonight was an emergency.