William Walter
It was hot and everything you could touch and see was sticky.
People were sealed up inside doing their best to stay cool. I was in here
writing, but you were out in the driveway with your basketball. I don’t
understand how you stood that goddamn heat.
To this day, I still have no idea how he got outside. Your mother
was sleeping. And I didn’t hear a thing: not the collision, his yelps, or
your screams. These walls are thick. I’ll never forget the look on your
face when you came in here wearing blue sneakers and a red cap with
his body in your scrawny arms. Christ, I remember that face—your lip
quivering and jaw hanging slack open like an idiot. And your eyes. We
sat staring.
Don’t think I didn’t want to talk. I ached to say what you needed
to hear. I struggled to reach you, but I couldn’t. I peered over my desk
and saw a chasm. What about you—did you see it? Were you scared?
Of course you were. I don’t know why I asked.
You left without a word and dragged his shaggy corpse into your
mother’s room. She comforted you. That night I heard the crying you
tried to stifle and knew I failed. Don’t think I didn’t. It’s why I sat inside
when you and your mother buried him in the backyard.
I still have the note you left under my door three nights after. It’s
locked up right here in this desk next to all the others and it’s stained
and torn a bit. You thought I didn’t read the notes? That I discarded
them? No. I’ve kept every single one and I read them.
There’s a word in your last note that says everything. Do you know
what I’m talking about?
It’s Father.
You always called me Dad. After worse things than that mutt’s death,
you signed your notes with the same. It wasn’t from mere habit you did,
I know. I didn’t comfort you when you told me what was happening
in school, but you still thought of me as Dad, a friend. That little word
told me you thought we’d get better. But when Dad disappeared and
you wrote Father, I knew things were finished. You didn’t need to say
anything else.
T
he heavy man pauses and looks down at his hands. His fingers pop
as he bends them to pick up the cigarette. Burnt flakes fall faintly
to the desk and floor. He swats at them as he fills his lungs with smoke.
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