A Hollow Conclusion

ONE

I arrived in town just after 9:00 PM with one thing on my mind—to apologize. My train pulled in at the old brick station, a place I’d spent a lot of my earlier years with Liz, just as the summer day turned dark.

The air was hot, humid, suffocating. I fumbled in my jean pocket for my phone and pulled up the web. ‘UNABLE TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET.’ The words flashed on my screen. God dammit. My phone had run out of data. I checked the date—I wouldn’t get anymore for another three days.

There was a poster on the timetable board for the local taxi rank, Sherman’s Taxis. I typed the number into my phone. ‘Unfortunately the number you have dialed is no longer available.’ My hand tightened around my phone, I wanted to throw it onto the tracks for all the use it was right now.

I was in no mood as I stomped out of the three platformed station. I climbed the stairs and crossed the bridge from my platform and over to the next.

As I came upon the beige exit wall I couldn’t help but remember one of the last times I was here. Years ago Liz and I used to take the train to college four times a week. There was a day she’d forgot her purse and I only had enough change on me for my ticket. She got so wound up and stressed that the vein in her neck pulsed with every word she said. I actually took the coins out of my pocket and offered them to her, she wouldn’t take it of course, so I threw it over my shoulder into the bushes and we both hid in the train toilet the whole journey.

The wall looked so different now. Something about it didn’t fit quite right with the version of it I’d stored in my memory.

I wasn’t even sure Liz still lived at her old place, I’d had no way to check. As I trudged up the driveway to her house, the air clinging to me, I half expected someone else to be standing on the other side of the door waiting for me. At one point it could have been me.

My knock sounded frail, limp, and unconvincing. I was so sure it would have been mistaken for the sound of the house settling or the wind rattling the window glass and nobody at all would answer it—not Liz, not her mother, not some stranger.

To my surprise, Liz was the one standing there when the door swung open. Sure, she looked older, and her hair was cut shorter, but there was no mistaking those lime green eyes, caught in the shine from the porch light, that looked me up and down. 

“Reece?” She asked, her eyes narrowing to a squint.

“The one and only,” I said, and stretched my arms out wide. I’d had this moment in my head for a long time, our reuniting embrace.

“What are you doing here?” She pulled her long sheer dressing gown closed, as if she was suddenly embarrassed. “When did you get back in town?”

“Just now. I came straight over here,” I said, “I thought you’d be happy to see me.” None of this made any sense, we’d been apart for so long. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t as happy as I was.

“You should go,” she said, “no,actually, you need to go.” 

And before I could get another word out the door slammed in my face.

TWO

I spent the next few hours wandering around in the dark. I hadn’t booked anywhere to stay, I honestly thought she was going to be happy to see me. I couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t wrap my brain around it. I’d been planning this since not long after I left. I never wanted to go, I knew it upset her but…

With nowhere else to go I headed to the only place I could—a little services on the west side of town that connected with the big motorway that headed south. It was open 24 hours and it was clean enough when I was growing up so how bad could it be now?

The service station was a big black box looking thing plastered with billboards and company logos. It used to be you could only get a coffee and a burger, but now it had more restaurants than even the town centre.

The starkly-lit inside wasn’t much to write home about. All the restaurants and shops faced inward to a large seating area with a table for every four or five chairs— It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sudden abundance of light. I could see a couple teenagers chatting behind the counter of one of the restaurants, I don’t exactly remember which one, and not wanting to be the guy that strolls in at midnight just to order a burger and maybe half a conversation.

I sat away from the central hub on a cold bench by the entrance to the toilets. I figured if I was gonna spend my night here I ought to be close to a bathroom. In some ways it was a lot like having my own personal urine stained en-suite.

For a few hours I managed to convince myself I was on the cusp of falling asleep but each time I was a moment from drifting off there’d be a car horn or some idiot would drop a tray and I’d be awake again.

I had no idea what to do. Liz and I used to talk for hours about our future, she was always talking about getting married, graduating, having a family, moving away from here and living somewhere fast and exciting. I was shocked she was still here, ashamed almost. How could she talk so much about branching out and exploring who she was as a person only to live in the same house all her life and not even try and take one step in my shoes? It suppose it didn’t come as too much of a surprise though—the more she talked about doing all those things the less I believed she would. It was reason I did it first, she was supposed to come with me.

Late that next morning I made plans to visit Liz again. To try and get a word in edgeways. I knew if I only got the chance to talk to her, to tell her how things had changed, she’d take me back.

Back when we were in college she worked weekends at a sandwich shop and seeing as she still lived in the same house I had a good feeling she’d still be working at the same place. I was right.

I have no idea what time it was when I arrived. My phone died the night before and because I didn’t have anywhere to stay I didn’t have anywhere to charge it.

The sandwich shop was a painted mess of green, yellow and white. The cracks in the lines of the window frame showed just how many times it had been painted and repainted over the years. Like everything else it was a sagging, beaten down version of the one I had stored in my memories. I used to come here every Sunday afternoon, tap on the window where I knew Liz could see me, dressed in her dull blue apron, and then she’d run out and hug me and we’d spend her entire lunch break talking outside.

The window just about shattered as my knuckles banged against it. Liz was standing there, exactly where she used to, her hair pinned back and a clean white apron clinging off her. At least she’d been promoted.

From the second she saw me I could tell I’d made a mistake. She glared at me through the glass with a sour look in her eyes. I waited outside, anticipating the lecture that was to come, fiddled around in my jacket pocket to stop my hands from shaking. 

“Why are you here Reece?” she spat, pushing me away.

“I just want to talk,” I said, grabbing at her arms. 

“You’re six and a half years too late to talk,” she twisted herself out of my grip and dropped her arms to her side, “I wanted to talk when you left. Do you remember that? I spent months sobbing over you— texting you, calling you, I even emailed you to try and get you to say even just one word to me and now you want to just walk back into my life like this? Today of all days?” 

“What do you mean ‘today of all days’?” 

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Liz,” I said, “I have no idea what you’re so upset about.”

“Don’t call me that,” Her head dropped, It looked like all the air had been sucked out of her body as she just stood there, half deflated. “I don’t let anybody call me that anymore. My name is Elizabeth.”

I wanted to reach out for her, I tried to put my hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it away. “I think it’s better if you don’t know what today is,” she finally said, “but I have to get back to work. I’m the manager now and you’re a little late for my lunch break.” She turned away from me.

“Liz please,” I said, “just give me a chance to explain.”

“I don’t have time today, Reece. It’s my son’s birthday and I have to make sure I finish on time so I’m not late to another one of his parties.” 

“At least tell me how old he’s turning,” I asked, a last ditch effort to get her to stay and talk.

“He’s six,” she said, and a single thought crashed into my mind. 

“Is he mine?” 

She didn’t answer.  

THREE

I followed Liz into the sandwich shop, the small beat-up shack that it was, to demand answers.

“Is he mine?” I shouted probably a dozen times. The few customers that were in there tried to hold their stares for moments they thought I wasn’t looking, but the whole time Liz acted like I was invisible. She went about her business wiping down tables and replacing ingredients at the counter.

Eventually, I’d had enough. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat, forcing its way out. I didn’t know what to do but I had to do something— I tried to sit down and collect myself, but every intake of breath stopped short and I had to stand right back up again.

“Can I meet him?” I asked, my hands shaking, knowing she’d refuse. Time seemed to stop as she slowly looked me up and down, the same way she did when I’d first knocked on her door. 

“Fine,” she stood upright and threw the dirty white cloth from her hand. “But not as his father. He’s already got a dad and you don’t get to just show up and mess that up.”

“Ok,” I said. At least I’d get to see him.

“Come by tonight after eight. All his friends should be gone by then.” 

“What’s his name?”

“Sam.”

I don’t remember what I did from leaving the shop until the moment I was back—standing at the end of the driveway of the house that I’d spent every day in growing up.

How could I have a kid? A six year old? I felt robbed of my life. There was some guy in there living a life that was supposed to be mine, with my wife and my kid. I noticed then that my fists had been clenched for quite some time. I stared at the white lines that covered my palms until the porch light flickered on and the door creaked open.

“We need to talk first.” Liz hesitated down the driveway to where I was standing.

I could only nod in response.

“I talked to Harry about this and he doesn’t like it at all.”

“Harry?” The impostor.

“My husband,” she said, “Sam’s dad.”

“Wait a minute,” I couldn’t take that, “He’s not Sam’s dad—I am.”

“Oh you are, are you?” Her arms crossed tight and I could see the vein peeking out of her shirt collar, “You didn’t even know he existed until six hours ago.”

“That’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair is you swanning off down south just so you could go to some fancy university.”

“I left for us and I’m tired of you pretending it was selfish. You were supposed to come with me. I begged you for weeks to move out there with me, we would have had our own place, our own life. You always told me you wanted to get out of here, to go and see the big wide world but you’ve resented me since the second I left.”Liz slumped herself down on the curb and let out a big sigh. 

“Of course I couldn’t come with you, I was already pregnant.” She couldn’t look at me “I found out the day after you left. It’s why I asked you to come back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me it was that?”

“I couldn’t just message you something like that, and I could never bring myself to say it over the phone. I wanted to tell you in person,” I took a spot beside her, “but you were too stubborn to come home. And after you didn’t even so much as text me over Christmas I had no choice but to move on.” She was right.

“I… I’m sorry.” 

“You should be, you left me all alone. You got so wrapped up in making a better life for us that you didn’t even realize you’d left me behind.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” I said, sounding unconvincing even to myself. “I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have left without you.” 

“It’s ok,” Liz stood back up, brushing away the dirt from her trousers and turning to face me. “I’m happy with how my life turned out. I have a great son and a husband I’m madly in love with and even though I never got out of here I’m honestly fine with that.”

“But what about us?”

“There is no us. There hasn’t been since you left.”

“And Sam?”

“You don’t need to worry about Sam. He’s got everything he needs.”

I decided not to meet Sam after that. Elizabeth and I thought it best that I leave and not come back this time. There wasn’t anything there for me now.