His Ghost

Mike and I met while the father of my child was in prison. My child's father's name was Chris and he was in for self-defense but the jury said it was murder. I know he wouldn't kill someone on purpose. He was a nice guy who'd give you the shirt off his back, it's just he lost it a little whenever he drank too much, and one night it went a little too far when he got into a bar fight. Chris had heard the other guy, who was a PE teacher at junior high school, was peeping at students through a crack in the wall in the girls locker room, and so felt like he needed to confront the guy since no one else seemed to do anything about it even though it was reported to the authorities. The teacher was drunk too and pulled a knife but Chris pulled a gun, and he had no brakes whenever he drank, and so the jury didn't buy Chris' story because in our town, if you're a teacher you get away with stuff.

I was willing to wait twenty years on Chris. I was young and we had a baby named Eddie right before he was sent up. This about killed me when Chris went away, and I pretended to little Eddie that his daddy was in the army, and Eddie was too young not to believe me. He was two. So I raised him as a single mom and he spent years thinking his dad was in the army doing good things earning respect, when really he was just doing time. Chris would call and I'd have to remind him to not say he was locked up, to let on like he was in the service. Chris hated lying but he understood and went along because I asked him to. Chris and little Eddie would talk on the phone for fifteen minutes at a time since that's what the prison allowed, and for that time I imagined we were a real family with no distance and no bars. It all felt fine and right, until we hung up the phone.

Then as Eddie got older he got smarter and began to ask questions like, When is Daddy coming home? Can't he come visit for a while? I hated lying too, but wanted that family so bad. Against all I believed in as a mother, I took little Eddie to the prison so he could see his daddy and talk to him in person. Eddie still thought Chris was in the army. It went okay, as far as prison visits go. We sat at a table, just the three of us, drinking a soda and eating a small bag of chips. Eddie didn't understand that we couldn't take his daddy with us when we left, or go outside, or why guards with guns stood around, but he still believed we were on some kind of army base.

Then when Eddie was a couple years older and I still took him to the prison once a month to visit his dad, Eddie came right out and asked me, Mommy, where are we? And I had to tell him the truth. I said, We're at a prison, Eddie. Your dad's here for a reason. A man tried to knife him, and your dad shot him, and he died. A jury decided it.

Eddie was so quiet after that. He had to take it all in at that young age, and I think he turned in on himself in an outward way by acting out at school and hanging out with bad boys. The very thing I tried to prevent was happening. It was my fault. I didn't know how else to be a good mom except for that. I did take him to church and brought him up praying and reading the Bible, but he still went wayward.

We held it together though. We still visited Chris in prison. The years went on. I was still faithful to him. When guys asked me out, I turned them down. I thought I was being such a good woman to Chris, and being a good mother to Eddie by holding my ground and hanging in there. But I was in a prison too, of a different kind, I just didn't know it.

I worked in a factory and worked my way up to forelady, which would lead to manager. I was a good people person and fair, and then one of the bosses asked me out, and at first I said no, then I thought about it for a week and watched Eddie playing baseball by himself in the yard and wondered if I could make a different choice this time, how different could life be for Eddie besides waiting on his dad for ten more years.

I said yes, and so me and Mike a manager went on a date, and when I asked him into my house after our movie, Eddie just ran up the stairs into his room and slammed the door. He thought I was betraying his dad, and tell you the truth, so did I. Chris and I weren’t married but felt like we were. Mike said he needed to go but would call me later. He seemed to understand something I didn't, and so he went home but didn't go home mad.

I wasn't mad either, just sad and confused. I tried to talk to Eddie, to tell him I still loved his dad in certain ways, but maybe we needed to move on so we wouldn't be stuck in a dream that was never going to come true. It wasn't fair to Eddie, and maybe I was beginning to feel that it wasn't fair to myself.

It took Eddie a long time, but he warmed up to Mike. Mike was a good man. He didn't drink, do drugs, curse, or anything bad. He did like baseball, and so it kind of broke my heart to see him instead of Chris playing baseball with Eddie in the yard. Life was moving on, for better or worse.

Mike was the best. He brought me flowers, treated me with respect, and he really treated Eddie well. He never asked about Chris until one day he stopped by to ask us to go for ice cream. Eddie looked at me wondering which I would choose, Mike or his dad. I said, Mike, Eddie and I were just on our way to go visit Chris.

Mike looked at me, then at Eddie, and I thought he would be mad but instead he said, I'll take you.

He knew where we were going. He wasn't stupid. I was the stupid one for never bringing it up. He laughed and said, Well I didn't think Eddie was an Immaculate Conception.

I felt funny. Since Mike and I were getting closer, I decided not to go visit Chris that day, which hurt and confused Eddie a little, because we'd gone up to this point.

You can talk to him on the phone, I told Eddie. He wasn't happy about it. He was only ten and so too young to drive, so he grudgingly accepted the change.

Eddie became a quieter boy. None of his friends at school had a dad serving time for murder though it was self-defense. I tried to protect him from the painful truth, and by doing that, just seemed to hurt him more. I didn't mean to. He was my pride and joy. I wanted his world to be perfect. I wanted that fantasy dream. But it turned out to be more of a nightmare and I felt like it was my fault for choosing the wrong man, but I thought my hope and faith could make it work out in the end.

Mike hung in there with me. He and Eddie even got closer. Eddie was even less interested in talking to Chris on the phone, which hurt me a little. It was like we were leaving Chris and our family dream behind. How could I let go of that teenage love we had in the beginning? It felt like losing part of myself, and even part of Eddie somehow.

Mike was patient. Then near my birthday he showed me a promise ring and said, But only if you want it. And if you take it, there's something you have to do for me.

Mike had never asked anything of me before. He was always giving, and I was always balking at taking, feeling like I was betraying Chris if I did.

But this was a turning point. This was do or die. Should I take the ring? Did I even want it? Did I even want Mike? If so, how badly? Wouldn't it be better for Eddie?

I want it, I told Mike, and he put the ring on my finger. Now, I asked him, what do I have to do for you?

Tell him goodbye, he said. I'll drive you to the prison, just you and me, and you tell him goodbye. Eddie doesn't have to tell him goodbye, but you do.

I looked down at the ring. Chris had never given me a ring, though we talked about it. He never had a job, he never had a car, he never had a home. He only had me. And I wanted to be his all, his everything. I could save him, fix him, if only he'd change, do better, be better. I prayed. I prayed out my guts and my heart.

I said all right, then he took me the next visiting day, which was Sunday, and Eddie stayed the weekend with one of his school friends. I didn't want him on this trip. On the way, which was an hour drive, Mike kept playing sad songs on the radio, turning the dial to find just them it seemed. I think he did it on purpose to see my reaction. Break-up songs. Lost romance songs. Regret songs. But I held my tears in. My eyes watered, but no tears spilled out, even though the songs broke my heart and I tried so hard not to think of Chris and what we had, and could have if things were different.

Chris and I sat together at our small visiting table, just the two of us. I was nervous, almost sick to my stomach. I missed him already and I hadn't even said goodbye. What was wrong with me?

I had tried to cover my promise ring with my other hand, but he saw it, yet didn't say anything.

It was my turn, to be the adult, the woman, and make a decision. I said, Chris, I don't know how to tell you this. I hate telling you this. But I've met someone, and we're going to get married. I can't wait for you any longer.

He looked at the ring, then at me and said in a calm voice that broke my heart worse than if he'd yelled it, It's okay. I can't give you anything in here.

Part of me wanted him to stop me, to plead, but he didn't. He was the adult one in the situation. He said, All I ask is that you don't keep Eddie away from me. It would kill me.

I won't.

Then the tears I'd been holding in since the songs in the car, now rose up, with the pain, and the loss, and the time and life and love wasted, and I walked out.

In the car on the way back home, Mike saw me crying, heard me crying because as hard as I tried I couldn't stop it. He said nothing all the way home, until we got to my little house, then he began packing things into his little overnight bag he brought back and forth.

You can keep the ring if you want to, he said quietly. I'm going.

What? I asked. You're going? After I told him goodbye?

Yes, he said. You told him, but you don't mean it. You still love him. I can't live with his ghost.

And then he was gone. I never saw him again. He did write Eddie a note saying he was sorry things didn't work out.

It was Eddie who saw me crying and came to put an arm around me.

It's okay, Mommy, he said. Everything will be all right.

The dreams I had, the family fantasies I held on to all those years, the hopes and dreams for the future, at least with Chris, were taken out of my hands shortly after he made early parole. God took it all out of my hands one night when Chris got behind the wheel of the first car he ever owned and died trying to swerve around a dog that had darted across the highway.

Me and Eddie. We were crushed, but we were free.

The end