Hollow

by Owen Egerton

  “I didn’t touch her.” I said.

  The lawyer paused and stared at the image of Ashley. With his stare he gave everyone permission to join him. Ashley on the couch. He clicked a button and there was Ashley, her pink towel falling. Ashley’s legs. He turned back to me.

  “Perhaps, Dr. Bonds, you no longer wanted to be a father.”

  She was gone when I came out of the courtroom.

  Tom drove me home.

  “How did they find those pictures?” I asked.

  “You should have told me,” he said. “I’m not judging you, but you should have told me.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” I said. “Where did they find them? I erased them.”

  “Nothing’s ever erased, Oliver,” he said. “You know that.”

  I found Carrie in the nursery hanging moons and stars. The yellow had not mellowed. It screamed from the wall.

  I watched her balancing on a step stool, pressing red block letters to the wall: A R C H E R. Stepping off, she wobbled and I moved to steady her. She jerked away as if I’d burned her.

  “Carrie.”

  “Don’t.”

  She stood, her arms across her chest, biting tears back, the damn mobile spinning awkwardly above her head, and the yellow stabbing. Me, three feet away and unable to touch her.

  “Oliver,” she said, her eyes staring down. “I have to ask . . .”

  I knew she would. I knew she had to. I had already run through answers in my head—It was a girl with a crush. A flirtation. Nothing.

  But that wasn’t the question.

  “Did you do it . . .” She paused and everything that pulsed in me seized up. “Did you do anything to Miles?”

  “Carrie.” Her name stuck in me. “Carrie.”

  She looked up. Her eyes burrowing backward, escaping like night crawlers after a storm.

  My answer didn’t matter. It didn’t matter even if she believed me. She knew I was innocent. But it did not matter. Once she could conceive me as capable, we ended. The possibility that I had let our son die on purpose was poison so potent, one drop fouled the whole cauldron. Every look would hold that possibility. Every touch gummy with that question.

  She was always the bolder of us. The stronger. Not until she asked me that question had I dared to ask myself.

  Solid as a rock, she and I.

  We were dead.

  I wake up on the floor. A blanket has been draped over me. My back protests as I sit up. Ashley is still asleep in my bed, her mouth slightly ajar.

  Everything feels strange. Not bad. Just strange.

  I sneak into the bathroom and step into the shower. I stay there until the water turns cold and the pipes wheeze.

  When I come out wrapped in a towel, the bed is empty. Though the shed’s hardly bigger than a walk-in closet, I scan the room to see if she’s still here.

  “No, that’s fine. Fine.” Miller’s slight brogue rings from outside. “He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

  He’s answered by Ashley’s scratchy laugh. Ashley talking to Miller.

  Oh God. I jump to the door, but stop. I’m naked.

  I look for my pants. Any pants. I root through the shed, looking under sheets. Through the thin wall they talk on in quieter tones. I’ve got one leg in and I’m falling to the floor. But that’s okay, because I land on my shoes.

  Two legs in, shirt half buttoned, I throw open the door and Mr. Miller stands before me grinning.

  “So, Oliver, you’ve got a girlfriend?”

  “Mr. Miller. Good morning.” I look past him, but see no one. She’s gone.

  “She’s a winner, Oliver. A real beauty.”

  “Just a friend.”

  “Just a friend, eh? Then you might want to buckle your pants.”

  I fumble with my zipper and Miller chuckles. His good humor is disconcerting.

  “So is she moving in, or just paying the rent?”

  He’s examining a check in his hand.

  “What is that?” I grab the check from him.

  “Looks like you’ve got a sugar mama, Oliver, you lucky bastard. Now you still owe me back rent for—what the hell are you doing?”

  I rip away and the shreds of check fall from my hands like winter leaves.

  I push by him and down the steps.

  “You can’t live like this, Oliver.”

  I look for her car. But I don’t even know what she drives.

  “You’ve got to grow up.”

  I turn and stare at Miller, standing with his arms out like a welcoming Virgin Mary.

  “I know it’s been a rough patch. God knows I know. But that’s not an excuse to lose your mind. Not an excuse to piss away a helping hand.”

  “I’ll get you the rent.”

  “Fuck, Oliver, do you really think I need a couple of hundred dollars that bad?” He drops his arms and furrows his brow. “Well, I probably do. But that’s not why I’m standing lecturing you like some goddamn Sunday school teacher.” He runs a hand where his hair used to be. Then points at me, punctuating each word with a jab. “I used to drink, Oliver. Drank my weight and more most nights. I was the cliché, a drunk Irish man getting into fights with hicks at the Horseshoe Lounge. Until my wife said if I don’t stop, she leaves. Even then I didn’t stop. She left me, Oliver. She left for a month. And I got so drunk I was sick on myself.” He nods, quick flicks of his chin. “I cleaned up. Hard as all fuck. Still is. Hard as all fuck, but better.”

  He shakes his head and a pained smile crosses his face for an instant. “Oliver,” he says, eyes on mine. “The path of least resistance leads to nothing but shit.”

  “I’ll get your money. I don’t need hers.” I turn and walk back into the shed.

  “You’re forcing my hand, Oliver,” he yells after me. “You are forcing my hand.”

  I stand in the shed, my clothes clinging to my wet body. I don’t want her money. I don’t want his advice. Miles left us fifty thousand that I’ve never touched. Maybe Ashley is right. Maybe it’s time to do something, no matter the cost.

  I knock on Lyle’s door until he answers wearing nothing but white underwear well past their expiration date.

  “I shouldn’t be awake right now,” he says, putting a cigarette into his mouth and striking his lighter. “It’s not healthy.”

  He turns and I follow him inside. He pulls on a shirt, somehow managing to continue smoking the entire time.

  “I worked a double yesterday,” he says. “I thought if we hand Horner some cash along with the Visa check, maybe Horner would let it slide. But I made less than a hundred.”

  Lyle’s apartment is draped with white Christmas lights and always smells of bacon grease. He owns one luxury item, an oversized red velvet couch that he inherited from a roommate who skipped town years before. The apartment is a constant mess—dirty dishes, empty bottles. But the couch is pristine thanks to the clear plastic covering that encases it like a body bag. I sit on the couch, the plastic squeaking.

  “But I’ve been thinking,” he says, pulling on his pants. “We need to hit up the Hollow Earth Society. Just a couple thousand from each of them, and we’re on our way.”

  “I have the money,” I say. “All of it.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “We had a life insurance policy on my son. It’s fifty thousand dollars.”

  He pauses, his pants unbuckled. “You have fifty K in the bank?”

  I nod.

  “You have fifty K in the bank and you eat breakfast at a homeless shelter?”

  “I’ve never touched the money.”

  “I sold sperm twice this week and you have fifty thousand dollars?”

  “That I couldn’t spend, yes.”

  “So what changed?”

  “If you don’t hear a heartbeat, go looking for th
e heart. I want to know if the core of all, all of this, is good or evil or just plain apathetic. I need to see the center. I want an answer.”

  Lyle stares at me for a long moment. “You want to know how your son died.”

  I shake my head. “I want to know why he died.”

  “Okay.” He rubs his cheeks. “The bank opens at nine. Let’s eat waffles first.” He picks up his car keys. “You’re buying.”

  I don’t feel good here at all. The place is designed for money and those who have it. It’s in the gray and black color scheme, the low, cushioned furniture, the perfect knots of the employee’s ties—even the sliding doors seem to whisper cash. Everything reminds me that Lyle and I are not welcome here.

  But there’s more. It’s the money waiting in my account. The fifty thousand. The sum that so many believed motivated me to kill my son. Walking in I glance at the security guard with a gun holstered to his side. He looks back and I quickly put eyes to the floor.

  Lyle strides to the counter, oblivious to any inhospitality. He addresses a young man behind the counter.

  “I represent Dr. Oliver Bonds. We’d like to withdraw twenty thousand dollars.”

  I feel suddenly frightened. I expect someone to point at me, someone to yell, He finally came for the money. He waited until he thought we’d forgotten. Grab him.

  The young man smiles. “Have you got an account with us?”

  “I don’t,” Lyle says and points at me. “He does.”

  “All right. I’ll need your Social Security number and a valid ID.”

  I watch him type in my information. What does his screen say? Does it tell him where the money came from? Does it have a link to the news articles and comment threads calling for my death?

  I look back to the security guard, who catches my eye and nods unsmiling.

  “Oh, hum.” The young man frowns. It’s a trap. This is all a trap. “There’s currently a hundred and fourteen dollars in this account.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “Me either,” Lyle says.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bonds.” He keeps glancing at his countertop computer. “The account hasn’t had any movement in over a year. It was a shared account with you and your wife.”

  “Ex-wife,” I say. What does it say about her? What does it say about our marriage?

  “It looks like most of the money was transferred to another account?”

  “Whose account?” Lyle says. He’s too loud. We shouldn’t be here.

  “May I suggest you contact Carrie Bonds?” he asks.

  “Ah, Jesus,” Lyle exclaims. “The whiz kid wants to play marriage counselor. Look, sometimes relationships end.”

  “No, I just meant . . .”

  “I haven’t her seen in years,” I say. My voice sounds weak.

  “Would you like to close the account?” he asks.

  “Please don’t make me go to her,” I say.

  “Sir, I—”

  “I have to go see her, don’t I?” I ask him. He looks at me blankly, his mouth ajar. I know I make no sense. I’m asking things he can’t answer, but who else am I going to ask?

  I turn to Lyle, shaking my head. He stares back without sympathy.

  “We are going to see her, Ollie. We’re going right now.”

  Last time I saw Carrie was across a table at a grocery store coffee shop. She handed me legal papers to sign and end our marriage. We had made it, at least on paper, as long as the criminal case stood.

  We waited for months. I wanted a trial. I fantasized about speaking my part, sharing my side, letting the truth convince the jury, the judge, and, most importantly, Carrie that I was innocent and undeserving of all this pain. I wanted the truth to battle the narrative. But the grand jury said there was not enough evidence to warrant a trial. I was not pronounced innocent. Not even not guilty. The case just ended. No indictment. The papers published small pieces using loose terms like technicality and undetermined.

  No day in court. No answer. No reason.

  The final description of Miles’s death was sudden unexplained death in childhood. Every year over two hundred toddlers die this way. We call it SUDC, but that simply means we have no idea.

  My case sputtered and ended. No victory. No defeat.

  Once the case was over, so was any last thread of commitment between Carrie and me. I signed the papers and handed them back.

  “How’s Manuel,” I asked.

  “Fine,” she said, stacking the papers neatly.

  She picked up her purse to leave, then stopped and looked me. “How many?”

  “How many what?” I asked.

  “How many students did you have sex with?” She nodded. “I just feel it’s fair for me to know.”

  What could I tell her? What was kinder? All she wanted was a storyline with beats and understandable consequences. I wanted to lie, to tell her there were dozens of lovers, that I was never true, that our marriage had been a sham and she was lucky to be free. Painful as the story was, it was preferable to randomness.

  I shook my head and said nothing. She pushed her chair back and left me sitting there alone.

  I direct Lyle south of town to a safe, well-groomed, pastel suburb. I know exactly where she lives. He pulls up in front of a house looking like a series of boxes elegantly stacked. The lawn green, the paint earth-red, the door blue, the windows a reflecting shine you can’t see past. This is Manuel’s house. We used to come over as a family. Now she is his wife and his home is her home.

  I tell Lyle to wait in the car. He tries to argue, but I refuse to let him leave the car.

  “Don’t let her give you the runaround, okay, Ollie?”

  I walk the long path to the heavy, engraved wooden door—like an old church. I’m terrified. I knock. Wait.

  A girl, maybe ten years old, answers the door. Manuel’s daughter.

  “Is Carrie here?”

  “She’s . . .” She frowns. “. . . in the bathroom.”

  “I can wait.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “Mamma going poop!” A boy runs in the background.

  The girl cringes. “He just likes that word. I’m pretty sure it’s just number one.”

  The boy gallops to her side. I know him. I know his blond hair and quick eyes. Archer.

  “Mamma going poop,” he cheers again. He stands wavering, his squat two-year-old body working to balance itself.

  The boy tumbles toward me and grabs my leg. He stares up into my face. He has his mother’s face, but not her hair.

  I don’t move. I don’t smile. The girl starts to peel him off, apologizing. But the boy clings, singing out the news of his mother’s bowel movement.

  “Oliver?” Carrie arrives at the door. She’s older. Of course she is. She’s beautiful. She’s wearing a white summer dress. Her auburn hair is down, pushed to one side. She doesn’t like seeing me.

  “Sorry, Mom. Archer’s doing that thing again.”

  “Katie, will you take him upstairs?”

  She hefts the boy up in her arms and awkwardly lugs him back into the house and out of sight. I watch him go until Carrie puts her body in the doorframe, blocking my view.

  She really doesn’t like seeing me.

  “Hi, Carrie.”

  “Oliver. I didn’t expect you.”

  “You look good.”

  “Do you need something?”

  “I see him playing at the daycare. I watch him play.”

  Her jaw tightens.

  “How are you doing?” I ask, and it feels so strange.

  “This isn’t the best time. Katie has a volleyball game.”

  “Our account is empty.”

  She pauses, crosses her arms and nods.

  “Yes.” She nods. “I tried calling, but your phone—”<
br />
  “I don’t have one,” I say.

  “Manuel should be home soon. Can you come back later and we can discuss this then?”

  “My friend is waiting.”

  She runs a hand through her hair. Some of the shine has faded, it’s a slightly different color. She wouldn’t know. Too gradual to notice. But I haven’t seen her in two and a half years. I no longer get to see her change.

  “It wasn’t healthy to leave the money sitting there, so we used it. Mainly for the house. And his daughter. My daughter now. Katie has braces.”

  “I need some of the money,” I say.

  “I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.” She presses her brow, an old habit. “Are you working these days?”

  “I’m going to the North Pole. There’s a hole there that leads into the interior of the planet. I can explain the science behind it if you’d like, but it all comes down to needing that money.”

  “To go to the North Pole?”

  “Past the pole, into the Earth. There’s a hole.”

  She stares at me, and it hurts. A puzzled, angry look.

  “I’ve been selected for an expedition,” I say.

  She shakes her head and looks at me again, familiar creases bridging her eyes. And something new, a look I don’t recognize. Something disappointed and angry and sad.

  “The money is gone,” she says.

  “It wasn’t your money,” I say. “Miles was my son, too.”

  She flinches when I say his name.

  “Even if I had . . .” she starts, but falters. “I would not allow you to spend his money this way.”

  “Instead of vinyl siding for your new husband’s house? Or braces?”

  “That’s not fair.” She glances back and then leans forward, whispering. “You’ve never paid child support. Not a dime. I could have you arrested.”

  “For Archer?”

  “Yes, for Archer,” she says, her eyes cutting at me.

  “Does he need anything?”

  She shakes her head. “That’s not the point.”

  “Archer’s a good name,” I say. She looks at me, a new kind of surprised.

  “Oliver, you named him.”

  I stare.

  “You always said if we had another boy, we would name him Archer.”