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The gravel crunched and rumbled under the tires as Pete pulled into the driveway. The sky was blanketed in grey clouds, the gloom muting the greens of midsummer. The house in front of him looked sapped of life. All the curtains were shut.
It took some digging to find the address, but the world became a lot smaller for him after winning the Walk. Once he used his winnings to buy a car that could survive the drive, he knew he had to make the trip. His spirit couldn’t rest until he did.
Walking up the door, he was afraid. Of what, exactly? He didn’t know exactly. Getting turned away, maybe. Bottles getting hurled at him until he left. Or, worst of all, no one answering the door at all.
His heart pounded as he reached the door and raised his hand to knock. He tried to carry himself as politely as possible. Anything to ease the tension of why he was there.
Mrs. Garraty cracked the door and peeked out. She looked mildly surprised to see him, or maybe anybody, at the door.
“Hello, Mrs. Garraty. My name is Peter McVries, your son and I-”
“I remember you.” She said abruptly. There was no rudeness in her cutting him off. Just weariness.
“May I come in?”
She turned and walked away from the open door without a word. Pete took it as his sign to enter.
They sat in the living room. It should have been perfectly homey, but it was impossible to ignore the ghosts haunting the house. The walls were spotted with framed pictures, snapshots of a family that didn’t exist anymore.
“Why are you here?” She asked, her voice betraying her exhaustion.
“To see if you’re doing all right.”
“I’m alive,” she said, unclear of how she felt about it. “I assume that Ray asked you to take pity on me.”
“No, ma’am. He didn’t need to ask me to do anything. By the end, we called each other brothers. That makes it my business to see you’re taken care of.” He pulled an envelope of money out of his pants pocket and held it out so she could reluctantly take it. “I didn’t know your son for very long, but there was a lot of love between us. We saved each other many times.”
He instantly regretted saying the last part. He could only imagine what she was thinking. I wish he hadn’t. Your money can’t replace him. You didn’t know anything about loving him. About losing him. The soulless look she gave him was enough confirmation.
He expected her to throw him out, and rightfully so. Instead, she asked:
“Would you like something of his?”
He almost couldn’t believe his ears.
“I’d really appreciate a picture, please, if you can spare one,” he replied.
She nodded, rose, and left, leaving Pete to his own thoughts in the living room. He couldn’t help but take a closer look at his surroundings. Part of him was afraid to, but there wasn’t much else to look at. In some ways, it looked like nothing had changed, as if Ray and his father were set to come home any minute. A pair of boots sat next to the door. They were too big to be Mrs. Garraty’s, so they must have been Ray’s or his dad’s. They sat there like they had just been stepped out of. Mrs. Garraty probably didn’t have the heart to rid the house of their signs of life.
His eyes drifted up to the photographs that hung all around him. Mr. and Mrs. Garraty were young once. No matter how hard life might have been, their wedding portrait was nothing but joy. Another older picture showed a man and woman who looked like they might have been Mrs. Garraty’s parents. The expressions on their faces were completely serious. Grave, even. Like they’d always known what was coming. They watched the family all those years with faces full of dread as if knowing how the bloodline would be cut off one day.
One picture caught his eye the most. It was Ray. Maybe a school picture, but it was just him.
He looked like a different person. No, he looked like himself, but better. His face was shaven and clean. His hair looked soft and was tidily cut. The life hadn’t yet been leeched from him by the Walk. The bitterness that took him there hadn’t worn at him yet. There was a light in his eyes that said his father probably hadn’t been killed. His hope hadn’t been dashed yet. Pete wished he could have known this Ray.
His mind wandered to another world. A world where he met Ray at school, or they were neighbors growing up together. He could have gotten to know Ray the right way, over years of childhood and adolescence, not days of fighting for their lives. A world where they both could have lived.
The last words Ray ever said to Pete were “I love you.” How sweet could those words have been in different circumstances?
Instead of the Walk, they could have walked at their own pace, as slow as they wanted. It could have been through the nearby woods, not the hard, hot pavement. Under the trees, they could have had shade. Privacy. Talked about anything they wanted with no listening ears or cameras broadcasting them. They could have learned everything about each other that they never got the chance to.
Pete would have loved to hold his hand as they sat next to a creek. No gunshots or screams there to disturb them, only the rushing of the water, the birds in the trees, and their own quiet voices. He would have greedily taken in the view of Ray’s smile, taking his time. He would have loved to have kissed him, held him in a gentler way than they had while keeping each other moving.
Mrs. Garraty walked back in, pulling him out of the world in his head. She wordlessly handed him a small, more recent-looking photograph. Ray looked a little older than in the one on the wall. He looked rougher. The anger had already started creeping in on the sweetness in him. In his eyes, Pete saw a young man who already knew what he was going to do.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he remembered to say.
“It’s no problem,” she said, sitting back down across from him.
Part of Pete believed her, like he might have been lifting a curse from her. This picture captured the Ray who he met on the Walk. She probably picked it to give away for a reason.
As much as he wished he could have known the Ray from the picture on the wall, he was okay with taking on her curse. She had enough to carry as it was. Besides, the Ray in Pete’s photograph was the one who lived in his memory.
“I know there’s not much I could say to help you, but I hope you can find some healing, Mrs. Garraty.”
She looked off to nowhere in particular with a small, bitter smile on her face. “Every day, I wonder if there’s anything I could have done differently. If I could have noticed what he was doing in time so I could have stopped him.” She microscopically shook her head, looking back at Pete. “I know his mind was made up. He never would have let me get in the way. And I know that what happened to him wasn’t your fault. Thank you for being there for him. You were all probably scared out of your minds, but you were still a friend to him. Thank you.”
“He did the same for me.”
“I don’t know how much longer I have.” Whatever ghost of a smile she had was gone.
Pete nearly shuddered. He’d heard those kinds of words too many times during the Walk. Just like Art and Stebbins, Mrs. Garraty was approaching her limit. She’d lost too much. Her body wasn’t failing; it was her soul.
He didn’t know what to say. “I just want you to know that if you ever find yourself in need, you can call me.” He wrote down his contact information for her knowing she might never use it, but she would at least have it. He did his part.
“How far did you travel? Do you need a place to sleep?” She would always be a mother wanting to make sure others’ sons were safe.
“No, thank you.” It was kind of a lie. He was just going to find a motel somewhere. Her offer was appreciated, but he couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping in Ray’s bed. Of seeing his bedroom frozen how it was when he left. His heart couldn’t take it. Not yet, at least.
They hugged before he walked out the door. It was stiff and a little awkward. Mrs. Garraty’s hands rested weakly on his shoulders.
Pete was nervous thinking it might have been a mistake. After all, what were they to each other? A childless widow and her dead son’s…friend? Rival? Boy he knew for three days? She didn’t seem to be very enthusiastic as she returned the hug, but still, he was glad he did it. Who knew how long it had been since she’d been hugged? Eventually, she let her head rest on his shoulder. He felt her shakily sigh.
When they separated, she looked just as distraught as she did when he arrived. Despite this, she still watched as he walked to the car and got ready to pull away.
“Whenever you want to come back, you’re welcome to,” she shouted, further surprising him. At the end of the day, she was lonely just like he was. Maybe they needed each other.
He didn’t know when he’d make it back to the Garraty house. He didn’t know if Mrs. Garraty would even survive until a second meeting. He hoped so. It had begun to feel like everything he touched died, but if he had anything to do with it, he would take care of her the best he could.
Before taking off, he fished the photograph out of his pocket and placed it on the dashboard in front of him. Despite how much it hurt to look at Ray, he couldn’t help but smile. In some way, he was in front of him again, not just fuzzy in his memory.
He fought the tears forming in his eyes. “Hello, Ray…I was getting afraid I’d never see you again.”