Chapter 11
Morgan
On the morning we’re set to drive out to Harrison’s Hardware, Zach causes chaos.
The sink shoots water on my shirt when I reach for the faucet.
My shower curtain rattles nonstop. While I get dressed, my shoes fly from one side of the room to the other.
My coffee nearly spills onto my laptop when I’m not looking.
How would we watch Shark Week then, Zach?
I’m not even mad. Unlike in Sawyer’s spooky garage, I feel Zach’s eagerness in every paranormal episode.
He’s excited, but he’s also nervous, and I understand.
It’s how family is—even when you’re not dead.
I’ve avoided home for longer and longer stretches, feeling guiltier every year for not having my shit together despite everything I’ve cost my parents. It’s just easier when I’m on my own.
Zach, for his part, doesn’t even know what he’s walking into.
Waiting in my car for Sawyer, I watch the ghost in the rearview mirror.
Miraculously, I’m wearing both my shoes and I’m not coffee-stained.
With no seat belt to constrain him, Zach repositions restlessly.
He’s ninety-five percent opaque most days, and right now, the morning sunlight passes faintly through him.
“What if they hate me?” he worries. “What if we’re estranged, and the reason I’m haunting you is because I was a weird loner who no one liked?”
I twist in the driver’s seat so I can look sincerely into his ghostly eyes. “That’s not true,” I say to him.
“You don’t know!” Zach protests. “You didn’t even like me!”
“I liked you well enough to make out with you in this car,” I remind him.
Our rock-climbing date was…memorable. The highlight was how flat-out horrible Zach was at scaling the colorful handholds on the fabricated rock walls.
I mean, really horrible. Like he’d never even heard of rock climbing.
He would reach hopelessly for handholds he had no chance of grasping only to—sure enough—fumble, leaving himself dangling in the Velcro harness.
I remember wondering what the hell was wrong with this guy, saying yes to a rock-climbing date with a woman he presumably wanted to impress, despite having this shitty of an intuition for rock climbing.
And…then it started to work on me. I stopped seeing Zach’s utter ineptitude and started seeing his unashamed adventurousness. His reckless disregard for looking cool.
It was enough to inspire me to invite him into the back seat where he’s hovering right now.
I knew our personalities didn’t mesh, our interests didn’t match.
Rock climbing spared us from disjointed conversation.
Even so, Zach didn’t hold back on the rock wall.
What else would he do with complete conviction?
Zach gazes around my Honda, remembering. “It wasn’t a bad hookup,” he ventures.
I smile. “No,” I concede. “Not bad at all.”
My understated compliment wounds Zach. He slouches, his outline blurring into the seat. “Morgan, I’m having an existential crisis!” he exclaims, then pauses. “Wait, is it existential when you’re dead? Do I exist? I don’t know. I’m having a post-existential crisis. I need more than not bad at all.”
I soften. Yeah, I wouldn’t love knowing my posthumous hookup reputation consisted only of “not bad,” either.
“Okay, honestly, Zach?” I start. “You were—”
Sawyer opens the passenger door and climbs inside.
“—a good kisser,” I continue. My cheeks flush while Sawyer settles himself. Zach didn’t let chagrin scare him on the rock wall. I won’t, either. He deserves to hear this. “Very good,” I elaborate. “We had a nice time. We just didn’t have feelings for each other beyond the physical.”
“Am I interrupting something?” Sawyer inquires.
“No,” I reply while Sawyer pulls up the GPS on his phone. “Someone is just a little nervous about finding out who he was.”
My chair reclines suddenly, startling me. I glare over my shoulder, righting my seat.
“I know you weren’t some creepy loner,” I reassure Zach. “I don’t hook up with creepy loners. Okay?”
“Hey, not all creepy loners are a bad lay,” Sawyer interjects.
I laugh, surprising myself. Sawyer smiles. He’s dressed simply, his green sweater and jeans familiar to me now. He has several sets of this unseasonably cozy uniform, I think.
Since our conversation yesterday, Sawyer hasn’t mentioned my frantic oversharing.
It’s for the best, really. No need for someone on whom I’m presently depending—not to mention who I’m sort of starting to like—to know exactly how undependable I am.
If I know Sawyer, he’s not being standoffish or judgmental of my outburst. He’s being discreet. Giving me space.
When I pull away from the curb, Zach starts whistling. It’s not “Call Me Maybe”—it’s his own melody, meandering and disorganized. It seems like Sawyer’s comment has distracted him from his momentary post-existential panic.
We follow Waze’s dubious guidance from freeway to freeway through the dusty hills that surround Los Angeles, out to Zach’s family’s store. Thirty minutes later, we exit the off-ramp into the neighborhood where Zach grew up.
I’ve never heard the wistfulness in his voice when he speaks up. “I learned how to skateboard here,” he says when I round a strip mall on the corner.
Glancing into the rearview mirror, I find him rapturous. He’s watching the streets fly past our windows like he’s seeing the Sistine Chapel.
“I used to skate down to the 7-Eleven with TJ and Oliver. My best friends growing up,” he explains distractedly. He looks up, tears in his eyes when they meet mine in our reflections. “I had best friends!” he exclaims.
Sawyer hears nothing of our conversation but looks to me, noticing my smile.
“He’s remembering,” I explain.
Sawyer nods. “I’m glad,” he says sincerely.
We pull into the parking lot. Waze informs us we’ve reached our destination.
Reaching for his seat belt, Sawyer hesitates. “Does Zach…need a moment?”
I look at the rearview mirror for guidance.
“Nah,” Zach announces. “Let’s go meet my family who probably thought I was a weirdo loner.”
Shaking my head, I open my door. “Zach’s good,” I say to Sawyer.
Harrison’s Hardware is old but well maintained.
The sign looks hand-painted. The storefront windows have been polished to shine.
On Wednesday morning, business is brisk.
Men in painter’s boots haul tarps out to their vans in the parking lot.
Contractor types in Timberlands load freshly cut wood into their pickups.
I like the place immediately. Los Angeles is a city of dreams and dreamers, of vibes and manifestations, a city where Laurel Hardware is the name of a hip restaurant. It’s nice to spend time somewhere unpretentious and real.
Like Zach is.
He materializes next to me on the curb. “I worked here all through high school on the weekends,” he says. “My mom would bring home-cooked meals. Good shit like lasagna or meat loaf. I would eat them on my break.”
“See?” I say. “I told you you were loved, Zach.”
He only smiles in reply.
We walk inside. Unlike the vast high ceilings of Home Depot or Lowe’s, the compact Harrison’s Hardware fits shelves of screws, knobs, hinges, fixtures, fasteners, spigots, joists, hooks, nails, dowels, and you-name-it in the claustrophobic cement space.
Under the minimal lighting—sunlight through the front windows and from the large lumberyard in back does most of the work—we navigate the labyrinth, figuring we’ll know who we need when, or if, we find them.
And we do.
The man restocking the screwdriver shelf, wearing no uniform or name tag, looks just like Zach. Thirty years older, of course, but the same face.
Even if the resemblance was less pronounced, though, the withdrawn weariness in Mr. Harrison’s expression—the way he looks when he thinks no one notices—would have clued me in. I’ve seen the same look on Sawyer.
He glances up when we come near. He looks right through Zach, his gaze focusing on me instead. The sadness in his eyes is deep, and suddenly my throat closes up.
“Can I help you folks?” he asks.
I hope so, I nearly say. “No. I mean, um, yes. Maybe,” I stammer. Great start, Morgan. “Sorry.” I restart, composing myself. “I know this is awkward, but I’m here to see you. I, um, know—knew your son. Zach. I was hoping—”
In Zach’s father’s eyes, something seems to close up. I’ve seen Sawyer do that, too. “You a girlfriend or something?” he interrupts me.
“Not exactly,” I say honestly.
“Good,” Zach’s father replies.
I draw back, stung. The rejection from my onetime hookup’s dad shocks me.
When he notices my reaction, guilt draws heavily over Mr. Harrison’s face.
Its sharp resonance seemed to surprise Mr. Harrison himself.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You look really nice.
I’d want Zachy to date someone like you if he were…
” He can’t get the words out. “But he’s not.
It’s good you’re not missing him like that. That’s all I meant,” he promises me.
I soften, understanding his response now. He must see the world through broken glasses these days.
“It’s okay,” I say honestly, then swallow. “I was hoping we could…talk about him some? If you’re not too busy.”
Zach’s father pauses. Slowly, he sets down the screwdrivers.
Zach watches everything the older man does, yet the shelves surrounding my ghostly one-night stand stay entirely silent. Memory is consuming him, I think. Quieting the vortex he felt this morning.
Mr. Harrison closes the distance between us. “He’s gone,” Zach’s father says. “Talking about him just brings him back, and then I gotta lose him again.” He pats me gently on the shoulder and walks past us.
Zach seems pulled from his trance—he goes just a little more translucent. His haunted hijinks stay quiet, though. He’s worse than upset. He’s sad.