The Hollower by Mary Sangiovanni Page B

first reared its vacant head, Sean wished he didn’t have to be so tough. He was scared. And sometimes he wanted to be scared and be able to goto someone braver and tougher to tell him everything would be okay. It was then that he missed his dad the most.
    The thought of facing his dad as a ghost scared the hell out of him. And it had to be a ghost whistling and singing after all, because as much as Sean sometimes wanted to believe otherwise, he knew it wasn’t possible his father was alive. That faint hope had been put to rest when he was seven, and Eddie Myers, the town mortician’s kid, told him and a few of the guys what he’d seen his dad do to bodies that were brought in to the funeral parlor. Even if the hospital had made a mistake, Sean’s father would never have survived the whole embalming thing. It had turned Sean’s stomach to think of anyone doing that to his dad, but it ended the worrying and waiting at the window for his father to maybe return.
    “
Don’t say it begins where it ends
. . . .”
    Sean blinked and shook his head.
    “
Lovers can’t end up as friends
. . . .”
    The words deteriorated into whistling and then into humming. Sean peeled the covers away from himself and the air of the room chilled the damp, sweaty skin of his underarms and the back of his neck. Dangling his feet off the side of the bed, he inched his backside to the edge of the mattress, then met the cool floor with the soles of his bare feet.
    The whistling abruptly broke off.
    Sean’s brow crinkled, something inside tearing away, leaving a mild pang of loss.
    “Dad?” he croaked into the night. “Dad?”
If it
is
you, don’t go
, pleeeease
don’t go yet
. . . .
    He crossed hurriedly to the window and peered out.
    His father stood on the sidewalk by the curb, near the garbage cans. Mostly obscured in shadow, the details of his face and body were difficult to make out, but Sean knew it was him. The build, the shape, the way he stood—Sean knew. Just like old times, down to the Hefty bag dangling from one massive hand.
    “Dad?” The word condensed on the cold pane of glass. He refused to let the tears blur his view of his dad.
    Why didn’t he come inside? What was he staring at?
    His father gestured for him to open the window. Sean pointed to the pane and shrugged, mouthing the words “It sticks” with exaggerated clarity. His father motioned more insistently for him to push up the pane. Sean reached out to touch the cool wood. Then, sucking in a sharp breath, he braced himself and pushed upward with all his strength. With a loud scrape of wood against wood, it flew upward and a cold gust of air smacked Sean in the face. He blinked several times into the wind, affirming that he was truly awake. Awake, with his father, however impossible that seemed, standing on the street below.
    They stared at each other for several long seconds in silence before Sean managed, “Why are you here?” He wasn’t sure he’d spoken above a whisper, but his father tilted his head and waved.
    “Hi, son.” He spoke in a low voice, too, but it carried clearly up to Sean’s room. No puff of breath came from his lips when he talked, but Sean figured that was probably normal for ghosts.
    “Why are you here?” Sean repeated dumbly.
    “I wanted to check on you and your mother.”
    Something in Sean’s throat twisted painfully, forcingthe tears to the corners of his eyes again. “I miss you. Are—are you a ghost?”
    A smile on his father’s face. “Something like that.”
    He studied the outline of his father’s form. The moonlight skewed around it, as if afraid of coming in contact with it. Sean’s gaze shifted to the garbage cans near his father. They caught glints of moonlight, as did his mother’s car in the street in front of them. His father looked like a cutout pasted to the wrong background. Sean frowned, turning his attention to the Hefty bag in his father’s hand. A pool of something spread out beneath it slowly,