Ghost Tones by Hannah Markos Williams (Fiction ’20)

Ghost Tones

My husband doesn’t know why I had the abortion, but you do. I told you on the phone on the way back from my mother’s house on a Sunday in September. It’s a long drive, and you know that—two hours each way, almost every day, roughly the same time each day, and you know the times, and you call me, and I give you these confessions. I give you these confessions from highways and driveways, and sometimes I’m still talking to you, switching from bluetooth to handset, when I walk into her house and get a whiff of cucumber-melon wet wipes, which is the smell of death. Sometimes I’m still talking to you when I get home to my raised-ranch, and I hustle you off the phone while I watch my little daughter’s hands and nose press against the bay window, observing me in a way that is much too stoic, like she knows what I’ve said.

It’s darker now on the commute than it had been in the beginning, in the summer, when my mom was first diagnosed. It was dark out at dinner time when, on my way home the other day, I told you why I had the abortion, and you exhaled slowly like a violated mylar balloon, and I said I was sorry, and you told me that was a weird thing to say.