“Kennedy, oh my god, you won’t believe the night I had!”

Those are the first words Bethany says when she strolls in the store twenty minutes late Saturday morning, as I scan somebody’s groceries on her register, doing her job instead of my own. I stopped by on my day off to finish up some paperwork for Marcus and want nothing more than to get the heck back out, but no such luck.

“What happened?” I ask. “Did you sneak on set?”

“No,” she says. “Got close to it, though. Real close. I even got to see him in the suit!”

“That’s nice,” I mumble, although it doesn’t feel nice to me. No, it’s making my stomach gurgle, my insides clenching and doing horrible things.

“It was… wow.” Bethany lets out a squeal as I finish ringing up Mrs. McKleski’s groceries and take her money. The woman shops here every single day. Today’s purchase? Chocolate cream pie ingredients. “We stood around all day but it was so worth it! Serena came out to see us. She was so nice, oh my god… I expected her to be super bitchy, you know, because people talk, but she took pictures and was joking around!”

“That’s nice,” I say again—and once more, it doesn’t feel that way. I’m feeling a bit sick in the stomach about it all, as absurd as that is. “I’m glad she made your trip worthwhile.”

“Oh, it wasn’t her—it was totally him,” she says. “We found Johnny Cunning coming out of some bar later. He actually talked to us. Oh my god, he was nicer than I expected him to be, and talk about dreamy!”

Bethany shoves her phone in my face, forcing me to look at the screen, at a picture she took of the two of them, a cheap hole-in-the-wall bar visible in the background. I can tell he’d been trying to go unnoticed, but he smiles for the camera. It doesn’t look like he’s drunk, but well… he’s at a bar.

“He asked where I was from,” she says, “and he laughed when I told him they tell stories about him here. He wanted to know what people say, so I told him about the naked one, you know, at the park? You know that story, right?”

“Vaguely,” I mumble.

“Well, get this! Not only is it true, he really got arrested, but he said he’d been there with a girl! Can you believe that?”

I give Mrs. McKleski her change and offer her a smile when I see the knowing look in her eyes. She says nothing—thank god—as she leaves. There are a few people in town to which these aren’t just stories… they’re memories. It was only a few years ago, but life moves on. Bethany would’ve been just a kid when these things happened, not old enough to know anything about the troubled son of a politician. She only knows the actor he came to be, the one who has nothing to do with his family.

“That’s nice,” I say for the third time, and this time I know, without a doubt, I don’t mean it. There’s nothing nice about how I’m feeling. “You’re already thirty minutes late, so I need you to clock in.”

Flustered, she rambles out an apology, but I jet away without listening to it. I find a quiet place to hide in the stockroom in the back, sitting down on a box and lowering my head, taking deep breaths to ease the turmoil brewing inside of me.

Too close for comfort.

I do a few things, not much, before telling Marcus I’m leaving. He laughs, waving me off. “Good, you’re not even supposed to be here.”

I head to the front of the store, where Bethany is finally working her register.

“I’m glad you had a good trip,” I tell her, genuinely meaning that. “I’m glad he didn’t disappoint you.”

With that, I leave.

I drive to my father’s house, parking my car in his driveway. He’s on the couch in front of the television, snuggling up with my half-asleep daughter, and I groan when I realize what they’re watching.

Breezeo: Transparent

“Seriously? What happened to Saturday morning cartoons?”

“That hasn’t been a thing in a while,” my father says. “But this was on, and she wanted to watch it.”

It’s the first movie. I’ve seen it before. It’s impossible to have not seen it, since cable plays it on regular rotation these days. It’s where he learns to adapt, an illness triggering something in his DNA that makes him fade away. Invisibility. He becomes the wind. He earns his name because he’s like a soft breeze. You know he’s around, you can feel him ghosting across your skin, but unless he shows himself to you, you can’t see him, looking right through him like he’s not even there. I know, it sounds like some crazy sci-fi nonsense, but it’s more of a coming of age story, more of a love story. It’s about selflessness, about sacrificing your own happiness for others, about being there for them even when they don’t know you’re around.

“You’ve got mail on the kitchen table,” my father says before I start spiraling. “Don’t forget to grab it.”

Strolling into the kitchen, I snatch up the small stack of mail, mostly junk leftover from me never changing my address after I moved out ages ago. I sort through it, throwing the junk away, and stall when I reach the last envelope. It’s not unusual. I’ve seen dozens like it. But every time one shows up, it makes me hesitate, my gaze flickering along the return address, to the name.

Cunningham c/o Caldwell Talents

I don’t open the envelope, although I used to out of curiosity. Every single time a check would be inside, the amounts steadily increasing.

“You going to cash that one?” my father asks, stepping into the kitchen behind me.

I cut my eyes at him, tossing it straight into the trashcan. “I don’t need his money.”

“I know, but what you should do is save the checks and cash them all at once. Wipe out his account. Then go riding off into the sunset in your brand new Ferrari.”

“I don’t want a Ferrari.”

“I do,” he says. “You could buy me one.”

“Nice try, but no. Although, I might be able to squeeze enough out of my next check to buy you the Hot Wheels version. Hey, I’ve gotten enough overtime this week you might get two.”

“Well, you know, if you wouldn’t throw away that check, you wouldn’t need to work overtime.”

“I’m not interested in taking a payoff.”

“That’s not what it is.”

“That’s sure what it feels like,” I say. “He can’t even be bothered to send the checks himself, you know. His manager does it all. It’s hush-money.”

“Oh, cut him some slack.”

“Cut him some slack?” I look at my father with disbelief. “You’ve never even liked him.”

“But he’s Madison’s father.”

I roll my eyes. It’s probably childish, but if there’s ever a reason to roll my eyes, this moment is it. “Yeah, well, somebody ought to tell him that.”

“He knows. Hell, you’ve got the check right there to prove it. And I know, I know, before you say but his manager sends those, I’ll point out that he’s shown up here a few times to see her.”

“Drunk,” I say. “He was drunk every single time. Half the time he was so high that I doubt he remembers coming. I’m sorry, but I don’t hand out participation trophies to addicts who don’t make an effort to get clean. I’ll cut him some slack when he gives me a reason.”

He lets out a long, dramatic sigh and says nothing for a moment, like he’s figuring out how to reframe his argument.

“You can cash it, if you want,” I say, pulling the check back out of the trashcan and setting it on the table. “I mean, we still owe you from that one time.”

“It’s not about the money. Not even about him.”

“Then what is it?”

“Madison’s growing up, and you…”

“What about me?”

“You’re giving up,” he says. “And if you’re losing hope, well, we’re screwed, because we can’t both hate the guy. Someone’s gotta care for her sake.”

“I don’t hate him,” I say, my stomach doing that twisting and turning again. “I'm just… tired. She’ll be six soon. And I have to wonder, at what point am I just making it worse? Because six years is a long time for her to not know about him.”

“This is why we still need your mother around,” he says. “She was always the optimistic once.”

“Yeah, well, what would Mom say?”

He motions toward the living room, where the movie still plays on the television. “She’d say if that’s the only way Madison will ever have the chance to know the guy, so be it.”

I don’t argue with that. I’ve never been sure how to handle it all. Maddie hasn’t asked many questions, so up until now it’s been swept under the rug, but I know that won’t fly when she gets older. I just have no idea how to explain any of it.

“We should go,” I say, dropping the subject. “I promised I’d take her to the library today.”

We head back to the living room, where Maddie is now wide-awake, captivated by the movie as Breezeo makes his big move and saves the day. I sit down on the arm of the couch beside her, watching. It’s still so strange, after all these years, seeing that familiar face on the screen.

Jonathan Cunningham.

Johnny Cunning.

* * *

Six books. That’s how many Maddie picks up at the library to bring home. But yet as soon as we walk in the door, before we even settle in, she pops up in front of me clutching the comic book wrapped in plastic that she swiped from my bedroom.

“Can we read Breezeo now, Mommy? Please?”

“Sure,” I say, taking it from her, “but it’s not the whole story, sweetheart. It’s just the very end.”

The last issue in the Ghosted storyline.

“That’s okay,” she says, climbing up into my lap on the couch. “I like the ends the best.”

Sighing, I pull the comic from its protective sleeve and open it. I start to read, filling in the blanks, narrating the pictures. It picks up with the big warehouse explosion, as Breezeo saves his lover, Maryanne, from death.

‘Who are you?’ she asks afterward, standing in the street as the warehouse burns, unable to see him, but she can feel him. She doesn’t know who Breezeo is. She doesn’t know it’s the man she gave her heart to so long ago—Elliot Embers. She thinks he died in Shadow Dancer from the illness that has been turning him into nothing, so he’s spent Ghosted in isolation. ‘Please, show yourself. Tell me. I need to know.’

He considers it, standing right in front of her. It would be so easy. He could use what energy he had left to show himself, but doing so would change everything. It would change her perception of reality. Would change her memories of him. It would alter their story in irreparable ways, and knowing the truth might put her life in further danger. He couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t destroy the life that she’d built for a single moment of acknowledgment only to have to disappear again.

It would be too cruel, appearing only to leave her once more, when she’d finally had the courage to say goodbye.

So he leans closer, softly kissing her mouth. It’s barely a breath against her lips. She feels a tingle, followed by a breeze that rustles her dark hair, and then nothing.

He leaves.

He leaves and never looks back, giving her a life of freedom, a life where she can live a quiet existence and be happy without him. He’s destined to do bigger things, and staying would be selfish, so as much as he wishes he could be with her forever, he has to let her go, because that’s what love means.

It’s loving someone enough to set them free.

Tears sting my eyes. Ugh, this freaking story. Maddie glares at the comic. I think she expected a happy ending.

“Does he come back, Mommy?” she asks.

“Well, I guess it’s possible,” I say. “There’s really no such thing as ‘the end’ in comics. People come back all the time.”

“Okay, then,” she says, accepting it just like that as she hops off of my lap to snatch up one of the library books. “This one now!”