Make Me Yours (Men of Gold Mountain)

by Rebecca Brooks

  Mack bit her lip. “Listen, Claire. I’ve been thinking…”

  Claire looked up from her glass of wine. “Yeah?”

  “I don’t really know how to say this.”

  Okay, now she was suddenly worried. “What is it? Just tell me.”

  Mack glanced at Abbi, who gave one of those go for it looks. Claire put her glass down.

  “I know you’re mad at him,” Mack said. “You have every right to be.”

  “But?”

  “But do you remember when you got that birthday cake that you didn’t know had peanut flour in it?”

  “Or when we all went trick-or-treating with Maya, and she grabbed those Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups so fast, she’d smeared them all over her mouth before anyone could stop her?” Abbi laughed at the memory, and Claire turned to her in shock.

  “So you think I’m a horrible mother?” she said, aghast.

  She wanted to storm out of there. She tried so hard, she thought she was doing everything right, even getting her life back on track after she’d made so many mistakes—

  And here were the people who were supposed to be her best friends in the world, the family she’d made for herself when she realized she had to stop living under her parents’ watchful eyes and figure out her own life, reminding her of all the times she’d screwed up so badly, when the consequences were so much higher than a broken heart or a bombed GPA or a missed chance for a fancy diploma.

  “That’s not what we’re talking about,” Mack said. “I’m saying, remember all those times when bad things happened and you couldn’t stop them because shit happens and no one can control it—no matter how perfect you are or how hard you try to do the right thing.”

  “He made a mistake,” Abbi said more gently. “The kind of mistake any of us could make without ever meaning to.”

  “I know I haven’t lived here as long as the rest of you, but now I’m terrified of watching Maya or feeding her anything,” Sam said.

  “But you know about her allergy,” Claire protested. “You wouldn’t go around feeding her peanuts.” Whose side were they on, anyway?

  “But Ryan didn’t feed her,” Sam said. “Someone else did.”

  “When he wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Which is exactly what we’re saying. It could happen to any of us. And what if—”

  Sam swallowed.

  “What if you cut one of us out of your life if we made a mistake like that?” Mack blurted out.

  Her confession hung in the air. For a minute, no one could speak—Mack because she was too red in the face, Claire because she was too surprised to function.

  “I would never cut you out of my life,” she said. She couldn’t even imagine what could happen to make her decide that about one of her friends.

  “But Ryan,” Abbi said.

  “It’s different.”

  “Only because you have a history.”

  “If it were me, you’d forgive me,” Mack said. “I know you would because we’re friends and you’d trust that I’d never do anything intentionally to hurt you or Maya. But you won’t forgive Ryan. Do you honestly think he meant for any of that to happen?”

  Her question bored right into Claire. She didn’t want to answer. She wanted to drink wine and stuff herself with bread and olives and gossip about something frivolous that had absolutely nothing to do with her. These evenings with her friends were way more fun when they talked about everyone else’s sex life. When no one probed Claire about hers, because on the rare occasion when something exciting actually happened, it was almost always over before it began.

  “Of course not,” she finally admitted. Of course she knew Ryan hadn’t wanted anything to happen that way.

  “Then don’t you think that maybe you jumped on the excuse to push him away? He gave you a rock-solid reason to end it, and you saw your chance.”

  “I’m not using Maya as an excuse,” Claire said weakly. “And anyway, he left. It doesn’t even matter if you’re right, because he left.”

  “Because you made him.”

  Claire turned to Sam. But she could tell by her friends’ faces that just because Sam had said it, it didn’t mean the rest of them weren’t thinking it, too.

  She felt like she’d been punched in the gut.

  “I didn’t make him to anything. He’s a grown-ass adult, even if he doesn’t always act like it. He was the one who tore out of here, who packed up and went back to Chicago so fast I didn’t even have a chance to see him again. He didn’t call, he didn’t text, he didn’t even make any effort to find out how Maya is doing.”

  “Probably because he thinks he doesn’t deserve you,” Mack said.

  Claire wanted to say damn straight he didn’t deserve her. She deserved someone who’d be there for her, who’d fight for her, who’d make sure she wasn’t alone.

  But it was hard to feel as black and white about it as she had when she was in the hospital and all she’d known was that she had to do something.

  Instead, she sighed. “I can’t change his mind, you guys. I can’t turn either of us into people we aren’t.”

  Which was why, even if her friends were right, there was nothing she could do. Ryan had chosen Chicago, his music career, and a life on tour.

  She was here, settled, with bills, clients, responsibilities, and a daughter who was counting on her.

  So it didn’t matter how much she might have longed to follow her friends’ advice and go spilling her heart to Ryan, telling him she forgave him. Telling him she still loved him, and she always had.

  Because he still wouldn’t be here. He still wouldn’t be hers.

  No matter what, she’d still be alone.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Ryan picked up his phone. Pulled up Claire’s number. Stared at it. Put it down again.

  He tried again with his text messages, but who the fuck sent a text saying I love you, you’re my life and my heart, please let me try again?

  “Tell her how you feel,” Eddie had said. But Ryan had no idea how.

  His whole life had been about not saying how he felt. Not showing how pissed he was at his dad. Not saying how awful he felt when he was drinking and just wished he could stop. Not telling anyone how scared he was that the albums wouldn’t sell, the venues would be half empty, and he’d have nothing. That everyone would know he was a loser, a fraud. Just like his good-for-nothing dad.

  But bottling everything up was going to cost him more than he could bear. He hadn’t gone looking for Claire before, believing she was better off without him.

  But he could give her more. He knew he could.

  Only Claire didn’t know.

  Because he hadn’t shown her.

  He opened his computer, thinking maybe an email. Maybe if he wrote it all down, he’d find the right words to tell her that he was sorry. He loved her. And love meant making mistakes but being together, anyway.

  Only he stared at the blank screen, the blinking cursor, and he had nothing.

  He wanted a drink. He wanted it so badly he could taste it. If he could just have one night to forget everything, to stop feeling this way inside, he was sure he could wake up in the morning and start over again. By then, he’d know what to say.

  But that voice was a lie. A seductive lie, one he wanted to fall into. But a lie nonetheless.

  He went to the fridge and got himself a Coke. Sugar and caffeine. He picked up his guitar. Not his favorite—that one was still with Maya. But he had other ones in his apartment. He could make do.

  He strummed a few chords, thinking of her hands on the guitar. The way they’d felt in his.

  He hummed a tune to go with the chords. Nothing definite, just making it up.

  A line came to him, and then another.

  Songs for Maya, he suddenly thought, and a flood of lyrics exploded into his mind.

  He leaped up, searching for something to write it all down.

  It was hours before he finally took a break and brewed a pot of co
ffee so he could keep going. It wasn’t true that he never knew how to say how he felt. He did it all the time—he’d just never thought of it that way before.

  When Ryan was on stage, he was a different person. Under those lights, he was exposed—but he was also protected, buffered by the sounds, the stage, the applause. With his guitar in his hands, he could say anything. He could finally find words for all the things he couldn’t express.

  It was early in the morning when he was finished. He didn’t sleep, didn’t rest, didn’t give himself more time. He just hit record and started to play. It wasn’t fancy. There was no production, no backup, no retakes. It was just him, sitting on his bed, playing into his phone.

  But what more did he need? When he was done, he sent it to his computer, burned it onto a CD, went to the post office, came back home, and slept.

  Bedroom Songs, he’d written in black magic marker on the CD. And that was it.

  Everything else he had to say was on that album.

  Please, he thought when he dropped the package in the mail. Please listen to me.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The good news was that Maya had finally stopped asking about Ryan.

  The bad news was also that Maya had finally stopped asking about Ryan.

  Somehow, the fact that Maya really was moving on—or that she’d at least realized how sad it made Claire to talk about it, and so was trying to stop moping—only made Claire sadder. Because then it really was over between them.

  She tried to remind herself not to be surprised. This was Ryan. He’d done this once before. He wasn’t the type to call, write, or do anything to show he might have any feelings. He may have called her parents a few times years ago, but it was hard to feel like that much mattered anymore. The truth was, he never really tried.

  And it wasn’t like she could call him. What was she supposed to say? Please come back, even though I know you don’t really want to? I made a really big mistake with you, so drop everything in your life and come back to this place where you don’t know anyone, don’t have any career prospects, and probably don’t want to live anyway?

  Even if nothing bad had happened that weekend of the conference, it was hard to picture them working out. At some point, he would have gotten tired of Gold Mountain and wanted to go back to Chicago. His manager would have demanded it. He’d be off on tour again soon, anyway. And it wasn’t like being in a relationship and raising a family was like the vacation he’d been on the whole time he’d been here, where everything was fun and exciting, and nothing felt like actual work.

  So she was determined. If Maya could forget about him, so could she.

  She was running late, scrambling to finish her last client, pick up Maya from after-school, and make it home before hangry meltdowns started. Her hands were full with her purse and Maya’s art project from school, so when she got out her keys, she grabbed the mail stuck behind the screen, shoved it under her arm, and used her hip to push open the front door. It wasn’t until she dropped the whole pile on the kitchen table as Maya ran inside that she realized there was something besides the usual stacks of bills and junk mail.

  She had a package. It was a thin yellow envelope, padded, and although there wasn’t a name on the return address, there didn’t need to be.

  There was only one person she knew who lived in Chicago.

  And she’d recognize his handwriting anywhere.

  “Bug, go wash your hands and read to your dinos while I make dinner,” she called, staring at the envelope.

  Her hands were trembling. It wasn’t until she heard Maya run upstairs to her room that she dared to slide her finger under the flap and open it.

  Inside, there wasn’t a letter. There wasn’t even a note. There was just a CD, one of those generic silver ones she remembered burning mixes on.

  She opened it.

  Bedroom Songs, it said.

  What the actual fuck. He couldn’t even call her? He couldn’t write more than two measly words?

  Also, what the hell kind of album title was that?

  She walked over to the CD player in the living room, pulled out Maya’s favorite old Raffi CD Claire’s parents had bought her at a yard sale, popped in the thing from Ryan, and pressed play.

  She’d heard him sing a million times before. She’d heard him in concerts, on albums, polished and perfect on the radio. And she’d heard him in the quiet of their basement apartment, late at night, humming to himself, trying to pick out a tune. She’d heard him belt songs in the shower, whisper songs in her ear, even sing along with Maya, making up the wrong words to her favorite songs to get her to laugh.

  She thought she’d heard every way there was for him to sound. Everything there was for him to say. She’d been so sure that it wasn’t enough, that what he had for her wasn’t enough.

  Only what was pouring through her speakers wasn’t anything she’d ever heard before.

  The recording was as basic as it could be. She guessed that was why he’d called it Bedroom Songs. She pictured him sitting on the bed, just him and his guitar, pressing record on his phone and starting to play.

  She could hear sirens in the background, the rush of water from the upstairs neighbor opening the tap, the occasional shout from the street. At one point he lost his place, laughed a little, and kept going.

  But the effect wasn’t distracting. It was as though she was right there in the room with him, curled up in bed with a pillow and a cup of coffee, hearing him sing just for her.

  The songs covered everything. One was slow and soulful, about what he wished he’d said to Claire the day that he’d left. Another was faster, edgier, and she heard the anger in his voice as he sang to his younger self about the mistakes he was making. There was a song for Maya, about how it could be possible to love someone you’d never met before.

  When Ryan sang that he wasn’t the same person anymore, Claire had to believe him. The Ryan she used to know would never have made himself this vulnerable. Especially not in his music, where he always had something to prove. She’d thought he didn’t care, that he was just as happy to walk away from her and go back to his regular life.

  But the album said he hadn’t left her—not really. And there was no more “regular life.” There was life together, and then there was the time they spent limping through, apart.

  “Mom?”

  Claire was so engrossed in the music she hadn’t heard Maya come downstairs. She was holding a book in one hand and her dinosaur in the other, and she looked completely confused. “Mom, why are you crying?”

  Claire touched her face, and she realized her cheeks were wet. She pulled Maya onto her lap and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m okay. I just had a bit of a surprise.”

  “Is that Ryan?” Maya asked, realizing what they were listening to.

  Claire ran her fingers through Maya’s hair, untangling the knots. “It sure is.”

  “He’s really good,” Maya said, and Claire laughed.

  “Yeah,” she said. “He is.”

  They listened together, Maya sitting on Claire’s lap, rocking to the music.

  “Why does he sound so sad?” Maya asked.

  “It’s okay to be sad sometimes.”

  “I don’t want him to be sad, though.”

  “I know,” Claire said. “Me neither.”

  And she meant it.

  Suddenly, Maya shot up out of her lap. “He has a song about dinosaurs!”

  Claire listened as the next song started up, and yup, Maya was right. He was singing about a T. rex in a bouncy tune that started off sounding silly and then grew serious in the chorus, turning into a song about imagination and that moment when you grow up and stop thinking anything is possible—when something as straightforward as wanting someone to be happy feels like the most complex thing in the world.

  Maya had started off elated, but now she turned skeptical, looking at Claire with a frown. “How come even his dinosaur song is so sad?”

  Claire looked at her
daughter, at her thick, dark hair and her storm cloud eyes. She took in the trembling of her bottom lip and the confusion on her face, and thought about what her friends had said. Would all of this have been easier if she’d just told Maya the truth?

  She hadn’t wanted Maya to be hurt. But now here they were, and nothing had turned out as she’d expected, which meant none of her rules seemed to make a whole lot of sense anymore.

  “Come here, bug,” she said, pulling Maya back into her lap. “I want to tell you something. It’s kind of a big thing. But you’re a big kid, and I think you’re ready to hear it.”

  “Okay,” Maya said.

  “Okay,” Claire repeated. Then she took a deep breath. “I want to tell you about your dad.”

  And she did.

  Maya’s eyes went wide. Like, really wide. She kept making Claire repeat it, and Claire did, patiently. She told Maya she’d answer any questions and promised herself that she’d be honest. Which was a little hard—what if Maya asked questions Claire didn’t want to answer before her daughter was forty? But she should have known Maya wasn’t going to push that hard. Later, she was sure there’d be more. But right now, it was all Maya could do to take it in.

  Claire explained that she’d known Ryan before. That she’d loved him very much, and they made Maya together, but then they couldn’t stay together, and Claire had to come to Washington to be with her family.

  Maya was quiet for a moment, listening to the music. “Do you think he’s sad because he went back to Chicago?”

  “I think that’s exactly why he’s sad.”

  “If he’s sad that he’s in Chicago, and you’re sad that he’s in Chicago, and I’m sad that he’s in Chicago, and Dino’s sad that he’s in Chicago”—Maya held up her stuffed toy—“then what’s he still doing in Chicago?”

  Maya squirmed in her lap and looked up at her, and Claire wondered if she’d ever get used to a five-year-old being smarter than her sometimes.