by Nancy Adams
Soon, Paul heard the sound of footsteps come hurriedly up the stairs, finally stopping outside his door.
“You okay, son?” came his father’s voice.
“Sure, Dad. I just wanted to move the bed so it was closer to the window was all.”
“You mind if I come in?”
Paul closed his eyes and sighed gently.
“Sure.”
The door immediately opened and his father walked in. Seeing that his son was simply sitting on the end of the bed gazing out of the window, and not using it to set up a noose upon the ceiling as his fearful imagination had supposed, he was relieved.
“You mind if I come sit down with ya?” the old man asked.
Paul turned to him and smiled gently.
“Of course not.”
His father took his place beside his son and the two gazed together out across the stark vista.
“You missed the place?” his father inquired after a moment.
Paul shrugged and made a sound that said he neither had nor hadn’t.
“I guess not,” his father added for him. “You never found that same attachment as others do for this place. Even at school you never liked nor disliked anyone. Just ignored them all, I guess.”
“I never felt that pull you do for them. The way they pour through the doors of your clinic and you know every Goddamned detail of their lives. ‘Hi, Mrs. Jenkins. How’s Lars at the moment? Oh! That bad? Well, I may have something for him. What about the girls? All good?’ You have a way with these people, you tolerate their small-town mentalities like I can’t.”
His father continued to stare out of the window, before placing his hand on his son’s knee and letting out a sigh.
“But they’re our people, son,” he stated purposefully. “Our people. Just remember that. For all their small-mindedness, as you call it, they still live lives that deserve just as much credit as everyone else’s. Maybe the only adventure they get comes from a television, a movie theater or a computer, but they still live lives that are precious to everything—to the totality of it all. Without them working away out here and in small towns throughout the country, this world would fall on its knees. I care about these people even if at times they don’t care enough about themselves, or are dismissed as hicks—strong in the arm but weak in the head. Most of them don’t get to dream and run off to college and the big city. They get no other choice than to live a life of hard work and toil with very little reward or respect for it. So what if I care about their small-minded concerns? And that they maybe show a little too much ignorance at times? They’re still human beings like the rest of us and deserve a little more happiness than what most of them get.”
He stopped suddenly. His annoyance at his son’s typical dismissal of the local populace had riled him, as it always did. His speech had begun harmlessly enough, as most of his long rants did, but it had grown in intensively as he’d defended the members of his community. Nevertheless, he had forgotten his son’s current weakness, and felt bad that he may have possibly caused Paul some vexation.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, however.
Beside him, Paul sat grinning all over and shaking his head. He loved his father so much in those moments when he defended ‘these people,’ as Paul had often called them. Paul had always been unable, or unwilling, to see the beauty in this place. Where he saw nothing but desolation, his father saw a spirited community that had been growing there for hundreds of years. Where Paul saw small-town politics and gossip, his father saw a genuine concern for the lives of the community and its goings on. Under each rock of Casselton that they overturned, the son saw one thing and the father another.
Paul sensed that there was something better inside his father than existed inside of him: forgiveness. Forgiveness and an ability not to judge other people. A man can’t ever know enough about another’s life or mind to be able to make any kind of real assessment on them, his father had always believed. He could forgive people their faults, whereas Paul could not. That’s why he’d told Sam about David. Because he couldn’t forgive Claire her faults.
He placed his hand over his father’s, which still rested on his knee, and squeezed it tenderly.
“I love you, Pa,” he let out in a gentle voice.
“I love you too, son.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“I told ya, Ma,” Claire said down the phone as she waited in line at check-in, “I’m about to go to L.A. I’m at the airport now.”
“But I don’t get it. What happened? One minute you’ve left Paul to run off with Sam Burgess of all people, and now you’re saying that it might be all off. I don’t get it!”
“Ma, I can’t explain all of this over the phone. Not now. Annabel gave me a week or two off from the hospital. Once I’m finished in L.A., I’m gonna head straight to you guys in Colorado. Then I’ll explain everything to you, okay? Can you just wait until then?”
“But the timing’s all bad, Claire. All bad! I rang to tell you just now that tonight your father has found out that he’s the Republican pick for Mayor of Colorado Springs.”
Claire shuddered at the mere mention of her father.
“Old Stan Cromwell,” June went on, “is standing down to run for the Senate and the RNC have chosen your father to run as his replacement. It’s a sure thing, they say. He’s real excited.”
“Have you told him anything about me and Sam?”
“Of course not! You said not to, and he’s been so busy with both the business and preparing his campaign. It was only tonight that it was all officially confirmed. But I called to ask you if you can’t hold off telling the world about it all just yet. It could look bad on your father, especially since Sam is known to donate large sums to the Democrats.”
“I’m not sure if there’s still anything to tell the world. And anyway, that may all be out of my hands, one way or the other.”
“What do you mean ‘out of your hands’?”
“I don’t know, Ma. Can’t you just wait until I get to you and explain it all?”
“Okay,” June said, her nervous breathing easing itself on the other end of the phone. “But, please, if you can, keep all this outta the news. Please, Claire.”
“I don’t want them knowing no more than you do, Ma, so I ain’t gonna go telling no one, okay?”
“Thank you. It’s for your father. He’s worked so hard for this all—”
Claire cut her off, putting the phone down. She detested hearing about her father, especially now. She had even felt a pang of anger toward her mother at the mere mention that she should keep her love for Sam a secret all because of him: Joe. She had felt a sudden urge to immediately dial up the first media outlet that the operator could find her and tell them everything, even meet them in L.A. to give them a short interview. Just so she could scorn her father with it all.
As she waited her turn, she fantasized about telling the media everything, even embellishing details about things that would further embarrass her father. Like telling them that Sam and Joe had met, and that both men had agreed on certain political principles. She would be indistinct about things when asked to go further, but would do enough to plant the seeds of destruction in the heads of the voters in Colorado Springs. In the vaguest terms, she would paint her father as some Democratic stooge. No way would diehard Republican voters vote for someone that shared ideals with a man who had financially and personally helped the Minimum Living Wage Bill through both houses, to the utter annoyance of the Republicans as a whole. Or, perhaps, Sam’s stringent support for gun control, and his talk of a national health service paid for by the country’s wealthiest. She would love to come home to see the look on Joe’s face, knowing that she had personally ruined him.
Coming to the front of the line, she smiled mischievously to herself. But then the smile dropped as she imagined her mother’s reaction, and the sadness the old woman would feel at the knowledge of her daughter’s destructive actions.
It wasn’t long b
efore Claire was on the plane, her earphones in listening to music while she attempted to doze off. It was a six-hour journey and she hadn’t slept for some time, her mind too disorientated and worried about the future to feel safe enough to drift into dream. The waters of her life were once again murky and weren’t flowing in any particular direction, stagnant and pitch black, giving nothing away to her.
However, she had taken several sleeping tablets before boarding and, as she heard the music in her ears gently drift away, she found herself submerged in sleep. A dream came over her as she plummeted through the mist of herself, and before she knew it she was walking along a wooden boardwalk. Echoing in her ears, she heard the sea crashing against the coast, but the air was so thick with the mist that she couldn’t see anything except the next few feet in front of her. It also appeared that as she walked the mist parted for her, as though it were showing her the way, guiding her toward some particular destination.
Having walked for an indescribable time, the mist changed her path, clearing to the right and guiding her out toward the sea. It wasn’t the sea she found, though, but more boardwalk, and she quickly assumed that she was walking out to the end of a pier. And it was true. When she glanced to either side of her, she saw the faint outline of the handrails. She could also make out the choppy waters beneath her through the gaps in the boards that she walked along.
It was then that she looked ahead of her and saw the outline of something else: a person. They were standing at the end of the pier with their back to her, so very vague through the mist, and when she was a little closer her heart jumped in her chest when she saw that it was Sam.
She cried his name out, but no sound emerged and she attempted to run to him. But the moment she sprung into action, the mist began holding her back, becoming sticky and clinging to her legs and body as she pushed herself hard to reach him. The harder she tried, the slower her movements, and she cried out to him again. As before, though, she neither heard nor felt any sound escape her trembling lips, and she sensed that he too couldn’t hear her, for he never once responded in any way to her cries, and continued to stand at the very end, leaning against the rail.
And even though she couldn’t see his face, she was sure that he was very sad and that he wished for her to be by his side just as much as she wished to be with him. But the mist wouldn’t let either of them. All the confusing fog that surrounded them stopped her from reaching him and from him turning around, as she was sure that he wanted to. She was sure that it was holding him back just as cruelly as it held her. Eventually, after a lot of struggling, the pier disappeared around them and they both fell into the thick white, Claire soon losing sight of Sam as he fell much faster…
Awaking with a jolt, Claire hurriedly glanced around her and saw that she was on the plane and that the lights were off and most of the people were asleep, one or two awake watching movies or reading books. Looking at the time, she saw that they were under an hour from landing and she threw her head back into the headrest, her breathing heavy and her skin glistening with perspiration.
Once she landed, Claire drowsily made her way through airport security and outside to the waiting flurry of taxi-cabs. She didn’t have much of a plan. She would simply go to Sam’s house and attempt to make contact. Since last night, when she had last spoken to Sam, she had found all her further attempts to contact him blocked. This meant that all she could do was turn up at the house.
With no more luggage than a small backpack, she got in a car and began the journey to Sam’s Beverley Hills’ mansion, the last place she knew that he was going to. She was very upset, however, when she got there and was told by the gatekeeper that Sam had left the night before with his daughter Jess. Claire took the story to be a ruse and wouldn’t leave, demanding to see Sam, and angering the guard when she made a grab for his radio, so much so that he took ahold of the handle of his pistol.
Eventually, someone was sent for from the house. It was Karl who met her at the gate.
“Please,” she said through both tears and the rails of the gate, seeing something of authority in Karl’s attire, an authority which could aid her if she were to gain his sympathy. “I’ve got to see, Sam,” she added once he was within a few feet of the gate. “This guy here says he’s out, but I don’t believe him.”
“It’s true,” Karl said with a certain curtness. “I have been asked to give you this,” he pulled a small envelope from his pocket, “should you find your way here. Which you clearly have.”
“Where is he?” she asked as he handed the envelope through a gap in the rails.
Looking her in the eyes, and betraying his stern nature with a softening of his expression, Karl relied, “I’m sorry. Unless it’s in the envelope, there’s nothing more I can say. But I can assure you that he is not here.”
With that she took the envelope from him and gazed down at it in her hands as Karl turned and walked back up the driveway. Without a moment’s extra pause, she tore the thing open and pulled out a single leaf of paper with a short paragraph written in pen upon it.
It read:
Claire,
The truth is I don’t know exactly where my head is currently at. One moment I want to dash you from my life like a wave against a crumbling rock. The next I want to run to you and embrace you, hold you with me, kiss you all over and let this all go. I have gone away from here to find myself and better know what I should do regarding everything. I will, however, inform you that I have already begun the proceedings of finding our son. I guess you knew I would. Please, trust in the fact that I love you; nothing has changed on that score. It’s just that everything circles around me like sharks and I can’t help but feel an element of betrayal and anger in all this. The only further thing I have to say: is that you must give me time and space to find myself.
Sam
And that was it.
“Find myself,” Claire repeated aloud to herself. What is there to find? she continued in thought. Looking up from the letter, it appeared that the world was spinning around her. How can he be so unsure? Does he really love me in the way he says he does? Surely he has to understand my position?
She was abruptly dug out of her thoughts by the sound of the gate opening beside her. When she looked to the driveway, she saw a car with Karl sat in the driver’s seat. He pulled out onto the street and stopped next to her.
Through the rolled-down window, he inquired, “You got anywhere to stay or are you heading straight back?”
“I don’t know. I’m tired, so I was thinking of a motel.”
“Then I’ll drive you to one that’s not too expensive, but is also safe.”
“Thank you,” Claire let out as she got into the passenger side of the car.
Karl drove them out of there, Claire trapped in a pensive silence.
CHAPTER SIX
Sam stood in front of the great glass facade looking out across the valley that surrounded his house. A house built into the precipice of a large section of cliffs, the rattling waterfall dropping down behind it. As he stared out, he felt that his life had always hung delicately—like the house—in one way or another. Even when Marya was around he had feared the success that surrounded them. Early on, when the company was just beginning, he had felt that it could as easily fade as it had been conjured up. He had been raised in a household where the wolves were never far from the door and the anxiety that he had always felt balanced him upon a thread. Then, once the company was flourishing, it had been the endless interviews and constant press shows, board meetings and the way things appeared to grow out of his control. She—Marya—had always settled him then, but it had still affected him, threatened to drop him off the cliff. That’s why they’d come out here in the first place. To get away. And for a time it had worked. Marya had taken over the business of Techsoft and he was left to his lab.
Then came her illness, like a shadow cast across their dreams. Soon she was lost and so was he, and in his despair he had reached out and taken ahold of Claire
. In the midst of his despair he had found love again, like a tree growing out of a desert. But no sooner was this achieved than he was plunged back into the abyss and once again found his hands clawing at the ridge of the great precipice that had always been his life. It was all lost, and once again so was he. Nevertheless, he pulled himself up and tried to rebuild his life with Jenna. And he did for a time. But even then, even after ousting Stan Bormann, even when he believed he’d achieved what he’d set out to, even then he sensed inside that he was merely a little higher up upon the cliff face; safer but still not out of danger.
As he’d hung there upon his precipice, out of nowhere came Claire, returning to his life like a phoenix emerging from the flames, and he believed that he could finally raise himself all the way up. All appeared to be coming together finally, only to find that Claire’s return was nothing more than another fall further into the pit. A child! They had a child! All that time and he never knew. What was he like? Sam wondered. Does he look like me? Is he smart like his sister? Is he safe? Loved? Then he paused in his thoughts and a new question lit up in his mind: Does Claire even care?
She must, he proposed with definite assuredness, needing only a second to come to that assumption. Why are you being so hard on her? came to him from the darkness of his mind and he sighed. She had no choice. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. She still should have told me; it’s as simple as that, he replied to the voice of his conscience. It would have remained her choice, nothing would have changed that. I would have offered to take the child myself, not let it end up with strangers. If she wanted it to stay a secret from her family, I would have respected that. I just wish she had told me.
Just then he noticed the reflection of Maud in the glass. He turned to face her and she immediately smiled at him when their eyes met.