A Mother's Claim

by Janice Kay Johnson

  She had to enter the back of the business to grab her purse and flip-flops. Not wanting to drip on the floor, she went back out and circled the building, Nolan at her side.

  “You sure you’re okay to drive?” he asked.

  “Yes. You know it isn’t far.”

  She had her car door open when his hand on her arm stopped her from getting in.

  “Will you look at me?”

  Dana reluctantly met his eyes.

  “You’ve withdrawn.” And clearly, he didn’t like it.

  “I feel like an idiot. Plus, my lungs and throat are burning and my stomach muscles hurt.” She felt weird overall and suspected she might be a little bit in shock. She’d been so happy...and then boom. She was drowning. Her eleven-year-old son had had to put himself at risk to haul her out.

  “You’ll meet us for pizza once we close?”

  Feeling pitiful, she asked, “Is that a good idea?”

  He smiled, murmured, “Of course it is,” and kissed her lightly on the nose. “Soak in a hot bath.”

  Dana wrinkled her nose at him. “I think I might have had enough immersion in water for one day.”

  At least she had the satisfaction of seeing him laughing as he walked away.

  * * *

  “SPIT IT OUT,” Uncle Nolan said. He rested a forearm on the steering wheel and turned in his seat to look at Christian.

  “Dana’s probably waiting.” He hated trying to figure out what to say to her. His forehead wrinkled at the thought. She might just pretend nothing happened. He’d seen her swallow something she’d been about to say often enough.

  “She can wait.”

  Christian looked straight ahead, at the Lookout Inn. “It’s just...you know. What she said.”

  “About wanting to impress you?”

  Christian shrugged, keeping his face averted. He felt so mixed up he didn’t want to know what Uncle Nolan was thinking.

  “Why does that surprise you?” he asked, in that calm way he had.

  “Because she’s a grown-up!” Christian cried. “I’m just a kid.” He tugged at the seat belt, sliding it out farther, letting it slip back, over and over.

  It was quiet long enough he almost did turn his head, but then Uncle Nolan said, “Usually parents get mad at their kids, have fun with them, snap at them, encourage them. The whole gamut.” His shoulders moved. “But underneath, there’s this mutual security. The love is taken for granted.”

  Christian frowned at that. As tangled up as his feelings were for his mom, he had loved her and he knew she loved him. She couldn’t help the stuff she did that hurt him.

  “Dana doesn’t have that luxury,” Uncle Nolan continued. “I think she believed it would be there. As if love was locked in from birth. But that’s not how it happened. You didn’t want to acknowledge her. Things are getting easier, but she’s a nice lady to you, not your mother. I imagine she’s trying really hard to be so great you’ll decide you want to brag to everyone that she’s your mom.”

  “You think she’s been faking?” he heard himself ask.

  “No.” Uncle Nolan put a hand on his shoulder and gave a little squeeze. “I think she’s been having a lot of fun with us. Maybe...letting herself believe it would happen. But also not wanting to admit to any weaknesses.”

  “Like being scared around water.”

  Uncle Nolan took his hand back. “You going to hold it against her?”

  “Of course not,” he said indignantly. “Today was my fault. I shouldn’t have let her get out so deep when I knew she hadn’t even sailed or kayaked or anything.”

  “Yeah, I should have wondered, too,” his uncle agreed. “If we’d known she isn’t a very good swimmer but she insisted on helping out, we could have strapped her into a vest.”

  Christian nodded. “Do you think she’ll want to come back? I mean, to Wind & Waves?”

  “I hope so. She’s a quick learner and a harder worker than anyone I pay.”

  Hearing the smile in his voice, Christian relaxed. “You just want more free help.”

  “You got it.” Uncle Nolan fired up the engine and backed out.

  “She said she’d meet us, right?”

  “She did.”

  “Okay.” He still didn’t know what he was going to say, because now he felt kind of ashamed that he hadn’t told anyone they were related. Not because there was anything wrong with Dana. It just...made him feel bad. It was like saying he’d forget all about Mom. Besides, everybody would talk about him, like they had when they knew he had to go back and forth to his grandparents’ house because his mother was so weird. He could be proud of Uncle Nolan.

  Unsettled, he had the thought that at least Dana wouldn’t embarrass him by talking too loudly or not dressing right, and he bet she would show up when she said she would, too.

  He hunched his shoulders. What she’d be was different from Mom.

  * * *

  “MY BAD EXPERIENCE,” Dana echoed. Of course Nolan had asked, waiting until they’d ordered and taken their drinks to a booth. “My parents had rented a cabin on a lake. I was...I don’t know, maybe six? Anyway, Peter and I had this rubber raft. I was supposed to wear a vest, and I didn’t. The raft sprang a leak and started to sink. I went under. I guess Peter screamed. Dad ran out, dived in and got me.” Aware that Nolan and Christian were both listening attentively, she made a face. “We probably weren’t very far from shore. Anyway, I took lessons after that, but once I could make it from one end of the pool to the other, I thought that was good enough.”

  Nolan groaned.

  She stuck out her tongue at him. “It’s not like I’ve spent lots of time around large bodies of water.”

  “Until you moved to this small town that happens to cling to the edge of the Columbia River.”

  “Fine. I should have told you.”

  “Uncle Nolan says you should wear a vest when you help launch a boat,” Christian surprised her by saying.

  “Maybe I should just stay away from the water.” For a dark instant, she was going under again, helpless against the power of the current, feeling her lungs screaming with the need for air. Shaking off the memory took serious effort. “Somehow, I didn’t realize that wading could be dangerous.”

  Nolan set down his glass of beer. “The catamaran you were launching is a good-sized boat. Most of what you’ve helped with aren’t heavy enough to knock you over. And with you in that deep, I wouldn’t call it wading.”

  “Okay. Still.”

  “That’s our number.” Christian sprang up so fast Nolan’s lips twitched.

  “Is he starving?” Dana asked, startled by the hasty departure.

  “And desperate to escape our conversation.” Nolan smiled. “Boys his age and any subject that ventures into emotion? Not so good.”

  “No wonder girls the same age are so disappointed in boys. By twelve and thirteen, girls are drenched in emotion.”

  Nolan laughed, the skin beside his eyes crinkling. “I didn’t quit thinking girls were scary until I was in high school. I had a girlfriend in eighth grade—sort of—but if she’d insisted we talk about feelings, I’d have been gone.”

  Dana rolled her eyes. “From the complaints I hear, grown men aren’t much better.”

  One eyebrow rose to a peak. “That’s because we’re cold-blooded.”

  She hoped she wasn’t blushing. “You know what I meant.”

  “Yeah—” His gaze went past her. “You mind getting plates, too?”

  Christian deposited the gigantic pizza on the table. “I couldn’t carry both at the same time.” He was back in only moments.

  He inhaled the first slice while Dana was using her knife and fork to eat tidily. As he reached for a second piece, he said out of the blue, “You could take lessons.”
r />   She stared at him. “You mean swimming? Me?”

  “Well...yeah.”

  “We do have a pool in town,” Nolan agreed. “There might be adult lessons.”

  “Or—” Christian’s face had turned red “—maybe I could teach you.”

  Knowing she had to hide the surge of joy, Dana said, “I’m not sure if I’d be more humiliated with you or some sixteen-year-old that probably teaches the adult class.”

  “What can be more humiliating than almost drowning and having to admit you don’t know how to swim?” Nolan asked drily.

  Silenced for a moment, she said, “You have a point.” She looked at Christian. “Thank you for offering. I guess if we could do it evenings...” She didn’t say, What if one of your friends sees you with me?

  Still blushing, he bobbed his head.

  “Nolan,” a surprised voice said.

  Nolan raised a hand. “Ken.”

  A man and woman, both probably in their midthirties, approached their table. The woman smiled and greeted Christian, then looked inquiringly at Dana.

  If she knew Christian, chances were good she had a son or daughter his age. Or she and her husband were friends of Nolan’s, not just customers.

  Dana hurried to fill a silence that felt like a minefield. “I’m new in Lookout, working for Helping Hand. I took an unintentional dunk in the river today, and Nolan and Christian insisted on feeding the woman they’d hauled out by one ankle.”

  Both the strangers laughed. “Lissa likes to admire the river from afar,” the man said, dodging when his wife poked him with an elbow. “No intention of joining me sailing. I’m Ken Dorsey. One of our kids is in Christian’s class this year.”

  “And was in fourth grade and...” His wife paused to think.

  “First,” her husband supplied. “Or was it kindergarten?”

  There was motion under the table. Dana thought Nolan might have kicked Christian, who said reluctantly, “First.”

  The adults chatted for a minute, the couple wanting to know where Dana had moved from, the husband just happening to have a business card in his shirt pocket to hand her. Since she did need to have an insurance agent closer than Denver, she told him she’d be calling. Finally, they went to the counter to order.

  Nobody said anything for a minute. The tension was visible on Nolan’s face. Christian kept his head down.

  Dana threw out a placid remark. “They seemed nice.”

  Christian mumbled something she didn’t hear.

  “Excuse me?”

  “She’s a girl. The kid in my class.”

  “Oh.” She’d have smiled if she weren’t dealing with Nolan’s and Christian’s obvious discomfiture with her identity. “Not a friend, then.”

  “They used to be,” Nolan said abruptly. “Didn’t she come to your birthday party once?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “When I was a little kid.”

  “You might end up friends again,” Dana said, sounding so upbeat she disgusted herself.

  They managed to regain some kind of flow, enough so Dana was able to quit feeling so self-conscious.

  What she carried home was an ache she knew she’d better become accustomed to. Christian’s willingness to give her swim lessons had to be extraordinary for a boy his age. But the other moment, when she’d seen alarm escalating into panic because somebody was going to have to introduce Dana, had served as a counterweight.

  As she prepared for bed, she tried to convince herself that he might start to trust her more because she’d handled the situation without embarrassing explanations. But staring at herself in the mirror, Dana acknowledged another truth: the more often he and Nolan introduced her as a friend, the harder it would become for them to tell people she was really Christian’s mother.

  Craig...he would have said brusquely, I’m Christian’s father. Which meant she had to keep fending him off. But...how could she even let her parents come out for a visit, when Christian probably wouldn’t want to be seen with them?

  The answer, of course, was that she couldn’t.

  * * *

  “THAT’S THE ALBUM of pictures Grandma and Grandad made for me,” Christian said, plopping it next to Dana on the sofa.

  Nolan had suggested having her over for dinner Monday night, partly wanting to get them all past the twin disasters of Saturday and partly for a more basic reason: he wanted to see her.

  He’d called her Sunday, catching her out shopping, sounding distracted although she agreed to dinner tonight. He couldn’t think of a good excuse to call a second time, which left him restless and frustrated.

  Sunday’s rain had made business slow, and Mondays and Tuesdays, Wind & Waves was closed. Later in June, once schools had let out, he’d go to a seven-day-a-week schedule with more staff, but the rest of the year, the reduced traffic wasn’t enough to justify the extra cost. Filling his days off wasn’t usually a problem. The old house needed work, the lawn had to be mowed weekly and he did the usual errands. When the weather was good, he’d be out on the river or, occasionally, hiking or cycling.

  Today he’d added a couple miles to his morning run, after which he’d grocery-shopped and cleaned house—he didn’t want Dana thinking it was a pit—but he stayed restive. He hadn’t been able to get her alone as often as he’d have liked the past two weeks. Lunch a couple of times and dinner twice. Restaurants and picnic tables at either the park or outside Wind & Waves didn’t offer much privacy. He’d kissed her goodbye each time, but lightly.

  He wanted more.

  More meant he had to tell Christian about the developing relationship.

  Calmer because she was here now, he waited until she laid the album on her lap and opened it to lower himself to the cushion beside her, his thigh touching hers. She could have edged away—but didn’t. On her other side, Christian said, his voice stifled, “I look like I did in your pictures.”

  Nolan’s gaze went to the first page and the photos his parents must have taken as soon as Marlee showed up with her eight-month-old “son.” These could have been taken within days of the abduction.

  He remembered everyone’s surprise. Brown eyes with white-blond hair? Neither matched the coloring of anyone else in the family. Medium height, Marlee had been curvy, her hair darker than Nolan’s, her eyes more of a blue-gray. Christian had been long and skinny even then. Mom and Dad had had a lot of questions about Christian’s father. Marlee’s answer? “I don’t want to talk about him.” They’d all been gullible enough to assume that was because the baby’s biological father had been some random hookup. If she’d been stoned, she might not even remember him.

  Even now, Nolan understood why none of them had asked themselves if there were other possibilities. His goofy, annoying sister, who’d trailed him around for years, plotting to steal a baby and actually going through with it?

  He gave his head a shake he hoped Dana didn’t notice.

  The second page had a photo of Marlee holding the baby, grinning at him. Tellingly, Christian strained away from her. Dana stayed quiet, although she touched the tip of her finger to her infant son.

  By the time they reached kindergarten, tears ran down her face.

  “Ignore me,” she said, sniffling and laughing. “It’s just...seeing you growing up.”

  Nolan brought her a wad of tissues.

  Christian recovered from his alarm at the tears and answered questions with animation, telling her where they’d been when each picture was taken, what they’d been doing. Once his expression became flat when he said, “I don’t think Mom was around.”

  He didn’t repeat that, but he didn’t have to. Marlee was only occasionally in photos. Nolan had been mad as hell when he found out she took off and left her kid alone, starting from when he was only five or six.

  “Only for a day!” she�
��d cried when he confronted her. Overnight, was what she meant. And she really believed that was okay?

  Watching Christian grow up in the pages of the album, Nolan felt the simmer of his anger build toward a rolling boil. Why hadn’t Mom and Dad demanded guardianship? Why had they left Christian at risk for so long?

  But he knew. Marlee was their daughter, precious and fragile. Seeing her descent into mental illness had damaged them. Their effervescent, smart, sweet, if also sometimes wild, daughter using drugs, screaming at invisible people, letting her hair become filthy and tangled... Every time she appeared stable, they would let themselves hope. This time she’d stay on her meds. Surely she would be able to see how much her beautiful son needed her.

  Yeah, and where was I?

  Living his own life. He couldn’t even blame himself; Marlee and Christian did have his parents, who wouldn’t have wanted him to became caretaker for his sister and her child.

  Birthday parties came and went—kids sitting around the table watching as tall, skinny Christian blew out his candles. His hair darkened as the years went by. There was Nolan setting the cake in front of him for his ninth birthday. He’d been home for a flying visit, not knowing that his parents would be killed only nine months later.

  “That’s Jenna Dorsey.” Christian pointed with disfavor at a freckled redheaded girl.

  “The people at the restaurant?” Dana bent her head to study the picture, her frown suddenly clearing. “I saw her at the school when I went to the open house. She was giggling with some other girls. She’s really pretty.”

  Nolan had a suspicion that Christian thought so, too. Now all he did was mumble, “She’s okay.”

  Dana looked at Nolan. He grinned as he nodded an answer to her wordless question.

  A suppressed smile created a tiny dimple in her cheek he’d never noticed before.

  She flipped the next page to find herself at the end, her dismay obvious. “You must have more.”

  “I think we went digital from then on,” Nolan said. “Christian, why don’t you grab the laptop.”

  His parents had kept using the same camera, having those photos developed the old-fashioned way, long after most people had switched to digital cameras and then smartphones. Nolan had given his mom an iPhone for a birthday to replace her old flip phone. It took her a while to get into it, but once she did, wherever he was in the world, he could count on opening his email to find pictures. He wasn’t sure how many other features on the phone she’d ever figured out, but she loved the high-quality photos she could take so easily. Nolan felt his eyes sting at the memory of her delight. His parents had been in only their early sixties, and in good health. They should have been here now.