The Mountains Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by Phoebe Alexander

  "I'm here to hike with some of my friends from school. What are you doing here?"

  "I just wanted to get Jacob out of the house today. He's been really fussy. Thought some fresh air might help." She pushed back the canopy on the stroller that shielded the baby's face. Abby saw that the infant was asleep, his tiny fists curled into balls, a blue knit hat covering his whole forehead. He had a sweet little nose and lips, and his face contorted into a series of smiles and grimaces as he snoozed.

  "Wow," Abby remarked. "I can't believe you have a baby."

  "Yeah, apparently that's what happens when you get pregnant," Mia retorted. Abby knew she was trying to be sarcastic and funny, but all Abby could think about was her mother. Getting pregnant didn't always mean having a baby.

  There was a moment of awkward silence while Abby's eyes trailed over Mia's features. She looked completely different with platinum hair. Her eyes looked inkier even, her star tattoos more pronounced.

  Finally Mia spoke. "I wanted to tell you, Abby. I really did. I just --"

  "You really hurt me, Mia. Especially since you stood right here in this very park, amongst these same red rocks and made me promise not to hurt you."

  She looked down at the ground in shame. "I was in denial that I was actually pregnant. It just didn't seem real to me. I kept thinking if I ignored it, it would go away, that I'd miscarry or something. I don't know. I was stupid."

  "You're a healthy twenty-one-year-old," Abby smirked. "Why would you think that?"

  "Sometimes you just believe things so strongly, they come true – at least in your mind,” she explained. “A few months after I met you, before things got super serious and you were staying over all the time, I went to this party after work. It was over Thanksgiving Break when you went to see your grandmother after her heart attack. I got really drunk and hooked up with this guy. I kept thinking you were going to ask me why I wasn't running out of tampons," she laughed. "But you never did. I wanted to tell you, but I didn't know how."

  "So what happened to the guy?" Abby asked. She wondered if it was the guy Maddy had seen her with at the movies.

  "I never saw him again. I don't even know his last name, and we didn't exchange numbers. I mean, I guess I might be able to track him down if I talked to other people who were at the party, but how do you say, 'Hey, dude, remember that night we got drunk and hooked up? Yeah, well now you have a son.'"

  Abby shrugged, the Mystery of the Movie Guy still intact. "I really wish you would have told me. I would have thought you'd get an abortion?"

  "Oh god no," Mia answered. "Not by the time I could admit there was a baby in there. I was more than halfway at that point. Feeling the baby move and shit. It was kinda hard to keep denying it then. I'm from the south, remember? My old-school Southern Baptist grandma had drilled into me the horrors of abortion from the time I knew what it was."

  "So what's it like...being a Mom? My mom is pregnant again and about to pop in six weeks or so."

  "It's terrible, horrible, stressful and amazing all at the same time," she answered. She bent down and looked into the stroller. "Look at him. He looks like a fuckin' angel. He was up all night crying. You'd never know by looking at him, huh?"

  Abby smiled. He did look as though he might be hiding a little golden halo under his cap. Just when his mother said "angel," his lips spread into an enormous grin. "See, look at that!" she laughed.

  "Are you coming back to school?" Abby asked.

  "Not this semester," Mia answered. "I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean I scraped up as much money as I could so I wouldn't have to waitress for a few months, but it's going to run out soon, and I can't

  afford a sitter. I might have to go home."

  "Does your family know about the baby?"

  She nodded, and a little tear sparkled in her right eye. "My mom told me I should come home, but...I don't really want Jacob to grow up there in all that dysfunction. So I don't know what to do."

  After a few more minutes, Gavin and Willow wandered over to make sure their friend was okay. Abby introduced them to Mia and the baby, and

  they all talked for a few more minutes. Finally, Abby said goodbye after wishing Mia and her son the best.

  She watched her ex-girlfriend stroll the baby in the opposite direction, toward the parking lot. Her eyes trailed her until she disappeared behind the huge rock formation of Kissing Camels. Mia is one of those people who is always going to skate by in life. She may go home, she may stay here, but she is always going to have a transient, nomadic quality to her. She would have made a good gypsy, Abby mused. As she watched her fully disappear from sight, the other thought that gripped her was, Wow, closure is an amazing thing.

  ***

  "So the prodigal son came home?" Kathy invoked the biblical allusion when she and Rachel brought dinner over for Sarah and Owen. James was still at work.

  "I guess you could say that," Sarah sighed from the couch. She was so tired of that piece of furniture, she was almost positive she would light it on fire when her bedrest mandate was lifted. She returned to the doctor the following day to have her blood pressure and urine re-tested for signs of pre ecclampsia. The last results had only shown moderate improvement, so Dr. Asaki ordered another full week of bedrest.

  "So tell me again how he came to the conclusion he should dump Vanessa?" Rachel asked.

  Sarah once again relayed the conversation James had with his father who had admonished him to do the right thing. "James also told me when I forced him to make a choice, at first he was so angry that he

  refused to decide. He felt like he had never made me choose between him and Pawel. It took a while for him to realize how different his relationship with her was from mine with Pawel. He also admitted it should have never taken him so long to choose me because he knew that was his choice all along. He was just rebelling against it."

  "Yeah, such the rebel," Rachel rolled her eyes. "What does Dr. McCarty have to say about all this?"

  "She said she thinks James's dad might have put her out of a job," Sarah laughed. "But seriously, she made us review the Relationship Plan again in light of what happened with Vanessa and tweak it a bit so we both felt more comfortable moving forward. And James seems very committed. He's going to the doctor with me tomorrow. And --" She paused, suddenly realizing she probably shouldn't mention the potential move yet.

  "And what?" Kathy's eyebrow raised.

  "Well," Sarah stalled. She noticed her mother's face was more etched with fine lines and wrinkles than what it was before her heart attack. It had aged her more in the last year than she had aged in the ten years prior. Her hair was becoming almost white, too. And she isn't really even that old, Sarah thought. She had been dying her own grays away, but she wondered how much she would have if she stopped. I'd look too old to have this baby, that's for damn sure.

  "Well what?" Rachel pressed.

  "He wants to put in for a transfer to Colorado. Sounds like his entire family is moving back there in the next few months!"

  Kathy and Rachel both stared at her with their mouths slightly open, their minds filling with protests. Sarah laughed. "You didn't think we'd actually stay here in Maryland forever did you? James is in the Army. Soldiers don't stay in one place."

  "How much longer does he have until retirement? What about the degree he's working on?" Rachel asked.

  Valid questions, Sarah thought. "He's got at least five more years to get him to twenty total, which is the minimum. He's hoping to have the masters done before he would be transferred. If not, he can finish it up online. He's pretty serious about this. Of course, there's no guarantee he can get an assignment at Fort Carson, but his dad is trying to help pull some strings for him."

  "Wow," Kathy said. "Just when I really settled down here." She smiled in the wise way she always did because she had long accepted that change was a part of life.

  "Well, I'm not tied to this place," Rachel said. "I mean, I came out here with you. But Jack's family is here so...
" Her eyes welled up with tears. "Sarah, I've lived near you for how many years now? I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I couldn't just pop over here whenever I wanted."

  "There's no sense in crying yet. I mean, none of this would be happening until next summer," she reassured Rachel. “If it happens at all!”

  "So, bottom line, my dear, is James is back and wants to make some positive changes. So all is well," Kathy recapped, bringing the focus back to the present.

  Sarah looked down at her stomach just in time to see it shudder with a forceful kick from the baby. "Did you guys see that?" she giggled.

  "Oh my god, Alien Belly Syndrome!" Rachel laughed.

  "Look, I can't say with all honesty that everything from here on out will be perfect," she answered her mother, "because neither of us are perfect. But I have to trust, and I have to hope that we're both going to do the best we can for each other. He wasn't giving it his all before, and he admitted it. He asked for forgiveness. He asked for another chance. So I'm giving it to him." She placed her hand back on top of her firm, round belly. "I think this baby is going to bring us closer than we have ever been before."

  "I think you're right," Kathy said. "I have a good feeling." Sarah smiled, knowing that was as accurate of a prophecy as anyone could hope for.

  ***

  Gavin and Willow had helped take the sting out of her father's abandonment and rejection. She was thinking about the fact that his wedding was coming up in only a few weekends. She had the invitation still pinned to her bulletin board in her dorm room. It had a tree with autumn leaves and a rustic feel. Abby had expected something gaudy and ugly, but she supposed Bobbi had better taste than she had given her credit

  for.

  She chose that moment to text Emma in order to check in with her and Elise. She tried to do it every four or five days, not too often that her father or Bobbi would notice and ask questions. Emma promised she would only respond when she was alone to avoid having one of them looking over her shoulder. "They told me if they ask to see my phone, I have to show it to them. And I'm not allowed to put a lock code on it," she'd said. "But I just act cool with it and they haven't asked to see yet. They're too busy with stupid wedding stuff."

  Emma was much more like Abby than she had ever thought. The more she got to know her, the more she saw some of her own mannerisms and speech patterns. Or maybe she's just absorbed them from being around me? Abby considered. Either way, she was glad she had an opportunity to keep in touch. Emma always texted: Elise says hi, love you, miss you so much I can't stand it.

  It was only a day or two after their last correspondence when Abby was in the cafeteria eating dinner with Gavin and Willow and received a text from a different number: her father's. Her fingers were trembling when she glanced down and saw it was from him. Willow noticed immediately and asked her what was wrong.

  "It's from my dad," she answered in a low voice. They knew it had been several weeks since she’d heard from him.

  Willow and Gavin exchanged worried looks. "What does it say?"

  "Well, hold on! I have to actually read it!" she smirked. Abby swiped the code to unlock her phone and touched the messaging icon. She read it aloud before skimming it in silence, such was her trust in her friends. "I need to see you. I'm in the parking lot outside your dorm right now."

  "Whoa, that seems creepy," Willow pointed out.

  "Let us go with you!" Gavin offered.

  "Wait, are you actually going to go out there? It's really from your dad, right? I don't like the way this sounds..." Willow protested.

  "Yeah, I want to hear what he has to say," Abby answered, taking a deep breath and getting up from the table. Half of her dinner remained, but she had lost her appetite for it.

  Gavin and Willow followed her out to the parking lot, and sure enough, her father was there in his maroon SUV. He rolled down his window. "Is there a place we can talk?" he asked.

  "Dad, these are my friends, Gavin and Willow. Gavin and Willow, my father, Matt Schumaker."

  "Pleased to meet you," Gavin said, nodding.

  "We could take him up to the student lounge on the second floor," Willow suggested.

  Abby loved that her friends had her back. She had never had friends like that before. Her father shut off the engine and followed the three college students into the dorm after Gavin swiped his ID to unlock the door. They climbed the stairs to the second floor and were pleased to find the lounge was vacant. The room was sparsely furnished with a few couches and coffee tables lined with magazines, plus a TV with an old Wii console hooked up to it.

  "You don't mind if my friends join us, do you?" Abby asked.

  "No, not if that's what you want." He leaned toward his daughter with his elbows on his knees. "Look, what happened a couple weeks ago at my house was simply unacceptable."

  She felt her hackles raising. She really didn't want to argue with him, but she was not going to accept responsibility for anything that went awry that night. He perceived the look of retaliation growing on

  her face and immediately reached out to put his hand on her knee. "No, no, I meant what Bobbi did was unacceptable," he clarified.

  "Whew!" Willow said, stage-wiping her brow. She was quite familiar with the entire story.

  "After that night, Bobbi and I had some serious discussions about you, Emma and Elise, and our future as a family. No matter how much I tried to reason with her, Bobbi insisted that I sever ties with you. She felt if I kept in contact with you, I was rewarding your homosexuality. But if I put my foot down, then eventually you'd see the light. She thought you’d want to have a relationship with me and your sisters, so you'd denounce your sin and...I don't know...I guess you'd be straight again."

  Gavin and Willow both hooted at the ridiculousness of that theory. "Abby isn't even gay!" Gavin argued.

  Matt looked at his daughter. "What? I thought you said you were?"

  Abby sighed. "After a lot of consideration, I think a more accurate term for my sexuality is pansexual."

  "Pansexual? What does that mean?" His nose wrinkled as he pronounced the unfamiliar word.

  "It simply means I am attracted to people first as humans, without regard to their gender or gender identity. Might be a woman, might be a man. Doesn't matter," Abby explained.

  "Okay," Matt answered. "Well, the whole reason I'm here is...I love you, Abby, and I love you whether you're gay, or straight, or pansexual or purple! I love you no matter what."

  The words she had been longing to hear for so long had just been delivered from her father’s mouth. Her heart was pounding in her ribcage. "So...,” she replied, the "o" drawing out on her lips. "What about Bobbi then?"

  "She's history," Matt said and grinned. "Emma and Elise hated her. She was like Cinderella's stepmother to them. I was blind to it for a while because I really wanted it to work out. And I'll admit, her 'old-fashioned' values with her cooking for me all the time and cleaning my house was a pretty easy sell at first." He chuckled.

  "Yeah, some 'values' with the way she cursed at me!" Abby smirked.

  "I couldn't believe those words came out of her mouth," Matt admitted. "I had never heard her say anything - not even fake swear words. It was like I was able to see that night for the first time what kind of person she truly is.” He shook his head. "Good riddance. I am ready to move on!"

  "Why didn't Emma and Elise tell me? I've been texting with Emma!" Abby said.

  "I told them I wanted to tell you in person. And I wanted to ask your forgiveness...because I haven't treated you right."

  "Awwwww!" Willow sighed. "This is so sweet!"

  Abby stood up and so did her father. She threw her body weight into him, all one hundred twenty pounds. "I'm so happy!"

  "Me too. And your sisters are positively ecstatic!"

  That night, Abby thought about logging into Whisper to share how happy she was that her dad came around. But she realized she didn't want to Whisper anything anymore. She wanted to shout it from the rooftops. So ins
tead, she posted the photo that Willow had taken of the two of them on Instagram with the hashtags #ilovemydad #mydadlovesme

  ***

  "Whew, I think we're alone now," James said, pulling into the steep driveway. The cabin in North Carolina that Sarah had traveled through the night to reach awaited them at the crest of the hill. It was the place where they had made their original commitment to each other over two years before. James had booked it for their wedding anniversary.

  "You know I promised to let Dr. Asaki know when we made it here," Sarah said. She looked down at her feet and noticed her ankles were swelling badly. "She is not going to be happy with me."

  "We got out every hour and walked around just like she directed," James replied. "What more does she want? It took us like ten hours to get here."

  "She wants us to have a healthy baby, silly!" Sarah walked around to the side of the cabin to see the foliage in the valley below. It was late September and the leaves had already started to turn at this elevation. There were pockets of gold and crimson shining across the valley, but most of the trees around the cabin were evergreen. "This place hasn't changed at all!"

  "Nope. Come on, let's get inside. I want to ravish you!"

  She giggled. "Only one thing on your mind, isn't there?"

  They walked up the steps side by side. "I'd carry you over the threshold like I did on our wedding night, but honestly, I don't want to throw my back out," he teased with his trademark smirk.

  She playfully punched him on the bicep. "You must not be in as good of shape as you used to be," she observed with a gleam in her eye.

  He took that as a challenge and promptly scooped her off her feet. "Oh shit, I guess I should have unlocked the door first!" He scrambled with the keys while he balanced Sarah on one arm. She could only imagine how heavy she was with the extra thirty pounds she was carrying. After that initial ten pound weight loss at the beginning, she'd managed to more than make up for it in her weeks of bedrest.

  "Okay, notify all of our associates that we've made it safely. I'm building a fire!" he announced as he set her back on the ground.