Mountain Song

by Ruby Laska

  “That’s not what I meant. I would just like to know how the hell you happened to have a baby that I have heard absolutely nothing about until today. Don’t you think you should have told me about this a while ago? I don’t know, say...five years ago?” Andy heard the ugly sarcasm in his voice, didn’t care. Unthinking, he tossed the sheaf of photos back to her, letting it fly as though it were burning his fingers.

  She caught it, and then she pressed it to her chest hard, and glared at him.

  He wasn’t about to be intimidated. “How could you let this happen?”

  “Me? What about you? It takes two people to conceive a child.”

  “You knew how I felt about taking chances. I was very clear—”

  “You were plenty clear, Andy. That wasn’t the problem. Believe me, I knew exactly where you stood on family. On commitment. But sometimes things happen that no one expects. Precautions fail. Fate intervenes.” She shook her head. “Even for you.”

  Stung by the bitterness in her voice, Andy tried to backtrack. He hadn’t meant to accuse. But what the hell was she thinking, waiting all this time...

  “I know a little about fate,” he countered. “I’ve been to the school of hard knocks, remember? What made you think I couldn’t handle the news?”

  Claudia jammed the photo back into her wallet. “Yeah, you had it rough, Andy. Life was hard on the other side of the tracks. And you never let me forget it.” She narrowed her eyes, slipped the wallet back into her purse. “You know what your problem is?”

  He waited, watching her zip up her purse with a vengeance.

  “Somewhere along the line you decided you had to control everything. Maybe it was the only way you could get through those hard times, I don’t know. But you started to really believe you could control every aspect of your life. Didn’t you realize life was going to put one over on you some day?”

  “That’s why I planned, Claudia. That’s why I worked so damn hard.”

  “I know,” she acknowledged. “You’re Mr. Perfect. Mr. I’ve got an agenda and the rest of the world can just go to hell.”

  To Claudia’s dismay she felt tears welling up and swiped at them angrily, then twisted the strap of her purse into a knot.

  She’d expected him to be shocked with the news of his son. And she knew he wasn’t going to jump up and down with joy about it. But somehow she’d hoped for more than horror and revulsion.

  “Claudia.” Andy extended a hand, palm up, tentative. “Maybe I deserved that. I don’t know, I’m not thinking too clearly. Just—look, can’t we find a way to talk about this?”

  Her purse slung under her arm, she got to her feet. “What for? So you can attack me some more?”

  Andy was up in a flash, but he didn’t approach her. His hands hung at his sides and his face looked suddenly more exhausted than it had all week. “Look. Give me a chance. We need to talk this over. I can’t help my reaction—I mean, you’ve got to see that you’ve given me quite a piece of news here.”

  “It’s not a ‘piece of news’, it’s a little boy. Your son.” Each time she said the words it got harder, sending fresh salty tears spilling.

  “What do you expect me to say!” Andy exploded. “You drop this bomb now, years after the fact, when you didn’t give me any choice in the matter to begin with. And suddenly you expect—”

  “Choice?” Claudia felt the blow as though she’d been punched deep in the gut. “What do you mean, choice? If you think for a second I would have ever thought of—of—not giving birth to Paul—”

  “I should have had a part of that decision.” Andy’s voice was steel again, and his face was a mask of anger. “You had no right. No right.”

  Claudia didn’t try any longer to stem the flow of tears. Her heart split wide open as she realized just how desperately she’d hoped for a different outcome. Inside, where hopes grow unfettered by reality and logic. Where she could imagine a life where her little boy would have a Daddy to care about him.

  She’d even been foolish enough to think Andy might come to love Paul even a tiny fraction as much as she did.

  But it was clear to her now that would never happen.

  “I should have told you long ago about Paul,” Claudia said slowly. “You’re right about that, and I suppose I have no excuse.”

  She took a deep breath, wiped at her eyes and pushed her hair into place. A little eddy of defiance stirred in the depth of her misery. “But I’m glad I never did. Glad I didn’t have to see how cold and empty your heart really is until today.”

  She slipped out of the lovely apartment and made her way down the long hallway, wincing when the door clicked softly shut behind her.

  Andy’s footing was sure, even if the rest of him felt like it might fly to pieces at any moment. He scaled the outcropping with ease, barely glancing down for footholds.

  He’d come here a thousand times when he was a boy. In the beginning he only made it up the lower part of the trail, where the path was clearly marked and there were ledges where he could rest, drinking water from an old tin canteen and eating saltines spread with peanut butter. He’d been a solitary sort of boy, but not necessarily an unhappy one. He knew some of the other kids made fun of his patched clothes, though after he’d bloodied a few noses no one dared say anything to his face. Besides, he believed his father when Henry told him that Andy could choose to grow up to exceed all their expectations.

  As he grew into adolescence he made a few friends, discovered girls. Discovered, in fact, that he had an unexpected appeal to a certain kind of young woman. Pretty, outgoing, romantic girls, cheerleaders and candy stripers, unlike him in nearly every way. They were attracted to his intensity, his strength, his determination.

  It felt good to have a companion to sit beside him and look out at the mountains, but he wondered if they ever saw what he saw. Up here he could imagine that it was all his. Worn sneakers didn’t matter so much when you commanded a view of purple sunsets and majestic trees and raccoon families trailing in a line down to drink from crystal streams.

  Later still he learned to take on the sheer face of the steep ascent, finding the hand-holds hidden in the ragged surface, placing his feet in indentations only inches wide. Few others ever made it to the top, so there was nothing to mar his private getaway. No graffiti, no beer cans or candy wrappers. From the jagged rock at the peak, he could see down into town far off in one direction. In the other, Lake Tahoe lay spread out in the distance, bigger even than the mountains that ringed it, its cold waters a depthless indigo.

  Tonight the sun was sinking into the water, melting into the surface, a slick of golden fire that shimmered with the ripples of the lake.

  The climb was a tough one and Andy was winded. He brushed a few loose pebbles away with his foot, then sat down, legs dangling over the edge. Below, the ground sloped nearly at a right angle, a few scraggly trees holding on for dear life in between clusters of rock.

  A fall could be deadly, but Andy felt no fear. Hurtling down the rocky slope would be nothing compared to the last few hours.

  He had a son. His time with Claudia was not, despite everything he’d believed, a closed chapter in his life. It had produced a child, a baby who changed everything. A baby who had certainly changed its mother, forcing her to grow up fast, wearing down her wild impulses and outrageous attitudes until there was seemingly nothing left of her old immaturity.

  Well, it was no wonder Claudia had changed so much. Before, her days were without structure, without responsibility, a heady cascade of impulse and fancy. Sleeping until noon, staying out until all hours. There was money when she needed it. And her beauty took her wherever money couldn’t.

  Not that she was no longer beautiful. On the contrary.

  Damn her.

  Andy palmed a handful of pebbles and began chucking them out into the warm evening, the echo of their descent down the rocky slope ricocheting back to him.

  There were other noises in the coming night: insects and birds competed wi
th their timeless melodies, and the wind below stirred through the trees, playing a bottom note that was somehow plaintive and beautiful at once. Nature conducted a symphony he knew by heart.

  Before she died, his mother always insisted that the windows be thrown open at night in the spring. It was one of his only memories of her. She liked to listen in the darkness, perched at the edge of Andy bed stroking his hair slowly until he fell asleep.

  She called it the song of the mountains. She said it was the most beautiful music she’d ever heard, and Andy, who’d traveled farther than she could even imagine and listened to musicians around the world, knew in his heart that she was right.

  Would his own son ever hear the mountains’ song?

  Andy pushed the thought from his mind. He selected a bigger rock and hefted it in his hand. As he sailed it over the edge, he began his cycle of doubt and self-recrimination and anger all over again.

  Claudia stared at the flickering image on the screen. Jay Leno, his skin faintly green, tossed off one-liners and dove energetically into his monologue with the sound turned off. Bea had apparently bought her television before remote control devices were invented, so unless Claudia was willing to crawl out from her nest of afghans on the couch, she and Jay were stuck with each other’s company.

  She’d already tried the bed. No dice. After thirty minutes of tossing and turning, Claudia opted for a change of scene.

  After all, she’d shared that bed with Andy not so long ago. She imagined that the linens still bore a trace of his scent, even after she’d washed them. Whenever sleep was close, she remembered how he’d held her curled in his embrace as they slept, and her body betrayed her with a sudden and fierce longing for him that jerked her back into full consciousness.

  But the couch wasn’t much better. Scratchy wool irritated her bare legs, and the frame sagged in the middle. No matter what she tried—counting sheep, reciting the periodic table she’d memorized during her freshman year at college, focusing on Leno’s on-screen banter—her mind kept returning to Andy.

  To the look on his face when he held Paul’s picture.

  Not a happy look. Not by a long shot.

  What were you expecting? she demanded of herself. You gambled. You lost. Get over it.

  But getting over it wouldn’t be easy. Claudia made a terrible gambler. She wasn’t enough of a realist. She kept hoping when the odds were miserable, kept piling on the chips, upping the ante, even when the cards were stacked against her.

  Worse, she’d wagered everything in a desperate bid for nothing short of the jackpot. Alone in Bea’s house, the television her only company, the hour late, Claudia finally gave in and admitted to herself what it was she’d been wishing for.

  That the man she loved would love her back. Deeply. Permanently. That he’d take Paul into his heart with joy and love, that Paul would complete his life just as he had her own. That their love for each other would cement their little family into something that had forever written all over it.

  The ringing of the phone jarred her out of her reverie, and she bolted upright.

  Who would call at this hour? What if something had gone wrong at the hospital?. She’d visited Claudia a few hours earlier, and she had been fine. Grumpy from hunger, but otherwise herself.

  Claudia seized the phone and answered with her heart in her throat.

  “Yes?”

  “Mama?”

  Immediately her whole body relaxed; she could feel tension draining from her limbs as she picked up the ancient phone and curled back into the couch.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” she sighed. “What on earth are you doing up at this hour? Is Grandpa spoiling you rotten?”

  “Nooo...had a tummy ache.”

  Claudia had to smile. It was Paul’s favorite ruse. Many times he’d appeared at her bedside in the middle of the night complaining of a tummy ache, and Claudia made room, tucked the little warm boy into her arms, pulling the comforter over the two of them.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yup, for real and for sure.”

  “Might’a been all that chocolate ice cream,” she heard her father chuckle in the background.

  “Sweetheart, you must let Grandpa get some sleep. Promise?”

  “Awww....all right. But Mama?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “I’m so lonesome for you. And Mama?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “Today at school Martin’s Dad showed us how he catches bad guys.”

  Claudia smiled again in the darkness. Paul’s friend Martin had a father who was on the police force, a source of endless fascination for Paul.

  “No kidding.”

  “Well, maybe just a little kidding. He showed us about riding your bike the safe way though.”

  “That’s very important.”

  “Yes. Specially when you get your training wheels off.”

  She heard him yawn, imagined him standing barefoot in his spaceman pajamas, clutching the phone in two small hands.

  “Don’t worry, sugar,” she whispered. “I promise we’ll tackle those training wheels just as soon as I get home.”

  “‘Kay. Mama?”

  “Yes?”

  “Wonder if my Dad catches bad guys.”

  The lump reappeared in her throat with lightning speed, and Claudia had to cough a few times before her voice was steady enough to speak.

  “Honey, there’s no bad guys out there. Grandpa’s making sure of that.”

  “‘Kay.”

  “I love you so much, my angel. Kiss Grandpa for me.”

  She made it through a few words with her father, updating him on Bea’s condition, carefully avoiding any mention of Andy by name. If Jack Canfield noticed anything amiss in his daughter’s voice, he didn’t mention it.

  When she hung up the phone, it was Paul who she couldn’t get out of her mind.

  Paul, who’d innocently asked her why he didn’t have a Daddy, just last year when he started preschool. She was prepared. She’d rehearsed the answer to that question a thousand times, starting right after he was born.

  She’d explained that Paul’s father was a man who had a lot of important things to do, things that kept him very busy far away from New Jersey. Your father gave you the gift of life, she explained, but he has to take care of many, many other people too now.

  Paul had accepted her explanation without question. He’d nodded matter-of-factly and that was the end of it. Although lately he’d been talking about his friends’ fathers a lot, commenting about how they looked and what they wore and what they did for a living.

  And a wistful note had started to creep into his voice.

  It scared Claudia to death. She already had the next speech prepared, the one in which she reminded Paul that so very many people loved him, that he had a Grandpa and cousins and aunts and uncles, more family than lots of kids had.

  And that might buy her a little more time.

  But what about the next speech? And the next?

  How exactly was she going to break it to Paul that his father had held his picture as though it were radioactive and then tossed it aside? That he’d even for a moment, even for one horrible unforgivable second considered a world that didn’t have Paul in it?

  On the television, Jay shared a hearty laugh with his guest.

  It was going to be a long night.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I thought I’d find you here.”

  Andy hesitated in the doorway of the lounge, the sound of his voice jarring in the oasis of quiet inside the busy hospital. It was empty in here today, unlike some days when anxious family members paced and talked and did the hundred other things people do to calm their nerves. The bright-colored overstuffed sofas were empty, their cushions neatly stacked. The magazines fanned out on the coffee tables hadn’t been disturbed.

  Claudia stood at a window, acknowledging his presence only with a slight shift in her posture, a slight tensing of her muscles. He guessed she’d been staring out at nothing for
a long time.

  Andy cleared his throat. “I...imagine you know this already, but the surgery went fine. Bea’s doing well, and she should be coming out of anesthesia shortly.”

  “Dr. Dupree was kind enough to stop by to tell me.”

  “Oh. Good.” Meena Dupree was known for her excellent rapport with her patients and her families, her ability to translate technical information into words that explained without intimidating or frightening.

  When Claudia said nothing further, Andy stepped into the room. Surrounded by the quiet stillness, he felt almost like an intruder. On the other hand, this was his territory, his hospital.

  “Uh, I have a few things I need to say. Care to sit down for a minute?”

  “I’d rather not, actually.”

  Andy felt a little of his hard-won calm erode away. Hell, it was all a facade, anyway; inside he was every bit as agitated as he had been yesterday. Still, he’d taken great care preparing this morning, shaving and dressing carefully, rehearsing his words on the drive over.

  And she wouldn’t even look at him.

  “Claudia. Look at me, damn it. I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

  Slowly she shifted, trained her unblinking eyes on him. Then he saw it: the emptiness in her gaze, the lack of rancor or anger or any emotion at all.

  And he felt less certain.

  But Andy did what he always did. He’d prepared carefully, and now he plunged ahead.

  “I’m sorry about how things went yesterday. I realize now that I didn’t handle that conversation as well as I could have. While I was caught off guard, I need to acknowledge that I let my emotions interfere with my thoughts and I—and I may have said some things I shouldn’t have.”

  “You’ve got this all wrong,” Claudia said softly.

  Andy frowned. For a moment he was tempted to barrel ahead into the rest of the speech he’d polished, but her words stood between them like a giant obstacle.

  “How can you say I’m wrong? You haven’t even heard me out.”