Because of Our Child

by Margot Early

  Jen had grown up aware of her mother’s deceit, and one of her greatest fears, from the time she’d realized just how appalling her mother’s behavior was, had been that people would think she was like her, capable of the same sorts of lies.

  Because she wasn’t like that, tried her hardest not to be like that.

  And maybe it was because her own mother had done everything in her power to keep Jen from knowing Jen’s dad, that Jen especially wanted Elena to know Max. He seemed to feel that his work was too dangerous to allow him to have a family. But Jen knew that didn’t matter. It was more important for a child to know his or her father.

  For herself, the chance for more hours with her father was gone, because he’d died.

  Now, considering her seesawing emotions in the face of Max’s ambivalence about meeting Elena, Jen felt slightly ashamed. Part of her responsibility as Elena’s mother was to help facilitate her daughter’s relationship with her father—not impede that relationship. Hadn’t she learned that the hard way herself?

  She said to Max, “Teresa…I guess she’s a bit borderline, maybe. I don’t know. My mother has a flair for drama, and so does my sister. She’s had some bad experiences with men. She’ll see something on television and have a meltdown.

  “She can’t really hold down a job. I mean, I don’t think she’s consciously trying to get attention or anything like that. It’s just… Some people have a higher tolerance for stressful circumstances than other people do.”

  “Being next to Salma when she was burned is high on a list of stressful circumstances.”

  Suddenly, Jen could hear Jackson’s screams again.

  Could feel her own burns.

  And these things were unpleasant, but she had taught herself not to show fear. Because—for her—a person who showed fear was like Robin Delazzeri. Or rather, because Jen was Robin’s daughter, if she showed fear people would think she was like her mother.

  She would think she was like her mother; she would think she was showing fear because it might earn her attention and sympathy.

  And Jen didn’t want that kind of attention or that kind of sympathy. She wanted the inner integrity of knowing that she didn’t lie, deceive or create scenarios for her own ends.

  “So,” Max said, “you want to protect Teresa from revisiting Makal Canyon.”

  “Yes.” The hesitation, the indecision, came through. “I don’t know, Max. Maybe it would be good for her. But I won’t pressure her. You have to know that. If you try…”

  “I won’t,” he interrupted. “Her input isn’t necessary. There are other survivors—others who were with them on the west flank.”

  Jen nodded. Max stood, then sat down again on the other bed, facing her but clearly lost in plans of his own. Thinking about returning to the fire the next day, she imagined, or about making a documentary on the Makal Canyon fire.

  He said, “I want to know Elena. I want to be a dad to her.”

  Jen looked at him. “Do you mean you want that? Or do you mean you want to want it?”

  “Both.”

  An honest answer, and honesty was the quality she prized above all others.

  “When will you be off this fire?”

  “I’ll probably be up there till it’s under control.”

  Days.

  “Elena has five more days at dance camp.”

  “If I can’t meet her here,” he said, “I’ll come to Denver. Or you two can come to Leadville. And if you work with me on investigating Makal Canyon, I imagine I’ll be seeing a lot of her.”

  “She needs to go back to school in the fall,” Jen warned. “And I haven’t said yes.”

  “I know.” He touched her hand where it lay on the spread; covered her hand.

  She didn’t know what it meant, that touch. But she realized she both feared and wanted whatever it was.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ELENA DELAZZERI DID WANT to meet her father, the smoke jumper Max Rickman. When her mother told her that she’d seen Elena’s dad, told him about her and learned that he wanted to meet his daughter, Elena had experienced a host of feelings.

  Her first thought was, Why the hell didn’t my mom tell him about me a long time ago? Like when she was pregnant?

  The second thought was the same as the first.

  But now she wondered what would happen when she met her dad. Was she on trial? What if he didn’t like her? If that happened, she didn’t think she could stand it.

  Now, as she and her mother waited in the Gold Prince Coffeehouse in Ouray for Max to show up, Elena wished again that her mother had told her dad about her in the beginning. Obviously, he cared more than her mom had thought that he would. So who had she been, to make that judgment in the first place? Hadn’t he had a right to know? And hadn’t she, Elena, had a right to know him?

  “You’re just like Grandma, you know,” Elena said.

  Jen’s eyes snapped toward her. Elena had noticed that her mother was wearing one of her favorite outfits, flowing purple pants and matching top. Her hair was down, too. When she wasn’t at work, Jen usually braided it or wore it up, out of the way.

  “How am I like Grandma?” Jen demanded.

  “He wasn’t in love with you, so you kept him from seeing me.”

  “Excuse me, that is not true,” Jen exclaimed. She took a sip of her tea.

  Jen never drank coffee, Elena knew, because she said it would stain her teeth, which she liked to keep white for the camera.

  “It’s what you told me,” Elena persisted. “You said that he was in love with someone else and so he wouldn’t want to know about me. But mostly, you didn’t want him to say that he didn’t want anything to do with you.”

  Jen sat, stunned not for the first time by her daughter’s spontaneous viciousness. “What did I do to deserve this? I saw him. I told him about you.”

  “Like, twelve years after the fact. You still like him,” Elena accused. “That’s why you’re all dressed up.”

  Jen felt her cheeks flush. “What do you want, Elena? Why are you doing this now?”

  Jen saw Max on the sidewalk outside the tall windows. His hair was wind-tousled, and he wore white canvas pants and a white T-shirt with some kind of green design on the front. He opened the door of the coffeehouse, and as he entered he pulled off his aviator sunglasses.

  Jen waved, attempting to smile. Was Max, like Elena, going to think she’d “dressed up” for him? She had tried to look her best. She wanted him to find her attractive, yes. But that didn’t mean she wanted him. Damn Elena. How had she ever learned to be so beastly?

  Max’s brown eyes strayed to the young girl beside Jen, and Jen saw her daughter stiffen slightly. Elena wore her blond hair up in a French twist. Elena owned three books about braids and up-dos, and together she and Jen had mastered most of the styles. Braces and all, Elena looked older than twelve.

  “Hi,” Max said, as he reached their table.

  “Hi,” Elena replied, tight-lipped.

  Jen nodded at an empty chair, and Max pulled it out and sat down.

  “I’m Max.”

  “Elena,” his daughter answered tersely.

  Jen had spoken to Max the previous evening. He’d called her when he’d left the fire crew, and they’d arranged this meeting.

  Now, she heard the echoes of Elena’s accusations. Max was a very attractive man. And he hadn’t been in love with her.

  And she still wanted to attract him.

  “You know, if it’s all right,” Jen said, “I’d like to leave you two to visit….” There was a bookstore across the street.

  “You’ll stay here.” She gave her daughter a look that meant, He may be your father, but you better not go anywhere without calling me. Elena had her cell phone, and Jen had hers. Jen tried to gauge her daughter’s reaction to the suggestion.

  Elena flatly said, “Sure.”

  Am I behaving irresponsibly because she was nasty to me? Jen wondered. Or just to prove that I’m not like my mother? But surely it
wasn’t irresponsible to leave her daughter in a public place with Max.

  Max said, “You don’t have to leave.”

  “You’ll be here, right?”

  “Not going anywhere,” he answered.

  “Then I’ll see you in a bit.” She gave Elena a brief squeeze around the shoulders and walked toward the door, aware of every movement.

  Max watched her go. Jen had seemed unusually jumpy—and also keen to get away from this awkward meeting.

  How hard could it be to talk to a twelve-year-old girl? His nieces were younger than Elena, and he had no trouble getting along with them.

  “Your mom says you’re at dance camp.”

  She nodded, mouth closed. Jen’s mouth.

  “What kind of dance?” he asked.

  “All kinds.” Clearly, she didn’t want to show her braces. “Afro-Haitian, ballet, jazz, even a little Indian…”

  “What’s your favorite?”

  She seemed to consider. “Ballet, I suppose. Well, not exactly. It’s just that ballet’s a good foundation. I love all kinds of African dance. I like modern…cross-cultural.”

  “I remember your mom was studying dance in school.”

  “Yeah. She likes African dance, too. She likes everything.”

  “I brought you something,” he said and reached into the breast pocket of his T-shirt. He laid a smoke jumper patch on the table. It bore the insignia of the Alaska smoke jumper crew to which he’d belonged before moving to Leadville, and that morning he’d cut it off the personal-gear bag that went with him on every jump.

  “Thanks.” She took it, held it, regarded it with an expression of wonder. “I’d like to jump out of an airplane,” she said, “but I wouldn’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I could get injured. I mean, I want to be a dancer, always, so I won’t take risks like that. I don’t snow-board, either. I mean, I can. I learned when I was little. But one of my friends really messed up her knee skiing.”

  “It seems as though you might miss out on some fun living by that rule.”

  She shrugged. “But I love dancing best. I’m not going to do anything that puts my dancing at risk.”

  Living risks it. He didn’t say so, didn’t say that things happened in life that were out of a person’s control.

  “You look like your mom,” he said, “but you look kind of like my sister Misty, too.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Two. One older, one younger. Misty’s the younger one. Marina’s older.”

  “You all have names that start with M,” Elena observed.

  “True.”

  “Was that on purpose?”

  “Yes. My mother’s choice. You have cousins, too,” he told her.

  “Do you have pictures?”

  “Not with me.” He shook his head. “In Leadville.”

  She blinked. “Leadville?”

  “That’s where I live in the winter. When it’s not fire season.”

  An expression of either disgust or disillusionment clouded her features.

  “What?” he asked.

  “How long have you lived in Leadville?”

  Now, he identified the expression—cynicism. “Four years. I’m a forest-service ranger there. In the winter. There are others in the summer.”

  “I can’t believe my mom never told you about me,” she said, looking disgusted again.

  Over the past few days, he’d had some trouble believing that himself. Except for the fact that it was obviously true. Had he been so cruel to Jen that she’d felt compelled to protect herself by never saying she was pregnant? Had she been afraid he’d want her to have an abortion? In any case, her decision must have been motivated by his rejection of her.

  It made him angry, and he had no idea if he had a right to be angry.

  He could have been part of this girl’s life from the moment she was born, but Jen had robbed both him and Elena of the possibility.

  How would he have reacted if she’d told him she was pregnant?

  He wouldn’t have been thrilled.

  And he wouldn’t have married her.

  After Salma died, he’d realized how much her pregnancy had led to their engagement. He’d loved her, been enraptured with her. But he hadn’t wanted to be married at twenty-three, let alone be a father at that age.

  He would not have done for Jen what he’d been willing to do for Salma. Sure, he would have become involved in Elena’s life—he liked to think. But he hadn’t been in love with Jennifer Delazzeri.

  “She didn’t know how I’d react,” he finally said.

  “Like, so what?”

  She had a point.

  He changed the subject. “Did your mom tell you what she and I are going to do?”

  “No.” Wariness crept into her voice, echoing her face.

  He reminded himself that Jen hadn’t actually agreed. Not yet. “Well, I hope she’s going to help me. We want to go out to California and investigate the fire we were in together when we were in college.”

  “Oh, yeah. The one that other girl died in. My aunt was there, too.”

  “I know. I remember her. We were all good friends.”

  Elena’s expression darkened, then turned haughty. She was mad at someone, but he didn’t think it was him. Or maybe it was. Maybe she was just mad at grown-ups for not being grown-ups.

  “My mom hasn’t mentioned it. I was pretty surprised she told you about me at all.”

  Max watched her and listened, hoping she would say more. Finally he asked, “Why?”

  “Oh, it’s how my family deals with things. Do without Dad. It was how my mom was raised. Her mom thought fathers were expendable.”

  He’d had no hint of this from Jen. Whether or not it was true, the statement intrigued him. He remembered that Jen’s parents had been divorced. He supposed that had shaped his feelings about her. That she was cautious and pragmatic and maybe a bit…remote.

  And, as someone whose parents had loved each other and remained together until death intervened, perhaps he had a subtle prejudice against lovers who hadn’t had the same experience, perhaps believing that they could never make a permanent union.

  He couldn’t speak to Elena of his own feelings about Jen’s first not telling him she was pregnant, then telling him he was the father of a twelve-year-old. And she seemed so much older than a twelve-year-old. He hadn’t seen her standing, but he could tell she was tall. And her resemblance to his sister Misty—in the carriage of her head especially—surprised him. It upset him that she was his flesh and blood and yet a stranger to him. It bothered him even more that he was a stranger to her.

  How would he tell his family about this?

  What would his father say?

  That was something Max didn’t want to know, didn’t want to experience. Because even though Max hadn’t known of the pregnancy, his ignorance of the situation somehow would be his fault.

  Which was maybe why he lived hundreds of miles from his family. Because whenever he and his father spoke, things became Max’s fault that he hadn’t known were problems in the first place.

  The impossibility of being as good a man as his father, of living up to the standards of Norman Rickman, M.D., hadn’t made itself obvious until the Makal Canyon fire. After that…well, now he knew. He and his father had different standards, and if Max tried to live by his father’s standards he would never measure up. So his own standards had to be good enough.

  Which didn’t make it much easier to hear from his father that he wasn’t measuring up to his standards.

  Discovering, at the age of thirty-six, that he had a twelve-year-old daughter was something that would fall far below what Norman Rickman expected of his son.

  Revealing that at the age of twenty-three he had made even one woman pregnant—well, the result would have been the same or worse. His father hadn’t been keen on Max’s engagement to Salma. Max had never told him what had led to it; he never would.

  Norman had met Jen,
of course, as had Max’s sisters. Jen and Teresa and the other hotshots had been to Max’s family’s house for a party once. And Max’s sisters had visited him at the house he’d shared with Salma and the other hotshots, when Jen had lived next door.

  But Max doubted that his father had noticed Jen or would remember her.

  His instinct surprised him.

  He’s not going to get to her.

  That was the instinct. To protect Jen—and their daughter, for this young woman was his daughter, too—from his father’s judgment. Not from a negative judgment, but from the experience of being judged by him.

  Norman Rickman did not make mistakes. His life had been one of high achievement and personal sacrifice, and he made sure that everyone knew that was what he was about, which left Max with two thoughts. One, that his father was a great man; and two, that his father was a judgmental man. Which was incompatible with greatness.

  “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

  Max blinked. “What? What do you think made me feel bad?”

  “What I said,” Elena answered, “about fathers being expendable. I didn’t mean I think that, or anything.”

  A generous remark from someone who’d made do without one her whole life.

  “I didn’t think you meant that. And I don’t believe your mother feels that way.” Or she’d never have told me that you exist. Not even after all these years.

  “Well, like, she knew her father, but she never got to see much of him. My grandmother says that he was careless. You know, would drive drunk and stuff.”

  Driving drunk was, in Max’s opinion, more than careless. “It must have frightened her, then,” he said, “to think of your mom and your aunt riding around in the car with him.”

  “Except my mom says he never was drunk when he drove them. She says that my grandmother was jealous of his new wife or his girlfriend or something.”

  “Do you know him?” Max asked.

  “He’s dead. I met him when I was a baby, but I don’t remember.”

  “Your mom must be glad that he got to see you.”

  “I suppose. Anyhow, she’s just like my grandmother in her attitudes. I mean, she’s not that bad.” Elena flushed, Max thought, at her own disloyalty.