The You I Never Knew

by Susan Wiggs

  “You let him go to school without calling me?” She wanted to jump through the phone line and throttle Natalie.

  “I told him he should call you. He said he would. Later.” Natalie hesitated. “Michelle, he didn’t explain why he showed up here alone, but I can guess. He’s safe. Let him cool off, okay? If you don’t give him time to realize on his own how much he loves you and misses you, he might never figure it out.”

  She was still trembling when she hung up. Her first impulse was to phone Garfield High School, demand that they find him, bring him to the phone. Then she looked across the white mystery of the fields of Blue Rock, and a small, surprising voice inside said No and then louder: No. She handed the phone to her father.

  “You want me to fly you to Seattle?” he asked.

  “No.” The word formed of its own accord. “Natalie just said something to me that makes perfect sense. He’s got to fix this on his own, Daddy. It’s time he made his own decisions and figured out how to deal with the consequences.”

  Gavin looked at her for a long time. “When you were young, you went away, too. And like a fool I just let you go. I was too stubborn. Are you being stubborn or is this the right thing to do?”

  She spread her arms. “Who knows what the right thing is? I just know that what I’ve been doing lately isn’t working. Maybe I was too much of a perfectionist, too demanding. That’s probably what made him turn into a rebel in the first place.”

  Now, with a lurch of her heart, she suddenly understood. It was only natural to distance himself from her expectations. And it was her job to let him find his own way.

  “I was smothering him with love, getting him out of scrapes when I should have let him fall and pick himself up again.” The decision hurt, but it felt right. She realized that what she really had to do was make the painful choice of letting Cody go. He might discover the answers on his own, or he might not. It was no longer up to her.

  * * *

  At six-thirty at night, Cody stood on the rain-slick sidewalk in front of the town-house complex in Seattle. It was weird, but he missed the dark of Montana, the inky purity of the night in the mountains. Here in Seattle it was never all the way dark, not with the yellow shore lights, the busy ferry docks, and the ribbons of reflected neon snaking along the wet streets. The high bluff framed a view of Elliott Bay, a glittering necklace of lights along the shore.

  Today had definitely been one of the strangest days of his life. He had gone to school, handing a re-enrollment slip to the clerk in the office. After the initial paperwork it had been like a regular day. Same classes, same kids.

  Same Claudia.

  He’d found her at the usual place, a wooded area everyone called the smoke spot. Unobserved, he had stood at the fringe of the woods and looked at her, expecting a theme song to start up or something. He’d watched her throw back her head and blow out a cloud of cigarette smoke, and he’d felt… nothing. Not the rush of excitement that used to keep him awake at night, not the heady pride that made him walk tall through the school halls. No theme song, just the boring hiss and spatter of the incessant Seattle rain through the alder and cedar trees.

  When she’d seen him, she had squealed and flung herself at him, but her questions had all been about Gavin, and what it was like to have a celebrity grandfather, and why hadn’t he ever told her that his grandfather had played Lucas McQuaid, and had he saved any of his prescription painkillers…

  He had tried hanging out with his old crowd after school, but nothing felt right. There was nothing different about them, but it was different. The energy had gone flat, like a Coke left out too long. Their jokes sounded stale, their laughter rang hollow. He couldn’t share their reminiscences of the Phish concert last weekend. It was as if he had been away for years rather than weeks.

  He planned to call Claudia tonight and break up with her. Then, if he could get up the nerve, he’d call Molly Lightning. It was shitty, the way he’d left without explaining anything to her. She probably thought he’d been shipped off to reform school. It wouldn’t be the toughest call he had to make, though. He had to figure out what to do about his mom and, tougher still, Tammi Lee. It was his stupid fault she’d lost her job. His stupid fault for chickening out and not telling the truth about what had happened. His stupid fault she’d gone out drinking.

  Through the window of the gated entrance, he spotted a movement. A shadow. His heart thumped. Behind him, a wino shuffled along the sidewalk, muttering to himself. Noticing Cody, he said, “Hey, gotta smoke?”

  “Nope,” Cody said. “I gave it up.”

  Slowly, his backpack feeling like a load of bricks, he trudged up the walk toward his house. For a few more minutes, he stood listening to the low hum of the hot-tub pump and feeling the moist chill of the Seattle evening on his hair. Then he took a deep breath, punched the security code into the keypad, and let himself in.

  The place smelled vaguely of patchouli oil and Natalie’s experimental Middle Eastern cooking. She had a performance tonight, and so she’d left dinner in the fridge and a note in fat pink magic marker—Call your mother.

  “I know, I know,” Cody murmured under his breath. He set down his backpack with a thunk and went to put on some music. It was too quiet in the house. He found himself wandering around, feeling more alone than he’d ever felt before. Without really planning to, he found himself in the study, a neat-as-a-pin room with a glass-topped desk, a big angled drafting table, and two computers, their black faces gathering dust. He went to the closet and folded the louvered door aside, and then he realized what he was looking for.

  His mom’s paintings.

  They were stored in the very back of the closet in a large, flat portfolio with three clasps. Working carefully, he took out the canvases and sketches and leaned them against the walls. There weren’t very many of them, and he’d only seen them a few times.

  He supposed he’d always known the pictures were good—great, even—filled with color and life and movement. They seemed to say something important. Like the painting that hung in Sam’s house. But up until today he had always regarded these pictures as something created by a stranger, someone he never knew.

  For the first time, he managed to connect the paintings to his mom. He pictured her in the studio at Blue Rock, lost in her work, not harried and tense like she was at the agency. Pacing in agitation, he thought about how she had looked yesterday when he’d told her he and Sam would never get along. In his heart, Cody didn’t believe he was wrong. Sam didn’t want him.

  But maybe Cody had twisted the truth… a bit. It was pretty obvious Sam was pissed at him, but he’d never actually said he didn’t want a son. It was a fine distinction. But if Sam was pissed about Molly, he’d go ballistic when he learned who the real culprit was in the quilt-shop incident.

  Cody felt a rank lump of guilt in his throat. He didn’t blame Sam for not wanting him.

  The reason Sam had left Crystal City didn’t have a thing to do with Cody or his mom. That phone call Sam had received… In his mind’s eye, Cody could still see rage and fear on his face. And something worse—the hurt. Sam had to take off in order to save his mother, and Cody had done the only thing he could think of. He’d fled.

  Now he knew how the filly had felt, driven up to the woods in terror of the snowmobiles. He’d run away, but maybe he’d wound up in a place of greater danger. Hell, he didn’t know. He should just stay away from Montana, where he didn’t fit in. He’d never fit in.

  Feeling restless and unsettled, he grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and scarfed it down, then drank half a quart of orange juice. Then he picked up the phone and jabbed in Claudia’s number. Might as well get the easy call out of the way before he decided what to do about the rest.

  In the middle of the third and fourth ring, the sound of the buzzer from the security office nearly made him jump out of his skin. Frowning, he hung up the phone. He wasn’t expecting anyone.

  He was amazed when the guard announced the name of hi
s visitor. Gavin Slade. Switching on the lights over the entranceway, he opened the door.

  “Hey,” he said tentatively.

  “Hey yourself.” With a jangle of flying-ace buckles and straps, an unsmiling Gavin Slade strode into the house.

  Cody followed him inside. “Um, how did you get here?”

  “Flew the Mustang to Boeing Airfield. I wasn’t planning on taking her out for a long haul so soon, but here I am.” The bluewater eyes inspected Cody. “I expect you know why I came in such a hurry.”

  Cody eyed him warily. The angry energy of defiance coursed through him. “If you came out to lecture me because I blew it with my mom, you wasted a trip. My mind’s made up. I don’t fit in there.”

  Gavin scanned the room and Cody realized he was seeing where his daughter lived for the first time. “Actually,” he said, “it’s more than that. I guess I came because, a long time ago, I blew it with your mom. She needed me, and I wasn’t there for her, and she took off.” His eyes looked deep and sad. “For seventeen years,” he added. “I’m here because this is what I should have done for my daughter all those years ago. I should have come after her.”

  “This is different. Sam can’t stand me, and the feeling’s mutual.”

  Peeling off his leather jacket to reveal several more layers of clothing, Gavin studied a big studio photograph of Cody and his mom, done about five years before. He walked right up to the framed picture and pressed his palm to it. “How old were you in this picture?”

  “Maybe ten or eleven.” Cody remembered the red Izod shirt, and the feel of his mom’s open hand on his shoulder, and the way the photographer had tried to flirt with her.

  “I wish I’d known you then,” Gavin said. “I feel lucky to have met you at all, Cody. Look at all the time we lost, with us being so stubborn.” He turned to face Cody. “I don’t know what went on between you and Sam, but the one who’s getting hurt is your mom.”

  Cody’s throat felt dry as sandpaper. Gavin was right. She had been happy and flushed and calm up until last night. Up until Cody’s big lie.

  “It took a kidney failure to get us back together,” Gavin said. “What’s it going to take this time? A heart attack?”

  “You don’t understand,” Cody said. “You don’t understand how bad I am.” He felt too miserable to be embarrassed when his voice broke.

  “Then make me understand, Cody.”

  The genuine caring in Gavin’s quiet voice reached out to Cody. “You’re not going to like it,” he said. And then his voice steadied, and he told the truth. He told his grandfather what he had done.

  Gavin gave a low whistle. “That’s pretty damned bad.”

  “See? Sam’ll never forgive me, and who can blame him?”

  Gavin was quiet for a long time. Cody’s stomach knotted. He hated what he’d done. Hated what a jerk he’d been. Finally, Gavin spoke. “I think I get the picture. You know, Michelle doesn’t have the sort of troubles your grandmother does, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need you.”

  “What does she need with a screwup like me?” Cody demanded.

  “You’re only a screwup if you don’t know how to straighten out the mess you’ve made,” Gavin pointed out. “Nothing’ll ever feel right again until you do. You know that, don’t you, son?”

  “You’re right,” said Cody, filling up with elation and terror.

  * * *

  Sam stood in the shower, letting the too-hot water pound down on his head. There was nothing, he thought, nothing worse than dropping your mother off at rehab. He felt as if a bomb had gone off in the middle of his life, and pieces lay scattered about, unrecognizable.

  He’d had to pry her away from the dim, smoky cocoon of the honky-tonk; he’d listened to the familiar protests and promises; he’d hardened his will to her desperate pledges. Then he’d spent most of the day getting her checked in at the facility in Missoula.

  “We did it again, di’n’ we?” she had said, staring woozily out the truck window. “Stepped over the line. Tried to fit in with respectable folks, where we don’t belong. We’re still on the wrong side of the tracks, Sammy. We always will be.”

  During the drive home, the rage had struck Sam hard, as it always did. What the fuck had LaNelle Jacobs been thinking, blaming the robbery on Tammi Lee? All the slights and slurs of years past had suddenly come back on a wave of resentment. Five years of peace and quiet in Crystal City had lulled him into thinking the past didn’t matter.

  Sam turned off the shower. Slinging a towel around his waist, he picked up the phone and stabbed his fingers impatiently at the numbers.

  “Blue Rock,” said a familiar and unwelcome voice. Jake Dollarhide.

  “Sam McPhee here. I’m looking for Michelle.”

  “I’ll see if I can get her on the intercom.” Sam heard an unpleasant sneer in Dollarhide’s slow drawl, and suddenly the years peeled back to expose the gaping wounds of the past. He remembered all the times he had tried to call her long ago, all the times Gavin and his staff had put him off.

  “On second thought,” Sam said brusquely, “never mind.” Without further explanation he hung up and got dressed.

  * * *

  Screaming gusts of wind kicked up a ground blizzard, and everyone with a lick of sense stayed indoors. Not Sam. Not tonight. He was exhausted to the last inch of his shadow, but he had to see Michelle.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d say to her. He’d never had anyone to talk to in the middle of a crisis; he was used to going it alone. Still, he owed her an explanation. After all, he’d stood her up.

  Have dinner with me tonight. She had sounded so excited. Fresh and alive, the Michelle he had known as a young man. But a lot had happened since her breathless invitation. He had lost his cool with Cody, and the incident made him wonder just what sort of father he would be. His mother’s fragile sobriety had been shattered, reminding him that loving someone carried hazards that could crush even the stoutest of hearts.

  It did not escape him that the other time he had disappeared from Michelle’s life had been on his mother’s behalf. The reason had not changed. Michelle was strong. She knew how to keep herself safe and secure. No matter how much Sam loved her, he also loved his mother, who could not survive without him. Michelle’s very strength was her Achilles’ heel. She had trained herself not to need, want, desire. And perhaps the habit was so ingrained that now she no longer remembered how to want something.

  But when he saw her through the window of the studio, standing and staring at her canvas, he knew there were mysteries inside her he could not guess at. They would reveal themselves to him gradually—but only if he knew the right way to unlock them.

  When he knocked at the door and stepped inside, she folded her hands in front of her. “Sam.”

  “I had an emergency,” he said. “This was my first chance to call.”

  She stood quietly in the warm glow of the studio lights. He told himself to explain the rest, yet the words wouldn’t form. When it came to his mother, he was private and intensely protective. And even a little ashamed, as if his mother’s disease were due to some weakness in him. The silence opened a gulf between him and Michelle. Last time they were together, he had proposed to her. Now he couldn’t even make small talk.

  The ground blizzard pounded at the windows and doors. Michelle shivered, and he saw that the fire in the woodstove had dwindled to embers. To occupy himself, Sam wrenched open the iron doors and added a quartered log.

  “Cody told me what happened when you found him and Molly in the barn,” Michelle said.

  He crushed up a wad of old newspaper and stuck it under the log. “He told you his version. Molly’s the daughter of a good friend. A nice girl.”

  “According to Cody, they weren’t doing anything that risky. Sam, they’re sixteen. It’s what teenagers do. We can’t stop them. We can just hope they don’t do anything rash.”

  He grabbed a bellows and pumped at the banked embers. “The trouble is, sometimes hope isn�
�t enough to stop them, and the consequences are pretty far-reaching.” The air wheezing from the bellows sparked the yellow edge of a flame under the new, raw log.

  “You made that clear to Cody. You made it clear he was an accident, an unwanted child. When he came home, he asked me if I’d ever considered having an abortion or giving him up for adoption. That’s the first time he’s asked me that, Sam. Ever.”

  Sam shut the stove door and stood to face her. A cold chill hardened in his gut. Doubts buzzed through his mind. He had lost it, overreacted. How was it that he’d been so sure of himself only two days ago?

  Now he didn’t know a damned thing, except that loving someone carried a commitment that could crush you. All his life, he had borne the responsibility for his mother. The price of that had been that he’d had no parental guidance of his own.

  “Well, what should I have said, finding him like that?” he asked.

  “There’s no oracle that lays it all out for you. You just have to pray you get it right most of the time. When it comes to sex, Cody knows the decision is his to make, and all I can do is hope that whatever he decides, it will keep him on course with who he is and what he wants to become.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Michelle.”

  She held out her hands to the stove, warming them. “I suppose I would have told him to wait, to be careful. I would have reminded him that he has all the time in the world.” She fixed her gaze on Sam. “I would have told him I know it’s damned hard to wait when you’re sixteen.”

  “That’s naive as hell. The kid is a bundle of raging hormones—”

  “He knows when to stop, Sam. I have to trust that. If I can’t, what sort of a mother am I?”

  Sam envied Michelle her conviction. He realized now that he doubted his own ability to be a good father. God knew, he wanted to be, but he was afraid he’d screw up.

  “I’m sorry I made that remark to Cody,” he said. “Maybe I just don’t have enough patience and understanding to handle him—I guess I proved that by blowing up at him.” He gestured toward the door. “I should stop in and talk to him.”