Mountain Song (17 page)

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 with 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.