Too Near the Edge (13 page)

Pablo’s not the only person who’s told me I
ask too many questions. But I find the comment annoying. I can see
that people find questions unnerving, but I don’t know why. Is it
because they don’t know the answers, or is it that they want to
keep things to themselves? Or maybe it’s that my asking questions
puts me in control of what we talk about. Maybe they’d rather
choose when and what to tell. In any case, I wasn’t willing to
accept his ruling. So—stupidly, I admit—I grabbed the remote out of
his hand.

He jumped up, reaching toward me for the
remote. “Cleo, what’s going on? Can’t we just relax and enjoy the
evening?” He pulled the remote out of my hand and turned on the
TV.

I walked over to the TV and hit the off
switch. “Pablo, I’m trying to help someone whose husband died under
suspicious circumstances. Can’t you be a little compassionate?”

“Maybe you should make an appointment and
come in to the office with your questions. This is my free time.”
Pablo sat back down on the couch and pointed the remote at the TV
again.

“If you want to watch TV so much, maybe you
should just go home and watch,” I yelled, completely exasperated as
I thought about my long list of unanswered questions.

“Fine. I will.” Pablo got up and walked out
the front door without so much as a goodbye.

I wandered into the bedroom and sat among the
tangled sheets, recalling the earlier sweetness of the evening. How
did things escalate so quickly between us? Could we ever get past
these flareups? I didn’t like the answers that came to mind, so I
switched gears to think about Sharon’s problems, where I didn’t
have to struggle with how much of it was my fault.

I ran through the various possibilities.
Maybe Adam did fall accidentally. But if that was true, why was
Tyler pushing me to get involved? Maybe Erik was right that Adam
jumped. But again, how to explain Tyler’s comments? Also, Adam
didn’t sound like the suicide type. And why wouldn’t he leave a
note?

So it looked like someone pushed Adam off the
edge. Who wanted to get rid of him? There was a growing list of
possible suspects, starting with Joel, maybe Dr. Ahmed—if Adam knew
more than he had told Sharon about him. Maybe Natalie—she had tried
to kill him once before. And there was the unknown caller who left
the threatening phone message. And Erik had a big stake in the
suicide theory. Why was he trying so hard to convince me?

“Yo, Cleo.” I heard Tyler before I saw him in
the dim bedroom light.

“Tyler! You scared me to death! And I’m mad
at you! You’ve gotten me into a mess. Can you at least answer a few
questions? Like what really happened to Adam?”

He was perched cross-legged on the stool next
to my dressing table, looking right at me. “You’re all knotted up,
Cleo. Just surf.”

“I don’t surf. And in case you didn’t notice,
we don’t exactly have an ocean in Colorado.”

“Bummer. When you’re out there, things make
sense.”

“Well, I’m not out there, and nothing makes
sense right now. So could you please be more specific about what’s
going on?” I was exasperated.

“You have to ride the waves, not fight them.
Let the waves support you,” Tyler said as he vanished into thin
air.

I figured he was somehow speaking
metaphorically, although Tyler didn’t seem that sophisticated.
Maybe stuff like metaphors comes easier after you’re dead, I
thought. Then I realized I was actually sitting alone in my bedroom
on a Saturday night wondering whether dead people use metaphors. It
was clearly time to go to bed and hope for a better day
tomorrow.

Sunday morning, I got up early to hike the
Mount Sanitas trail before the day got hot. In this dry mountain
climate, nights can be wonderfully cool even when days are 90
degrees. I needed the exercise, and I wanted to think about my
relationship with Pablo. After all, I am a therapist, and I do know
a fair bit about human behavior. I don’t much like turning that
magnifying glass on myself, but sometimes my own behavior strikes
me as so inappropriate that I have no choice. This was one of those
times.

First I asked myself, “What do I love about
Pablo?” That was easy. I love that he’s a very sweet guy who cares
about family so much that he came home to live near his parents
after his brother got into trouble, and that he’s such a great
uncle to his nieces and nephews. I love that he wants so much to
make the world a better place that he went into police work to try
to stop other kids from getting into trouble like his brother did.
I love that he’s an artist, and a good one, and that he still works
on his art even though he’s so busy. I love his enthusiasm for his
art, especially when he gets a new idea. I love that he takes me
seriously as an artist.

When he’s not doing his bossy ‘I’m a police
officer, you’re an idiot’ thing, he can be sweet, sexy, and
sensitive. And he’s very attractive. Even though I don’t always act
like it, I do really care about him.

But we bicker a lot—and I don’t want to end
up like my parents. So I asked myself, “Why do I push Pablo so
much? Why do I goad him into so many arguments? What do I want from
him?” These were the harder questions. I knew part of it was I
wanted him not to be like my father who criticizes me like I’m the
weakest link on a third-rate ball team. I wanted Pablo to accept
what I say at face value, without cross-questioning. But last night
wasn’t about acceptance, and I was actually the one asking the
questions. My approach to getting information from him obviously
sucked. I decided I should meditate more so I’d be more centered
and less reactive, and work on remembering to back off and take a
deep breath when I felt an angry retort bubbling up. Of course
Pablo could be more accommodating too, but I was trying to focus on
what I could do.

The trailhead on Mapleton is only a few
blocks from my house, so while I thought about Pablo, I’d begun
climbing the steep, rocky trail to the summit—along with a couple
dozen other hikers, runners, and their dogs. You do trade solitude
for a convenient location with this hike, but I liked sharing the
path. Being part of a group of energetic hikers perked me up. Two
young women walking behind me were discussing home remedies. One
said, “I make a mix of rose hips and other stuff and mix it with a
little brandy. It makes me feel much better.” I wondered how much
brandy, and at what time of day she usually imbibed, but I had
gotten too far ahead of them to hear any more details.

I was pleased to see many responsible pet
“guardians.” (This word has legally replaced the word pet “owner”
in Boulder.) They dutifully scooped up their wards’ poop with green
plastic bags and brightly colored newspaper covers. Dog poop is a
serious issue on the trails here, especially this trail. A local
plant ecologist has made it his personal crusade to make sure the
police enforce the law requiring poop pickup, even going to the
extreme of videotaping offenders, handing the tapes to police and
demanding they press charges. Dog guardians nicknamed him the
“pooper snooper,” and brought harassment charges against him. But
the snooper was acquitted after he showed the jury the extent of
the problem by displaying a “crap map” he created. He had walked
the trail with his GPS device, counted piles of droppings, plugged
the GPS into his computer, and generated a map that marked each
pile with a green X. Some think he’s slightly over the top, but I
can sort of understand his obsession and I certainly appreciate
poop-free trails.

The steep ascent and the view of the
Continental Divide from the top relaxed me. On my way back down the
trail, optimism kicked in. I decided I’d call Pablo and apologize
for insisting he talk about police work after he’d clearly said he
didn’t want to. I’d do what I should have done last night and ask
him to name a time when he’d be willing to answer my questions. I
resolved to try to find ways to build on the good parts of our
relationship, and not to bristle so quickly when he pushed my
buttons. I was so focused on playing our imaginary conversation in
my mind, that I was almost at my house before I noticed someone
lounging on my porch reading a newspaper. It turned out to be Erik,
reading my Sunday paper.

“Hey,” I called out. “This is a surprise,”
thinking he had an odd way of showing up without notice, which was
a little creepy. Why were so many odd things happening lately? Had
I somehow become a magnet for weirdness?

Erik looked up from the paper with a big
grin. “I woke up yearning to sit out in the sun with coffee, a
muffin, and a beautiful woman. So of course I thought of you. Let’s
walk down to Spruce Confections.”

It sounded like he wanted to have me for
breakfast. I was just about to tell him to bug off, when he looked
wistfully at me and said, “Sunday mornings are hard. I get so
lonely without Jenny. Please indulge me.”

So I agreed to go, if he was willing to wait
while I took a shower. He said he’d keep on reading the paper while
I showered, which I assumed meant he’d be outside on the porch. But
when I came out of the bedroom, he was in my living room looking
around. “Why haven’t you planted the seeds?” he asked, pointing at
the starter kit he had left for me the previous week.

“Um…I’ve been busy. And to be perfectly
honest, I really don’t have time for another project right
now.”

“Hey—you’re hurting my feelings! This isn’t
just another project. It’s a gift from me to you, and it will have
a big payoff.”

A gift? When he brought the kit, I thought
he’d said he would charge me $250. “You’re giving it to me? Why?” I
asked.

“Because I want you to have it. Plus, you’re
going to love growing these plants. Everyone does,” he said with a
winning smile. His eyes met mine in a guileless gaze. “Let’s go
grab some breakfast, and I’ll help you plant the seeds when we get
back.”

He looked so cute and cuddly, I felt a kind
of melty warmth moving through me, loosening my defenses. Certainly
Erik had his problems, but I thought maybe I could help him. Still,
I was ready to leave before the situation got any more intimate.
“Okay, let’s get that coffee, and we’ll take care of the seeds
later,” I said shooing him out the front door.

We dawdled along the Pearl Street sidewalk
toward Spruce Confections, enjoying the sun, its intensity cut by
shade trees and a morning breeze. It was a typical Boulder summer
Sunday morning. Runners wearing earphones attached to iPods passed
us without looking up. Bicyclers, wearing those tight, stretchy
biker shorts, with the multi-colored microfiber jerseys and the
flat lattice-type helmets that look like they’re ready for outer
space, sped by on their way up the canyon. A thirtyish guy wearing
faded baggy shorts and flip-flops walked by talking intently on a
cell phone about a three-million-dollar deal.

I was feeling relaxed and comfortable until
Erik blurted out, “So, I hear Sharon tried to contact Adam, but got
her mother. And, she was so excited about talking to her mother
that she couldn’t keep herself from telling her dad. I guess
Waycroft was furious.”

“She told her father that? Oh my God! No!
What was she thinking?” It was like I’d been kicked in the gut.

“Not thinking, I guess. I’m sure glad I
missed him. I went over last night to pick up Sharon and Nathan for
pizza and a movie, and he had just left. Sharon was pretty upset.
She said her dad had been yelling at her big time in front of
Nathan. You know, Cleo, I warned you not to get Sharon into this
contact voodoo, but you went ahead anyway, and now you’ve created
major problems for her with her dad.”

We were standing outside the bakery by then.
In an unusual moment of clarity, I decided to collect my thoughts
before I answered. I didn’t want to be defending myself or Sharon
to Erik, when this whole thing was actually none of his business.
So I went on in to stand in the order line without answering
him.

Spruce Confections is part of a new mixed-use
area of shops and condos on West Pearl. It’s a real bakery with a
large area behind the counter filled with huge stainless mixing
machines, bread slicers and ovens. The front space has a retro
diner-like feel, with formica tables, a glass case filled with
muffins, scones and coffee cakes, and a counter to order coffee
drinks, espresso, tea, chai, and such. A not-so-retro sign above
assures customers each espresso drink is made individually from
locally roasted, certified organic coffee beans. But the big
attraction, and what makes it a Sunday morning favorite, is the
spacious flagstone patio outside in front and to the east.

We stood quietly in line, ordered, and took
our lattes and coffee cake out to one of the contemporary gray
metal tables littered with sections of the Sunday paper. But we
didn’t read. Erik wasn’t going to let me off the hook that easily.
He gave me an uneasy look and started in again. “Here’s the thing,
Cleo. Now that Nathan knows about this contact thing, he wants to
reach Adam, too. I think that’s an even worse idea than Sharon
doing it.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve never worked with any
children in this project, and I’m not planning to start,” I assured
him. “Personally, I wouldn’t have told Nathan about it, but I guess
once Sharon told her dad, she couldn’t control that.” I briefly
flashed on my mother reminding me not to talk with my mouth full,
as I washed down a slightly-chewed chunk of blueberry coffee
cake.

“Yeah, Waycroft’s not much for secrets.
Basically a loose cannon when it comes to information. I guess he
also told Nathan that his real father is in town and wants to meet
him.” Looking at his plate, Erik crumbled his coffee cake and said,
“Nathan kept bugging Sharon about it last night, until she admitted
that Joel is in town, but she didn’t think it would be good for
Nathan to meet him.”