Clear to Lift (31 page)

“You called her Candy,” I say. “No one has ever called her that.”

He pinches his eyes shut, but the tears can't be stopped. “I loved her so much. God, more than my own life, I loved her.” Shakily, he takes another drink. “We met in Yosemite. In Camp Four. She was one of the most talented climbers there.”

“What?” I say, my breath leaving me. “No … she never … impossible.”

“We were on the search and rescue team together. SAR was our life. She was so brave. Selfless.”

My head moves back and forth. No …

“When we found out she was pregnant, we celebrated. So happy. You were such happy news. And when you were born … I'll never forget it. I thought to myself, nothing will ever top this moment in my life. Nothing.”

He brings his hands to his face and wipes his eyes. “We moved to Sacramento from Yosemite. Time to be responsible. To provide for you. But I just … I couldn't switch gears. Your mom, she was amazing. She adapted. So strong. So reliant. Holy god, just like you.” The tears rush this time, his shoulders heaving. He puts his head in his hands, sobbing.

I slump back in my chair, turning to Will, looking at the man I love with every fiber of my being. And I doubt I ever could have appreciated what Jack felt for my mother, had I not experienced it myself.

His voice shakes as he continues. “I got a job. I went to that office every day, nine to five, for four years. And finally, I told her, I can't do this anymore. I was sure I could make my way doing what I loved. What she loved. We could guide or go back to the SAR team … or something. But she put her foot down. Said we couldn't raise a child in a tent. We owed her more than that. Owed
you
more,” he qualifies. “I asked her to let me try. I had to try. She wouldn't hear of it. And so … so I left.”

“Why didn't you come back?” I say sharply. “I'd say you've done just fine for yourself.” I point in the direction of his grand house with a grand view. And then I think of the world travels with Will, expeditions here and trips there. He obviously wasn't hurting for money.

“I did.”

“No, you didn't!” I say, my voice rising, the tears burning. “You never came back! You left us, and Mom had to work two jobs, while you were off traipsing around the world without a care! It's a wonder we ever crossed your mind at all!”

Throughout my rant, he moves his head from side to side in the negative. “No … no, it wasn't like that. I came back a year later. I told her, we can do this. I have a job with the mountaineering school. I'd worked all year to set it up. I was ready. But she'd already shut me out. Said I'd abandoned her. You. And later, when I tried to send money, gifts, they were always returned, unopened.”

“But how can that be? She loved you! She's always loved you!”

“I wish that was the case. God, I wish that was so.” He drinks again, thanks to Boomer, who has dutifully been refilling our glasses in the background, while moving his head back and forth as if he were following a tennis match.

“I came back one more time, about a year later. It was on your sixth birthday. You were having your party in Encanto Park. You wore a pink sundress with yellow flowers, white sandals, and yellow ribbons in your hair.”

He stares out the window, remembering, while my tears join the steady downpour happening outside.

“And there was a man there, wearing a business suit, and he had his arm wrapped around your mother's waist—” The sobbing starts anew for him, and I turn immediately to Will, remembering what he told me about how he felt when Rich held me. For Jack, this must have been a hundred times worse.

“They…,” he continues, choking, sniffing, “they looked so happy. Then I watched him pick you up and swing you around, and I thought, I can never get that back. Another guy is playing with my girl. He had my family … and it was all my fault.

“I could never speak of it, Will. Shame doesn't begin to cover it. But when I met you, I don't know what happened. A spark. Something. I thought, I have the chance to do this over. To make it right by someone else. To show that I care. That I could be responsible. Be the father I should have been to you,” he says, looking at me tearfully.

His eyes then focus on his wallet, still on the table. He reaches for it. Opens it. Removes his driver's license, and then the photo behind it. “Here.”

I take it, the white backing wrinkled, the corners softened, turn it over … and it's me. A girl of six, midtwirl on the green grass, on a sunny day, under a blue sky, in a pink sundress with yellow flowers.

“I took that photo that day, on your birthday. I've carried it with me ever since.”

My eyes water anew. “You never forgot me.…”

He moves his head from side to side. “Never.”

I lean my elbows on the table, head in my hands, clutching the photo, dizzy from drink and the truth, my life's one burning question having just been answered. But not in the way I expected. I've hated my father for so long, but I don't hate Jack. I also understand what he did and why. But most importantly, now I know that he never stopped loving us.

I give the photo to Jack, and he promptly returns it to his wallet. Tentatively, I reach my hand to Jack's and fold it in mine. “She still loves you,” I say. “Nick Malone was a good man, but he wasn't her true love. He died five years ago.”

“How can she possibly love me?”

“She has a garden,” I say, gently squeezing his hand. “She's tended it well for the last twenty-five years and sits there often. I used to watch her, when I was little, wondering why she sat there alone all the time, looking so sad, crying sometimes. She only grew one variety of flower—larkspur.”

At the mention of larkspur, Jack looks up.

“One day, I watched as she planted a new hybrid. She said, ‘Your father would love this new color. It's his favorite flower.' I thought she was talking about Nick, but when I asked him, he said he'd never heard of larkspur. So I knew it was you she was talking about. Sitting with, day after day.” I bring my other hand to surround his. “She loves you. There's no doubt in my mind.”

Jack pushes his chair away and stands, leaning on the table for support. “I want to show you something.”

He turns on unsteady legs and walks out of the kitchen. The swish of the door follows. Will, Boomer, and I look at each other before rising.

“Whoa,” I say, grabbing on to Will for support. I blink rapidly, attempting to quell the spinning.

“Just hold on to me,” Will says.

We shuffle through the front door, and Jack is already halfway up the narrow path that leads upward to the main house. He moves determinedly in the twilight, no jacket, rain beating on his slender form.

It's an effort for me to walk steadily, but Will helps me along, Boomer bringing up the rear. None of us wear jackets, our insulation provided by scotch only.

When we finally reach the top, we circle around the main house to the front, where Jack stands by the wooden double doors at the entry. He points to an engraved metal placard that I never noticed before. Based on its location, firmly seated in a long-bed planter running adjacent the front door, I realize it must have been covered in snow the last time I was here.

The placard is clear now, the snow having melted down its sides.

LARKSPUR
.

I clutch at Will to keep from falling. He pulls me close, his arm securely around my waist.

“I named this for her. All of this is for her.” He looks to Will. “When we designed this, I was thinking about what
she
would have wanted. We used to daydream about that, you know. We'd lie awake at night in our tent in Yosemite, dreaming of owning a real home in the mountains someday. She said she would want glass, windows everywhere, so she would still feel like she was outside, sleeping under the stars, as we were then.”

Sleeping under the stars …

No wonder … No wonder she hated going to the lodge. To the outdoors. Anything that reminded her of him …

“Wait. That's it. You would have been to the lodge, then. In Walker Canyon,” I say.

He nods.

“We went every year,” I say. “Mom didn't want to, but she did it for Grandpa Alther. I knew she hated it, but I never knew why.”

Jack wipes at the tears on face—a useless gesture as the rain pours on all of us. “I would—”

He has to stop to let a sob escape.

“I would hold you on my shoulders, like this.” He puts his hands up, staring into a faraway memory. “And we'd walk along the river. You and me and your mom. And you wanted to know everything. Always questions. What's this? What's that?”

I strain to remember—why can't I remember?—but at the same time, now I know I had a father who cared. Who tried to teach me things.

Still holding on to Will for balance, I crouch down, reaching out to touch the sign. I stay there, my wobbly brain trying to assimilate. Emotionally, I don't think I could ever have imagined a more radically life-altering forty-eight hours.

I straighten again, receiving a steady assist from Will.

“She's gonna be blown away when she sees this,” I say.

Jack blanches. “What? She won't see this.”

“Yes, she will. You invited her for Thanksgiving, remember?”

 

35

The rain's steady drone continues this morning, just as it did last night. It was still dark when Boomer called to tell me that the other pilot scheduled for duty—Danny—called in sick, so I'm driving back to Fallon to stand duty as originally planned. Happy birthday to me.

But it has given me time to think. Due to the crazy string of events over the last two days, pitched from one emotional fire to the next, I haven't spoken once with my mother. But what to do? Call her? Tell her I've met Jack? Can I even speak of something of this magnitude on the phone with her? Wouldn't that kind of news have to be delivered in person?

But she can't walk into this blind, me waiting until the last minute to tell her.
Surprise! Guess who we're going to visit for Thanksgiving?

I need my sounding board.

I dial Will's number, and he answers on the first ring.

“Alison! It's so good to hear your voice.” Funny, that was my first thought upon hearing his. An instant energy infusion. “Where are you?”

“About thirty miles south of Fallon.”

“What's the storm looking like where you are?”

“If anything, it seems to be getting worse. Why?”

“I've been listening to the scanner, while I've been driving around town inspecting our job sites. The rain's been nonstop since you left. Probably the heaviest I've ever seen.”

“Are your sites okay?”

“So far, everything's holding up. But at lower elevations, the flooding … It's just not sounding good. I'd be willing to bet your services are going to be needed before too long.”

“Oh,” I say, looking side to side, up and down, at visibility that can't be more than a hundred yards. “You know, Will, I don't even think we could launch if we wanted to. The visibility's next to nothing.”

“Well, I'm sure it'll be okay. Based on what I'm hearing, the county sheriffs have jumped on this early. So anyway, how are you?”

“Well, I'm stumbling over how and when to tell my mom what I've learned. She's with Celia now at the lodge, which is where I'm going to meet them for Thanksgiving. So do I call her and tell her on the phone? Wait and tell her in person…?”

As I wait for Will's answer, I search either side of the highway for the mountains that I know are there, but that remain hidden by clouds that have practically settled to the desert floor. No way we could launch in this.

“Will…?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. But when I hear the crackle of the radio and the garbled voice of the dispatcher in the background, I realize he has one ear on the scanner. “Where did you say your mom was?”

“She's with my aunt Celia. At the lodge.”

“In Walker Canyon, right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I don't want to alarm you, but much of the talk on the scanner has been about the Walker River. So you haven't spoken with her?”

“No, I couldn't decide—”

“I think you might want to call her. If they're at the lodge, they should probably head for higher ground. The Mono County sheriff is already up in the area notifying everyone, so I'm sure it's okay, but probably worth a phone call.”

“Okay. I'll let you—”

“Hold … hold on one sec, Alison.”

I press the phone to my ear, trying to hear what's being said on Will's radio. Hard to know if it's the radio static or the drumming of rain on my roof that's making it so difficult.

“Whiskey One copies. Give me an hour, Jack. Alison? Are you there?”

“I'm here.”

“Sorry about that. They're calling the SAR team out now.”

“For what? Please don't tell me the Walker.”

“No, it's for the town of Bridgeport. And actually, I don't think it's serious. Sounds like sandbag duty to me,” he says with a chuckle. Which helps.

“Will, I…” I really don't have anything to say, the phone call to my mom far more pressing, but I don't want to hang up either.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Nothing. I just wish I didn't have duty. I wish we were together. I need more time with my sounding board.”

“Your sounding board can always drive out to see you later. Maybe after I check out what's happening in Bridgeport, I can scoot over your way.”

“Would you?”

“I would, and I will. How about that?”

“Thank you,” I say, breathing a relieved sigh. “And um … well, I love you, Will.”

“Alison, I wish I could describe what it feels like when you say that. It's like you're speaking to me from the inside or something.”