Mountains Wanted (16 page)

“Please tell me why you
said that just now,” Sarah requested gently.

Abby rolled her eyes and
didn’t even try to stop herself. She crossed her arms and kept her focus
straight ahead, avoiding her mother’s eyes. “I heard you talking to Rachel
about it a long time ago.”

“A long time ago?” Sarah
felt a knife stab through her heart, cutting deep.
Abby has been carrying
this burden for a long time?  
she processed.
Oh my god, I am a
terrible mother. I can’t believe this is happening.

Abby nodded. “At least a
year ago. You guys were in here talking and I don’t think you realized I could
hear you from the kitchen. Rachel was a little drunk I think.”

“Tell me what you
heard,” Sarah said. “Please.”

“Well,” Abby began,
“first you were talking about Dad.”  Sarah visibly stiffened at that word.
She’d almost forgotten that Abby had called her ex-husband “Dad,” even though
he had never formally adopted her, despite years of promises. “You were talking
about your track record with men and Rachel was teasing you.”

Sarah gasped, the
conversation suddenly accessed in her memory bank. Rachel had said
something like, “Well, I may have awful taste in men but at least in college I
didn’t get drunk and high and fuck all my boyfriend’s friends.” Those
words rung in Sarah’s ears like the sound of a fatal collision echoing miles
down the highway. She tried to imagine how those words would sound in a
fifteen-year-old’s ears. They’d gone on to discuss the camping trip where Abby
had been conceived and everything that had gone on that night, at least what
Sarah was able to recall.

“Oh god, Abby,” she
finally said before her daughter could relay any more of the story.  ‘I’m
so sorry you had to hear that, especially in that way, and especially not
coming from me.”

Abby looked up at her
through teary blue-gray eyes. “So you really don’t know who my father is?”
 

Sarah clasped her
daughter’s hands into her own. “I made some bad choices and I was older
than you and should have known better. My group of friends during
college...well, we were very open with each other. We also smoked a lot of pot.
We drank a lot of beer. We were good students but sometimes we had more
fun on the weekends than we should have,” Sarah confessed.  

Abby’s eyes were so
wide, Sarah thought they might pop out of her skull.
 I don’t think she
ever expected me to confess to smoking pot,
Sarah determined. She
considered toning down the story, maybe sharing a euphemistic, sanitized
version, but she had gotten this far, and, ultimately, she did want her
daughter to know the truth. 
With any luck, I can make this a learning
experience
, Sarah hoped, ever the educator.

“So, that summer, about
a month before we headed back to campus, a bunch of us decided to go camping up
in the mountains,” she continued. “I went with Matt, my boyfriend, a few of his
friends and a couple of their girlfriends. There were seven of us all together
and only two tents. Well, the other girls were drinking pretty early while
the guys and I were hiking and rock climbing. The other girls didn’t want to go
and I think one of the guys stayed behind too. The three of them passed out at
like 8 that night in one of the tents. They were sick and hung over. Probably
had alcohol poisoning.”

“Eww,” Abby interjected,
engrossed in the story, leaning toward her mother with her chin propped up on
her palms.

“The other guys, my
boyfriend and his two friends, and myself...we were drinking a little but we
were also smoking pot. Matt had his guitar and we were all sitting around
the campfire singing and talking and just having a good time under the canopy
of stars, mountains all around us. They were making fun of me because I was
jumping at every sound coming from the rocks. I kept saying we were going
to get eaten by mountain lions.” Sarah laughed just remembering it all,
such a crystal clear memory that she could nearly hear the crackle of the fire
and the echoes of laughter rising up into the starry night.

“So eventually,” Sarah
continued, “the guys lured me into the tent, saying they were going to distract
me from the mountain lions. I was drunk and high but I knew what was
happening and, looking back, I don’t feel like I was coerced. I mean, I had as
much of my faculties as they did, maybe even more so because Matt was pretty
messed up at that point.”  Sarah paused, searching for a way to tell the
next part of the story. Abby was completely engaged, sitting on the edge
of her seat expectantly, her tears dried up and taken over by intrigue.

More memories flooded
back to Sarah just then, visions of body parts, sensations she had never
experienced before, six hands on her flesh, moving her, taking her, three cocks
releasing their seed into her orifices. And that, that was how she was
certain that Matt was Abby’s father. He was the one who came inside of her. Besides,
Abby looked like Matt. She had his light hair, skin and eyes. She had his
disposition and build. Sarah took a deep breath and explained the rest of its
story in its entirety as delicately as she possibly could, only giving away the
most necessary details to convince her of Matt’s paternity.

Abby sat in silence
absorbing the information, reconciling it with the conversation she’d overheard
between her mother and Rachel, looking for inconsistencies. She just wanted the
truth at this point. So many times she had reviewed that conversation in
her mind, searching for her roots, wondering about the identity of this man who
had contributed her other X
 
chromosome. “So
then what happened?” she asked, her voice small and thin.

“We never talked about
that night again, not explicitly,” Sarah remembered. “We didn’t even tell the
other guys what happened. After that, Matt went to visit his grandparents
in Florida for a couple of weeks and then when we got back to school, things
had changed. I never have been able to figure out exactly what went wrong.
I missed my period. I remember telling him but he just shrugged and
said...I will never forget...’that a slut like me probably didn’t even know who
the dad was.’”

Abby leaned closer to
her mother and put her hand on her knee, an uncharacteristically tender and
empathetic gesture for her. Her mother’s voice was quivering and her
expression had grown dark. “He’d lost all respect for me after that
night,” Sarah explained. “I was angry. So angry, Abby. I didn’t
understand why men could go out and sleep with anything that moved and they
would be considered a stud, but in one night of drunken, stoned debauchery I
had earned my slut card? And trust me, that word did not have positive
connotations in 1995.”

Sarah cleared her throat
and found the teachable moment. “Having sex does not make a person good or bad. Our
bodies were designed for pleasure. If we make the choice to have sex it does
not reflect poorly on us just because we are women. We should feel empowered by
our decision to use our bodies in the way that they were designed. The
important thing is making good choices, being safe, and choosing partners who
respect and care for us. That was obviously my mistake,” she admitted.

A tiny shred of time
passed while Abby internalized her mother’s words. Then she asked, “So
Matt didn’t want anything to do with you after you told him?”

Sarah shook her head. “I
think he really convinced himself that you weren’t his. He severed all
ties with me and we both went about our senior years. I was living with some
girlfriends off campus and he was living with his guy friends and our paths
just didn’t cross. When he saw me at commencement, I had just reached my due
date. He didn’t even speak to me. His eyes were as cold as ice.”

Sarah was instantly
transported back to that day. Her mother sat in the audience with her brother
Adam. The whole of Sarah’s support system was taking up two seats in the vast
auditorium. Sarah, nine months pregnant, her black robe flowing out over her
protruding abdomen marched in with her classmates, her feet so swollen she
could hardly wear shoes. Her honors cords bounced against her heavy
breasts with each step, and she caught sight of the eyes, the hundreds and
maybe thousands of pairs of eyes that seemed to fixate on her girth. It
took more strength and determination to walk across that stage to receive her
diploma than it took to enter the delivery room a week later to have her labor
induced.

“Abby, I know Matt is
your dad. You look like him - you know you don’t look like me. You have his
blue eyes and light hair, his freckles, his slight build, his stubbornness. I
have no doubt. Trust me, this isn’t
Mamma Mia
all over again,” she
laughed.

Abby nodded. She had
seen pictures and the resemblance. Her mother had kept some memorabilia from
her college days and there were shots taken of them together, Matt with his
guitar and his arm around Sarah, looking young and vibrant and happy. “What if
I wanted to get in touch with him?”

Sarah visibly stiffened.
“I’m not sure it’s a great idea, but if you wanted to, I could make it happen.”
She didn’t disclose that she had long ago tracked Matt down on Facebook and had
even contemplated sending him a friend request so that they could catch up. In
the end, she decided it had more potential for harm than good.
What if he
wanted custody of his daughter?

Abby finally excused
herself and went back to the kitchen to fix herself a snack. Sarah returned to
grading. She’d never quite been able to envision having that discussion with
her daughter.
 It’s like the day would never come
, she thought. Her
conscience felt light and airy as she contemplated how this newly discovered
information would influence the path Abby would journey in life.

***

   
       
On
Tuesday, Sarah sat in her office, her Pandora station cranking out “November
Rain,” which was all too appropriate given that the skies were clenched with
tight gray clouds and spitting out rain so cold it was on the verge of becoming
ice crystals while the last hours of the month faded into the history books. She
was working on a proposal for a new book, a departure from the normal heavy
academic and theoretical stuff she typically wrote. This book would be for the
masses, a book about dating, relationships and alternative lifestyles on
college campuses based on all the interviews and research Sarah had done
throughout the years. She was contemplating how to phrase a certain idea when
her phone chimed.

The number did not
belong to any of her current contacts.  The text simply said, “I’m back in
commission.”

She knew it was James
and her body physically responded to the thought of him before her mind could
command it to be still. Her trembling fingers erased the text and she went on
with her thoughts.

***

   
       
There
were no more texts from that number. Finals were on the horizon, Sarah’s book
proposal was due to the publisher by December 5th and Pawel was preparing to
spend the holidays in Poland so he’d been a bit clingy, wanting to see her
several times a week. She might have been annoyed, but under the present
circumstances, she found it nice to be wanted. Some nights they would just sit
in the stillness of her living room grading papers by the light of the
fireplace while Abby and Owen slept upstairs. She had finally introduced him to
the kids, just as her “colleague, Dr. Kowalczyk,” and having met so many of her
colleagues through the years, they were completely unfazed.  

Ah, there’s nothing more
romantic than grading papers together by the fire,
she mused one night from her armchair, a plaid
fleece blanket thrown over her legs for additional warmth. She was reviewing
her students’ rough drafts for their senior seminar research projects. Her hand
was cramping from all the comments and suggestions she crammed into the
margins. She was particularly pleased with Emma Knightley’s research on
bisexuality that they had discussed earlier in the semester. She noticed
that Emma had cited an article that Sarah published on the topic the prior
year. Reveling in that warm sensation she felt when students managed to impress
her, she glanced over at Pawel who was sprawled out on her couch. The book he
was reading was on the verge of slipping out of his hands as he began to doze
off, his black plastic-rimmed glasses sliding off the bridge of his nose.
 

Sarah studied him as he
drifted further and further into an REM cycle. She could see his eyes twitching
beneath their lids. His face looked so peaceful. His wavy graying hair had
been pushed behind his ear and stubble was starting to emerge in the follicles
outlining the region where his beard would be. His nose was long and had a
slight bump in it and his bottom lip was much fuller than the top. It was one
of his most striking features and always made Sarah want to nibble on it. When
she kissed him, she liked to draw his bottom lip between her teeth and gently
chew.

Despite his age, Pawel
was one of those people who stayed in amazing shape without ever setting foot
in a gym. He had long, lean limbs and sinewy muscles. As much as she had
always hated to compare lovers, she thought about James’ thick frame and bulky
muscles and resisted admitting that she preferred the latter. Something
about James’ size made her feel so delicate and feminine, even though she was
quite sturdy in her curvy 5’5” 160 pound frame. Next to Pawel’s tall, lithe
body she always felt much too short and rubenesque.  

Before she could do any
more comparing, her phone rang with Rachel on the line. Sarah had not
really spoken with her best friend since James had pulled his mysterious disappearing
act the weekend before. She preferred to avoid explaining the situation to
Rachel for as long as possible as she would undoubtedly tell her she had
overreacted. “Hello?” Sarah answered, trying to sound perky for 11:32 PM.

“You never returned my
calls!” Rachel wasted no time reading her the riot act. “What the fuck is going
on with you, woman?”

Sarah inadvertently let
out a sigh. “Well, it’s just my crunch time, you know. Grading.  Exams. Yada
yada,” she explained, hoping her excuse was convincing enough to dissuade her
friend from further interrogation.

“Bullshit,” Rachel
accused, over-pronouncing the T at the end. “Come on, out with it, lady. Is it
the Smart Guy or GI Joe? Which Y chromosome is giving you trouble?”

Sarah had to laugh. There
was no escaping Rachel’s intuition.
This woman knows me better than anyone
on the planet so I might as well confess.
“Alright, it’s James,” Sarah
admitted. “It’s over. And honestly, Rachel, I think it’s for the best, so
I really don’t want to dissect it all right now, okay?  It’s late. I
should be going to bed soon.”

Rachel grunted her
disapproval. “Come on, just give me the executive summary. And for
the record, I was looking forward to our threesome!”

“How are things with you
and Jack?” Sarah inquired, trying to divert Rachel’s attention away from the
James Situation.

“Oh, come on,” Rachel replied. “You
don’t seriously think I’m going to fall for that, do you? That’s like the
oldest trick in your book!”

Sarah was
defeated. “Okay, fine,” she conceded. “Last weekend he was supposed
to have me over for dinner and I waited and waited and heard nothing. Finally
he showed up at my house late acting really weird and telling me he couldn’t
stay...something about his phone was broken and he got called into work.”

“Go on,” Rachel directed
when Sarah paused.

“Okay, so I sensed there
was really something else going on cause he acted so weird,” Sarah explained. “Anyway,
I just started thinking about him after he left, and how disappointed I was to
see him go. I mean like it physically affected me...I felt hollow and
broken.”

Sarah noticed that Pawel
had begun to snore so she walked into the kitchen still holding the phone. Rachel
said the words Sarah didn’t want to say, “Oh my god, Sarah, you really fell for
him, didn’t you?”

Those words suddenly
brought the emotions flooding back to her along with the accompanying tears stinging
at the corners of her eyes. She had forced herself to turn off the waterworks
three days ago.
Why am I starting this up again?
 
It’s like I
have absolutely no control over my body’s response to him
, she panicked.
 
His power over me is so. fucking. scary.

Rachel’s tone changed as
she transitioned into empathetic, comforting friend mode.  “Oh, honey, I’m
so sorry. So that was it? You never heard from him again?”

Sarah grabbed a paper
towel from the dispenser near the sink and dabbed gently at her wet cheeks. “He
texted me on Tuesday.”

“So did you guys try to
talk things out?” Rachel asked, a tiny ounce of hope rising to the surface of
her voice.

“No,” Sarah replied. “I
never texted him back.”

“WHAT?!” Rachel
shrieked. “Why the fuck not? What’s wrong with you?!”

Sarah nearly laughed at
her friend’s response, it was so dramatic.
 How do I make her understand
this?
she wondered. She’d been trying to make sense of this situation all
week and it simply boiled down to avoiding rejection. As strong and independent
as Sarah was, she feared rejection more than anything else, yet she was secure
enough to admit it. 
An interesting
dichotomy
, she realized. She took a deep breath, “I know he doesn’t love
me, Rachel. He’s just hanging out with me to have someone to play with,”
she explained. “I’m a toy he takes out once a week, plays with, and then
puts back in his toy box till next time.”

“Whoa,” Rachel balked at
that description. “You are so far off base!” Sarah could nearly see
her friend shaking her head in disagreement through the phone line.
   
        
“Whatever,” Sarah replied, losing the energy to argue  “You met him one
time. What do you know?”

“I saw the way he looked
at you,” Rachel said. “And he didn’t look at you like you were just a toy
to amuse him. Trust me, there is something more there. Something deeper.”

A tingle crawled up
Sarah’s spine.
What if I made a huge mistake?

***

   
       
That
night, despite being curled up with Pawel, Sarah’s willpower lost out to the
desire to broadcast The James Channel throughout her mind. She remembered
the day she had spent at Rachel’s consoling her over the loss of Mark, who had,
without much foresight, decided to abandon Rachel to pursue a relationship with
“Porn Girl.” Sarah knew Mark would come crawling back, and her intuitions were
confirmed. Then she remembered how she left Rachel’s house that day promising
to guard herself against falling for any men who weren’t right for her, for men
who lacked the depth, maturity and stability to enter into a healthy
relationship with her.
That oath sure went out the window
, she sighed.

Sarah always maintained
that her worst decisions in life were a result of not having a plan. Therefore,
she found it crucial, especially now that she had found her footing and was
pursuing the path she desired in life, that she formulate her plan. Her
Plan for Love was simple: don’t fall in love with jackasses. She had made
that mistake with both Abby’s father and Owen’s father and although she had
made a lot of progress toward recovery, she was still paying for both mistakes
emotionally. Since then she had developed Very Fond Feelings for several
men, but had never quite jumped the hurdle to the L Word with any of them.

That’s probably why it
freaked me out so much to realize I had L-wordy type feelings for James
, she considered.  
I’d resisted it so
long, and had particularly resisted having them for the wrong type of guy. But
with James it all seemed beyond my control.
She stopped chastising herself
for allowing her mind to pursue this line of questioning, knowing she needed to
get this straightened out, or she was doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
James
is the wrong type of guy, no?
she questioned.

She enumerated his
negatives:
He’s young, he’s military, he’s never been married, he doesn’t
have kids,
which were all excellent reasons to avoid serious involvement. She
realized now that when she first met him and felt the initial attraction, one
of the things that made him so appealing was that he seemed “deliciously
unripe.” He was so opposite of the men she sought that he seemed safe to
become involved with. 
After all, I’d never compromise what I was
looking for someone so entirely unsuitable, right?
Sarah asked, rolling her
eyes in her own general direction, reeling at how she’d underestimated the
power of an unprecedented physical connection.
Not to mention how easy it is
to make the leap from a physical to emotional connection when all the right
ingredients were there
, she considered.
Talk about a recipe for disaster
.
Next she asked the tough question:
Was it his unsuitability and
unavailability that made him overwhelmingly desirable to me?

Before she could answer
that, her subconscious lost patience with her indecisiveness and decided to
totally shut down.  She drifted to sleep and managed to stumble into a dream
episode - which seemed already in progress - where she flitted beside a mountain
stream, happy as a lark. It was the happiest mountain dream she’d had in a long
time.

***
  

  The week crept
on. Sarah needed to hand back all the rough drafts of the senior seminar
research projects so that the finished products could be submitted during
finals week. She was proud of her students’ research. There were some very
compelling ideas, and she was impressed with the quality of the work as well,
particularly Emma’s paper. It was fortunate she that she could relish positive
feelings about her senior students because it sort of made up for the
lackluster research papers her Sociology of Gender students had turned in. She
was shaking her head thinking about the complete butchery of literature reviews
as she walked across campus to her office from her Friday morning class.

The weekend is rapidly
approaching
, she thought as she lumbered
up the concrete steps. Her joints felt stiff as she realized how long it had
been since she’d worked out any more intensely than hoisting a basket of
laundry up the stairs. Her calendar was surprisingly free for the rest of
the day, her 10 AM class being the last on the docket for the week. Her
despised Friday afternoon-meeting curriculum committee had adjourned for the
semester and now her only obligation involved some articles to review for the
journal editorial board. She realized she might even be able to exodus campus
early before the nasty beltway traffic wrapped its sticky tentacles around the
metro area. She remembered that she had stashed her gym bag in her office
earlier in the week, when she’d vowed make an appearance at the university
fitness center. She quickly resolved to make that happen today, her last
opportunity before the close of the week. Finally stepping foot in her office,
she didn’t even take the time to check her email or voicemail. She simply
snagged the bag off the chair lodged between her bookcase and filing cabinet
and headed back out the door.

It was a cloudless, nondescript
early December day. The trees were nearly bare, and the sky was almost
completely colorless.
I would really prefer a more inspiring landscape
,
she thought as she crossed the quad. She imaged the great mountains rising
in the west. She couldn’t see them of course, but she imagined them there,
looming in the smoky mist at the horizon. She remembered how homesick she’d
been at the beginning of the semester, wishing for her homeland, missing her
mountains. She’d pushed those feelings aside so she could concentrate on
the semester but now that things were winding down, those desires were welling
back inside of her.
March
, she thought,
I have a conference back home
in March
. 
Three more months to go.