Clear to Lift

by Anne A. Wilson

“We, uh, hadn’t gotten around to discussing that,” I say.

  “Let’s not smother her, Jack. We just … well, you know.”

  “I’m not smothering. I’m just asking if you two would like to join me for Thanksgiving, that’s all.”

  “Well,” I say, looking between the two. “I would love to, except that I’ve already made plans with my mother. She’s driving over—”

  “She’s invited, too, of course,” Jack says.

  “Alison, don’t feel like you have to do this. Jack can be a little—”

  “A little what, William?”

  “It’s fine, Will. I’m sure she’d love to come.”

  As I say this, my brain makes the leap to planning mode, suddenly contemplating holiday logistics—dinner with one side of the family, dessert with the other—those kinds of logistics. What am I doing?

  I can’t accept an invitation like this. I can’t speak for my mom. And what about Celia?

  But I want my mom to meet Will. To meet Will’s family. And the lodge is only a little more than an hour’s drive north of here, so …

  Call it rushed, but since she’s in the area, why not? It would be perfect. And I bet Celia would be game for it, too.

  I look up. More rapping on the door.

  “What the heck?” Will asks, rising again.

  The door swishes. “Mr. Cavanaugh!” Boomer says.

  Boomer?

  Shake of a jacket, splatter of water on the hardwood floor, a swish as the jacket is hung on a peg.

  “I was supposed to meet Jack, but no one—” He stops almost as suddenly as Jack did as he rounds the corner. “Vanilla?”

  “Care for some pancakes?” Will asks, rolling his eyes. He has no idea how funny I find that.

  “Hell, yeah, I want some pancakes!” Boomer drops into the seat next to me.

  “Help yourself,” Will says. “I’ll whip up some more.” Will returns to the refrigerator—more milk, more eggs, more blueberries—and starts to mix more batter.

  “So is this…?” Boomer asks, jerking a thumb in my direction, but looking at Jack.

  “It is indeed,” Jack says.

  “God damn it.” Boomer reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his billfold. He opens it, removes a twenty-dollar bill, and hands it to Jack.

  Jack receives it, clearly delighted, snapping it taut a few times before sliding it into his wallet.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Just a little side wager,” Jack says. “I knew you two would get together eventually.”

  “You made a bet on that?” I ask, turning on Boomer.

  “Hey, don’t look at me. That was all Jack.”

  “But you bet against us?” Oddly, I’m not concerned about the wager itself, but on which side Boomer fell.

  “Well … yeah. But that was before I met your fiancé at the airport.”

  “Oh,” I say. My face goes red. “I haven’t had the chance to apologize to you about that. And to Walt and everyone else. He was just—”

  “Yeah, I know. Worried,” Boomer says. “But, Jesus…”

  “This arrangement is infinitely more palatable,” Jack says, moving a finger back and forth between Will and me. “Am I right?”

  “Even though I’m twenty dollars poorer, yes, sir, you are correct.”

  “You’re coming to Thanksgiving, right?” Jack says to Boomer.

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “How many—?” I start.

  Jack reads my mind. “Don’t worry. It’s just Boomer.”

  Whew. Because a Thanksgiving with the entire SAR team, while wonderful, would be a bit much for my mom to walk into.

  Will returns to the table and refills the empty platter of pancakes. “Care for some coffee?”

  “Please,” Boomer says.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Jack says.

  “Comin’ up.”

  “So, Boomer, why are you here?” I ask.

  “We’re meeting a bunch of the guys in Mammoth to play pool. Where, by the way, I fully intend on winning my money back.” He directs a pointed look at Jack.

  “In your dreams, man.”

  As Jack and Boomer banter, and Will serves coffee, something way deep down starts to niggle. A warning flag. This is too good.

  And I realize I’ve let myself drift too far from Self-Defense 101. I know all too well that the universe exists in balance, the highs equaling the lows. And this moment is very high. Too high. Which would require an equalizing moment, something equivalently low. But then, the event that preceded this was abysmally low. Snoopy …

  So maybe the universe has indeed had its say, and the balance is intact.

  “… just like you acted in Spain,” Will says. “Your birthday, remember? Your mother—”

  “Do not bring my mother into this!” Jack says, pealing with laughter.

  “Wait. Speaking of birthdays…” Will stops and turns to Boomer. “Any chance you could tweak the duty schedule tomorrow? It’s Alison’s birthday. I wanted to see if I could keep her for one more day.”

  “Well now, Vanilla, how bad do you want the day off? It’s me you’d be trading with.”

  “You would take my duty?”

  “I could … you know, for the right price.”

  “How about twenty?”

  “Done.”

  “Jack, can I borrow twenty dollars?” I ask.

  Boomer snaps his open palm in front of Jack. “Love her.”

  “May I remind you, Alison, that he bet against you,” Jack says, leaning over and pulling his wallet out of his pocket.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “So back to your birthday, Jack,” Will says.

  “Do we really need to revisit this? Like right now?” Jack says, dropping his wallet on the table.

  “I think it’s a grand time to revisit it,” Boomer says. He turns to me. “I love this story.”

  “Rule number one,” Will says, laughing. “Never raise the ire of Magdalena!”

  Jack throws up his hands, and Boomer shakes in laughter.

  “Who was Magdalena, again?” I ask.

  “Jack’s mother,” Will says. “All Spanish passion and fury!”

  “To this day!” Jack adds. “And she’s—what now?—eighty years old!”

  “Where’s she from?” I say. Something spatters about in my ears. I look out the window. The rain makes the same sound. That must be it.

  “Spain,” Jack answers. “She—”

  “She could probably chase you into that tunnel today!” Wills says, his chair tipping backward as he clutches his hands to his stomach, embracing a belly-aching laugh.

  “No, I mean, what city?”

  “Bielsa,” Jack says. “It’s in the Pyrenees.”

  “The Pyrenees…” I whisper.

  Spatter, spatter, spatter.

  Will, Boomer, and Jack continue with their bantering, their well-timed guffaws, snorts of laughter—a whimsical din that swirls and surrounds the kitchen table—while I recede from the conversation, whisked out as swiftly as an ebbing tide.

  I ease myself into the back of my chair, and I look at Jack. Really look.

  No …

  No, that’s ridiculous.

  “… never forget her face!” Will says. “Running…” He’s laughing so hard, he’s having trouble finishing the sentence. “… with a stick!” He pushes his chair away from the table, stands and wags a finger. “¡Vas a ver cuando lo agarre!” Will says, in a high-pitched voice and a perfect Spanish accent, before dropping into his chair again, his chest heaving, while he wipes at unruly tears.

  Boomer and Jack are doubled over, all three of them now howling. Always the bantering between them …

  “Oh, no. The home team is on this year!” Jack said.

  “The home team might not be the home team anymore!” Boomer said.

  “No way. The good people of Sacramento would never let it happen,” Jack said.

  The home team … Sacr
amento …

  No … No way.

  Jack looks in my direction. Once. Twice. Realization dawning that I’m staring.

  “Alison?” he says, attempting to catch his breath. “Looks like you’ve tasted something you’d rather spit up than swallow.”

  Boomer and Will turn their mirthful gazes to me, the snorts and chuckles still escaping.

  “You’re from Sacramento,” I say, not asking, but stating.

  “I lived there for a time, yeah. How’d you know that?”

  “Where?”

  Jack looks at Boomer and Will, puzzled. “You mean, where exactly in Sacramento?”

  “Yes.”

  The three observe me curiously, like a zoo animal behind bars. Laughter dying away …

  “I lived in a neighborhood called South Land Park. Why?”

  My body stills. The rain roars in my ears, drowning all other sounds, while the blood drains from my head.

  No way. There’s just no way. Think of the odds, Ali. There’s just … and while one side of my brain pounces on all the reasons this chain of thought is preposterous, the other side absorbs Jack’s darker olive skin color … the one that matches mine. The teardrop-shaped, upturned brown eyes … brown eyes that peer into my same brown eyes.

  And what is it … what is it…?

  It’s the eyes. The raccoon eyes … the photos in Jack’s house … the ski goggles. That’s it! That’s what it was! In the other photos, the goggles were the same. They were the same brand as the ones I had in my toy box in kindergarten.… Holy shit.

  “You were married,” I say.

  What are you doing, Alison?

  “What’s up with you, Vanilla?” Boomer says. “You’re acting like the host on This Is Your Life.” He turns to Jack. “You’re old enough, Jack! Ha! You remember that show.”

  Boomer laughs, but Jack does not.

  “I don’t know what—” Jack stutters.

  “Married?” Will says. “Alison, Jack’s never been married.”

  “What was her name?” I ask, my eyes not leaving Jack’s.

  “I…,” Jack starts. Blinks. Leans forward. Looking at me … like I look at him.

  A seismic shift in his expression, one probably mirroring my own—a movie moment when the actor has just been shot in the chest—surprise, horror, incredulity, all wrapped into one.

  “Alison?” Will says. “Alison, what’s going on? Jack was never—”

  “Candy,” Jack says.

  The world wobbles, the earth kicked off its axis.

  “Holy shit,” Jack says, leaning back. “It’s your birthday tomorrow.” His eyes flit back and forth, his brain working a million miles an hour. “Your birthday … November twenty-fourth…”

  “I’m going to be—”

  “Twenty-nine,” he finishes.

  Our gazes remain locked. In the periphery, a shrugging of shoulders and a shaking of heads from Boomer and Will.

  “Alison? Jack? What’s going on?” Will says, any trace of the conversation’s earlier humor gone.

  “You named your daughter Magdalena, after your mother,” I say. My lip starts to quiver and Jack’s olive-skinned, brown-eyed face goes blurry behind my watering eyes.

  “Daughter?” Will says. “Jack? What’s she talking about?” He turns to me. “What are you talking about?”

  Jack pales, assuming the same still form as the statue that gapes at him.

  “No…,” he whispers. “It just can’t be.”

  “You called her Magpie.”

  Jack covers his mouth with a shaking hand.

  “Jack…?” Will says. “Please. What the hell is going on?”

  I finally pull my eyes from Jack to look at Will. “He called me Magpie. A nickname for my given name, Magdalena. It’s the only memory I have of my father.”

  34

  The air is suffocating in its stillness. For seconds? Minutes? Jack, white as a sheet. Boomer, openmouthed. Will, mirroring Boomer. Me, a face wet with tears. Of joy, of sorrow, of pain, something lost, something found, regret, anger, elation. So tangled in opposing emotions, my body remains locked, my breaths coming short and shallow. Outside, the rain beats harder.

  Boomer is the first to recover. “Screw the coffee. I’m breaking out the scotch.”

  “You know where it is,” Will says, not taking his eyes from me.

  Boomer rummages through a cabinet, but my eyes return to … my father. Jack.

  “The name listed on my birth certificate for my father is Juan Gonzales Smith,” I say.

  Jack brings his shaking hands to his lap, holding his legs to try to quiet them. “Juan is Spanish for John,” he says, his voice rough. “Jack is just a nickname.”

  “And Gonzales Smith?”

  “My father was American. David Smith. My mother is Spanish. Magdalena Gonzales Alvarez.”

  Boomer returns, four short tumblers crimped in the fingers of one hand, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red in the other.

  “We didn’t…” He speaks in a daze as Boomer pours and pushes glasses to each of us. “We didn’t follow convention. Normally, el nombre de mi madre, my mother’s name, would go last. But since my father was … he was sick…” He wraps his still-shaking fingers around the tumbler.

  “Might as well drink up,” Boomer says. “I think we could all use it.”

  I’ve had my fair share of alcoholic drinks at the highfalutin fancy parties I’ve attended with Rich, but only in politely sipped doses. I lift my glass, gulping the drink in one go. I wince as it burns hot down my throat, jarring me from the stillness.

  I reach for Will’s hand, which he readily gives, squeezing it tightly.

  “But your name is … Magdalena Alison Gonzales Smith. Not Alison Malone,” Jack says.

  “Mom had my legal named changed. Malone was my stepfather’s name.”

  “But Maggie. We called you Maggie.”

  The anger, the hurt, rears its head. “I suppose it was difficult for her to choke out your mother’s name after you left us.”

  Boomer refills my glass. Jack’s, too. He emptied it when I did.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” Will asks, staring at Jack.

  Bits of incredulity, horror, flit across his face, and I realize this revelation is probably affecting him almost as much as it is me. Jack has been Will’s father for all intents and purposes for over sixteen years. His best friend. His partner. Heck, his business partner. Will even designed and helped build his home for him. I think of all the days, weeks, and months these two have spent together on hikes to base camps, sleeping on portaledges on rock faces thousands of feet in the air, sitting next to each other on long overseas flights, and even visiting each other in their hospital beds. In all that time, amid every intimate, personal conversation, the topic obviously never came up. A skeleton of staggering proportions. I read it on Will’s face as clearly as if he had spoken it. Deceived. Duped. Lied to.

  Jack’s face crumples. “I was so ashamed, Will. I made the biggest mistake of my life, when I left my family. I was only twenty-one when she was born,” he says, eyes briefly drifting to me before returning to Will. “So goddamn young and immature. But I tried. I did. Candy said I needed to settle down. Get a real job. I had a responsibility now. I just … I couldn’t do it. Me? In a suit and tie?”

  “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 f
orget 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.”