Braided Gold

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Braided Gold Page 19

by Glen Roylance


  “Let’s wait until Michaelson shows his hand. I’ll give you the word and then our first step would be to get the story into the Daily Aztec with the right slant.”

  Their conversation continued as a war council of sorts, complete with strategic and contingent plans – two shrewd minds working in concert, men who were driven by bitterness and animosities. Most certainly they were setting the stage for something that would rock the San Diego State campus.

  At home, Paul’s anger gradually dissipated and a painful process of self-evaluation commenced. There were other times when fierce anger had been the moving force in his life. In each instance the results had brought only ashes. For a moment he wondered if it would be best to take leave of the University – to leave San Diego – to leave the career he loved. But it was a path he could not bear to contemplate – it was a path that acknowledged personal failure and invalidated all he had fought so long to achieve.

  Then, for the first time that day his thoughts turned to Claire. He knew she would not approve of what he was doing and had to acknowledge that these developments would likely end their relationship. The thought was painful to him. She represented a different world of bright, new realities he had barely discovered. Nevertheless, he had doubted that he could ever meet her expectations or that their disparate approaches to life could ever be successfully harmonized. He reasoned that even if he were to pull up stakes and run away, he would most assuredly lose her.

  With that realization there was also a tacit acknowledgment that he was unworthy of her. He would need to tell her the truth, even if it had to be hidden from all others. He owed her that. He would need to speak with her and Leo before Michaelson announced the cancellation of the Shelter Island Conference. The prospect was uncomfortable for him as he contemplated it.

  In the midst of these burdensome thoughts Paul’s phone rang. Little did he know that the call would open a dark doorway to him, adding mishap to mishap and heartache to heartache. It was a call that would not only compound the crisis he presently faced, but would significantly affect the balance of his life.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Paul was obviously preoccupied as he made his way down the hall to Claire’s office on the second floor of the Administration Building. An acquaintance spoke to him, but he did not respond, for he was in a deep emotional vortex that blocked everything else from his immediate awareness. The phone call of the night before had come without warning and was devastating in its implications for him personally. He had slept little during the night, tossing and turning with the prospect of disconcerting things in his mind. He had made a disjointed classroom presentation that morning and when it became painfully apparent that he was off his stride, he dismissed the class early. Paul had not consciously decided to seek out Claire but was allowing himself to be governed by impulse – he was in the grip of an emotional need he had not previously experienced. He knew Claire’s schedule fairly well and was confident that she would be in. Paul entered the doorway marked Division of Conferences and Workshops and passed by the receptionist’s desk without so much as an acknowledgement of her presence. Claire’s office door was open and she was seated at her desk. She looked up in surprise as he came through the doorway.

  “Good morning,” she said brightly, “what brings you here?”

  Paul said nothing, but pushed the door closed behind him and slumped down on the sofa to the side of Claire’s desk. Distress was clearly written in the lines of his face.

  The cheerful tone in Claire’s voice now turned to one of concern. “What is it, Paul? What’s the matter?”

  He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his face enclosed within his hands. There was no response to Claire’s question.

  Claire, so used to Paul’s image of self-assurance, had not seen this side of the man that had so recently come to have a place of importance in her personal life. She got up from her desk and sat next to him on the sofa. “What is it, Paul?” she said again, touching him gently on the shoulder. “What has happened?”

  As he looked at her there was an expression of anguish on his face. His bloodshot and puffy eyes made it apparent that there had been little or no sleep for him during the previous night. “Claire, I have a ten-year-old son,” he said.

  Although Paul spoke as if he were making a confession, the fact that he had a child did not come as a jarring surprise to Claire, nor was it an uncomfortable revelation. She had assumed there were no children from the marriage Paul had mentioned earlier in such an elusive way. Nevertheless, she had been uncertain on this point, sensing that there was much more to say about the marriage than Paul had been willing to disclose. But as she looked into Paul’s troubled face this morning, she realized that the child must represent something in Paul’s life that had been purposely withheld from others, and that it had likely been pushed into the shadows of his own daily existence. She waited for him to unburden himself to her.

  Only once in earlier days had Paul been completely overwhelmed by the weight of circumstances. The pain of that earlier experience lingered with him to this very day, sublimated and sealed off from conscious thought, yet very much alive in its incessant assault upon his sense of wholeness as a man. And now, during the past twelve hours, this chronic spiritual malady had been exacerbated, becoming something more than an emotional canker as the trauma of past memories replayed themselves with increased intensity in consequence of a new twist in his life. It seemed that his fevered thoughts threatened to cripple him emotionally.

  He had been drawn to Claire this morning not solely because of the emerging affection in their relationship, but because she seemed to possess some inner resource that was absent in his life. Quite willing to face humiliation in her presence rather than face himself alone, Paul let down his guard for the first time in more than a decade, and perhaps for the first time in his adult life.

  “It was a good marriage at first,” said Paul, as he stepped to the brink of an emotional precipice, “in fact, it couldn’t have been better. And then there was an unanticipated pregnancy. I didn’t want there to be a baby. I had told her so early in our marriage. I’m not sure I ever wanted there to be children. On top of that, things were so tight financially that I saw no real way forward when she told me she was expecting. And then there was Cathy’s illness! Her symptoms coincided so closely with the problems of a difficult pregnancy that I was blind to the fact that her life was in jeopardy. I blamed her for being pregnant and …well, I suppose I punished her for it.

  “When the baby came I resented him … I let him come between us to the point that we became strangers. Cathy’s nausea and headaches persisted after the delivery and instead of being sympathetic I belittled her … accused her of malingering. I think I made her ashamed to acknowledge that she was really sick. … I made such an issue of her complaints that she didn’t dare get medical attention. … Perhaps she could have recovered if …”

  Paul’s words trailed off and he became silent, staring absently at nothing. Claire was perplexed as to how to respond but instinctively took Paul’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  Paul shook his head as he spoke with uncharacteristic self-condemnation. “I brought immense pain to the only person I had ever really loved. It’s a dark chapter in my life. I’ve never talked about it and I’ve tried to force myself not to think about it.”

  “And the baby? What became of him?”

  “She named him Michael. From the day of the birth I regarded him as her baby, not mine. I didn’t want him. He was an intrusion into my life – our life! I couldn’t take care of him after Cathy died, but more than that, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see him. He was a reminder of things I wanted to forget. Although he was just a baby, his very presence became an intolerable accusation against me. I wanted him out of my sight and out of my life. I considered placing him with an adoption agency, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that out of loyalty to Cathy.

  “It was strange, but during those fi
nal days in the hospital she must have had something of a spiritual experience because she suddenly started talking like a zealot. I think she sensed she might die and was determined that the boy should be raised to have a faith in God – something neither of us had experienced. The whole thing was deeply troubling to me and … well, I made things hard for her. Oh, Claire, there are so many things I should have done differently!”

  “And where is Michael now?”

  “After Cathy’s death I asked my aunt and uncle if they would take the baby – be parents to him. They were the only ones among my relatives that hadn’t made a disaster out of their lives, and Cathy’s family was worse off than my own. I haven’t spoken to my mother since my late teens, and my father was in his second marriage at the time of Cathy’s death, struggling to raise a second family.

  “Charles, my father’s brother, was always the butt of family jokes. My mother detested him. In her eyes he lacked the sophistication that she had so carefully engendered in her own life. He never completed high school and had spent most of his life working with his hands. He was in his early thirties when he hired on with the Kaiser Steel Plant at Eagle Mountain, California, and over the years he gradually worked his way up through the ranks to become one of their managers. My Aunt Anna is a homespun woman. She had no family name nor money, but she loved Charles and waited patiently until he felt the same about her. With the exception of an aunt that died during my childhood, they’re the only relatives I ever enjoyed being around. Charles and Anna are ‘believing’ people. They’re the only family members who are practicing Christians. That’s the main reason I asked them to take Michael.”

  Paul became quiet again, his thoughts obviously consumed with another time and place. Claire waited, pondering the significance of his words. They were difficult words for a man who had closed this private portion of his life, removing it from the scrutiny of others and from himself. He stood and slowly walked to the window in the corner of Claire’s office. Hands in his pockets, he stood there in silence before continuing. “I tried to honor Cathy’s wishes,” he said plaintively. “Giving Michael to Charles and Anna seemed to be the best way to do that. I set up a trust fund for the baby and gave them full access to it. Over the years my bank has continued to make automatic deposits to that account.”

  Paul turned from the window, his gaze was downward and his voice was quiet. “I wanted to be free of Michael. I didn’t want to see him or hear about him. I told Charles I didn’t want any letters or phone calls, no photographs. There was to be no connection with the boy. He represented things I wanted cut out of my life. In ten years I’ve never sent him a birthday card or a present. I’m not sure he even knows he has a father, but now I’ve got to face him as well as the past. Maybe that’s why you’ve come into my life, Claire. … I need your help with this thing I have to do. I really don’t think that I can do it by myself.”

  “What is it, Paul?” asked Claire. “What is it you have to do?”

  “It’s unfinished business for me,” Paul said grimly. “I took things from life that didn’t belong to me, and now it’s time to pay the debt.” Paul’s voice was distant and detached. It was something unfamiliar to Claire. “Isn’t that what the ‘believers’ teach? - Every wrong has to be paid for, some time, some place – and for me it’s foreclosure time.”

  There were things Claire wanted to say and questions she wanted to ask but she resisted, thinking it best to wait and see exactly what Paul was getting at in his disjointed ramblings.

  After a few moments, he looked into Claire’s face for the first time since he had entered her office. “My son is seriously ill,” he said. … “He has the same symptoms his mother had before she died.” His speech evidenced the pain of an unresolved personal tragedy. Paul now began to pace back and forth as he spoke. “They have a small dispensary at Eagle Mountain, but no real medical facilities. Anna called me last night to say that she and Charles couldn’t keep Michael any longer. Their doctor won’t even hazard a diagnosis. They want me to bring him to San Diego and have him undergo tests at one of the hospitals here.

  “… You know, Claire, I’ve never been afraid of anybody, but I’m afraid of that boy. … He has every right to hate me, … and there’s justice in that because I suppose I hated him. I didn’t want to be a father, Claire. It was thrust upon me. I wasn’t ready for it. It wasn’t just that it was inconvenient, I was afraid of it and I’m even more afraid of it now. I’m just not sure that I can do this thing. Does the God you believe in do things like this, Claire? Is he doing this to me? Is he making me pay for mistakes I’ve made? – for turning my back on the baby? – for what I did to Cathy? … She needed me and I turned away from her. I hurt her and was never able to tell her that I was sorry. The truth of it is, I wasn’t sorry enough!”

  All of this had taken Claire completely by surprise. But her greatest surprise was Paul’s distraught frame of mind. His reaction to this crisis opened a whole new dimension of his personality to her. She stood and moved to him. He seemed to be such a lonely, desperate figure standing there in the middle of her office. She embraced him tenderly, and in response, he clasped her tightly to him. His embrace was not the product of passion but of great personal need.

  “I’ll go with you to get your son,” she said quietly. “I will help you, I promise.”

  The next day was Saturday and very early in the morning Paul and Claire set out for the Eagle Mountain Plant near Desert Center, California. It was a beautiful day with the glory of summer approaching. The stretch of land on either side of Highway 395 north of San Diego was alive with vibrantly colored wildflowers. There was a noticeable absence of the bouncing, carefree conversation that had been a part of their earlier private moments, nor did the conversation involve the philosophical differences that still lurked just beneath the surface in a tenuous relationship. That relationship was now based upon emerging feelings of mutual affection that made it essential for the two of them to be together in facing the challenge awaiting Paul at Eagle Mountain.

  Paul was taken by Claire’s beauty, but more than that, he was drawn to her because of her personal goodness and abiding self-assurance. Claire’s feelings for Paul involved something far more complicated. She had sensed his capacity for warmth and tenderness, which was masked by anger and cynicism. More importantly, she was drawn to him by some inner instinct she regarded as illogical. Although she was wary of the dark side of his nature, she believed that there was something fine and noble within him that had not yet been harvested. At times in their brief association this faith seemed to be completely unfounded. And although she was fond of him, she worried that her affection might be ill advised and – possibly damaging to her. But at the moment her finest feminine qualities were awakened and moved her forward in empathy and compassion.

  As they drove through a less traveled part of Southern California with its semi-arid beauty, Claire finally broached the subject which Paul had touched only lightly in their earlier conversations – the thing he had hidden from others as well as himself. It involved a chapter of his life she needed to understand, and at this point she knew Paul well enough to be confident that he would confide in her. “Help me understand how your love for Cathy could turn cold to the point that you were willing to hurt her,” she said, … “unless I am intruding into something that is too private for you to discuss.”

  After a few moments of thought, Paul’s cautiously began to speak, and then gradually moved forward without reservation as if he needed to open his life to her view. Their conversation now became entirely one-sided, driven by the Paul’s need to confide, to confess, and to seek some measure of absolution.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, 1957

  As newlyweds, Paul and Cathy moved from San Diego to Michigan where Paul enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor. They made their home in a cracker box of an apartment complex in Ypsilanti. Here, strings of row houses accommodated many
married students who were struggling to cut living expenses while pursuing educational aspirations. These hastily constructed prefab homes had been built during World War II as an influx of migrant workers came from the South to seek employment at the Willow Run Bomber Plant in Ypsilanti. Paul, like many other married students, made the daily drive from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor to attend classes at the University. It was inconvenient, but the housing was inexpensive.

  This evening Paul had found it impossible to study. Leaving his books strewn across the kitchen table he walked to the living room window and parted the white panel curtains Cathy had so carefully made and hung. He peered out into the night, which was illuminated only slightly by the bare bulb of a single streetlamp. A gust of wind swept up a pile of leaves, sending them scurrying down the empty street. It was late fall in Ypsilanti and there were hints of a rapidly approaching winter in the air. Illuminated windows on the opposite side of the street seemed to emit a kind of emotional warmth, for within these small dwellings, hopes and dreams were aglow as student couples lived on Spartan budgets and much idealism. But where Paul lived, emotional warmth was in short supply. For months, he and Cathy had barely been on speaking terms as mutual dreams had given way to painful disappointment and bleak prospects.

  Through the thin walls of the housing complex there came the faint sound of a baby’s cry from the Bartlett’s apartment next door. It was Paul’s infant son, Michael. Lucy Bartlett, likewise a student wife, had been caring for him during Cathy’s emergency hospitalization – a development that had suddenly turned Paul’s life upside down. Paul’s relationship with Lucy could well be described as an uneasy truce. He was convinced that the crisis he now faced was, in some measure, the result of her influence. In his eyes she was an intruder, a self-appointed soap opera heroine who had made it her business to defend Cathy against Paul. She had become a confidant for Cathy following the move to Michigan, commiserating with her as she frequently spoke of her unfulfilled desires for a baby. It was Paul’s perception that Lucy had aided and abetted this preoccupation of Cathy’s as it gradually drove an emotional wedge between her and Paul. His unresponsiveness to her longings had spawned an endless stream of innuendoes on Cathy’s part as well as periods of sulking and depression. But then it had finally happened. The thing Cathy had desired with such intensity became a reality and she announced to Paul that she was expecting.

 

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