9. Lake #2
Another photograph. Levi standing in cowboy boots, coat pockets bulging.
“He’s obsessed with collecting rocks. Cute little pebbles. Sharp jagged gravel. Doesn’t matter. My mother found one in the dryer last week and thought the machine was exploding.” She suppresses a smile, but fails.
I study the image. Sure enough, his little pockets are stretched wide, rounded with whatever treasure he’s stuffed inside.
Something shifts under my ribs. Not enough to soften the rage. Enough to let the deep sorrow in.
Tears pour down my face. Noa sees but doesn’t try to comfort me.
Good. If she tried, I’d lose my fucking mind.
“Does he talk?” The question scrapes out.
“Yes.” She nods. “Mama. Nana. Rock. Dog. Boat. He’s learning more every day.”
I stare at the picture. “Does he say Dad?”
“Not yet.”
Her answer is like a stab in my gut, which is insane because of course he doesn’t.
I press my thumb against the edge of the photograph.
Noa’s voice softens. “He knows he has a father. But he’s a little young to understand everything.”
“I was going to tell you after he was born,” she continues slowly. “I had some personal issues, though, in addition to learning how to be a mom. Then your career exploded. You were overseas, on tour, awards, interviews, everything. The next thing I knew, he was two and you were hard to get to.”
“What personal issues?” I meet her gaze.
Noa sighs heavily, taps one finger on the folder.
“In college, I got involved in some shit and moved back home after graduation. My folks helped on the condition I’d stop partying.
I’d been clean for nearly a year and relapsed.
The night I met you, I was high. The next morning, my parents sent me to rehab.
I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later.
It took all my focus to make sure Levi was born healthy.
Both of our lives depended on me not falling back into drugs, alcohol, parties, and chaos.
All of the things I thought might be surrounding you, especially when you were running in certain circles.
Maybe it wasn’t fair to judge you. Most likely, I was wrong.
I can live with those being true. What I couldn’t do was risk being wrong in the other direction. ”
I want to argue. Tell her she had no right to make that call. Part of me wonders, though, if my life would have been different if my own mother loved me as much as Noa clearly loves Levi.
My anger doesn’t disappear. It changes shape. Starts making room for what I don’t want to understand, but do. “Why now?”
“I’m better. Strong in my sobriety.” She tilts her head. “My father is Bill Calder, he helped get me to Linus. I didn’t want you to go another day without knowing Levi, if you wanted to. As he said earlier, he wanted to make sure the DNA was confirmed before he involved you.”
I turn toward him.
“You can hate me, but my job is to protect you.” Linus steps closer, stopping near the end of the table. “Families come together in all sorts of messy ways, brother. You know this more than most people.”
My eyes snap to hers. “I want to see him.”
“Okay.” She nods.
“Today.”
Her eyes close briefly. “I can’t do today.”
My palm slams against the table before I can stop it. The water glass jumps. Noa flinches. So does Linus.
The sound cracks through the room and leaves shame behind it.
I step back, breathing hard.
Noa’s face has gone pale, but her voice stays even. “That’s why it’s not time, yet.”
Her words are worse than any accusation. I look at my hand on the table. The glass. Then at the photographs of Levi. My son doesn’t know me.
If he were here, he’d be terrified of me. I drag both hands over my face. “Fuck.”
“I’m not keeping him from you.” She reaches over and touches my hand lightly. “I’m asking you to do this the right way. For him. Meet the therapist first. Then we can plan the first visit in a way he can handle.”
I glare at her “In a way he can handle.”
“Yes.”
“What about what I can handle?”
“I don’t know how to make this bearable for you.” Her mouth trembles once before she gets control of it. “I wish I did.”
I can’t control my emotions for a moment longer. My sobs are wracking. Heaving.
Embarrassing.
“He sings.” Noa’s voice shifts in a way I haven’t heard before. Warm. Unprotected. “Mostly nonsense. He doesn’t have enough words for songs yet, but he knows melodies.”
I look up at her.
“Only for your songs, though. The first time one played in a café, he stopped moving and babbled through the whole chorus.” She rests her face in her palm. “It happens all the time now. When you stop singing, he’s pissed.”
The room empties out around me. My anger can’t hold up in the face of knowing the son I never met hums my songs. A little boy I’ve never seen carries my melodies around in his mouth and doesn’t know they belong to his father.
I lower my head. Compose myself. When I finally settle, the rage is still there, banked low, hot under the grief. It’ll be there tomorrow. Probably for a long time. Maybe forever in some corner of me.
But it isn’t the most important thing anymore.
Levi is.
Noa’s eyes are wet, now. She’s watched me process all of this in real time.
I clear my throat. “When can we meet with the therapist?”
“Well. Should we exchange numbers?” She blinks. “I can text you options.”
“No. All of this goes through Linus.” I shake my head. There’s no way I’m letting her back into my life until I meet with a lawyer and figure out what my rights are.
She nods. “Fair.”
I lean back in the chair with Levi’s photograph in my hand and stare at the little boy who has my eyes, his mother’s chin, and two and a half years of life I’ll never get back.
Today’s been possibly the worst day of my life.
But also, possibly, the best.