I'm awake before I hear the notes.
Middle C, G
Christian!
The alarm clock says 2:30, no surprise there. She's nothing if not punctual.
Christian!
I'm tempted to cry, "Coming, mother!" but refrain, mainly because I don't want to wake Anastasia but also because I can't relate to this specter / hallucination / whatever it is, as my mother.
Christian!
Now I'm getting irritated so I take my time putting on pajama pants and a t-shirt. I'm a grown man, a husband and father, the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. If this really is my mother returned from the grave, she lost the right to boss me around twenty-six years ago.
These thoughts occupy my mind as I pad across the balcony and down the stairs. By the time I get to the music room I've worked myself up into a lather. When I enter, she's not standing by the window and it throws me a little off my game.
Christian!
I look around the room and finally see her sitting on the couch. Even though it's dark, there's enough light from the windows to illuminate the white gown she's wearing. Hoping that she'll disappear, I walk over and turn on a lamp but she's still there. Just like the other evening, I'm struck by her beauty.
Come sit by me, baby boy.
"No!" The vehemence of my response shocks me. I'm repulsed and fascinated by her at the same time. I don't want to be near her but I've finally realized that I really do need to hear what she has to say. After closing the door to reduce the likelihood of being disturbed (or disturbing others), I sit on the piano bench; it's close enough to observe her and far enough away that she can't reach out and touch me. Since she seems to be speaking through my mind, distance doesn't matter in terms of hearing her.
"What do you want from me?" My tone of voice is still sharp and I can tell that it upsets her. I've spent a good part of my life learning to read people and it seems I can do that even if they're dead. I'm rather pleased by this.
I don't want anything from you, Christian. I've been trying to tell you, I'm here to warn you.
"Are you able to use your voice?" I interrupt.
I don't know, I haven't tried.
"Would you try, please? I find it very annoying to hear your voice buzzing in my head."
"Is this better? Can you hear me?"
Better? I'm not sure. The sound of her voice is quite disconcerting, more so than when I heard it in my head. It brings back memories of her; it's familiar but more intense than I remember. Like her face, it's beautiful, with a lilting, musical timbre. Ironically, I'm speechless.
"Christian? Are you all right?"
I start to answer her but have to stop and clear my throat. The effect her voice has on me is so unexpected. I'm mesmerized, almost like when she touched me with her hand the other night, but without the bad memories. In fact, it's quite pleasant.
"Yes, I'm fine," I finally manage to stammer. "What's this all about?" I can't keep the harshness out of my voice, not that I'm really trying to. I could be sleeping in my nice soft bed next to my beautiful wife, not sitting on a hard piano bench listening to some ghost.
"Have you heard me tell you he's alive?"
"Yes," I reply, "Who's 'he'?"
"'He' is your birth father."
So there it is. I think back to my last session with Flynn when we speculated on the man she was warning me about. And now I know.
"Fine, he's alive. Why are you telling me this?" The pleasant effect of her voice is wearing off.
"Because he's coming after you, Christian."
I snort. "Coming after me? For what?"
"I'm fairly certain it's money. He's led a pretty miserable existence and he recently found out about his relationship to you."
The questions start piling up in my brain and I spill them out, "How do you know this? Why are you telling me? What do you want me to do?"
"I don't know how I know, Christian; I only know that I can see things that affect you, and your birth father's life is one of those things. It's different here on the other side; I don't always understand how everything happens. As to why I'm telling you, I tried to tell you the other day, I need to make amends for the horrible way I took care of you."
"Took care of me?" I interrupt. I'm starting to get angry; the memories are coming back and seeing her sitting there only fuels my rage. "You call this taking care of me?" I lift my tshirt and show her my bare chest. Standing up, I walk over to her and yell, "Look at what your 'care' did to me! Look at the marks your 'care' left on me!" She turns her head and it increases my fury. "LOOK AT THEM!" I scream.
"I'm so sorry, Christian," she whispers, looking up at me.
"SORRY?!" I yell and turn around, showing her my bare back. "Will 'sorry' take these away?! Will it, mommy!? Will 'sorry' take away the memories of starving in that stinkhole?" I yank my shirt back down and go back to the piano bench. Sitting down and putting my head in my hands, I try to control myself. The rage I feel is starting to scare me. I would like nothing more than to put my hands around her neck and strangle her but obviously that would accomplish nothing – she's already dead.
And just like that, I start to giggle. This whole thing is so fucking absurd. I want to kill a ghost! I could kill you, I think to myself, oops, sorry, you're already dead! And I break out in a fit of hysterical laughter.
"Christian, are you okay?" For some reason, this sets off even more laughter. I struggle to get myself under control but it's difficult. After a minute or so, I take a couple of deep breaths and feel the resentment return.
"Your concern is very touching, mommy," I sneer, "Where was all that concern twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago?"
"I know, Christian, I know. Believe me, if I could turn back the clock and redo everything there is so much that I would change. I will never be able to erase the pain I caused you. But I'm being given a chance here – why, I don't know – but I'm doing whatever I can to protect you now."
"And just how are you going to do that, mommy?" I can't keep the acid out of my voice. All traces of laughter are gone and my anger is building again. "Do you have some supernatural powers, like maybe you can swoop down and strike him dead? Or make yourself a shield between him and me? Tell me, how will you protect your little boy, mommy?"
"Please let me speak, son. I know you're finding all of this hard to believe. Like I keep saying, I don't understand all of it myself."
I don't know if she's using her voice to calm me down or if I'm finally able to control my emotions again but I'm feeling less agitated. The resentment is still there but at least now I'm able to keep it below the surface.
"All right, then," I tell her, "You can have your say and then you can leave me alone. I'm listening." I cross my legs and clasp my hands over my knees, hoping that by assuming a relaxed pose my inner turmoil will diminish. If ever there were a time to use my impassive face, this is it.
"How much do you know of your birth family?"
The question is unexpected and I take my time answering it. "Not much, really. I only remember you, no one else. Grace, my real mom, probably has more information but I never bothered to ask her about it. I found out shortly after I got married that when my parents wanted to adopt me they had to wait two months to see if any living relatives wanted to claim me. Obviously, none of them did. What does this have to do with anything?"
"I need to make you understand some things about your birth father. This way you'll be better prepared to deal with him when you meet him."
"What makes you think I'll meet him? If he's after me like you think he is, wouldn't he have shown his face to me by now?"
"I know he's in the Seattle area, Christian, and I know what kind of man he is. Not just from my relationship with him but I've been allowed to see how his life unfolded from the time I left him. Don't underestimate him. If he hasn't contacted you yet, there's probably a reason for it."
"Look, I pay beaucoup bucks for state of the art security systems and top notch security staff. If there's any threat to me or my family, I'm confident that they'll take care of it."
"You don't understand. He's very good at taking advantage of people's vulnerabilities. He can be very charming if it serves his purpose." She lowers her eyes and almost whispers, "That's how you came to be."
All of a sudden I'm feeling rather uncomfortable. I mean, even if she is a hallucination, do I really want to know about my conception?
"I really think you should know the whole story," she says, almost as if she's read my mind. And now it becomes very important to me to know if she can or not.
"Can you read my mind?"
She's taken aback by the question. "No, no, I can't," she answers, "I can speak into it, it seems, but I can't tell at all what you're thinking. It's one way telepathy."
"Okay, I was just curious. Do go on with your story," I tell her; I'm the epitome of politeness.
"We met in high school. I knew who he was but he never paid attention to me until we were in a couple classes together our senior year. He had a rep for being the love 'em and leave 'em type so when he zeroed in on me I brushed him off but he was persistent. Like I said, he's very good about getting his way.
"I agreed to go to the homecoming dance with him and after that, we became a steady couple. He was one of the popular guys and me, while I'd dated some, I was never part of the cool crowd. He changed all that. Besides being tall and good-looking, he had a really great band that actually played a lot of gigs in the area. He found out that I liked to sing and when he heard me, he asked me to join them. From then on, rehearsing and performing with his band was the basis of our relationship.
"He was ambitious and wanted to make a career in music but he knew how tough it could be so he decided to study business. Both of us applied to Michigan and Michigan State. We'd go with whichever school offered the best deal to at least one of us and that turned out to be Michigan – they offered him a half scholarship. That summer after graduation was the best time of my life. We rehearsed and performed and partied.
"It all came crashing down that first semester in Ann Arbor. It started out great – we were all excited about our classes and living away from home. We got together with the band about twice a month. And then I got pregnant. It was such a shock to us since we'd always been so careful.
"We finished the semester, then went back home to Detroit and got married. His dad got him a job at the GM assembly plant and I got a job at a fast food restaurant. We did all right but everything changed and not for the better. Now that we were back home and working, his dream of a career in music seemed so unreachable. We tried to rehearse a couple nights a week but it was tough – we were both so tired after working all day. Plus the dynamics had all changed.
"We lived with his parents and that made it even tougher. They made it clear that we'd fucked up and they mostly blamed me. I couldn't wait until we were on our own but that didn't happen until over a year after you were born.
"Once we got our own apartment, things didn't improve as much as I'd hoped. Money was always tight. My dad wasn't well and couldn't help us. His parents helped whenever they could but that wasn't very often. Mostly his mom helped by taking care of you when we needed her. Your father and I worked opposite shifts so someone was always home with you but there were times when he or I needed to work overtime so we'd call her to watch you. My mom had passed when I was eight so my in-laws were our only resource.
"Of course, once you were born there was even less time for the band and your father's moods got worse and worse. He started blaming me for everything that was wrong in our lives and he grew more distant from you. That hurt so much. You were such a beautiful baby and hardly any trouble. Like I said, he stayed with you when I was working but I'd come home and find you crying and your diaper soiled. He didn't hear because he was singing and playing his guitar so loudly. Or he'd be sleeping.
"He became verbally abusive. Then they had layoffs at the plant and he was one of them. It got worse and worse after that. He hit me a couple times and I started worrying that he'd hurt you. I couldn't move in with my dad and whenever I brought it up to his parents they said it was all my fault, that I'd made my bed and I should lie in it.
"He looked for a job halfheartedly. Most of the time he played music and smoked weed or drank. He was drawing unemployment but that didn't make up for his salary and we were barely making a living.
"The final straw was when I came home from work and found him in bed with the new singer they got for the band after I dropped out. I remember the music blaring so loud that I heard it from the street. You were screaming your lungs out. From that point on, I could never hear AC/DC without thinking of that night.
"I packed you up right away and left. I had no idea where I was going but I wasn't going to stay with him any longer. We ended up in a motel near the airport. What hurt was that he didn't even come looking for us. It was like we were baggage that he was glad to get rid of.
"I struggled to make ends meet, leaving you in a cheap daycare while I worked. We stayed in that roach-infested motel until I found a small basement apartment that wasn't much better but it was cheaper. The couple who owned the place was nice but they weren't that much better off financially than me so repairs went unmade. But she did watch you while I worked so that helped. And then I met the man who changed our lives." She stops and sighs.
In spite of myself, I've been enthralled by her narrative. And now my stomach sinks because I'm pretty sure who the man is that she's going to talk about. I'm bracing myself for it when there's a knock at the door.
"Mr. Grey?" Shit, it's Taylor. I look at the door in annoyance and when I look back, she's gone. Fuck!