Chapter Thirty-Two
The good news was that Maya had finally stopped asking about Ryan.
The bad news was also that Maya had finally stopped asking about Ryan.
Somehow, the fact that Maya really was moving on—or that she’d at least realized how sad it made Claire to talk about it, and so was trying to stop moping—only made Claire sadder. Because then it really was over between them.
She tried to remind herself not to be surprised. This was Ryan. He’d done this once before. He wasn’t the type to call, write, or do anything to show he might have any feelings. He may have called her parents a few times years ago, but it was hard to feel like that much mattered anymore. The truth was, he never really tried.
And it wasn’t like she could call him. What was she supposed to say? Please come back, even though I know you don’t really want to? I made a really big mistake with you, so drop everything in your life and come back to this place where you don’t know anyone, don’t have any career prospects, and probably don’t want to live anyway?
Even if nothing bad had happened that weekend of the conference, it was hard to picture them working out. At some point, he would have gotten tired of Gold Mountain and wanted to go back to Chicago. His manager would have demanded it. He’d be off on tour again soon, anyway. And it wasn’t like being in a relationship and raising a family was like the vacation he’d been on the whole time he’d been here, where everything was fun and exciting, and nothing felt like actual work.
So she was determined. If Maya could forget about him, so could she.
She was running late, scrambling to finish her last client, pick up Maya from after-school, and make it home before hangry meltdowns started. Her hands were full with her purse and Maya’s art project from school, so when she got out her keys, she grabbed the mail stuck behind the screen, shoved it under her arm, and used her hip to push open the front door. It wasn’t until she dropped the whole pile on the kitchen table as Maya ran inside that she realized there was something besides the usual stacks of bills and junk mail.
She had a package. It was a thin yellow envelope, padded, and although there wasn’t a name on the return address, there didn’t need to be.
There was only one person she knew who lived in Chicago.
And she’d recognize his handwriting anywhere.
“Bug, go wash your hands and read to your dinos while I make dinner,” she called, staring at the envelope.
Her hands were trembling. It wasn’t until she heard Maya run upstairs to her room that she dared to slide her finger under the flap and open it.
Inside, there wasn’t a letter. There wasn’t even a note. There was just a CD, one of those generic silver ones she remembered burning mixes on.
She opened it.
Bedroom Songs, it said.
What the actual fuck. He couldn’t even call her? He couldn’t write more than two measly words?
Also, what the hell kind of album title was that?
She walked over to the CD player in the living room, pulled out Maya’s favorite old Raffi CD Claire’s parents had bought her at a yard sale, popped in the thing from Ryan, and pressed play.
She’d heard him sing a million times before. She’d heard him in concerts, on albums, polished and perfect on the radio. And she’d heard him in the quiet of their basement apartment, late at night, humming to himself, trying to pick out a tune. She’d heard him belt songs in the shower, whisper songs in her ear, even sing along with Maya, making up the wrong words to her favorite songs to get her to laugh.
She thought she’d heard every way there was for him to sound. Everything there was for him to say. She’d been so sure that it wasn’t enough, that what he had for her wasn’t enough.
Only what was pouring through her speakers wasn’t anything she’d ever heard before.
The recording was as basic as it could be. She guessed that was why he’d called it Bedroom Songs. She pictured him sitting on the bed, just him and his guitar, pressing record on his phone and starting to play.
She could hear sirens in the background, the rush of water from the upstairs neighbor opening the tap, the occasional shout from the street. At one point he lost his place, laughed a little, and kept going.
But the effect wasn’t distracting. It was as though she was right there in the room with him, curled up in bed with a pillow and a cup of coffee, hearing him sing just for her.
The songs covered everything. One was slow and soulful, about what he wished he’d said to Claire the day that he’d left. Another was faster, edgier, and she heard the anger in his voice as he sang to his younger self about the mistakes he was making. There was a song for Maya, about how it could be possible to love someone you’d never met before.
When Ryan sang that he wasn’t the same person anymore, Claire had to believe him. The Ryan she used to know would never have made himself this vulnerable. Especially not in his music, where he always had something to prove. She’d thought he didn’t care, that he was just as happy to walk away from her and go back to his regular life.
But the album said he hadn’t left her—not really. And there was no more “regular life.” There was life together, and then there was the time they spent limping through, apart.
“Mom?”
Claire was so engrossed in the music she hadn’t heard Maya come downstairs. She was holding a book in one hand and her dinosaur in the other, and she looked completely confused. “Mom, why are you crying?”
Claire touched her face, and she realized her cheeks were wet. She pulled Maya onto her lap and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m okay. I just had a bit of a surprise.”
“Is that Ryan?” Maya asked, realizing what they were listening to.
Claire ran her fingers through Maya’s hair, untangling the knots. “It sure is.”
“He’s really good,” Maya said, and Claire laughed.
“Yeah,” she said. “He is.”
They listened together, Maya sitting on Claire’s lap, rocking to the music.
“Why does he sound so sad?” Maya asked.
“It’s okay to be sad sometimes.”
“I don’t want him to be sad, though.”
“I know,” Claire said. “Me neither.”
And she meant it.
Suddenly, Maya shot up out of her lap. “He has a song about dinosaurs!”
Claire listened as the next song started up, and yup, Maya was right. He was singing about a T. rex in a bouncy tune that started off sounding silly and then grew serious in the chorus, turning into a song about imagination and that moment when you grow up and stop thinking anything is possible—when something as straightforward as wanting someone to be happy feels like the most complex thing in the world.
Maya had started off elated, but now she turned skeptical, looking at Claire with a frown. “How come even his dinosaur song is so sad?”
Claire looked at her daughter, at her thick, dark hair and her storm cloud eyes. She took in the trembling of her bottom lip and the confusion on her face, and thought about what her friends had said. Would all of this have been easier if she’d just told Maya the truth?
She hadn’t wanted Maya to be hurt. But now here they were, and nothing had turned out as she’d expected, which meant none of her rules seemed to make a whole lot of sense anymore.
“Come here, bug,” she said, pulling Maya back into her lap. “I want to tell you something. It’s kind of a big thing. But you’re a big kid, and I think you’re ready to hear it.”
“Okay,” Maya said.
“Okay,” Claire repeated. Then she took a deep breath. “I want to tell you about your dad.”
And she did.
Maya’s eyes went wide. Like, really wide. She kept making Claire repeat it, and Claire did, patiently. She told Maya she’d answer any questions and promised herself that she’d be honest. Which was a little hard—what if Maya asked questions Claire didn’t want to answer before her daughter was forty? But she should have known Maya wasn’t going to push that hard. Later, she was sure there’d be more. But right now, it was all Maya could do to take it in.
Claire explained that she’d known Ryan before. That she’d loved him very much, and they made Maya together, but then they couldn’t stay together, and Claire had to come to Washington to be with her family.
Maya was quiet for a moment, listening to the music. “Do you think he’s sad because he went back to Chicago?”
“I think that’s exactly why he’s sad.”
“If he’s sad that he’s in Chicago, and you’re sad that he’s in Chicago, and I’m sad that he’s in Chicago, and Dino’s sad that he’s in Chicago”—Maya held up her stuffed toy—“then what’s he still doing in Chicago?”
Maya squirmed in her lap and looked up at her, and Claire wondered if she’d ever get used to a five-year-old being smarter than her sometimes.