Too Near the Edge by Lynn Osterkamp

grandmother’s paintings on the far
wall. “Dad never talked about her. Most of his energy went into his
work. Not that he neglected us—everything was organized at home. We
had our charts of jobs and our point system.”
    “And you didn’t get any points for talking to
him about your feelings.”
    “Actually, I don’t even remember wanting to.
As soon as I was old enough, I put my energy into sports. I’ve
always been athletic. I played tennis, soccer, and basketball. And
I skied and hiked whenever I could. I still do.” Sharon perked up
as she mentioned the sports.
    “So you got out of the house and into a
different point system.”
    “Yes. And after that I couldn’t wait to get
out of there and go away to college.”
    I could easily relate to her desire to escape
an overbearing father. But as a therapist my job was to listen, not
to share my personal experiences. So I nodded, and asked, “So you
did go to an out-of-state school?”
    “Absolutely. Dad’s a sucker for education, so
as long as my grades were first-rate, he was willing to spend the
money to send me to an expensive school. I went to Stanford, and I
loved Palo Alto and the school. But I missed Colorado, so after I
graduated, I came back and got my Masters degree in social work at
the University of Denver,” Sharon said, clinking the ice cubes
around in her empty glass.
    “Is that where you met Adam?” I took a few
notes on a yellow pad, beginning a social history on Sharon.
    “No, I met Adam three years ago here in
Boulder. We were only married two years. He’s not Nathan’s father.
They were really close, though, and Nathan started calling Adam
‘Dad’ after we got married. And last fall Adam adopted Nathan. That
was Nathan’s choice. You can imagine how Adam’s death has hit
him.”
    “What about Nathan’s father?”
    “His name is Joel,” Sharon sighed. “He left
when I was pregnant with Nathan. I was 26 and we’d been together
for two years. We weren’t married because Joel always said it would
be unfair to both of us if he made a long-term commitment before he
really knew himself.”
    “So he left when he found out you were
pregnant?”
    “No, at first Joel got into the idea of being
a dad. We planned to get married. But one day I came home from work
to find him gone, his things cleared out. He left a long letter
explaining that he had been having nightmares where he found
himself trapped in a small space, desperately trying to escape. He
wrote that as much as he wanted to stay with me, he knew these
dreams were a sign that he wasn’t ready.”
    I hoped Joel had been at least an absentee
father to his son. “Has he kept in touch with Nathan?”
    “No, we never heard from him at all—until
last February when he called out of the blue and said he wanted to
come and visit and meet Nathan. Right!! After eight years, he’s
finally ready! I told him to forget it. He never cared before, and
now Nathan had finally found a dad in Adam. We didn’t need Joel
showing up and complicating our lives.”
    “What about child support?”
    “I never tried to get anything from Joel
after he left. In fact, since he left so early in my pregnancy, I
didn’t even put his name on Nathan’s birth certificate. I figured I
could raise Nathan on my own, and if Joel didn’t want to be
involved, that was his choice. But that also meant he couldn’t just
drop back into our lives at his convenience.”
    “It sounds like you’ve had a lot of loss
earlier in your life—and now Adam. I know you said you really want
to talk to him again. Is that mostly because you miss him so much?
Or is there something specific?”
    Sharon leaned forward and looked me in the
eye. “I just can’t believe that Adam would fall accidentally like
that. In the first place, the canyon rim isn’t even a hike. Adam
saw it more as a walking meditation. But he was so fanatical about
hiking safety—reviewing maps, preparing for weather fluctuations,
carrying food and