by Terra Little
“You know what’s funny, Jasper? I always said that if I’d had a daddy, I’d want him to be just like you,” Pam admitted. A sob rose in her throat and she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep it in.
“You did have one, you just didn’t know it.”
“I wish I would’ve known it.”
“I do, too.” He came away from the sofa and walked over to her, stopping a few feet away. “You got my mama’s forehead, you know that? Got them green eyes from Moira, but the shape of them, that’s my mama, too. You never knew her cause she was long gone by the time you and Paris was born, but so many times I looked at you and had to go in my office, lock the door and cry.”
“I want to be so angry with you.” Pam’s fists balled at her sides and she pressed them to her mouth as she walked away from him. Her feet took her to the window, where she stood looking down on a deserted Main Street. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Behind her, she heard the flicker of a lighter and seconds later cigarette smoke reached her nose. The smell of a burning Viceroy was steady and familiar to her, reminding her of all the years she’d been close enough to him to breathe in his second-hand smoke. “I always wondered why we seemed to have more things than the other kids, clothes and toys and shit. I always wondered where they came from. It was you, wasn’t it?”
Jasper studied Pam’s back through the smoke he sent into the air. Part of him wanted to lie, for fear that she’d think he was bragging or trying to excuse himself, but he felt that enough lies had been told to last a lifetime. “Me and Moira,” he said. “She did just as much as I did. We fixed it so we was you and Paris’s sponsors. We would sit up all night going over your Christmas lists, trying to figure out where we was gone find all the stuff you wanted. Liked to drove me to drink a few times.”
“You and Moira . . .”
“We carried on for a few months, long enough to make you and Paris, but it was what it was. We never had no problems with you and Paris though. We both loved you two, Pam. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“I told you I don’t want to hear about Moira,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at him.
“She’s part of this, too. You can’t ignore her forever and I decided that I ain’t gone let you ignore me. You planning on talking to her anytime soon?”
“I wasn’t planning on talking to you, Jasper. I haven’t thought far enough ahead to even consider Moira.”
“It wasn’t all her fault. I’m to blame too. You want to cuss me some more, go ahead.”
Now she turned from the window and faced him. “I said some things to you that I didn’t really mean to say.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “You forget who you’re talking to, gal? You said what you meant and meant what you said. You must be getting old if you all of a sudden trying to apologize for speaking your mind. I thought I taught you better than that?”
“You taught me a lot of things, Jasper. You know you did.”
Jasper approached Pam slowly, his eyes steady on hers. When he was close enough to touch her he reached out and took her hand, held it between both of his in the space that separated them. “You and Paris, ya’ll was my heart, my babies. I used to come to the home and hold you in my arms when you was too little to know it was me and you used to laugh when I would bite your toes. Paris, she didn’t like her feet to be fooled with too much, but she cracked up when I got my fingers under her arms and tickled her. You reckon she’s somewhere in heaven cursing me straight to hell?”
The sight of Jasper crying humbled Pam. His nostrils flared as tears slowly tracked down his cheeks. “I don’t think so.” Because she couldn’t help herself, she used her free hand to wipe the tears from his face.
“What about you? You cursing me to hell?”
She looked everywhere, but at him. He released her hand when she tugged on it and she pretended not to hear him moan when she stepped back from him. “I have to go,” she told him.
“I’m going back to California.”
“Pam . . . I . . .” He lifted a hand, then let it drop. His lips were moving before he found his voice. “I love you.”
“I know you do, Jasper.” She had no trouble telling the truth. He’d always made her feel loved, even when he was fussing. “I always knew that.” The scent of Old Spice mingled with tobacco assaulted her senses. Drawn to it, Pam moved closer to him and laid her head on his chest, slid her arms around his waist and squeezed. “I love you too.”
Overwhelmed with relief, his arms were slow to respond. A little at a time, they came around Pam, closed her in and held her to him. He palmed her head and buried his nose in her hair. He placed a kiss there, then rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.”
“You gone forgive me, Pam? That’s all I’m asking you, is to forgive me and let me be in your life some kind of way.”
“Time, Jasper,” she whispered. “I need some time.”
“I ain’t giving you eighteen more years,” he vowed solemnly. “The last eighteen just about killed me. Don’t go off and stay that long, you hear?”
“I hear.”
“But are you listening?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed.
EPILOGUE
Dear Diary,
I thought it would be weird seeing my dad and Pam together, but it’s actually not. What’s weird is that my dad is like a totally different person. I’ve never heard him laugh so much and he’s all of a sudden so talkative. I mean, he always talked about stuff like school and what I was doing, but other than that he was kind of quiet. Now he’s always talking and laughing with people. I didn’t know he had such a funny sense of humor. I didn’t know being with another person could bring that out of you or that being with the wrong person could keep it hidden inside. It makes me sad to think that he kept all that life inside of him for so long.
We live in California now and so far I like it. My school is huge, like a stadium with walls and doors, but it’s cool. I was nervous about starting at a new school in my senior year, but Pam introduced me to Winnie Freeman’s daughter, who turned out to be really nice and down to earth. Then Winnie’s daughter introduced me around school on the first day. I never thought I would be hanging out and going to slumber parties at Winnie Freeman’s house. You know who she is, she’s the famous actress I used to want to be like when I grew up. Now Pam complains about the phone ringing all night long and she finds something wrong with every guy who asks me out. (Sigh)
I’m making friends and having fun, but I still can’t wait for Christmas break when Kelli comes to stay with me for a week. She’ll get a kick out of me having a skylight in my room and my own car.
Me and Pam spend a lot of time together. I try not to follow her everywhere she goes, but I can’t help myself. If I am home and she is going somewhere I want to go, too. My favorite place to follow her is to the recording studio. She’s working on another CD, and sometimes we’re there late into the night. I fall asleep on the sofa in the studio, listening to her sing and wondering if I have inherited her voice. It is high and light, low and smoky, thick and then smooth. She can make it be whatever she wants it to be and she looks so free and happy when she sings.
She still wears those dark glasses, though, when we go out and a few times I have found her in her attic room, lost inside her head. She is remembering everything, I think. Remembering that my mom is gone, and feeling sad. Probably wishing the same thing that I wish, that we could rewind time and make everything go the way it was supposed to go. I miss my mom. A lot. It seems like she should be here with us enjoying life, too. I remember that when I had my mom, I always missed Pam and wanted her to be there with us. Things have flip-flopped, I guess. Maybe God felt I needed to let one mom go, so I could learn to make room in my heart for another one. I don’t know, but I am making room. I can’t stop myself from loving Pam like crazy. I always did love her, but finding out that she gave birth to me changed the way I feel about her. Finding out abou
t everything she went through made me see that she isn’t just some glamorous, rich woman. She is human. If it’s possible, I think I love her even more. The diary started all this. Mom’s diary. If I hadn’t read it, I wouldn’t have found out all I did. Dad wouldn’t be happy and neither would I, not really. Mom would still be gone, but Dad and I would still be in Mercy, alone. I’m gladder that we’re here in California, instead of in Mercy every day.
The other day I was sitting in Economics class, scribbling in my notebook because Mr. Delaney is sooooo boring and I started thinking. I wonder if it was meant for me to have mom’s diary. Maybe mom had something to do with Pam giving it to me, like she wanted me to read it and know the truth. Why else would she have written everything down?
I guess I’ll never know . . .
Nikki
November 18th
Dear Diary,
Where to begin? So much has happened that I can’t decide what to tell you first and what to save for last. It’s all so important. Thanksgiving is just around the corner and Chad is driving me crazy with his constant recipe taste testing and meal planning discussions. This will be our second Thanksgiving together as a couple and our first as husband and wife. Last year the three of us cooked the meal together, with Nate here to give directions and restore order when things got crazy. He brought a woman with him, and I have to admit I liked her far better than I did the last one I met, the previous Christmas. Mimi, I think her name was. For starters, this one was actually old enough to drink. Still, I shudder to think of what he will turn up with this year. Or I should say, who. I won’t be disappointed if he comes solo, because then I won’t have to share his lap or his lips with anyone. Nikki says that I am possessive of Nate and that I make his dates uncomfortable, but I don’t care. I had first dibs. Chad says that I do it on purpose, to intimidate Nate’s dates, and maybe I do. And Nate, when he should be making me get out of his lap and giving his dates his undivided attention, just laughs and whispers to me that we had a deal. Share, he says.
This year Chad is handling all the cooking himself. Nikki has decided she has no interest in being domesticated and she’s using the fact that she has two term papers due after the break to weasel her way out of helping. She is a freshman in college this year and I’m so proud of her I can hardly stand myself. Now if I could just keep her out of my closet . . .
I offered to help Chad with Thanksgiving dinner, but he won’t hear of it. He says I need to rest and rejuvenate myself. I have been running around like crazy, trying to wrap up my second album in as many years, and I won’t lie and say I’m not worn out. This album has to be perfect, though. I want to leave my fans with something special to tide them over while I’m on hiatus. I need a break. I’m nowhere near as young and tireless as I used to be. Also, my son is becoming more and more demanding as the days go by. He seems to think that my breasts belong solely to him and wants to suckle them all day and night. He’s such a greedy little thing, already twice the size he should be at two-months-old!
Oh, but he’s gorgeous. Brown like Nikki and Chad, with his father’s dreamy eyes and long legs. He has my lips, though, and my hair. Chad is always the first to rise from bed to get him when he cries in the middle of the night. As a father, he is everything I knew he would be; patient and soothing, affectionate and loving. I love to see him pick up his son first thing in the morning and kiss his lips like he’s never kissed them before, like they are the sweetest things he’s ever tasted. He likes to lie in bed and watch as I breast-feed his son or else he will be right there with him, willing to give up the breast he is pleasuring and trade places on demand. I don’t think you can fathom how much I love Chad. Sometimes even I can’t. All I know is that I feel whole now.
Nikki calls me Pam. Not Aunt Pam. Just Pam. I’m okay with that, just like I’m okay with the way our relationship is progressing. We’ve grown even closer than before, if that’s possible and I cherish each second I have with her. She’s a beautiful girl and I’m thankful Paris loved her enough to do such a wonderful job raising her. I almost wish she was here to see what a lovely person Nikki is, but then if she were here I wouldn’t have Chad or Nikki or my newest Chad. That feels so wrong to say to you, but it’s the truth. I miss Paris every day, and I pray she is at peace, wherever she is, looking down on us with love and wishing us all well.
I hope she understands what I have decided to do where Jasper and Moira are concerned. They are joining us here in California for Thanksgiving and then for a week or so afterward. We’ve been in touch a lot lately, since I finally worked up the nerve to respond to one of Moira’s letters. Of course, everyone in Mercy knows now that they are mine and Paris’s birth parents. They are like minor celebrities there, which is strange and kind of funny. The book is now in its third printing and they are constantly refusing offers to appear on television to talk about their roles in our lives. Me? I still don’t do interviews. Everyone is curious about Chad and of course, there’s talk that he was once married to my sister, but I don’t give a shit. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. Not anymore.
I have to find it in my heart to completely forgive them, though, don’t I? How can I expect Nikki to do the same for me otherwise? And truthfully, it’s not as hard as I thought it would be. I just take it day by day and go with the flow. I believe that everything is going to work out the way it should and that makes all of this so much easier. I could dwell on the past and go on mourning everything I had and lost, but what’s the point? Being angry with Paris won’t get me back all the years I lost, and now that I know about Jasper and Moira, ignoring them only hurts me more.
I have to let go of the past so I can concentrate on the future.
I didn’t know life could be this good, could feel this good, but I’m so glad it is and does.
Pam
“What are you writing about?” Pam looked up from her diary and focused on Chad’s face. He pulled up an ottoman and took a seat in front of her. She let herself get lost in his eyes and smiled. “Everything that’s happened so far. Does the baby need me?”
“I just put him down for a nap,” Chad said, spreading his hands out on her thighs and kneading the skin there. “He wouldn’t let me put him down before that, so I had to walk around with him until he finally dropped off.”
“It’s your fault for carrying him around all the time. He doesn’t pull that shit with me.” Pam’s tone was knowingly amused. Chad was letting the baby manipulate the hell out of him.
“It’s my fault and I’m loving every minute of it, too.” He took the book from her hands and laid it on the floor beside her chair. Slid to the edge of the ottoman and stared at her lips until she leaned forward and gave them to him. He kissed her long and deep. “Nikki just left with that bowlegged boy you love to hate and that little monster you gave birth to should sleep for at least another hour.”
She cocked a brow. “And?”
“And . . .” Chad slid his tongue up the length of her neck and bit into the spot just behind her ear. “I was wondering if I could talk you into getting naked with me, so I can love every minute of you?”
She drew back and palmed his cheeks, indulged herself in another kiss. “I thought you had some paperwork to look over?” He was the dean of a private school for boys and he always brought paperwork home with him to review. She was hoping he was all done with that now.
“To hell with the paperwork. I’d rather be looking you over,” he said.
“Oh . . . well, in that case . . .” Pam hopped up from the chaise and hurried over to the door. They were in the attic studio and she turned the lock to keep anyone from interrupting them. She wasn’t aware of Chad following her to the door until she turned and found him right there. “What are you doing?” His hands shot out and tugged impatiently on the drawstring of her lounging pants.
Chad backed Pam against the wall and caged her in. He gave up on her pants for a moment and whipped her shirt up and over her head so fast she barely had time to blink. His mo
uth was everywhere at once. On hers, stretching it wide for his tongue, on her neck, her shoulders and nibbling at her breasts. He remembered that he was still fully dressed and set about remedying the situation, starting with his pants.
Pam was taking too long dealing with her own pants and he brushed her hands aside to speed the process up. She giggled under her breath. “You act like you’re starving or something.” She stepped out of her pants and kicked them out of the way.
“I am starving.” Chad moved back and pulled his shirt over his head; then he zoomed in for her mouth again. “Come on, come on, come on,” he chanted impatiently. “Hurry up, Pam.”
And then he was inside her and she was the one doing the chanting. She was saying to him, “Oh, that feels so good. Please don’t stop.”
And he was telling her, “I’m never stopping, Pam.
You hear me? I’m never stopping . . .” He had no intention of letting another eighteen years pass without her in his world and him in hers. It was going to be whatever they wanted it to be forever.
They both giggled when the baby’s soft whines filled the room via the monitor set up on the desk. Chad pressed Pam against the wall and continued loving her, hissing from behind his teeth as the whines grew more insistent. “That little monster,” he panted in her ear without breaking stride. “I think I might have to kill him. Does he know who he’s messing with?”
Pam threw her head back and laughed long and hard. She palmed the back of Chad’s head and brought his mouth to hers. “Kill him later,” she whispered. “See about me now.”
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