Who was she? Who was Pam? While she was in the shower, she tried to remember what her dreams were when she was growing up. Since an early age, she wanted only one thing, and that was to have her own family and home. She would struggle to maintain the picture in her head of what a family should be. Determined to connect with her children, she refused to allow the busyness of life to interfere with what was really important to her. She was successful at it. Her son and daughter were happy, well-adjusted adults who praised their mother. It was true; Pam had just the life she wanted.
And although she would strive to never criticize her own mother, Pam couldn’t help but compare her mother’s selfishness now, when she was needed by her daughter, to the selflessness she practiced back when she was raising her family. Although it wasn’t spoken of anymore, Sharon, the second child, had been born with a congenital spine defect and had to have surgery after surgery. Nelda devoted every waking second to her care, unintentionally at the expense of the other girls in the family. Susan was born one year to the day after Sharon, and although she rarely acknowledged it, her childhood was a nightmare of neglect and chaos. If it hadn’t been for Pam, she wouldn’t have survived. And then Marie was born. Pam remembered everyone was shocked when her mother started to show.
“Fer heaven’s sake,” her grandmother had said loudly, “didja ever hear of a rubber?”
Nelda couldn’t cope. She let the baby lay in wet diapers all day, and when Pam got home from school, she took over.
“Go rest, Mom. Everything is under control.” The ten-year-old became the mother’s helper, and the new baby bonded with the sister, not the mother. Susan bonded with no one. Although Pam tried to care for her, she was so independent at a young age that she didn’t seem to need anyone. As much as Pam hated to admit it, she had done the same thing to Marie, only worse. Marie was her mother’s helper. She begged to move in with Pam and Jack right after they got married, and Pam would have allowed it if Nelda had. She should have never let the girl come within ten miles of Jack. Pam knew it was her fault—the abuse, the AIDS, Marie’s battle with depression and anorexia. Nelda had been a fabulous mother compared to Pam. Her children had at least been protected from vileness until Pam allowed Jack into their lives.
Pam let the tears come while she was in the shower. It was so sad, so wasted. She had to forgive herself. There was nothing she could do now. What was done was done. Hopefully, Sandra and Marie were coming for the weekend. She would concentrate on them and meeting their needs. It was the least she could do.
Sharon arrived to pick up Nelda by nine. She was alarmed when she saw Pam and voiced her concern.
“I’ll explain. Can we talk before I tell Mother you’re here? She’s angry with me right now. Coffee?”
Sharon accepted a cup. They went out to the veranda, the preferred place, it would seem, to give and receive bad news.
“Okay, let me preface this by saying it isn’t as dire as it sounds. I have AIDS.” She waited, watching her sister search her face.
Sharon started sobbing and grabbed Pam. Over and over she repeated, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” and then she stopped to blow her nose.
Pam explained the circumstances surrounding how she got the diagnosis.
“Why is Mother angry? Wait, let me guess. She wants to know who gave it to you, correct? That’s Mom!” she replied when Pam nodded yes.
“My own children don’t know yet. I have to be able to have a dialogue that will satisfy them and leave me some privacy at the same time. I don’t want Mother knowing all the gory details! It’s none of her business,” she repeated for the umpteenth time that week. Pam got up to refill their cups. “She probably won’t speak to me, so why don’t I go into my bedroom when she comes down?” She heard Nelda and left for her bedroom, hugging Sharon first. “Bye,” she whispered.
“So hello, Mother!” Sharon said to Nelda. “Are you ready to leave? We have soccer games to go to this afternoon.” She took one of the bags her mother brought with her.
“Where’s Pam? Is she going to let me leave without saying good-bye?” Nelda was still angry and was whiney and petulant.
“Can you say good-bye to her without making her feel bad, Mother?”
Nelda started to say something and then thought better of it. “I want to say good-bye to her.” Nelda was not going to budge, so Sharon went to Pam’s bedroom door and knocked.
“She wants to see you,” Sharon singsonged through a crack in the door.
Pam came out and hugged her mother, a bright and cheerful smile on her face. “Have a wonderful week!”
“So you really aren’t going to tell me any more?” Nelda said.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Pam and Sharon said simultaneously.
“Good-bye, Mother!” Pam shouted and went back to her room.
Sharon sped along the parkway toward Staten Island, hoping her mother would shut up. The old lady had not stopped complaining and criticizing Pam for the past half hour. She called her lazy and selfish, said she was a terrible wife for not staying in the city with her husband, and that her children escaped to college because they couldn’t bear living with their mother. Sharon was never able to stand up to her mother’s cloying protection and felt guilty because Nelda had devoted her life to caring for her when she was an ill child.
Finally, unable to squelch her anger, Sharon exploded. “Mother, please be quiet!” she yelled. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you. Do you understand me? How can you say those things about your own daughter?”
Nelda was livid. “How dare you speak to me that way? You have always been an insolent, disrespectful child! After all I did for you! Night after night in the hospital I sat with you. You never wanted for a thing your entire life. Everyone else worked while they were in college. Dad and I sacrificed to put you through dental school. He worked two jobs for years to give you everything you needed. All those years of doing without so you could have everything, and then you talk to me like this? Take me back home right now!” She was leaning forward with her hands on the dashboard, screaming at Sharon.
“You are coming home with me whether you like it or not. So, Mother, with all due respect, shut up!” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than her back right tire blew out, and she had to focus all of her attention and strength on stopping the car at the side of the road before she killed someone. She got out of the car and opened up the back to get the tire and jack out. Nelda was struggling to get out of her seat belt.
“Mother, stay where you are. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare get out of this car!”
“You’re going to change it yourself?” Nelda yelled. “Call Triple A!”
Sharon ignored her. It was something she enjoyed doing, being independent, stretching herself to see how much she could accomplish. She had changed tires on the left side of the car in worse traffic than this. If her mother would just shut up, she would be fine.
Shortly after Sharon and Nelda’s departure, Pam got a call from Sandra.
“I was hoping to hear from you. Do you think you’ll come today?” she asked.
“I would like to,” Sandra answered, “but would it be okay with you if Tom came? I’d like you to meet him.”
Pam thought for a second and then agreed, knowing that the presence of Jeff was going to completely change the dynamic of their conversation anyway. What harm would another man do? Pam was growing weary of the triad of Marie, Sandra, and herself, her former resolve to pamper the women forgotten.
“You can say whatever you want in front of Tom, Pam. He knows all about the baby and the HIV and still wants to see me! How often do you suppose that will happen for me?” She went on to tell Pam all about the adventure she had with Bill.
Pam was stunned. “You must be exhausted! How awful, Sandra. Good old Bill,” she said. “I wonder when we will hear from him again.”
“Never, if Tom has anything to say about it,” Sandra said.
They chatted about what was left of the Smi
th family. And Bernice. No one had heard from her. But that would probably be short-lived. Pam hadn’t contacted her mother-in-law because she had been sick. And Bernice wasn’t one to stay in touch, either. It had always been all about her.
Chapter 39
There was a knock on the door, and before Pam could hang up and get to it, Marie walked in. Pam said good-bye to Sandra and went to Marie, who was happy to see her sister looking well.
“Hello! You look a lot better! Thank God!” She hugged Pam, then held her at arm’s length to see how she really looked. “Definitely better. How do you feel?” She was scrutinizing Pam’s face to detect if she was covering anything up. “You have your poker face on.”
Pam laughed out loud. “I am truly fine! You just missed Sharon and Mom. Sister, there was a scene here last night with Mom and Susan. Oh my, Nelda is in rare form. She’s angry with me because I won’t tell her who infected me. Before I go off on a tangent, why don’t you get settled? Are you spending the weekend?”
Marie said she was and then told Pam the news that she was infected with AIDS and her viral load was extremely high.
Pam was stunned. She managed to withhold crying again, afraid that she would be unable to stop if she succumbed. “I loathe the phrase, why is this happening to us, yet I seem to be saying it on an almost daily basis.”
“It probably hasn’t sunk in yet; that’s why I’m not saying it. So tell me? Who’s our chef tonight?” She gave Pam a sly smile.
They talked about their expectations for that night with Jeff.
“He came out to me last night,” Marie said. “I confronted him, and he was honest with me. Then I was honest with him about the anorexia and the HIV. Don’t worry; he doesn’t suspect that it’s a family epidemic.”
“Wait! He’s gay? I wondered,” Pam said. “I can understand why he was keeping it under wraps, though.”
“You do? Why in God’s name would you understand that? It’s ridiculous in this day and age to be so dishonest about who you are.” Marie went to the pantry to see what wine offerings her sister had. “Not that I’m judging him or anything. What do you have to drink around here?”
“Ah, do you think you should be doing that?” Pam asked. “We’re supposed to abstain.”
“Oh, jeez, don’t start that crap with me, okay? As self-destructive as it sounds, I am not stopping drinking. Not yet, anyway. If my viral load is as high as they say it is and all these other counts as low, then I should be dead by now. I’m not changing the way I’ve been doing things all along. It’s more fun talking about Jeff,” Marie continued. “I won’t divulge what he told me about his family. Whew! I thought ours took the prize for weirdness. His mother and Nelda run neck and neck.”
Pam thought of her earlier self-examination; she wouldn’t win any Mother of the Year Awards herself if the truth came out. “I’m not going to defend Mom, but she did the best she could,” Pam said. “That sounds like such a flagrant copout, but it is so true! When my children come home next weekend, what should I tell them, Marie? Isn’t it enough that I’m honest with them about the AIDS? Do I have to tell them about you and Sandra, too?”
Marie thought for a minute. “Are you asking me if we need to tell them about my AIDS? No. I would rather not go there with them. It’s too much of a coincidence, unless we lie and say you gave me a blood transfusion or something. The truth is that I am not involved in their lives much at all. This summer, I haven’t heard from either kid. It hurt at first, but with Jack gone, it’s almost like I don’t have anything in common with them anymore.”
Pam looked hurt, and Marie was sorry about that. She didn’t feel like she had to embellish her relationship with her niece and nephew. It had evolved into nothing, and she didn’t think it was uncommon for that to happen.
“I take responsibility for it, so don’t get worked up. I couldn’t very well be myself with them. I mean, facts are facts; I was in love with their father. I need to be free to grieve. It’s difficult enough to pretend it was something different around you.”
Pam thought, Gee, thanks, Marie! This weekend is getting off to a great start! I don’t think it’s necessary to remind each other every single time we are together that the root of all of this pain was Jack? But since it’s out now, can we let it lie? She understood her sister’s selfishness and that she wasn’t going to change, but she didn’t want her nose rubbed in the relationship she had with Jack, either. It was still her house. But she opted to say nothing. Marie was hurting and in denial. She was also mentally unstable, and Pam was trying to be patient with her.
“I hope you can have a relationship with the children again someday.” Pam let it go. She had been sitting in a chair by the window in Marie’s room, looking out at the plantings along the fence line. Soon, autumn would be here. The days would grow shorter and shorter; the allure of the beach would be gone. There would be no reason for anyone to come here on the weekends.
She’d been struggling with this fact the past few days, since her walk on the beach. She’d seen a very early sign of fall approaching; the Japanese blood grasses her neighbor had planted along his property line were turning bright orange. It would be a matter of weeks before school would be back in session, the leaves would change, sailors would take their boats out of the water, and the beach would be a vast, quiet expanse for solitary walking. She imagined her life without Jack or the kids, and it loomed unbearably.
“Can I confess something to you?” she asked Marie.
Marie looked up from unpacking. “Of course. What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been fantasizing a little about moving back to the city, just for the winter. I’ll have to sell Bill’s house, and Bernice hasn’t had a dime to pay her mortgage for over a year, and then there’s the Madison Avenue apartment. The thought of being alone here is very…depressing.” And that is a kind word for what it is, she thought. “I don’t like Jack’s place, so that will stay rented for now. I’m tempted to rent out Bill’s house because it costs a fortune to maintain and the market is horrible; I would probably end up giving it away. So that leaves the mansion. I could take care of Bernice and have an interesting place to live as well. What are your thoughts?” Pam really cared what her sister’s opinion was.
The first thing that came to mind was Bernice. “Would she even allow it?” Marie wanted to know. “I mean, I guess Mother and Bernice could feed off each other.”
“She might fight it! But if I foreclose, she’s out on the streets. I can’t do that to the children or Jack’s memory. She overtly hates me, but the house is big enough that I could stay out of her way. She and Mother can shop or do whatever it is old ladies do together. I’m sure I’ll be finding that out soon enough as my birthday approaches!” She let out a laugh.
Marie was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at Pam. “I can’t imagine you back in town.” She was choosing her words carefully.
“What would Jack say?” Pam said, more as a statement than a question. “Honestly, I believe he wanted me out of the city so he could play.” She raised her hand to stop Marie’s protest. “I see now how he manipulated me. Then he told everyone it was for the good of the family when I had never said a word about it. Being passive was my weakness. How can I blame him when I actively withdrew?” Pam looked at her hands in her lap and shook her head. “I should have insisted we stay in town, even if it meant having to see Bernice every day. Leaving her grip was one enticing reason to leave. Oh well, another mistake on my part! They just keep pouring in!”
“Let’s go outside,” Marie said. “It’s too nice to stay in on a day like this. There won’t be many more.”
They left Marie’s bedroom for the veranda.
“So what time do we expect to be graced with Jeff?” Marie asked, not really caring, but needing to change the subject. She hated to hear Pam beating herself up over what was, essentially, not her fault at all. If she only knew how much she had been manipulated! And as much as she hated to admit it, it was much easier for Mar
ie to stay on the continuum of allowing Pam to blame herself for everything than to get her to face the truth.
“We never specified an exact time, just that he would be over to fix our dinner. At first, we were going to his house, for ‘the tour,’ he said. He kept looking at me like I needed to be fattened up.” Pam was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic, even out on the veranda. “Do you want to walk on the beach?”
Marie jumped at the chance. They took their shoes off and took off down the walkway.
“Oh, what if Sandra comes while we’re out? Maybe I’d better leave the door unlocked. Bill’s in jail again, so we’re safe.”
They talked about his latest brush with the law, Marie disbelieving that he had targeted Sandra. Why? “I think he must have had a crush on her. Why else keep hounding her?”
“It’s obvious. She has the business now. Can you see some wisdom in not giving it to me? I’d have taken him on as a partner by now.” Pam gave a sigh of relief. Thank God the business isn’t mine to worry about.
The sand was cold under their feet in contrast to the hot sun. It was a beautiful day. The two women had their silent and separate revelries about Jack and the walks they took with him on this same beach. He had left no footprint on the sand, but bulldozed through their hearts. Pam couldn’t help herself.
“Can I take a little walk down memory lane?” she asked.
Marie moaned. “If you must. Remember, I might choose to have my turn.”
“When we first moved here, Jack would pick me up and carry me. He said he didn’t like the thought of my feet being on ground that others had tread on. Honestly. I always had to wear shoes on the beach. At least flip-flops.”
Don't You Forget About Me: Pam of Babylon Book #2 Page 22