Prayers for the Dying: Pam of Babylon Book #4

by Suzanne Jenkins

  As they entered the building together that evening, he was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for how his life was turning out. He was educated and working on his Master’s while having so much work he could turn down new business, had a gorgeous fiancée, and an enviable future. He wondered why he deserved all of it when he’d been a less than deserving child. What was it about that small boy that would make his father abuse him? Had he done penance and that was why he was being lavished with such grace now? The questions haunted him, but for just a moment. As he walked down the aisle of the church toward the altar, he saw Pam coming in from the nave with her parents and sisters. The sight of her filled his heart with joy and tears filled his eyes in spite of his efforts to not get emotional. His mother noticed and went to him right away, offering her support to him.

  “You’ll be okay, son. You’ll be okay,” she said. Harold pretended not to see it and busied himself with his Day-Timer. What was the goddammed boy crying about? He lived in constant fear that Jack would make good on his threat to expose Harold to the community. But he needn’t have worried because the night, the entire weekend, would go off without a hitch. Bernice played the role of Lady Bountiful, with Jack and Bill showering her with adoration. All of the wealth that was flashed around was thanks to Harold the generous, Harold the doting father. Nelda, Frank, and Genoa sat on the sidelines, not sure if what they were witnessing was genuine or fake. “The mother’s a lush,” Genoa whispered to her son, winking at his surprised face.

  Although the parents might be putting it on a little thick, Pam hoped Jack was genuine. She was learning that he was emotional, and not afraid to show it like most men. It must run in the family, Pam decided, because Harold practically yodeled when she walked down the aisle. Nelda was appalled, elbowing her husband in the side. Bernice didn’t seem to notice. Only those closest to her, her sons and husband, saw that her eyes were the slightest bit bright that morning. She had succumbed to a shot or two of scotch before she left her bedroom.

  Jack’s efforts to introduce Pam to the friends she had not yet met turned out to be a waste of time, diminishing any fear Jack had of exposure, because it would all be a blur the next day. Neither Jack nor Pam understood that the wedding was going to go by in flurry of activity. After all of Bernice’s plans and the mountains of cash spent, they wouldn’t remember a thing except for how wonderful they looked to each other. When Pam spotted Jack up at the altar, his tuxedo impeccable, brother Bill and friends—whose names escaped her—lined up behind him, she gasped and then giggled. Her father looked down at her and squeezed his daughter’s arm.

  “What’d you see?” he whispered.

  “Isn’t Jack ravishing?” she whispered back. Onlookers smiled at the beautiful bride and her exhausted-looking but handsome father, the two having a final shared moment.

  “If you like that obvious good-looking type!” Frank replied.

  Pam laughed out loud. Later, Jack would ask her what was so funny as she was walking down the aisle and he was pleased when she told him.

  “You are so darn handsome. How do I rate?” she asked him.

  “Have you looked in the mirror lately?” he whispered in her ear.

  Pam, he discovered, was insatiable. And that suited him just fine. She was ready and willing to try every sexual position he could think of, or act out anything that he could come up with. She posed, stripped, danced in the nude, jumped on the bed, even did a summersault that almost caused Jack to faint. He was mesmerized watching her orgasm, which she accomplished the very first time he went down on her. He’d never bothered to satisfy other women, but she was so beautiful and so into it, that making her happy became more important than his own satisfaction. It didn’t occur to him that it could be love that he was experiencing. Except for a few forays into the seamier places of Poipo Beach after Pam was asleep, their honeymoon became what it was supposed to be; a time for a new bride and groom to get to know each other intimately and completely. Years later, Pam would marvel that it could have been such a farce.

  5

  Ashton did finally get to meet Pam formally, but it didn’t seem to register with her. He watched her during the rehearsal dinner and again throughout the wedding and reception, and by the end of the weekend of festivities, he decided she was deeper than she let on. She floated around, first at the rehearsal dinner, wearing a slender, navy blue silk sheath that came to her knees and black patent leather flats, while the other women, looking like hideous clowns to him, wore broad-shouldered jackets with tight, ankle-length pants, or palazzo pants and jackets with huge shoulder pads.

  Pam kept it simple, wearing classics, even down to her wedding dress. The style of the decade was high-necked, long-sleeved, and lacey. She wore a soft white silk-satin, tea-length gown with a full skirt, highlighting her trim calves and ankles. The bodice was sleeveless, which showed her buff arms; the neckline was scooped and the waist tight. Her feet were shod in white silk-covered shoes. No lace or beading or frills or bows adorned her. It was elegant and it was so Pam. She left her hair down, thick curls that tumbled over her shoulders, and on her head she wore her grandmother’s diamond hair-comb instead of a veil or hat. Ashton watched as Jack and the other men in the wedding party stared at her with unabashed admiration. Ashton was just jealous—so jealous he couldn’t look at her without sobbing out loud once he came to his conclusions about her. He was sure that Pam had an agenda. And he wanted to be her so badly. He wanted whatever it was about her that drew Jack in. She couldn’t stay in character forever, so he would wait until the true Pam emerged.

  Of course, eventually Ashton had to give up because Jack was right about Pam. She was incapable of negativity. Or, as Ashton decided, Pam was so controlled that she didn’t express it when it was present. Other friends thought of Pam as Jack’s beard, but Ashton knew better. Jack really did love her. At the rehearsal dinner, Jack led Pam over to him and asked him to dance with her while he took care of some “important business,” which was Jack’s code for going to masturbate. He can’t get through his rehearsal dinner without jacking off, Ashton thought, disgusted. Pam fluidly moved into Ashton arms. She followed him with no trouble, and Ashton wasn’t always used to being in the lead.

  “Have you and Jack known each other for a long time?” Pam asked, looking into his eyes. “I haven’t met many of his friends yet.” She talked directly to him, willing him to relax, to pay attention. Ashton was caught off guard; she seemed to be searching his face for something. He could smell her. Her breath was soft, warm, perfumed. Ashton closed his eyes as they danced, trying to avoid looking at her, tears near the surface again, and the tension between them palpable. Heat spread through his body, settling in his groin. He was afraid his hand would burn an imprint into Pam’s satin-covered back. He felt her thinness, too, her rib cage right under his hand. Her dress covered her body, but he could sense her breasts right under the fabric, rising and lowering with each breath she took; all he had to do was hold her slightly closer and he’d feel them against his chest. Sweat formed on his upper lip. Where the hell was Jack? She was a woman, the enemy.

  He knew Jack had allowed this one encounter in a safe place. It was meant to appease him. But it backfired. Ashton suddenly wanted to be Pam’s friend, to exchange phone numbers, and when the honeymoon was over, invite her to shop with him, to have lunch and play cards. He wanted to help her decorate their apartment on the West Side. When the children came, he’d babysit for them, be Uncle Ash. But none of it would happen. Jack wouldn’t allow it and Ashton was too jealous of her to suggest it.

  At Jack’s funeral, she would be reminded that she’d danced with Ash at the rehearsal dinner, but she would claim to have no memory of it or of him. That unnerved him. It unnerved him because she had been in his thoughts continuously all of those years. The first thing Ashton thought of when he got up in the morning was Jack. And after the wedding, Jack and Pam. He often thought of Pam as she was in her wedding gown. Pam dressed in silk satin and peau de soie-cover
ed shoes, Pam standing at a white kitchen stove, frying bacon. Or Pam on the treadmill, as Jack had often described her, in that same wedding dress. He encouraged Jack to speak of his wife and once Jack trusted that Ashton wouldn’t use it against him, he relaxed and began to share the minutiae of married life with Pam.

  Jack was in love with Pam. He worried about her, wanted the best for her, kept her from harm. He wanted to grow old with her, and saw their future together raising a family. But Jack was incapable of fidelity. He tried after the honeymoon. Pam’s enthusiastic devotion to him and ardent passion forced him to look at what extramarital affairs would do to their relationship. He was insatiable, but he was human. Performance-enhancing drugs weren’t on the market yet. He would have to find out what his tolerance was. Soon, he and Pam worked out a sort of routine that would take them to the end of their marriage and of which she would be unaware. He used business obligations as his excuse for being gone until the wee hours of the morning. On the weekends, he was hers and hers alone. Or, more accurately, hers and Marie’s. Because it wasn’t very long before Marie was staying with them from Friday after school until late Sunday or early Monday morning.

  Jack was feeling his way, discovering how much he could get away with without hurting his wife or arousing her suspicion. And as it turned out, he could get away with a lot.

  6

  Pam Smith sat at the kitchen counter, looking out the big window facing the sea. She and Jack raised their children in this house on the Atlantic side of Long Island, a short commute and worlds away from Jack’s life in Manhattan. A light, late fall snow was coming down, blanketing the sand and beautifully, the waves. Soon, if the deluge continued, there would be a ridge of white ice along the tidal line. Earlier that morning, Pam donned a long, goose-down filled coat, a woolen hat and mittens, and insulated Wellingtons, and braved the weather to walk along the beach. Only a young man and his two dogs shared the vast expanse of snow-covered sand with her, and although they nodded in each other’s direction, neither said hello even though they’d seen each other there daily for years. The cold wind and spitting snow hit her face, cutting short the trip. She was hoping that it would help her clear her head.

  Now back in the house, the pile of papers on the counter next to her cup of coffee taunted her. Covered with names, hundreds of women’s names, the papers demanded Pam’s attention, but she didn’t want to give it. Weeks before, they seemed more important than they did now. At that time, she thought she owed the women whose names appeared on the pages some consideration. She felt responsible for them. After all, if what she thought they were was true—a list of her AIDS-infected, late husband’s sexual conquests—they could all be infected as well, spreading their DNA around as Jack had. Thumbing through the papers, one name jumped off the page: Frieda Romney. She had to be Peter’s sister-in-law. Peter was Jack’s former business partner. The impact of that realization—that Jack could have infected her—and then the thought of Peter finding out, if he didn’t already know, unnerved Pam. She decided to call Peter about business and somehow bring up Frieda’s name.

  “They’re divorced, unfortunately,” Peter told her. “She moved back to Argentina. I liked Frieda, too. But my brother is a jerk. He is incapable of fidelity. Last summer they reconciled for a short time, but it didn’t take. He took off to parts unknown. Why do you ask? I didn’t know you knew Frieda.” Pam forced herself to speak calmly, her heart racing, nausea building.

  “I don’t really,” she said. “We were invited to the wedding but Marie went in my place. Jack told me you wore a top hat. Is that true?” Pam said, trying to change the subject. When they hung up, all she could think of was AIDS-exposed Frieda having sex with her wanderlust husband. Who knew how many new cases of AIDS would be attributed to Frieda? She’d be spreading it all over South America, while her ex-husband was where? It made Pam ill.

  Slowly and without her approval, something was happening to her. Pam, the gentlewoman; Pam, the understanding one. She was getting angry. She was pissed off that her sister, Marie, had betrayed her, sleeping with Jack. She was angry because something about her character allowed his mistresses to seek an audience with her at the house on the beach. She was now afraid to open the door when there was a knock; so many women had just shown up. It had happened often enough in the past months that she didn’t bother looking out of the window to see who was there. She didn’t want to know, and further, didn’t care. If someone was bold enough to come to her door unannounced, she deserved to be ignored. The first five or six times she let them in, served them cake and coffee, walked on the beach with them if necessary. She heard stories about her husband that made her sick to her stomach, tales of his affairs, of his relationships with other women’s children. One young woman brought Jack’s two-year-old son to the beach house. Pam fell into a deep depression after that encounter, and it changed her. She realized at the time that the very trait that would propel a woman into sleeping with a married man would also drive her to seek out his widow, and possibly to demand something of her.

  Maryanne had done it. She was a pathetic older woman with a special-needs child who showed up on Pam’s doorstep a few months after Jack died, asking for money. Maryanne and her daughter were an enigma to Pam. Meeting her forced Pam to rethink every single aspect of her life with Jack. She had to contemplate her children’s relationship with their father. He had chosen Maryanne’s child over his own, going out of his way day after day to see her rather than taking the time to see his son and daughter. What was that all about? Pam thought. She no longer made excuses for Jack after meeting Maryanne. Her opinion of him sank to a new all-time low and managed to stay there in spite of the inner dialogue that she formerly listened to, one she utilized to cover over his many shortcomings; that he was a good father and provider. Pam, baffled by what she learned about her husband, struggled with forgiveness for him. She knew intellectually that the only way she would get over the many surprises Jack had in store for her after his death was to forgive him, but she couldn’t. Well, she did over and over again, but then she would find herself in such a state of disbelief over his conduct that she would be forced to start back at square one.

  The list of names lingered for weeks after Marie gave them to Pam, unearthed from a long forgotten file of Jack’s. At first, Pam thought she would have the strength to call each person and warn her to be tested for AIDS. But it didn’t take long for that idea to be revealed for what it was: an altruistic notion, an abomination. Not only is it not my responsibility to inform Jack’s partners, but it might open me up to some kind of danger if one of the contacts gets angry enough. Now she was left with the list, not sure if she should destroy it or hand it over to the health department. She had already been in contact with the health department regarding Jack’s sexual contacts; the public health officials had agreed to keep her informed without revealing identities, and they had. Having the knowledge, hearing the number of women he had been with, was brutal. It was enough to make her bitter for her remaining lifetime if she allowed it. She reached over and pulled the pile of paper in front of her. In a moment of clarity, she decided to call Betty James from the health department and tell her about the list. Let them do something about it.

  The ringing phone startled Pam out of her revelry. She went into the hallway to get it, checking the caller ID. It was Marie. She had avoided talking to her sister all week and was resigned that if she didn’t answer soon, Marie might find it in herself to leave the comfort of her boyfriend Steve’s apartment and travel to the beach to investigate. “Jesus, Pam, it’s about time!” she said. “Why haven’t you called me back? I left four messages this week.”

  “I need some time alone right now,” Pam replied. She didn’t feel as though she owed Marie an explanation for her silence, but decided to offer it to get her sister off her back. “I’m not happy about the way things turned out between us.” It was just enough information to either force Marie to probe further at her own risk, or back off and get out whi
le she was ahead. After five seconds of silence, Marie chose the risky route.

  “What are you talking about Pam? We haven’t even seen each other in a month.”

  Either sly or stupid, Marie was walking a tight line here. Pam, exasperated, decided to let her have it with both barrels. “You know what I am talking about, Marie! It’s nothing new! Why’d you sleep with Jack? Why’d you let it happen? As soon as you came of age it became your responsibility to end it if you cared about me. We were supposedly so close, yet you betrayed me all of our life!” Her voice shrill and shaking, Pam was headed to new territory. She had always walked away from conflict in the past.

  “Why now?” Marie countered. “Why right before Thanksgiving? You’ve had six months to bring this up. Why now?” Repeating herself, Marie felt sick. Having a confrontation about Jack was the last thing she ever wanted to do with Pam. Marie knew she was wrong; with Jack dead, she alone was to blame. Getting defensive was a losing battle. She had to give up. “There is no way we will ever resolve it. I was wrong. I’m sorry. What more do you want from me?” Marie lay back on her bed and closed her eyes. Why’d I make this call?

  Strength was building in Pam, giving her what she needed to be confrontational. Something had shifted in her thinking. Having Marie in her life, thinking about Marie interacting with the children during the holiday, suddenly had become unbearable. “I don’t want you to come here anymore. You are not welcome,” Pam replied. “I’m glad you called because we can have it out. You are correct, Marie. There’s no point in dragging it out now. If I had been smarter, or less tolerant, I would have shut you out of my life the day you told Sandra and me that you’d been Jack’s lover. You sat right here in my house, on my veranda, and blurted that out in front of a stranger. You didn’t have any respect for me when you were screwing my husband in the bedroom next to where our children slept. And you didn’t have any respect for me the weekend after he died. I’m not willing to take the risk that you won’t expose more of your garbage to my children. I don’t want them to know you have AIDS. That you got it from Jack.”