Family Dynamics: Pam of Babylon Book #5

by Suzanne Jenkins

  Her cell phone buzzed in her purse. “Ugh. I forgot to turn it off.” She pulled it out and looked at the number. It was Sandra. “Do you mind if I answer this? She helped out today with the baby.” He shook his head.

  “Go ahead, quick, before she hangs up,” he said. Pam pressed the talk button and said hello.

  “Hi Pam,” she said. “Am I interrupting anything?” Pam explained that they were at dinner, but it was OK. “I feel awful giving you this news. Steve dropped baby Miranda off, and I discovered that he’d forgotten to call you about Nelda. Evidently, she was cleaning out her closet and had a mishap.” Sandra explained the details that were known. “He said he was going to go right to the hospital, so you should call him for an update.” Pam could hear the baby in the background, happy and cooing.

  “I don’t know what to say. She must be OK, correct?” Pam asked.

  “I know she was unconscious. I think a box hit her in the head,” Sandra said as gently as she could. Pam closed her eyes. Dan was silent, his hand over hers.

  “Leave it to my mother,” she said. “I’d better hang up now, Sandra. Thank you so much for calling. I’ll call the hospital, and if there’s anything to report, I’ll call you back.” They said goodbye and hung up. She related the few details Sandra was able to give her. “I think I’ll go outside and call the hospital. Is that OK with you?” Dan said yes, of course. He’d pay the bill and meet her outside. As Pam left the restaurant, she couldn’t help but feel a sadness that could be explained only by realizing that life as they knew it was ending. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that was going to change, but it would be profound.

  The ER nurse told Pam her mother was fine, had regained consciousness, and was getting ready to have an MRI. No one had accompanied her to the hospital, and no was there with her at that time.

  Sandra and Tom were in their element. Baby Miranda was happy, walking around furniture, calling Tom “Dada” and Sandra “Mama.” Tom hauled the crib, which formerly belonged to Sandra and Jack’s late daughter Ellin, out of the storage area to clean it off and reassemble it. They’d made room for it in a small alcove in their bedroom, this apartment only having one bedroom. Sandra took stock of what meager supplies Steve brought for the baby and realized she’d have to go to the grocery store in the morning if he didn’t come right back for her. When the crib was assembled and crib sheets and blankets pulled out of the plastic container to make up the mattress, Sandra tried her hand at bathing the baby in Tom’s bathroom sink. His apartment didn’t have a bathtub, just a shower. They filled the sink up with warm water, stood a naked Miranda in the sink, and did the best they could. When it was over, both of them were sopping wet, and the floor and surfaces were covered in water. Miranda was thrilled but shivering and yawning. They dried her off and, out of the clothes Steve packed for her, found one T-shirt that was big enough. The rest of the clothes were for newborns and six-month-old babies, all of them too small.

  Sandra prepared a bottle for Miranda. She took it readily and fell asleep quickly. They put her in the crib and tiptoed out of the room. When they got out to the hall, they looked at each other, at their wet clothes and disheveled appearance, hair sticking up all over and exhausted, and began to laugh. Tom hugged her and then lowered his head to kiss her.

  “I love you so much,” he whispered.

  Dan insisted on driving Pam into Manhattan to see Nelda. By the time they arrived, Nelda was propped up in bed with a tray of food in front of her. She started right up when she saw Pam.

  “If I knew you were coming, I would have had you stop at Perone’s. I want a hoagie! This is garbage.” Pam leaned in to give her mother a rare kiss.

  “I’m glad you’re back to normal, Mother dear. Oh, this is Dan Chua,” Pam said. “My attorney.” Dan looked at her and frowned.

  “Hi, Mrs. Fabian. Actually, I’m her boyfriend,” he said. Pam tried to swat at him behind her back, widening her eyes at him to shut up.

  “So! What were you doing? Trying to keep up with Bernice?” Pam teased. Nelda glared at her.

  “I most certainly was not!” She rubbed the back of her hand. She couldn’t remember what she was doing, and no one had told her how she’d ended up in the hospital. “Did anyone tell you what happened?”

  “You don’t remember?” Pam asked with concern. “Do you recall anything about today?” Nelda thought for a few minutes, and then shook her head.

  “The last thing I remember was walking to the Korean store with Miranda in the carriage. Where is she, by the way?” Pam told her about Steve dropping the baby off at Sandra’s.

  “Have you seen a doctor yet?” Nelda looked around the room with a What do you think? smirk on her face. “Hello! I wouldn’t be in a bed if I hadn’t. I must have seen someone when I was out.” The words were still hanging in the air when a young man in a white coat entered the room. He looked like he was fifteen years old.

  “Mrs. Fabian, I’m Doctor Ambrose.” He went to her and held out his hand. Nelda smiled at him and shook his hand. Pam had to hand it to her mother; for a seventy-eight-year-old woman, she could still flirt.

  “Doctor! I was just saying that I must have seen someone or I wouldn’t have been admitted.”

  “I saw you in the ER. Your MRI shows a small area of brain injury, similar to a concussion. All it means is that you had a head injury from whatever took place today. The nurses tell me you don’t remember anything. Is that correct?” Nelda nodded.

  Pam spoke up. “She doesn’t remember anything that happened since yesterday, and we had an event take place that she participated in and now has no memory of.”

  The doctor told Nelda that he’d discharge her in the morning, but she couldn’t go home alone.

  “She can come home with me. Is that all right, Mother?”

  “Can’t I go where Bernice is?” Nelda asked.

  Pam couldn’t believe her ears. “You want to go to a retirement center?” she asked.

  “Ha! You make it sound like I’m asking to go to crack house,” Nelda retorted. “I don’t want to have you hovering over me, if that’s OK.”

  Pam was secretly relieved. She remembered a time not so long ago that she’d sacrifice anything to offer her mother a comfortable life. “We can probably arrange it,” she said. “As long as you’re OK.” What was unsaid was what would become of poor Miranda. Well, she was Steve’s problem now.

  Mirroring her daughter’s thoughts, Nelda expressed her worry about Miranda’s care, too. “Poor Miranda. I hate to think of Steve taking care of her,” Nelda said. “Where is he, anyway? I rather thought he’d be here to see if I survived.”

  “He dropped the baby off at Sandra’s, so I expected him to be here,” Pam said. They chatted a while longer, and before they left, Pam promised to arrange accommodations for Nelda at The Eagle’s Nest. When they got to Dan’s car, Pam called Sandra.

  “Any word from Steve?” she asked. “He never showed up at the hospital.”

  “Not a peep,” Sandra replied. “We need stuff for the baby, too, if she’s staying longer than overnight. Do you have a key to the house on you?” Pam checked her car keys, and there was a key to the brownstone.

  “Do you want to meet us there now?” Pam asked. “We’re not far away.” Sandra asked Tom if he would go and pick up a stroller and clothes. He agreed.

  “Tom will meet you,” Sandra replied. “I’ll stay here with Sleeping Beauty.” And then Dan had a better idea: He and Pam would save them a trip. They would retrieve what was needed and take it to Brooklyn. It was almost on the way home. Well not really, but almost. They drove to Steve and Miranda’s house.

  Pam used her key and got in the door without trouble. They both knew something was amiss the moment they entered. The house looked mildly ransacked. Books were topsy-turvy in the shelves, and the TV was gone with the cable box standing alone, wires hanging out of it. Dan held Pam back.

  “Stay here,” he warned, gently pushing her up against the wall of the vestibul
e. “What direction are the bedrooms?” She pointed upward. He ran up the stairs, and she could hear him opening closet doors. In seconds, he reappeared. “It looks like the master bedroom closet has been emptied.” Pam ran up the stairs to see for herself.

  “What a putz,” she said. “He’s leaving my sister’s baby behind? Goddamn it!” For the third time that day, Pam started crying, but this time it was in anger. Dan patted her back, but she was all business. It was time to move forward.

  “Let’s get what Sandra needs out of here,” Dan suggested, looking around. He noticed the awful paint colors and institutional-looking furnishings. “Who owns this house?” Pam said she did. “So there’s no hurry to get all of it out, right?” Pam nodded. His car would hold only so much anyway. They started moving through the nursery in tandem, working as a team.

  “I wonder if any of Marie’s things are still here,” Pam said. She went back to the master bedroom and started turning around in a circle, looking at every wall and surface. On the dresser was what Pam remembered as a “treasure box” Marie kept. She went to it and opened the little compartments. They were full of junk, trinkets from a woman’s childhood that meant something only to her. She kneeled down to look under the bed. It was packed with boxes. Pam didn’t want to leave anything there that Steve might come back for, so she slid one out from its hiding place. The box top was folded into itself. She pulled one of the sides out, and the top opened, revealing notebook after notebook of what looked to be Marie’s handwritten notes. Oh fuck. Diaries. Journals. Exposés. All she could think of was that Jack was lucky he was dead. She called out to Dan, who came right away.

  “This can’t be good. It’s all of my sister’s writings,” she explained. He looked at her, perplexed. “Jack sexually abused her from the time she was fifteen, and they had an affair that lasted until shortly before his death.” She rocked back on her heels and sighed.

  He shook his head. “Maybe they should be burned,” he said. “I can see we can’t leave them here, but I’m not so sure you should delve into reading them.”

  “It’s her voice. I have often regretted that I didn’t insist she tell me everything. It can only help me to face why I allowed it. Why I turned my head,” she said remorsefully. “Oh, if this stuff will only help me to get on with it, to put everything behind me.” Dan stood next to her and knelt down.

  “You really don’t give yourself any credit. You are amazing in the way you processed all of this crap and moved on. Time to give yourself a break,” he said. He helped her to her feet. “I’ll carry these boxes out, but you’d better look at the baby stuff. I don’t have a clue.” She looked around the room and then out into the hall.

  “I’m going to sell this place. It will be one less reminder of my former life. And I should get rid of Jack’s place on Madison. As soon as the lease is up, that’s going, too.” In the nursery, she found Miranda’s stash of clothes neatly folded on shelves in the closet. Together, they gathered what Pam thought Sandra might need until Steve came back—if he did.

  By Sunday, Pam and Sandra knew Steve was gone for good.

  Chapter 24

  Lisa Smith was madly in love. She’d never had a serious boyfriend until now, and she’d fallen for him in a big way. It had taken her three years of living away from home to get the creepiness of her father’s relationship with her Aunt Marie out of her system, and it hadn’t really happened for her until this past year. She’d determined as an adolescent that she’d never fall in love, never get married, but most of all, never have sex with a man. She didn’t want to give her heart to a pervert who could use her and be disloyal to her as her father had been to her mother. That decision persisted until the past Thanksgiving. She’d had a blowout with her mother and a few days later recognized that she was trying to blame Pam for what her father Jack, had done. Facing up to the truth about him was by far the hardest thing she’d had to do at her young age. But remarkably, the negative effect it had on her had diminished. She accepted that her parents’ odd relationship had nothing whatsoever to do with her. Her mother obviously knew from the early days of her marriage that she and Jack were not going to be companions. Pam settled for a few hours a week with her husband.

  Once she was able to accept that marriage may be in her future, Lisa decided that the kind her parents had wouldn’t work for her. Unintentionally, she set out looking for someone who wanted the same thing she did—a warm, semi-platonic relationship that included enough intercourse to conceive and no more than that.

  When she first met Ryan, she thought he was gay. They talked about it, and he admitted that he gave off that vibe, but he was straight. He was ambivalent about sex, but not about whom he was attracted to sexually. He liked women, not men. Ryan claimed to be almost homophobic, so he knew he couldn’t be gay. That set off alarm bells in Lisa’s head. Could he be so misinformed? So against her inner voice, she allowed a relationship to build and before long, she thought Ryan might be someone she could spend her life with, that he would be a companion, and that he would be faithful to her.

  In contrast to Lisa’s pampered upbringing, Ryan was raised in an average, working-class New Jersey household. He went to Hawaii to get away from his family, especially his brother, the priest. Ed was his parents’ and grandparents’ pride and joy. As Ryan feared, when Ed finished with seminary, he got a post in the parish his family attended. It wasn’t bad enough that they had to see him for dinner twice a week, Friday and Sunday, but now they had to sit and listen to him preach on Sunday, too. Ryan worked hard to get into a school that was far away and to get full paid tuition, including a room-and-board scholarship. When one was offered to him, he took it without conferring with his parents. One night at dinner, he made his announcement: he was leaving in two months for Hawaii. His father patted him on the back, and his mother cried, but for just a minute. Ryan made her uncomfortable because he seemed always to be waiting for her to do something. Even as a toddler, he’d stand near her, patiently looking up.

  “What?” she’d ask. He’d get closer to her, willing her to reach down for him, but she rarely did, backing away from him. “Go play, Ryan. Stop hovering.” Ryan played mind games with his siblings, too. He wouldn’t have to say anything; often his presence was enough to set them off.

  “Mom, Ryan won’t leave me alone,” his sister would scream from her room.

  “I’m not doing anything,” he’d say, but he was lurking. Lisa liked that about him. He’d sidle up to her with a smile and not say a word. She’d go to him and grab him, and they would embrace, secure in the knowledge that it was as far as it would go.

  So Ryan was a lurker. He was a geek or a nerd; Lisa wasn’t sure which, as they switched back and forth. But his personality was what she loved about him. And she knew her family would hate it. In three days, she and Ryan were flying into New York to surprise Pam. He wasn’t going home to New Jersey because they were spending the summer at the beach.

  Brent Smith threw himself into his new job with gusto, and after the completion of his first year, he got the promotion he was hoping for. Soon, his girlfriend, Julie from White Plains, would come out for a week. Brent was becoming increasingly concerned about her being there in California, about her presence preventing him from pursuing his hobbies. And then out of nowhere, Julie made the decision that if they were going to stay together much longer, she needed to find a job and move to Pasadena.

  “What’s the point of us being ‘together’ if we aren’t together? I’m not getting any younger. Either you want me or you don’t!” she said.

  “You’re only twenty-three,” Brent said. “What’s the hurry?”

  She looked at the phone, incredulous. “What’s my hurry? I’m lonely! Either you want me or you don’t,” she repeated. “What are you doing out there that you don’t want me to find out about?”

  “Stop,” he said. “If it means that much to you, then move, for God’s sake. I didn’t have much time before, and it will get worse now that I’m the depart
ment head at work. Are you ready to be lonely with me in the next room?”

  Julie didn’t reply. She understood about being lonely while she was with him. Brent was the silent type; when they were together, she never felt like they were together. Her girlfriends didn’t want her to go, advising her that she was leaving her friends and family, her life in New York, for someone who didn’t really want her to go to him or to make those sacrifices.

  “Look, if you want me to come, I’m on my way. If you don’t, I’m not going to force you into living with me. But hear me, Brent, this is it. I love you, but I’m tired of being alone. You need to make up your mind whether you want to be with me.”

  Brent was exasperated. He didn’t want to be cornered. Was there a way he could hold on to Julie, whom he loved as much as he was capable, and have her stay in White Plains? He was frightened he’d never be ready to live with her, and the last thing he needed was for her to give up her job and move to California and then find out it wasn’t going to work. The silence ricocheted over the telephone.

  “Oh God, I really was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” Julie said. She wasn’t a drama queen and would quietly end the relationship without causing a scene. How am I going to move on from here? she asked herself. And then without any further dialogue, she simply hung up the phone.

  Chapter 25

  Sandra was in her element. Keeping the baby was both exhausting and wonderful. On Saturday afternoon, Tom brought his mother, Virginia, and his sisters, Faith and Emma, to the apartment to see Miranda. It was the first time since Sandra moved in with him that his family visited. The three were enthralled with the baby. Tom put together a delicious meal, and they sat around his little dining table trying to eat while passing the baby around. Virginia kept dabbing her eyes.