Ted looked down at the message he’d taken from the answering service. Pam Smith. Jack Smith’s wife. “You’re Jack Smith’s wife?” Ted asked, sounding more disbelieving than he wanted. After all, it wasn’t her fault he was a jerk.
“Yes, yes, I’m his widow,” Pam said, no longer trying to hide her sadness. “I’ve been missing him a lot lately, and I know Ashton wanted to speak to me about Jack, and I never allowed it. Now it’s too late.”
Ted didn’t know what to say. He was aware that Jack left a wake of destruction behind when he died. Why would his wife, who Ashton often referred to as a star, still be pining away for him? Oh, what the hell, Ted thought.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith. Do you want to meet for coffee?” Ted asked. “I know a little about what Ashton felt for Jack. Maybe I can tell you something that will help you feel better.” He wasn’t sure that was the right term to use with her, but she seemed eager to hear what he said, so it must have been okay.
“Yes, I’d love to. But I don’t go into the city. My son died last year, and the last time I saw him alive was at Jack’s place on Madison. There are too many painful memories for me there.”
“Oh, I am so sorry,” Ted said meaningfully. What would life be like without Deborah? He couldn’t imagine it now that she was in his life. “Of course, I can come to you. You live in Babylon if I remember correctly.”
Pam hesitated. How would he know that? “Yes, I live in Babylon. Did Ashton tell you?”
“Yes,” Ted said. “He told me about the visit he made there. The first time he saw Jack’s house. How it made him feel to sit there with you. He wanted so badly to be your close friend. Did you know that?”
“Ah, no, I did not. He attacked me at Costco, said things that made me believe he must hate my guts.”
“Well, it was all knee-jerk. I hope you’ll be able to forgive him someday. I’m working on it myself.”
“I’m sorry,” Pam said, knowing how hard it was to forgive after someone had died.
“Yes, well, it’s no big deal. When would you like to get together? I’m free this afternoon, if that would work for you.”
Pam decided to ask him to come over. “That would be wonderful. Please come.” She gave him the address, and they said good-bye.
Pam felt numb, walking around her house. Nelda’s and Bernice’s absences left a huge void. How’d she live alone those few years after Jack died?
Opening the sliders to the veranda, the smell of the ocean hit her in the face, and she smiled. Living at the beach had its drawbacks, but they were easily overcome. She promised to take advantage of being there every day this summer. She’d begin that moment, walking the beach like she used to before heartbreak took over. Grabbing a grocery bag, she’d hunt for sea glass again like the old days, and pick up litter. Her neglected straw hat hung on a peg just inside the veranda door to the beach, and she put that on and tied the string under her chin. The wind whipped sand warmed by the sun, and she could feel it hitting the back of her neck.
Without warning, memories of those who were gone passed through her mind: Marie as a young girl running on the beach with Lisa and Brent, and then later, as a teenager flirting with Jack, riding piggy-back or up on his shoulders as he walked out into the surf. “What’s Dad doing so far out with Aunt Marie?” Brent had asked.
“Oh, they’re just horsing around,” Pam said, but with misgivings. When the children were out of sight, she went into the den and got the binoculars out. She focused on the two tiny humans far out on a sandbar, who were sitting side by side with their backs to the house.
“What were you two doing so far from the beach?” Pam asked Jack that night when she was getting ready for bed.
He frowned, pretending to try to remember.
“I was showing her how to dig clams with her feet,” Jack said, gathering clean underwear before he headed for the shower. They were probably fondling each other, she’d reasoned, having learned the true nature of their relationship. He’d make violent love to her later, and she’d forget all about him and Marie in the water, believing anyone who could do it to her like he’d done wasn’t messing around with anyone else. How wrong she was. Sadly, it was next to impossible to banish these thoughts about either Jack or Marie or, worse, Brent.
She imagined Brent running on the beach, leaping in the air for a Frisbee or doing a cartwheel for her benefit. “Mom, Mom! Watch!” He’d spring into the air and do a handstand and then either reel over and over or do a backflip.
Pam screamed with delight, clapping and yelling, “Yay, Brent! Jack, look at our son!”
On Sundays, brunch over, Jack would invite his son and Marie to play tennis or golf. The three of them would be gone all afternoon while Lisa went off with friends. Pam would spend hours alone on the veranda reading, or walking the beach as she was now. If she was still out when they returned, Jack always came looking for her. She remembered spotting him, his long, tan legs in pristine white tennis shorts, walking down the wooden path over the dunes to the beach, or in his golf attire, sunglasses and the Sunday paper under his arm. He often walked to meet her as she returned from her beach haunts.
“Hey, wife, I missed you today,” he’d say. Or when he got closer to her, “Come in the house and take off your clothes.”
She’d laugh and laugh, like only Jack could make her do. That afternoon she also remembered her handsome son looking for her, excited to share the day’s events with the one person he knew was genuinely interested.
“My mother lives and breathes what I do,” he told his friends. “I know how lucky I am someone gives a shit about my life.”
At his funeral a year before, old high school acquaintances waited for hours in a line snaking around the funeral home, just so they could tell her stories about his love for her, and she relished every anecdote, trying to remember exactly what was said so she could write it down when she got home. Now all it did was hurt. Her life was ruined, but she was too scared to end it, and it wouldn’t be fair to Lisa.
The sun was starting its descent in the sky; it must be close to three. She turned toward home and saw a tall man with very white hair walking toward her. He appeared to recognize her, so she smiled. But he kept walking after speaking a friendly hello. Must be a new neighbor, she thought.
Just as she reached the house, she could hear the doorbell in front ringing. Answering it, a tall, middle-aged man with a receding hairline was standing next to a very familiar-looking woman, younger than he was, but dowdy. Pam’s heart went out to her; she’d seen similar souls at the store, forlorn and beaten. The woman appeared to have given up.
“I’m Ted Dale,” the man said. “And this is my friend Natalie Borg.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I tagged along,” Natalie said.
“Come in,” Pam said, untying her hat and stepping aside. As all new visitors did, they noticed the spectacular view through the glass sliders. “We can sit out there if you’d like.”
The strangers passed through, speechless.
“I was just going to have iced tea. Would you like a glass?”
Natalie and Ted looked at each other and then smiled at Pam. “That would be great,” Natalie said. Ted nodded his head.
Nervous, Pam was grateful for the opportunity to putter in her kitchen and catch her breath. She was trying to remember where she knew the young woman from when suddenly it came to her: Costco. She was with Ashton Hageman on that unfortunate day he accosted Pam and Sandra. Taking her time, she got out a beautiful silver tray and arranged sugar and lemon on it, used the nicest ice tea glasses she had, and poured the tea in a lead-glass pitcher. She almost couldn’t lift the tray. Then she remembered she had cake left over from Sandra’s visit, so she cut slices of that and placed it on the tray as well.
“I can never just serve a beverage if there is cake in the house,” she announced. It was a ridiculous comment, but it gave them something else to think about besides Jack and Ashton. Why was she doing this, still digging for in
formation? She really only wanted to hear about how much Ashton loved Jack, but doubted his widower was going to be able to offer anything in that department.
“That looks yummy,” Natalie said.
“It sure does,” Ted added. “It wasn’t necessary, but thank you so much.”
Pam poured the tea over ice and instructed them to help themselves with the sugar and lemon.
“I’m going to be honest with you about my motive for getting in touch,” Pam began. “I lost my son last spring. You may have read about it in the paper or heard the news. It was a tragic heartbreak.
“I want to keep moving forward, but there are so many unknowns in regards to Jack. It’s no secret that he led a double life. More than that, a multiple life. Everyone has something negative to say about him. I guess I was hoping to hear something good from Ashton. Something different. You both may have what I am searching for if Ashton confided in you, as I believe he did. And I realize you may also only have negative information, but that’s okay.
“Natalie, I remember you from Costco when Ashton attacked me. During the confrontation, Ashton referred to having information that Jack was going to leave me. I wondered the same thing at the time of his death. Can you shed any light on it? Did Ashton go into any more details with you?”
Natalie had taken a bite of cake, and it turned to sawdust in her mouth. She reached for the tea, hoping to wash it down before she tried to speak. At first, she thought she would lie. Nothing she had to say would make this woman feel better, and she was sort of hoping a relationship would develop over time so they could visit this fabulous house again.
The realization hit Natalie that Pam was looking for the truth so she could move on. If Natalie lied to her, the hidden truth would still be floating around the cosmos, possibly leading to more discontent for Pam. Natalie didn’t want to be the source of more heartache for her. “I feel strange telling the truth after you’ve just admitted you were hoping to hear something good from Ashton. He did speak about Jack and Sandra when he left Costco. That was such a horrible day. I always wanted the opportunity to apologize to you. I know Ashton tried, but we weren’t allowed to contact you.”
“Yes, I know now it was a mistake. I should have let Ashton tell me everything he could. At the time, I was too fragile. I was in denial. You can imagine always believing your life to be a certain way and then to discover when it was too late that you had lived a lie.”
Ted and Natalie looked at each other, and Pam felt the sadness pass between them. Something in their lives identified with Pam’s pain, but she didn’t care to hear about it. She didn’t want anything to obscure her quest to know the real Jack.
Who was Jack?
“What did Ashton say?” Pam urged.
“He told me the brief version of his relationship with Jack. They’d been childhood sweethearts, and he was brokenhearted when Jack married you. They continued to see each other, Ashton said daily, until Jack died. He said his relationship with Jack never changed until Sandra came into the picture. He said Sandra was the one person, out of all the women Jack had, for whom he would leave you. That sounds so harsh. I was going to lie to you, but I think I owe you the truth.”
Pam knew all of this, Ashton had said as much in the baking supply aisle at Costco, but hearing it from a lucid woman was shocking. Trying to force the information to sink in, Pam put her hands up to her forehead and pressed above her eyebrows.
“My husband was mentally ill,” Ted added. “I’m not sure we should take everything he says, said at face value. He embellished facts, too. I was never sure if what I was hearing was the truth or not with him.”
“I think this is the truth,” Pam said. “I mean, I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think Jack would deny it. I saw a difference in him I could attribute to when he started to date Sandra, and it became more pronounced as the days passed.” Pam wondered why she befriended Sandra. Maybe one of the reasons she’d been having such a rough time getting over Jack’s death was having someone in her life that had captured her husband’s heart.
“Mrs. Smith, I beg of you. Let it go. I wasn’t going to say anything, except I feel like I owe you the truth. Ashton committed suicide. He was unbalanced. We had everything to live for in our lives, and he was incapable of happiness.”
“I believe it was because he never got over Jack’s death,” Natalie said. Her eyes were shining, and Pam was having a difficult time reading her. Was she triumphant having admitted it? “Ted, tell her. After he died, we went through his personal effects. He’d saved every single playbill, theater and movie ticket stub, programs to the opera. There are things you wouldn’t want to see…”
“Natalie, shut up,” Ted shouted. “He was like a teenaged girl saving ephemera from dates. It has less to do with Jack and says more about Ashton’s arrested development.”
“I found pornographic photographs in Jack’s desk, placed almost as though he wanted me to find them,” Pam said, urging them to keep speaking. “Is that what you’re referring to, Natalie?”
Natalie looked at Ted, who was frowning at her, warning her with eyebrows down.
“It was more than that. Videos, mostly. Tapes. Some 8mm. Some cassette tapes. Nothing violent, but some raunchy, sadomasochistic stuff. Some of it appeared to be filmed without the woman’s knowledge, like maybe a private investigator had done it from the outside looking in.”
“I know Jack was capable of it. Please, Ted, you mustn’t worry this is shocking me. Natalie is just validating me. I wanted to pretend none of it existed so I could continue in my state of denial.”
“Mrs. Smith, please don’t take what we are saying as gospel about Jack. The whole video thing, the S & M thing may have been the dynamic between Ashton and Jack alone.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Pam replied. “I saw the apartment he kept for it, met the woman he engaged just for the perverse things he was into. We don’t need to worry about protecting Jack any longer. But I would appreciate having the videos. I’ll send my attorney to your apartment to pick them up as soon as possible.”
They were silent for a moment while Pam planned how she would destroy the films.
“Okay, that sounds like a plan,” Ted said.
Pam walked to the door leading out to the beach and longed to be alone on the sand again, the healing sand.
“I guess it’s time to really bury Jack. I have his ashes in an urn. It’s a gorgeous thing, a Ming Dynasty vase his mother gave me. We split the ashes, actually. She has half, and I have the other half. It sounds so perverse now, thinking we divided him up. What good will it do? Wait here, and I’ll get the urn. Maybe you’d like to help me throw them out to sea. I think I’m ready.” Pam went into the house.
“Are you crazy?” Ted hissed. “I am so angry with you right now for blowing your mouth off.”
“She has the right to know, Ted. We can waste our entire life pretending everything is wonderful when, in fact, it sucks big time. She wanted the truth. I thought about lying to her, but I felt I owed her the truth as one woman to another.”
“Now she expects us to bury his ashes, for Christ’s sake! Why didn’t you just shut your mouth?” Ted was so angry because what Pam was doing was forcing him to face reality, and he didn’t want to, not yet.
Pam came back with a gigantic ginger jar at least eighteen inches tall. “Here he is! Come with me. I need witnesses, and I feel like the people in my life would placate me and try to get me to continue accepting the lies I’ve believed. ‘Oh, everything is all right, you’re doing fine…’ that sort of crap.”
Ted and Natalie looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. Pam could be a nutcase, for all they knew. But if she needed a witness to the spreading of ashes, they would do that for her. It was a beautiful day at the beach, after all.
They followed her to the water’s edge. The tide was running fast, and Natalie hopped back a foot to keep her shoes from getting wet. “I should’ve worn flip-flops.”
“I’ll r
emind you the next time you come,” Pam said absently. “Okay, here goes! Watch out, you two. The wind is blowing in your direction.” The lid was on with some kind of museum putty, and Pam had to work it off, twisting it this way and that, and finally, with a pop, it came off. She threw it down in the sand behind her and turned to the surf again. The ocean was angry, a storm out to sea tossing the water, and the waves were higher than normal. Dirty foam left behind as each wave went further into the sea littered the sand.
“Here it goes!” she repeated. “Good-bye, Jack!” She shook the jar to loosen its contents, surely settled in there solidly for years. It broke loose, she lifted it in the air and then brought it down again, and a trail of fine black ash blew toward the north along with the wind. Some of it rode the waves, and they watched as she shook more and more of it out until there was a fine coating of ash on the water and over the wet sand. They stood in a row, Ted and Natalie slightly behind Pam, but they could hear sniffing, and sure enough, when she turned back to go to the house, her face was wet with tears.
“It really doesn’t change anything, does it? His spirit is still around us, if you believe in such a thing. I feel ill. Let’s go inside.”
Natalie offered Pam her arm, and she took it and leaned against Natalie’s abundant bosom. Ted held the door open for the women, and they entered the veranda again.
“Let’s sit here,” Pam said, gesturing to the couch. They plopped down into the overstuffed down pillows, Pam still leaning against Natalie. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more contradictory than I do right now.”
“How so?” Ted asked.
“I’m heartbroken and feeling hopeless, but completely relaxed and comfortable.”
“Natalie’s breasts will do that for you,” Ted said.
“Oh my God,” Natalie replied. “Don’t listen to him. You are sick, you know that?”
But Pam just laughed. “Are you two a couple?”
Ted shook his head.
“Unfortunately, no,” Natalie said. “We had a one-night stand twenty-two years ago and have a lovely daughter together. We live together as friends. I love Ted.”
In Memoriam Page 11