A Mother's Homecoming (13 page)

Instead, his mother and sister were harping at him. Faith and her cousins were all upstairs doing homework. Nick was seriously willing to consider some night
courses if it got him out of this customary, tag-team browbeating.

“I'm not saying that I have an opinion on her hair,” Leigh explained defensively.

“Well, I do.” Their mother shoved a baking sheet into a cabinet with a metallic clatter. “And I hate it.”

“My point,” Leigh continued, “was simply that the hair is a first step. She did it without your permission, Nicky. The next thing you know, it escalates. Getting her ears pierced without asking first.”

“She already has pierced ears,” Nick pointed out, not that either of the females he was related to listened. He'd agreed to let Faith have her ears pierced as her birthday gift for her tenth birthday. How could it seem like such a long time ago and yet also feel just like yesterday? Having a child seriously messed with the time-space continuum.

“Tattoos!” Leigh was saying. Apparently her parenting credo was “Today, Short Hair—Tomorrow, a Belly Ring and a Boyfriend Named Viper.”

Nick banged a pot down on the counter, effectively catching both women's attention. “Knock it off,” he said when he was certain they were listening. “For starters, Faith is scared of needles, so I think we can rule out tattoos.” She'd gone so pale after her ear piercings that he'd worried she would pass out. Although, even if she did come home with a nose or belly-button ring, it wasn't as though he'd love her less.

“I'm proud of Faith,” he said. “My biggest overall complaint about her behavior, quite frankly, is her tendency to overreact. And now I'm thinking she gets that from us, the adults in her life. Leigh, you might as well be running in circles shouting, ‘The sky is falling.'”

His big sister sniffed. “That's a hell of a way for you to talk to me in my own home!”

“I doubt you would have taken it any better in anyone else's home,” he said. “You have got to get a hobby, take up meditation, find some way to relax. Along the way, you seem to have forgotten how to breathe.”

Leigh narrowed her eyes. “I breathe just fine, thanks.”

Rather than get sucked into an intense argument about how easygoing his sister was, he turned to Gwendolyn. “And you! Your biggest goal in life seems to be keeping Faith away from Pam, but by demonizing her mother, you're not only potentially harming Faith, you're making her more curious and rebellious. When I talked to Pam about it—”

“You spoke to her?” Gwendolyn demanded. “Recently?”

“Two days ago. She came over for lunch. She loved your soup by the way.”

Gwendolyn, a normally dignified woman who disliked anyone making a scene, looked nearly apoplectic. “I knew this would happen, I knew it! You've never been able to stay away from that woman, and this time is no different. Didn't I warn you?”

Nice to see they'd taken his comment about not overreacting to heart. “It was just a quick lunch to talk about Faith, figure out a parenting strategy.”

“She is not Faith's parent,” Gwendolyn said in a low, dangerous voice. “Pardon my crudeness, but she was an incubator! She never cared for that girl. She didn't put bandages on scraped knees or teach her multiplication facts or sing her to sleep at night. We did all that.
We're
Faith's family! Pamela Jo Wilson is merely a bad influence. It's as I told her in the craft store—”

“You talked to Pam?” Nick was beyond affectionately annoyed now and moving into downright pissed.

“I didn't show up at her house in the dead of night,” Gwendolyn snapped, “I merely ran into her while shopping.”

“And were no doubt your charming self,” Nick drawled sarcastically. He recalled all the subtle digs his mother had made over the years, the times he'd had to defend his girlfriend, “the daughter of that low-class Wilson woman,” to his mother. He didn't think Gwendolyn was technically an evil person, but she was snobby and prejudiced when it came to anything involving her children.

What bothered him, remembering those many squabbles they'd had about Pam, was the way they'd suddenly stopped.
When we got married.
He'd been so shaken by the discovery that he was going to be a father, had felt so guilty and dependent on his folks, that he'd stopped voicing a dissenting opinion. He'd needed his mother and father to tell him everything would be all right, so he'd overlooked the less than warm reception they gave his bride. While Gwendolyn hadn't been expressly hateful, neither had she rolled out the welcome mat.

“Oh, Nick.” Gwendolyn sat at one of the chairs around Leigh's kitchen table—Leigh always ate at her table; she was the good sibling. “I don't care whether I was charming to Pam when I saw her or not. What I care about is you and Faith. She needs to leave the both of you alone. I tried to appeal to her sense of decency, although that would assume she has one, and—”

“Mom, shut up.”

“Nicholas!”

“I should have asked you to butt out thirteen years ago. If I had, maybe I'd still be married.”

Gwendolyn's eyes doubled in size. She was spluttering inarticulately, unable to form a whole word.

Leigh stepped in on her behalf. “Surely you're not trying to blame us for what happened?”

“I blame all of us. Her, myself.” Before the baby came, when Pam had shut down emotionally, she'd tried to talk to him about his parents, the way their disapproval had chafed. But, needing his family's support, he let himself believe she was exaggerating her pain. “You guys weren't nice to her. She was a scared, teenage girl who didn't have the benefit of coming from a stable family like I did. You two have always been so protective of me. If you'd extended even a little of that to her, made her feel like one of us, maybe …”

He clenched his fists together, wishing he really could do things over again. “Or maybe not. We'll never know now, will we? The past is done. But this the present. And the two of you. Will. Be. Nice.” He felt like a comic strip character, the words appearing in a dialogue bubble over his head in all caps. “You're not the mob. You don't get to make her disappear or send her on a little drive.”

“We love you.” The way Leigh brandished a rubber-tipped spatula at him as though she might thwap him upside the head was at visual odds with her words. “You can't honestly expect us to sit by and say nothing if we see you making mistakes!”

“I love you, too,” he told his sister, “and I value your input. But that's what it has to be—input, just something I take into consideration before making
my
final decisions. You two can't run my life, and I don't want you running people out of it. If you can't respect that,
then maybe Faith and I need to think about settling somewhere other than Mimosa.”

Gwendolyn made a strangled noise. Nick crossed the room to get her a glass of water out of the refrigerator's filtered faucet.

After she drank, she was composed enough to ask, “You'd really take my only granddaughter away from me?”

“Honestly?” He looked her in the eye. “I don't know. But I hope you won't push me so that we have to find out.” He knew that his mother had been lonely since his dad died; the last thing he wanted was to remove even more family from her life. But this controlling, hateful side of her was the one aspect of her he couldn't tolerate. He'd done so for years, thinking that he was being a dutiful son, but now he had Faith to think about, too.

“I don't know if Pam will be staying in Mimosa much longer,” he said, wishing the thought of her going didn't cause such a sharp twinge. “But we don't own the town. She has every right to be here, and Faith is actually hoping to be closer to her mother before she leaves. We will be supportive and nontoxic in our remarks. Agreed?”

Leigh shot him a look. He doubted he'd be invited back to dinner at his sister's anytime soon. And if he was, he was pretty sure she planned to spit in his food. But she nodded.

“Good. Thank you,” he said. “Mom?”

“You've always had a blind spot when it came to that woman,” Gwendolyn grumbled. “Now is no different. You're not even a couple anymore, and you'd choose her over family?”

“Mom, for a while, she was my family, and I made
a mistake in
not
choosing her. Trust me, you're a better person than this.”

“I'll be civil to her if I happen to see her,” Gwendolyn vowed grudgingly. “And I won't speak an ill word of her in front of Faith. But the day Pamela Jo leaves town, I plan to dance a damn jig.”

Well, it was a start anyway.

When headlights flashed through the untreated windows at the front of the house, Pam assumed her aunt and uncle had forgotten something. After all, they'd only left about ten minutes ago. She went to the front door, which she'd locked behind them, and was surprised to glimpse Nick coming up the sidewalk. Her first panicked reaction at seeing him out here unannounced on a Friday night was that something must have happened to Faith. But logic kicked in as she was opening the door—in an emergency situation, it would have been quicker to simply call her.

Still, she couldn't help greeting him with, “Is everything okay? Faith, is she—”

“She's fine,” he assured her. “She's at a slumber party at her friend Tasha's house. Of course, Morgan was invited, too, so they've probably all sneaked out and are merrily toilet-papering the neighborhood even as we speak.” He swatted away a couple of moths that were drawn to the light spilling from the doorway. “Can I come in?”

Pam took a step back, giving him room.

He glanced around, his expression unreadable. “You're making progress.”

“Thanks,” she said shyly. She felt like a painter who'd had an unexpected visitor to the studio, viewing a potential masterpiece when it was only half-finished. Did Nick see the as yet unrealized charm in the place, or was his vision obscured by holes that still needed to be spackled in the walls and a naked lightbulb shining where she hadn't hung the new fixture?

Furnishings in the house were sparse but adequate. In the living room, she had a couch from her uncle's store and an Ole Miss beanbag chair. The closest she had to a table was a crate, but Uncle Ed was expecting a shipment of secondhand furniture from an estate sale next week; there might be something promising in that. She didn't have a television, which wouldn't have done her any good, anyway. Although the electricity was on, as well as running water in all but the smaller bathroom at the end of the hall, there was no gas or cable right now. The only cooking she could do was in the microwave, but it would be November before anyone would need central heating out here.

A semi-stocked refrigerator hummed in the next room, Aunt Julia had given her a free-standing, antique linen wardrobe for towels and sheets, and in the main bedroom, there was a futon that pulled out into a queen-size bed.
Beats sleeping in my car.

She gestured graciously toward the new sofa. “Have a seat. Want a bottle of water? Afraid I'm pretty limited in my refreshment options.”

“No, thanks. I'm good. Did I catch you at a bad time? If you have a few minutes to take a break, I thought maybe we could talk.” He patted the cushion next to him.

Pam's self-preservation instincts murmured that she should ignore the patting and take the beanbag chair,
but that was ridiculous. She didn't want to sit at his feet, looking up at him like a child at story time, and there was plenty of room on the couch. She'd survived sitting right next to him in his living room the other day.
We were chaperoned then.

They hadn't been alone in a dark house, in the exact room where they'd first made love. She brushed her hands over the denim cutoffs she wore, trying to dust away the memories with the grit. Staying as close to the opposite edge as possible, she sat with him.

“I probably don't smell so good,” she said bluntly. “I've been working hard since two o'clock this afternoon.”

Nick laughed. “You smell fine, but thanks for the warning.”

Curiosity was eating at her. “If you're not here because of Faith,” she wondered, “what was so important that you drove out after dark instead of just picking up the phone?”

“Because I thought what I had to say, you deserved to hear in person.” He drew a deep breath. “I'm sorry.”

She frowned. “Is this still about losing your temper on the phone earlier in the week? That's behind us.”

“No, this is about our marriage.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You're sorry about our marriage?” Not that she blamed him—she'd be sorry if she married her, too—but she was still surprised that it had merited a middle-of-the-night visit.

“I'm sorry I screwed it up so badly and didn't do more to protect you. You have to understand, my mom loves me a lot. My dad did, too, so I got to see the occasional kinder, gentler sides of them. But I'm aware that she can be a dragon lady to people she …”

“Hates?” Pam suggested cheerfully.

“Doesn't understand, I was going to say.”

He made it sound as if they were two small nations who'd suffered from cultural miscommunications. “Dude, I'm pretty sure she wanted me dead. If I hadn't been carrying her grandchild, she would have put a hit out on me.”

Nick snickered but tried to cover it by running his hand over his face.

“This is one of those ‘funny because it's true moments,' isn't it?” she asked drily.

“Well, it's just interesting that you should mention my mother in the context of a hit-man contract. I told her the other night that she had to stop acting like a mafia don.”

“You did not.” Pam tried to imagine Nick standing up to his mother; based on her experiences during their marriage, she couldn't do it. “To her face?”

He sobered, the traces of shared humor fading from his expression. “Yeah. And I should have done it years ago. This is my point, that I let her make my wife feel so unwanted in our family.”

As Pam had done at his house during their talk with Faith, she reached out unthinkingly, squeezing his hand for moral support. But this time, he flipped his hand over, lacing his fingers between hers.

“You were just a kid,” she said, absolving him. “You weren't ready for marriage and the politics of balancing between your wife and family, much less a baby on the way.” Very subtly she tried to wiggle her fingers free. She supposed she could just yank out of his grasp—it wasn't as if he was going to hold her hand against her will—but she was hoping the withdraw might go unnoticed.

The knowing grin he gave her made it clear she
wasn't nearly covert enough. He leaned even closer. “I know it's not fair to put you on the spot, all these years later, and play the what-if game, but I can't help it. If I'd stood up to my parents, showed you more clearly that you were loved, do you think you might have stayed?”

She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut against the hope in his gaze. It was like staring into the sun with a skull-splitting hangover. “No.” She pulled her hand back, subtlety be damned. “I wouldn't have stayed, Nick. Nothing you could have done or said would have changed that, so you can let it go. You're absolved.”

The hope vanished, replaced by irritation. “Explain it to me,” he demanded. “After the years we had together, you owe me that much, Pam. I thought that, after all this time, it wouldn't matter anymore. Seeing you again, it does.”

She stood, deciding brutal honesty was her best bet but not entirely sure how to articulate what had she'd gone through. “I don't know how well I can explain this. Hell, I don't even remember those months very clearly. Most of the time it was like I was sleepwalking, or like I
wanted
to be asleep. You were so cute with Faith, looked so happy when you were holding her, and I just … Annabel and I talked about this a lot last year. I did some research on postpartum depression. Statistics indicate that it's more common and more severe in teenage mothers.”

Nick nodded. “I thought of that. Not at the time, but later. One of the guys who works for me, his wife Lisa had twins and she had trouble with PPD after they were born. They missed the signs at first, assuming it was just the understandable fatigue of dealing with two newborns. But after it got worse, they talked to a
doctor. If that's why you left … how come you never came back?”

He rose, too, and paced back and forth across the small room. “After you'd been gone a few months, I got scared to death. Despite the note, I was convinced you wouldn't have stayed away from us that long. I thought …” He swallowed, shaking his head. “I thought something had happened to you. And when you popped up on that cable show? I hated you so damn much. Two and a half years of worry replaced with the realization that while I was trying to potty train Faith and roofing out in the hot sun for Donald Bauer, you were hobnobbing with country music stars and going to work every day at a television studio.”

“I should have sent you a letter telling you I was okay.”

“You think?” His voice was level, but old embers of banked fury still glowed within him.

She couldn't stand for him to think she would have blown off her husband and baby to go play guitar. She had to make him understand.

“I told you that most of it's a blur,” Pam said. “But there's one day I remember. She was crying—which could have been any day. Whenever I was with her, she was crying. She smiled at you, even your mom, but I think she sensed the tension in me. Anyway, she was shrieking because she had a rash and had done something toxic in her diaper. I was trying to change her, and I was making a mess. She just kept kicking, and I couldn't get her clean. I heard myself yell, ‘You're ruining my life' and it was Mae's voice coming out of my mouth. I might … I'm so sorry, Nick—I might have even shaken her. Only for a moment, but long enough to be horrified at my behavior.”

Pam pressed her fingertips to her eyes, belatedly aware that she was crying. Tears ran down her face, but she forced herself to keep going so that he could understand how truly awful she'd been. Maybe then he'd stop mourning the abrupt end of their marriage and just be glad Faith hadn't been subjected to her.

“It was an epiphany,” she said. “I was going to be Mae. She'd raised a daughter she hadn't wanted in the first place. Even though she was a married adult when she got pregnant with me, she resented me my entire life, certainly never gave me a role model for loving maternal behavior. And even though I couldn't bond with Faith, couldn't love her, I knew for damn sure that I wanted better for her. I wouldn't wish my childhood, my mother, on anyone. So I got the hell out of there. And I feel like, with your questions tonight, you want me to say I'm sorry for what I did. But the thing is, I can't.”

He understandably viewed her actions as desertion, but the other way to look at it was that she'd set them free. In a moment of piercing clarity, she'd embraced the truth Gwendolyn Shepard had made clear all along, that Nick would be far better off in the long run without her.

Did Nick see that now, that she'd done them all a favor? “Faith's had you, and even your dragon lady of a mother, and our daughter turned out … She's beautiful. Smart. A little bit of a pain in the ass, but that just means she's a normal kid so you've done your job right.” Pam hiccupped, aware she was rambling hysterically, but Nick watched her, silent and dry-eyed, letting her get it all out. “I can't apologize for leaving the two of you. Because I knew in my bones that it was the right
thing to do and the horrific mistakes I made after I left here prove that.

“Nick, you would have been so ashamed if you could have seen me. I was not someone you could have in good conscience let near your child. Even though I tried to run away from it, I still turned into Mae and every ugly thing I ever hated about her. Given the same set of circumstances, I'd leave you and Faith again.” And maybe that was what she felt guiltiest about, above everything else. What kind of unnatural woman not only abandons her baby but can't even bring herself to regret it?

The tears were a torrent. “I … I could have hurt her if I'd stayed. I couldn't risk that, couldn't live with it.” She buried her face in her hands, wishing that the crying could wash away the past, make her clean again.

Then suddenly Nick was there, tugging her clumsily into his arms and folding her against his chest. He was out of practice—he'd done this so many times before, whenever her mother said something awful. Or that day when Pam had found her mother passed out and had thought for a split second that Mae was dead.

She'd sobbed afterward because one of the feelings she'd experienced before panic kicked in had been relief. She'd trusted Nick enough to admit that to him, and he hadn't judged her. He'd just listened.

I've missed him so much.
She looped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. The rhythm of his heartbeat steadied her, and as she calmed, her gratitude gave way to hypersensitivity. The plane of his chest was well-muscled from time spent in construction, hard beneath his shirt and against her body. He still used the same shampoo he always had, and she inhaled the familiar smell, letting the memory take her back. The
soothing metronome of his pulse had picked up speed. She wasn't the only one reacting to their embrace.

His breathing grew rougher. “Pam.”

She looked up reflexively, and his mouth took hers. Heat arced between them, invisible lightning that singed her in all the right places. The kiss quickly turned into a frantic homecoming, each of them desperate to touch and taste. There was nothing harmonious or well-orchestrated about their movements, simply raw feeling. They bumped noses and foreheads in their haste.

He backed her against the couch and they toppled together, landing in a pile of limbs and pleasure. Her breasts tingled beneath his weight, and she rocked her hips upward, denim scraping denim, to meet his. He was so hard it made her dizzy, imagining what they'd be like, the slide of him inside her.

She hooked one ankle behind his calf, pushing him against her, and he nipped her earlobe. His hands seemed to be in so many places at once. He cupped her under her shirt and the symphony of sensation overwhelmed her. Arching her back, she bit back a cry, marveling that she could be so close to the brink of orgasm. The desire she felt was so sharp it was uncomfortable.

Nick dragged his kisses downward, his lips closing around her nipple as he kept moving against her, the pressure maddening and demanding, and she broke, this time unable to keep herself from crying out as wave after wave rippled through her. Her body felt swollen and sensitized in the aftermath, and dazed, she tried to shove him away.