“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 when 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 the back up 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.
“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 about all 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. I wonder what is going on with his wife and kids?”
They chatted about what was left of the Smith 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.
T
here 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, Mother is in rare form. She is 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. “What do you suppose Mother will say about that?”
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 told Pam. “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? No way!” Pam said. “I can understand why he was keeping it under wraps.”
“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 am 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 am 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 is 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,
Well, gee, thanks, Marie! This weekend is getting off to a great start! I don’t think it is necessary to remind each other every single time we are together that the root of all of this pain was Jack? But since it is out now, can we let it lie?
Pam asked silently. 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 saw 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 unbearable.
“Can I confess something to you?” she asked Marie. Marie looked up from unpacking.
“Of course. What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been thinking a little about moving back to the city, just for the winter. I will have to sell Bill’s house because they have stopped paying their payments to me, and Bernice hasn’t had a dime to pay her mortgage for over a year, and then there is 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 is 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 would 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.
“What would Jack say?” Pam said, more as a statement than a question. “Honestly, I believed 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, for all intents and purposes, 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 Marie 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 are out? Maybe I 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.”
Marie found herself wondering if her sister was a virgin when she met Jack.
Was he her first, too?
She would ask her another time, when they weren’t expecting guests.
When it was her turn, Marie remembered out loud how she and Jack raced each other on the beach in the evening. They would start at the walkway and run to the lifeguard chair. If there was a full moon, they would run back to the house. But on other times, when the night was dark, they would strip and swim nude, often copulating in the salt water. This she didn’t share with Pam. Marie remembered the sting of the water in her vagina. Or they would climb up into the guard chair, and she would fellatiate him right there. She would spit his semen onto the sand and then rinse her mouth with the seawater.
Jack tried to force her to swallow it, hating her to hold it in her mouth until he was finished. “Don’t spit!” he would command, holding his hand over her mouth. “Swallow!”
But she tried, and it made her gorge rise. They had a horrible fight about it.
“If you loved me, you would swallow it while I am coming. Can’t you do that for me?” He’d have this awful, fake, pious look on his face. He tried holding her head down over him, forcing her to swallow it and choking her in the process. When he let go of her head, she came up sputtering and coughing.
In a rare moment of anger, Marie yelled at him, jumping down from the guard chair, threatening him with exposure if he ever did that to her again. “I’ll report you, you bastard!” she yelled, crying. She ran from him back to the house, but he caught her in time, dragging her to a shadowy cove to kiss her and calm her down before she went inside the house, Pam probably waiting with questions and suspicion.