Family Dynamics (Pam of Babylon Book Five) (28 page)

“When we get home, I need to call Deborah’s father and apologize to him and his husband—to her, too. I acted like an ass.” Beverly turned around to make eye contact with their son, who also seemed amazed and concerned.

“Dad, don’t get carried away, OK?” Greg said.

John laughed. “I won’t. I was a creep when they were graciously entertaining us, and I want to make amends, that’s all. It’s what a true Christian would do.”

“When everyone arrives, I have a surprise,” Ted announced.

Natalie put her coffee cup down. “Oh, Lord. Don’t tell me. You’re going to come out.”

“Get serious. No, you have to wait,” he said.

Ashton moaned. “I hate surprises,” he complained. “They never end up good.”

“Stop whining. It’s wonderful, you’ll see.” Ted left the kitchen so the best friends could talk about him privately. He knew they did it, triangulating. He was excited about his news; it was too good to pass up, and he did it without conferring with Ashton, which might cause trouble. He hoped not.

He was standing in the living room window looking at the river when he saw Zach’s piece-of-crap car pull up. Deborah looked from the car toward the windows and saw Ted standing there, waving. He felt a rush of tenderness for her. She was half him. Half his DNA. She looked more like Natalie because of her hair and stature, but when he concentrated on her eyes and mouth, she looked just like him. He rushed to greet them at the elevator, shouting, “They’re here!” toward the kitchen. When Deb stepped off the elevator and saw her father standing there waiting for her, she ran and hugged him. Ted wasn’t the most demonstrative man she’d ever met, but she was sure he was growing to love her. “Come in!” he said, shaking Zach’s hand. “I have exciting news. Well, I think it’s exciting. Your mother and aunt might not.” Deborah looked concerned as they entered the apartment. Ashton hugged her and then Natalie.

“OK, get it over with,” Ashton said. They stood around the little hallway, waiting.

“Let’s go into the dining room. I have something to show you,” Ted said. They went to the table and began pulling out chairs to sit on, Ashton clearly anxious. Natalie didn’t know what to think because Ted so rarely engaged anyone.

“Last week, a client came to me with a proposition. He’s interested in buying my apartment in Battery Park. I had tenants until last month, and now I just want to get rid of it. Anyway, I listed it, and this guy loves the building, wants to be downtown, blah blah blah. The only problem is he has to sell this piece of property.” Ted distributed flyers to each of them. Natalie was the first to figure it out.

“Oh! I see! Wow, that’s really nice,” she said. It was a rental flyer for a vacation home upstate. It was an older log cabin with four bedrooms, two baths, and a newer kitchen, on twenty-nine acres in the middle of the forest. Ashton immediately began decorating it in his mind. Zach and Deborah could think of only one thing: an escape for the weekends. And it was only two hours away.

“This is an age-old dream of mine,” Natalie said.

“We’d have to put another bath in right away,” Ashton said.

“OK, whatever it takes. So should I tell him it’s a deal?” Ted asked. Everyone said yes.

“We’ll have a place to spend every holiday,” Ashton said. “I can’t believe it.” He began planning a July Fourth picnic in his head. Deborah imagined buying the bathing suit she wanted, wondering if there was any place to swim. Zach thought of the hiking trails through the mountains.

Natalie pictured herself sitting in a rocker on the porch that surrounded the cabin on a fall night, reading, with a wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders. A month ago, she was preparing to kill herself. She remembered ideation. Her parents were safe in their Queens nursing home, she’d finished grading her students’ finals, and the prospect of getting through the summer alone had loomed like a giant, devilish icon. There was nothing left to look forward to. She’d done the volunteer route, given until she was exhausted. Out of nowhere, Penny Able’s letter arrived to save her life. She turned her head when others were occupied, pretending to look out the window, hiding her tears.
Thank you, God
.

Chapter 33

S
andra and Tom spent the half hour after Pam left getting baby Miranda ready for her morning nap. It was short, less than an hour, but needed, and it would give them some down time before Tom’s father and his wife, Gwen, came by. Sandra was comforted by her routines, and now with the baby, they were sacrosanct. Miranda became a maniac if she missed a nap. Nelda had nailed the schedule down, and Sandra continued to follow it to a T. Virginia promised she would, too, when a little demonstration was given of an angel baby who turned into a screaming terror until she found her crib again. They would become willing slaves to her schedule—for a few months anyway. Nelda said it was ever-changing. Sandra would call Nelda hourly at first, to tell her what was happening in the nursery. She started calling her “Granny.” “Granny, baby Miranda wants to hear your voice,” she’d say. Nelda would baby-talk through the phone, yelling “Goo-goo” so that nurses and patients out in the hall would hear it and laugh.

The news that Steve had been killed upset Sandra, but she was so occupied with the baby and preparing her for the work week that she recovered temporarily. More tears would come in the night. The lives of Marie and Steve, ending so tragically, were the source of a lingering sadness that prevented Tom and Sandra from experiencing too much joy.

The first forty-eight hours of Miranda’s presence filled every second of Sandra’s day. By Sunday night, the little crib area in their room was a self-contained nursery, and it was as though she’d always been there. Miranda was a sound sleeper, so when Tom and Sandra were ready to go to bed, they didn’t have to worry about disturbing her. “I’m surprised how easy the transition has been,” Tom said. The real test would be Monday, when they got home from work. But as it turned out, Virginia had the apartment straightened up and dinner made. They took Virginia home and could come back and enjoy a little time playing with the baby. She went to bed by six. It became a goal to get home before Miranda fell asleep.

Gwen and John Adams fell in love with Miranda at their first meeting on Sunday. Gwen didn’t want to give her up, holding her and playing with her all afternoon. The four of them took her for a walk around the neighborhood in her little stroller.

“What are you going to do with her tomorrow?” John asked.

“Mom’s offered to babysit,” Tom answered.

John smiled and nodded his head. “Actually, I was going to offer,” he said. “Let me make restitution for the years I neglected my kids.”

“Dear, don’t be too hard on yourself,” Gwen said. “You didn’t know any better.” Tom agreed.

“Ignorance,” John said. “It’s no excuse.”

“Dad, you’ll have her whole life to take care of her, OK? It’s only been two days!” Tom said.

“Oh boy, I forgot about my sister, Sylvia. I have to call her and tell her what happened,” Sandra said. “We promised to keep each other in the loop.”

“I should have a baby shower!” Gwen said. “What do you think?” Sandra nodded.
It would be a way to honor Marie
, she thought, to shower Miranda with gifts and attention. She took some subtle deep breaths, fearful she’d start to cry again.
I’ll give Miranda the love and respect I should have given to Marie before she died but was unable to
. She remembered the last time she saw Marie, when she was bedridden at the mansion. Sandra was still filled with so much animosity that she could barely be civil to her. And sadly, she was jealous of her for being pregnant. She shivered with shame as she remembered telling Steve that Marie was irresponsible for getting pregnant.
Forgive me, God
.

“Are you OK, honey?” Tom asked. Sandra nodded her head.

“I just remembered Marie,” she said, explaining to Gwen and his father that Marie was Miranda’s mother. “The last time I saw her, I wasn’t very nice. I said something unkind to Steve about her, too. Now I can’t take it back because he’s dead. I guess this is why we must be kind to one another. You just never know.” They agreed. The situation was bittersweet.

Later that night, as Miranda was fast asleep in her crib and Tom was snoring softly next to her in bed, Sandra starting thinking of baby Ellin, an indulgence in which she frequently took part. She remembered feeling her move for the first time within her womb, the flutter, like butterfly wings inside of her body. She could almost feel the pain of childbirth, the physical pain of the uterine contractions and the fullness in her vagina as the little body slid out of her. The psychic pain, too—first finding out she was pregnant the week after Jack died, and then holding the dead infant in her arms, realizing the futility of it, the waste. It was during these forays into the past that Sandra allowed herself to feel the complete loss of Jack. Because he was dead, she could forget the terrible things he did; betraying his wife, lying to Sandra, giving her HIV. She pretended that he’d be thrilled with her pregnancy, and they’d live together somewhere neutral, not that awful place on Madison, but a better apartment, a penthouse. She had the complete fantasy, wasting precious minutes she should be sleeping in preparation for work the next day. Her mind games ended when Tom would move next to her; he loved her unconditionally. Tom was faithful, supportive, forgiving. He didn’t care that she had a deadly virus brewing within her or that the doctor had warned her against getting pregnant again when he so desperately wanted children. She snuggled down next to Tom, whispering once again to God to forgive her for being such a jerk, for spending a second of her life yearning for Jack. He was gone forever, yet she missed him so badly.

Chapter 34

L
isa and Ed drove to Long Beach Island with the top down on her car, blasting the radio, and singing along with familiar summer songs. He was four years older then she was, but that was nothing in the music world. They’d discovered they had the same tastes in almost everything. Lisa liked healthy food and shunned fast food, as did Ed. She liked the summer and not the winter, Japanese cuisine better than Chinese, football better than baseball—ditto for him. The one thing they didn’t share was knowledge of God. She was raised in a mixed household; her mother was a non-practicing Catholic and her father a non-observant Jew. But she had respect for all religions, as did Ed. He didn’t think it would cause a problem.

She could hardly wait to get to the sailboat. The entire time they drove, he held on to her hand unless he was turning the wheel. She’d never thought much about sex before except for how to avoid it. As far as she knew growing up, it was the source of all conflict in life. But that was before Ed. He was handsome, with a nerdy aura that she loved already. As soon as she was able after breakfast, she called her mother, who seemed sincerely thrilled that Lisa was in love with Ryan’s brother after less than 24 hours.
Anybody but Ryan
, Pam thought. And since she’d experienced something similar with Dan, she wouldn’t criticize her. Lisa explained the entire breakfast scenario, including Ryan’s pronouncement that he was gay, as if no one already knew. Pam was saddened that her naïve daughter had spent a year in Hawaii with a gay man, not able to tell.

“Mom! I knew it, I swear. He told me he was homophobic, and that was my key. But now I think he was just saying that to see what my reaction would be. I truly think he was either in denial or didn’t know, and seeing me with Ed made him confront the truth.”

“Well, I am so happy for you because
you
sound so happy!” Pam said. “You should be proud of yourself that you weren’t afraid to do what was right for you. You could’ve stayed with Ryan, miserable for the rest of your life. I think it was all meant to be. And I have a surprise! Brent is getting married!”

Lisa screamed “Yippee!” She was truly happy for her brother and Julie. They talked a few more minutes before saying goodbye.

As she and Ed drove through the pine barrens of New Jersey to get to the island, waves of excitement rippled through Lisa’s body. She imagined what it would be like to take her clothes off in front of a man. Although she was never overly modest, it was intimidating. The women in her family didn’t talk about their genitals, and she never saw pornography or even women’s parts in a biology class. After she grew up, she’d accidently walked in on Brent, shocked at the sight of his penis. It looked so fragile hanging there, pink and ugly, like a fat worm. She hoped Ed’s was different, that she could find something positive about it so she didn’t have to pretend to like it. What was expected of her? She took his hand and squeezed it, closing her eyes.

“Nervous?” Ed asked, concerned.

Lisa chuckled. “You could say that,” she answered, looking out of the window, glad he couldn’t read her mind.

“Don’t worry about it, OK? There’s no rules we have to follow. We’ll just make up our own as we go,” Ed said. “Nothing has to happen this week. This is our time together.” She smiled at him, relieved. As he drove the car over the causeway, she thought how different it was than Babylon. Before going to the boat, they stopped at a little convenience store for provisions. She followed Ed around the store, grabbing whatever looked good to her, but when they got a package of toilet paper off the shelf, it reminded her they would be secluded on a boat together for a whole week, and a shiver of excitement went down her spine.
Oh God, it’s really going to happen
. They might not
have
to have sex, but they were
going
to if she had anything to say about it.