Family Dynamics (Pam of Babylon Book Five) (3 page)

Now a complete stranger was providing a method for Ted to be ushered into her life again. Seeing Deborah was secondary. Not even—she had no interest in her, having pushed any thought of her down deep. Yet she would do it to see Ted. Reaching for the phone to call Penny Able, she felt a shot of hopefulness. There was finally something to look forward to again. Maybe Deborah would turn out to be a positive addition to her life, after all.

Chapter 3

D
eborah Phillips put the last box of stuff from her dorm room into the back of her boyfriend Zach’s car. She’d collected so much stuff this year. Every time she went home on break, there’d be more
stuff
to pack up from her childhood bedroom. Her mother asked her where she was putting it all when she realized the girl was taking her stuffed animals and old coloring books, too.

“I like to go through my things,” Deborah lied. “It makes me feel closer to home.” Her mother was satisfied with the explanation, but the truth was, the first Dumpster she came to on the way back to school would get the boxes, except for a few very sentimental items.

“Why are you throwing your stuff away?” Zach asked, confused. “I thought you wanted it.”

“What I want is to be finished with my family and any memory of them, or that I ever lived in that house,” she said, bitterness lush in the words. “It will be easier for my mother when I leave for good if she doesn’t have to sort through a lot of toys and mementos.” She’d waited for this moment for as long as she could remember. Never feeling like she belonged in her family, the day her parents told her she was adopted answered so many questions. It wasn’t just the physical differences that had her questioning her heritage, although those traits were enough. She was small-statured and muscular, and her hair was like a Brillo pad. Her mother was willowy and blond. Her brother told her that the boys in his class were jealous of her warrior calves. How was it that she had legs like a football player, and both her parents were long-limbed and thin? She repeatedly asked her mother from the time she was a little girl if she was her real mother.

“Mom, did you really have me?” she asked. When the day came that Beverly and John Phillips finally had the guts to tell Debbie the truth, she was so convinced that they weren’t her birth parents that all she could do was laugh in their faces. “I told you!” From that moment on, it was an inner battle, one she thought was being waged without their knowledge. But they knew, and it became the uncomfortable topic they avoided, the issue Beverly lived in fear would be brought up during the biggest of family functions. Deborah was adopted, and she was not happy about it. Who were her real parents? She already saw them in her imagination. She must come from Arabic people, or Jews. Her mother would be Earth Mother, with hippie clothes and no makeup, unshaven legs, wearing a denim skirt. Her father was yet to be envisioned, but she imagined he might smoke weed and have long hair. She thought her adoptive parents provincial people. Politically conservative with their blond good looks and hymns played on the car radio irritated her. As she got older, friends told her all teens thought of their parents in that way, but she disagreed; it had never been a good fit.

The day she turned eighteen, Deborah found a lawyer who would help get her adoption records unsealed. Her mother signed a paper allowing it, never thinking that she may be advocating the end of her relationship with Deborah. She didn’t dream the situation was as bad as it was.

“It’s just a phase,” she told her husband, John. “All kids go through this at one time or another.” But he disagreed. Something about the way this child related to the family wasn’t right. His wife was an idealist. He knew it would be sooner rather than later that she’d have to face the truth about Deborah. He begrudgingly forked over twenty grand a year for her tuition to the Princeton Friends School, and more for Rutgers, knowing she disliked him and was biding her time until she could escape their bourgeois home life. What bothered John the most is that Deborah never seemed to like them, even as an infant. He’d hoped she might be autistic so there could be some early intervention. But it was just a simple case of a mismatched family. Beverly got pregnant shortly after Deborah’s adoption was finalized, and the love of their life, Greg, was born. Deborah loved him too, but from a distance. She gladly coddled him and helped him as the older sibling, but she knew instinctively that he was the real child, the genetically matched offspring who belonged in white-bread land.

As they drove away from New Brunswick toward Zach’s apartment in Hoboken, Deborah began to relax. She needed to call the Phillipses to tell them she wasn’t coming home for the summer, or ever, but she would do it in segments. First, she’d tell them she was staying with Zach’s sister for the weekend. No point in rubbing her disobedience in their nose. Then, once she’d heard from Penny Able, she would tell them the truth; she wasn’t coming home. If they withdrew school support because of her rebelliousness, she’d get a student loan. Very few of her school friends went without some measure of financial assistance. She was grateful for the two years she had under her belt. As she sat in the passenger seat with her eyes closed, daydreaming about what lay ahead, her cell phone rang. It was Penny Able.

Chapter 4

E
xhausted, Ashton and Ted would spend Friday night doing their routine; after dinner, they’d lounge in the den and pop a movie in the DVD player. It would be a quiet, married-couple kind of evening at home. Ashton made a delicious dinner; how he managed to come up with something every night was a mystery to Ted, who’d be happy with a hot dog from a street cart. They drank a great bottle of Vouvray in honor of their trip, going through their phones together to look at the pictures they took. In the coming weeks, they’d weed out the duds and print the best ones. Ted was feeling wonderful, the wine hitting him in the just the right way. They got up from the table laughing, stretching their arms above their heads. Ashton started clearing the table, and Ted joined in, not wanting the moment to pass too quickly, even though Ashton liked cleaning up alone.

“I want to help out. This has been a nice evening,” Ted said. Their chatter continued as the dishwasher was loaded and the dinner mess cleaned up. They took their wine glasses into the den and curled up together on the couch, the movie timed to start immediately after “48 Hours.” Ted had his arm around Ashton’s shoulders, and he could feel the muscles under his smooth skin. Something about the mix of the meal, the wine, and now being together to spend the evening triggered desire for Ashton. Ted acted on it, not wanting the moment to slip away because at his age, it wasn’t always easy getting ready to make love without pharmaceutical assistance. He reached over with is hand and tipped Ashton’s chin up so he could reach his lips. They kissed tenderly, the desire for one another strong. Ted kissed Ashton’s cheek as he moved his mouth around to his ear to whisper, “Just squeeze my balls a little, Ashton. I want you so badly.”

Ashton pulled away from Ted, his
look
unreadable. But it was definitely an Ashton
look
. “No,” he said, determined. Ted was taken aback.

“No, what?” he asked, confused.

“No, I won’t squeeze your balls a little. Good lord! We get home from Paris, run around all day making sure everything is perfect, get a letter that says you have a daughter, and you want me to squeeze your balls? I don’t think so.” Slightly out of breath, Ashton surprised himself at his irrational outburst. Why was he acting this way? He
wanted
to make love. And then, uncharacteristically, he began to cry. “I’m pissed! How could you be so selfish to fuck someone, get her pregnant, and then not realize you had a kid? Are you going to tell me Natalie Borg never tried to contact you? She got pregnant and then gave the kid up for adoption without informing you?”

Ted felt awful he’d upset Ashton, but he was going to try to remain rational. “Look, Ashton, I was only thirty-five. I may have avoided her. Right now, I don’t recall her trying to contact me. But I assure you, if this girl is my daughter, you have my word I will make restitution to both Natalie and Deborah. What else can I do to make you believe me?” He had hold of Ashton’s hands in his, and although Ashton tried pulling away, Ted wasn’t letting him. It may have been a combination of the wine and the stress of the day, the same things that made Ted want to make love to Ashton, that brought Ashton to a place of unreasonable behavior, but Ted would humor him for as long as it took to get back into his good graces.

“We’re both tired, and we just finished off a bottle of wine, so tonight is probably not the best time to try having a heartrending conversation. Do you agree?” He had his arm around Ashton, hugging him as Ashton continued to pout, tears rolling down his cheeks. Ashton nodded his head in agreement. Finally, Ted could feel him relax. Without any more conversation, with a small smile, he reached down to Ted’s crotch and gave it a little squeeze.

Chapter 5

N
atalie Borg was free to return Ted Dale’s call, according to Penny Able. But after she spoke to her attorney, she decided to hold off. It was already after eight Friday night, and she was hoping that Ted would suggest they get together. If it was too late, he might not think of it. And waiting for another day to pass might increase his anxiety, which would work in her favor. She didn’t want to be the one to pursue a relationship with him, but it was exactly what she had in mind. She slept like a log. When she woke up, she felt excited to talk to Deborah. The former antipathy had surrendered to her inherent maternal instinct. As she lay in bed, she thought about the sensations she had while pregnant, remembering the baby moving inside of her, the size of her breasts, the onset of labor. Her mother, furious and unable to relinquish her anger for even a morning, begrudgingly accompanied her daughter to the ER after the contractions started.

“Daddy wants me to put you in a cab,” she admitted.

“Well, I’m glad you’re coming with me,” Deborah grunted, trying not to bear down in the cab. The thought of giving birth on the filthy seat was disgusting, so she took little puffs of breath and did everything she could not to push. As the cab swept into the ER driveway, the joy of seeing the shining chrome doors and the doctors and nurses rushing around granted her permission to surrender to the power within her, and she pushed down with such force that her membranes ruptured and she shit in her pants, all in one motion. When she realized what she was leaving behind in the cab mixed with the absolute mortification on her mother’s face, she began to laugh so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks. She told the nurses what had happened, and they laughed along with her. The laughter minimized her labor pains, and in a very short time she delivered an eight-pound baby girl.

Part of the method she used to shield herself from the unbearable pain of giving her baby away was to refuse to look at her or allow anyone to speak of her. The jocular, laboring mother gave way to a distraught, belligerent young woman. For months afterward, Natalie couldn’t stand to speak to her parents. She went to her menial job in the college accounting office during the day, and in the evening she took master’s-level classes in education. When what she’d given up came to mind, she refused to dwell on it. By the baby’s first birthday, Natalie rarely thought of her, and if she did, she pushed it out of her mind. When she was really lonely, she allowed a middle-of-the-night fantasy, one in which the baby made her new family miserable and longed to return to her real mother. Twenty years of negative energy directed at her daughter had evidently had a powerful effect; luring Deborah back and making it impossible for her to bond with anyone else.

Natalie took a shower and washed her curly hair, taking extra time to shave her legs and even her toes. She’d go without socks today, her one concession to fashion. The clock said eight o’clock, too early to call anyone on a Saturday morning. She’d have coffee and wait until ten. And then she would call Ted Dale about their daughter. She hoped he wanted to see the girl because she had to. The emotional roller coaster was going faster and faster as the minutes dragged by.

Living in one of the most congested places in the country afforded Natalie the opportunity to be as isolated as if she were living on a mountaintop in Nepal. Teaching college students the contribution Native Americans made to modern life further separated her from human interaction.
Who gives a shit?
most of her students thought, but it was a required course for graduation on the same level as English 101. She was guaranteed seven full classes a semester. In spite of her busy life, communication with real human beings was almost nonexistent. She spent hours on social networking sites, chatting with strangers, playing time-wasting games, and then when it became too boring, she joined a dating site. Finding the nerve to actually meet someone in person terrified her, so eventually she stopped going there, as well. Deborah Phillips and Ted Dale reentered her life in the nick of time. God knew she didn’t want to have to change. Having these outside forces to deal with made any self-evaluation secondary in importance. Who could worry about weight loss and exercise when she had a former lover and their unknown daughter to deal with?

Ten o’clock finally rolled around, and Natalie stood by the phone with Ted’s number in her hand. The shrill ring knocked it out of her hand as she jumped in the air, frightened to death.

“Goddamned phone!” But she quickly picked it up and saw Ted Dale’s number on the caller ID. She cleared her throat and then spoke a soft “Hello.”

“Natalie? It’s Ted Dale again. Am I getting you at a bad time?” He and Ashton were barely speaking to each other that morning, so he thought the sooner he got this call over with, the faster he’d be in a position to kiss some ass and make things better around the home front.

“No, no, not at all! I was just picking up your number to call you back. I’m just flabbergasted that this situation has cropped up when it has,” she said, trying hard for a demure sound and having it come out all wrong. She was simpering. Finally, she just gave up. She was what she was, and there was no way she was going to change now. And then she wondered what he must be going through; he never even knew there was a baby.