In Memoriam (3 page)

The ongoing anger she had for the Chua family was probably misplaced grief for Brent, and Pam knew it. She preferred being angry. Dan had tried to make amends after betraying her with Lisa by being solicitous, but Pam didn’t trust him and could see the slick lawyer come shining through in just about everything he said to her. His sliminess made her skin crawl.

Why she got involved with him in the first place was a mystery. Deciding it must have been the contrast between neuter Dave, her previous boyfriend, and macho Dan that attracted her, or her pride after Andy Andretti walked out on her. Dan was young and hot, and her ego fell for his attention. Pride cometh before a fall.

Driving back to the beach from the hospital increased her anxiety rather than diminished it. Staying busy was key. Her mother would soon be arriving home from spending the morning with Lisa, and Bernice was there with her assistant, probably playing Gin Rummy. Bernice started drinking again soon after moving in, and Pam had let her. She was eighty years old. If she wanted to feel a buzz in the afternoon, Pam would facilitate it. The cocktail hour was eagerly looked forward to now that the ladies were in residence.

Developing a fantasy world made living tolerable for her after Brent died, beginning with not allowing his name spoken. If anyone dared to, her displeasure was such that it would be the last time. Audible gasps followed by, “Please don’t mention him,” and, “I’d rather not hear about it,” were effective strategies. But when both Sandra and Lisa chose Brent as their babies’ middle name in spite of knowing her feelings, Pam gave up, keeping quiet but cringing whenever she heard it used.

Eventually, life was tolerable because she pretended he was still alive. Brent was in Pasadena, working. He rarely came home after graduating college, so it was an easy smoke screen to erect. She didn’t know how long she’d be able to get away with it, but for now, magical thinking was working for her.

The horrible night Brent was murdered was a blurry mess in her memory. Other parents who’d lost children told her the memories burned vividly in their brain and were available for revisiting. Not for Pam. She thought part of the reason was because she heard the news from Andy Andretti, the first man she’d dated after Jack died. The day she told him she had AIDS, he fled, and then he spoke about it to other people.

After leaving the birthing center, Pam’s thoughts returned to that night when Brent was murdered. She didn’t fight the memory this time, picturing being outside on the veranda late at night as she had done for years. It was cool, early summer, and she had the fire pit lit. There was no moon, and the stars popped in the black sky. It was impossible to see where the horizon ended until a boat pulling a lighted dinghy came into view. It was so beautiful, seeing the dots of white light against the black sky moving slowly across her field of vision. She was about to indulge in fantasy, remembering when Jack was alive and the two of them would sit out just as she was doing, watching the ships in the night, when the doorbell rang. It was late, and the sound startled her. She said, “Brent!”
He must have decided to come home after all rather than sleeping at the apartment.
She jumped and ran to the door, smiling, not thinking why he would come to the front door instead of through the garage as usual.

Throwing the door open, she was shocked to see Andy standing in front of her. The first thing that went through her head was that it had to have something to do with Ed Ford, Lisa’s husband, who had recently had a run-in with the police.

“Oh!” She was speechless for a second. “Hi,” she finally said. “What’s wrong?”

“Can I come in, Pam?” Andy asked.

Later, Pam thought how surreal the scene must have appeared, that it was too bad they didn’t have any witnesses to it.

“Ha! Why would I let you in my house at this hour?” She was in her best haughty matron pose, in flowing gauze summer pants and shirt, her hair piled on her head like a princess, with her nose in the air.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and for just a second, she was frightened. A cop was at her door in the middle of the night. Wasn’t that enough? She thought of her children. The entire scenario didn’t take more than sixty seconds.

“Oh God,” she said, and she leaned forward to grab onto the front of his shirt. He put his arms around her. “Oh God, oh god, oh god.” Hopeful
God
or
someone
would hear her and everything would be okay, that he was only there to tell her a neighbor’s dog was on the loose or that her car had been stolen. Anything but what she would ultimately hear come from his mouth.

“Brent’s gone,” he said. “He was shot.”

Pam let go of Andy and put her hands up to her face. Oddly, she didn’t burst into tears or start screaming. She could feel a wave of something pass through her body; of indeterminate temperature, it started at her throat and moved through her chest and came out her feet. When it had run its course, she just wanted the man gone. She didn’t need details or explanations, not yet anyway. She wanted to be alone to process what she’d just heard. No one could help her; it was something horrible she needed to do on her own, never to recover.

“Thank you for coming to tell me,” she said, moving by him to grasp the door. She hoped that was enough of a hint for him to get out so she didn’t have to ask him to go.

He paused for a second, and it was a second too long.

“Please get out of my house, Andy.” She put her hand up against his chest to push him out the door. Whatever it was that had left her body was trying to get back in, bubbling up in her throat, choking her, and he had to leave before she lost control. He didn’t say good-bye, honoring what he saw in her eyes, that she was a woman come unwound.

He walked down the path to his car and turned around to see the light over the front door go off. Waiting in case she started to scream or needed help, after a few minutes he gave up. Pam hid in the corner of the vestibule, peeking out the sidelight. Once he pulled away from the house, she’d feel safe. The light beams on the car moved past, and she ran to the veranda, slamming shut the sliding doors. Days later, she’d arrange to have the veranda enclosed with doors that she could lock. Everything closed, locked, turned off, that was the only way she could feel secure again. The next thing she did, which turned out to be a lifesaver, was record a message on her answering machine.
This is Pam. I’m sorry to inform you my son, Brent, has passed away. I ask that you respect my privacy and not contact me. Funeral arrangements will be posted in the paper.
She had three calls to make, one to Lisa and one to Nelda and one to Sandra, but she’d do it in the morning.

Eerily calm, she got ready for bed, her mind a blank. Taking two sleeping pills, she got under the covers, fully dressed, and fell right to sleep.

The next morning, something had shifted; she woke up remembering Brent was dead. “Oh God, why?” she cried, disbelieving.
How could this be happening? Never see his beautiful face again, hear his voice, feel his hug?
She lay in bed crying, thinking of Jack, what his response would be if he were still alive. Jack wouldn’t have survived it, dying on the spot or going crazy. Jack dying first was appropriate, for his sake.

Popping up out of bed, she ran to the hall phone to call Lisa. The light on the answering machine was flashing wildly. The morning news was full of the story about Brent and his assailant, and friends and family were calling for information and offers of help.

“Mother! Oh my God,” Lisa screamed into the phone. “Dan is on his way to White Plains right now to try to see what happened.” They cried together. Lisa promised to call her as soon as Dan got in touch. Dan. Pam wasn’t thinking about Dan the snake. Right now, it was Dan their attorney. He’d find out whatever he could. Last night, Pam was unable to engage Andy Andretti, and now she was regretful, starved for information, wanting visuals. She wanted fodder to focus on, but she didn’t think she wanted to share her grief with someone so undeserving.

The next call was to Sandra, the same screaming and crying, the same promises that Tom would find out what he could. Someone had to call Nelda, so Pam decided to bypass it, telling her mother was more than she could tolerate, passing the task on to her sister Sharon.

After she made the calls, Pam got back into bed and stayed there the rest of the day. She didn’t brush her teeth or bathe, forgot about coffee to drink. Nothing mattered. She heard a soft knock on the veranda glass; it would be Jeff Babcock, her closest friend. She couldn’t talk to him yet.

Sometime in the afternoon, she fell asleep again, and when it was dark, after nine that night, she woke up. Feeling physically ill, she struggled to stand up at the side of the bed. Pam, always well groomed and ready for the world, didn’t bother to look in the mirror. If she had, she’d have been shocked. Wearing the same gauze outfit she’d put on yesterday morning, it was a wrinkled, sweaty mess. Hair mashed down on the right side, the pile of curls perched on top of her head twenty-four hours ago had slid down the left side of her head. Mascara smeared under her swollen eyes, lipstick worn off on her pillowcase, she was unrecognizable.

She stumbled through the hallway to the front door and peeked out the sidelight again. The porch was packed with flower arrangements and fruit baskets. The pile of goodwill did nothing to lighten her burden. If she had the courage, she’d kill herself. Nothing could have prepared her for the way losing a child would make her feel. It transcended feeling. All the years she’d looked the other way, served her family and did for others suddenly turned on her, and she could only look upon herself. It wasn’t introspective, increasing her peace, or pain relieving. She wanted her pain to magnify and take over her body and mind so she didn’t have to think. She didn’t want to be nice and make small talk, comfort others and make excuses for God. Instead, the overwhelming desire was to stamp her foot, to throw the contents of her china cabinet onto the marble floors, or better, to set fire to the house. She wanted to make a statement that would clarify what losing Brent meant to her.

It meant everything. It meant that nothing else mattered, that her life had been a waste. Nothing and no one was as important to her as her children were. Lisa was as good as lost to her thanks to bastard Dan. Now Brent was gone. That said it all. For a second, she didn’t know if she could return to what had been the motivating factor of her life prior to this horror. Everything she did was pride based: her house, her appearance, even her family. But if she didn’t return to it at some point, there’d be no reason for living now that the children were no longer hers.

Slowly, through that second day, she pulled herself together. By midnight, she’d bathed and put on clean pajamas. She brought some of the arrangements in and would have the florist return for the remainder and take them to a nursing home the next day. Changing her sheets helped. She wanted a fresh start.

The next morning, she got out paper and pencil and started making notes; listening to the messages on her phone alone took over an hour. In her methodical way, she listed everyone who’d contacted her and inventoried the gifts they’d sent. She returned calls to friends and family, keeping it brief and cutting off anyone long-winded by saying she was too upset to talk and was hanging up. She had nothing to lose by being honest, not caring if they talked about her later. The time to exercise perfection was long past.

The funeral would be the following week. Ed’s funeral would be the next day, and Pam had to go, had to support Gladys and Lisa, and she didn’t think anyone would survive the funerals of two sons in the same week. Both old ladies, Nelda and Bernice, were going. The loss, the sadness seemed to have the opposite effect on them, energizing them, filling them with compassion and purpose. They wanted to be with Pam and Lisa, not stuck in their retirement center with no one to help.

Pam made the next major decision of her current life: both women were coming back to Long Island indefinitely. She’d spend the small fortune it cost to keep them at Eagle’s Nest on personal assistants, a driver, everything they’d need to be happy living together as a family.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I would love it,” Nelda said. “I’ve always loved the beach.”

Bernice thought about it for a few seconds. “I might miss the city.”

“Well, what if I told you you’d be free to come in any time you chose. We can even outfit Jack’s apartment so you can stay in town in comfort when you’d like.”

“That would be fabulous,” Bernice replied, grasping Nelda’s hand. “What do you think, Nellie? Should we let your daughter spring us out of this place?”

“Hell yes,” Nelda said. “I was ready last year.”

So they’d moved to the beach, and a little life returned to the house.

The mask she’d worn all of her life came in handy during the week of funerals and forced public exposure. She cringed when Dan came to Brent’s visitation; it was bad enough he had the nerve to show his face in New Jersey at Ed’s funeral. Pam wondered if it was killing Lisa to have to drive with her instead of going with Dan, but she didn’t ask. She was on a self-care journey.

Ed’s funeral was beautiful, a contradictory statement for a tragic event. The parish made every effort to honor Ed in spite of being financially ruined. And Gladys clung to Pam, including her in introductions to family and friends as, “My wonderful friend and Ed’s mother-in-law, Pam.”

Brent’s funeral was just the opposite, with news cameras blocking the street of the funeral home. The police had to come to assist when the situation looked like it might turn into a circus. An arrest warrant for murder issued, Charles Hsu claimed he was acting in self-defense, but Brent wasn’t carrying a gun, and Hsu’s daughter said he wasn’t threatening her father. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Margaret Hsu, Charles’s wife, accused Brent of sexually assaulting Julie, claims Julie denied.

The inevitable happened; Jack’s name was tied to Brent. All the old secrets and lies Pam hoped had been buried were brandished around, speculated upon, embellished. The tabloids had a field day for weeks, publishing the most intimate details of Jack’s life when several of his girlfriends came forward, thrilled to have their fifteen minutes of fame.