A Mother's Homecoming (10 page)

Pam swiveled her head sharply toward the woman.

Martha smiled, keeping her voice low. “You don't recognize me, do you? I saw you at the last meeting, but I came in late and sat in the back. I won't intrude on
your privacy, I just wanted to let you know … well, you're not alone. And I'm here if you ever need someone to talk to between get-togethers.”

“Thank you.” Pam was genuinely touched. This wasn't some passerby who had an overdeveloped curiosity about someone else's life, this was somebody who had been through it. “How long have you been sober?”

“Eight years.”

“Wow.” Even though Pam hoped to make it that far—fully
intended
to make it—the thought of all those days and weeks and months strung together, stretched in front of her … She swallowed, her throat dry and tight.

“I used to be a friend of your mother's,” Martha added. “Well, social buddy anyway. I spent so much time at Wade's that I had my first wedding there! Guess it wasn't such a shock when that didn't work out. I'm remarried now. And I don't go down to the Watering Hole anymore.”

“Good for you.”

“Yes, it is. I won't say it's been easy, but it's been worth it. Keep that in mind for yourself, dear. I realize you're dealing with some difficult personalities—” she fluttered her fingers in the direction of the salon “—and probably some difficult personal situations. But hang in there. One day you could be the almost-to-a-decade nosy old lady butting into something that's none of her business.”

Pam laughed. “I look forward to it.”

After her chat with Martha, Pam's spirits were restored enough that she walked back into the salon with a smile on her face. She even managed to keep it there when she saw that Faith was in Nancy's chair and that
the stylist was egging on the girl's rebellious moment. Her hair was a good six inches shorter! When the cut was finished, Pam watched Faith stare into the mirror, eyes wide as she considered what she'd done.

To keep her heart from sinking, Pam reminded herself that hair grew back. Eventually. Besides, maybe this would teach Faith to be more judicious with her actions. It wasn't even that the cut looked bad—if Nancy wasn't a stellar human being, she was still a decent stylist—but the new length was something of a shock.
She looks older.
Faith's features were highlighted differently. One no longer saw a pretty girl with a fall of long hair; one glimpsed the young woman she was on her way to becoming.

Pam had the oddest urge to give the girl a hug, feeling almost maternal in that split second. But she squashed the instinct. Pam could just imagine Nick's outrage if she encouraged Faith … and he'd be right. It wouldn't be fair to raise the girl's hopes that they could have a normal mother-daughter relationship. Not that Pam even knew what that was.

At the register, Pam took a collection of one- and five-dollar bills from the now subdued girl, the wad of cash making it clear that this was accumulated allowance. Nick would have simply handed her a twenty.

“Wait,” Nancy called, “don't forget to apply the firsttime customer discount. I've never cut her hair before.” Since stylists liked to build their client base and end up with loyal, repeat business, it wasn't uncommon to use such discounts. But Pam suspected Nancy's offer came more out of guilt for taking the kid's money.

Pam handed back a five. “Here. Are you going to be able to get home okay?”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Got here just fine, didn't I?”

“About that. Faith, I work here. I'm sure you don't traipse onto your dad's construction sites in the middle of his projects. If there's an emergency, that's one thing, but …”

“Right. I get it. You don't want me around.”

Yes, I do. More than I should.
The girl's wounded expression triggered guilt so sharp that Pam swallowed, suddenly thirsty. She missed the days when she could have a drink to blunt the razor edges of unwanted emotion—but it had never only been one drink and the painful emotions had always been there when she was sober again.

If she couldn't make herself feel better, she could at least try to lessen the sting of her rejection for Faith's sake. “I don't want you at the salon,” she clarified. “Not in the middle of my shift, anyway. It's unprofessional.”

“But other times, when you're not at work?” Faith pressed. “Because there was something I wanted to talk to you about. Can you teach me to play guitar?”

Pam rubbed a hand against her temple, torn. It was so tempting, to seize the opportunity to spend more time with the girl.
Why doesn't she hate me?
That would almost be easier. “I'm only in town for a matter of weeks. Wouldn't you rather find a regular instructor who can keep working with you after I'm gone?”

Faith's shoulders hunched. “I guess. There's a guy my friend knows who might be able to help.”

“There you go!” Pam smiled encouragingly. This other teacher would be for the best. Even though Pam periodically tuned her guitar, it had been a couple of years since she'd really played.

Faith didn't return the smile. Instead she glared as she pocketed her change. “See you around.”

Pam watched the girl slink out of the salon, replaying
her last words and wondering how literally Faith meant them. With most people “see you around” was a casual farewell. So how had her daughter managed to make it sound like a warning?

A
LTHOUGH
P
AM DIDN'T
see Martha at Tuesday's meeting, there were other people who offered a friendly smile and word of welcome. After about twenty minutes, she decided she was comfortable enough to talk.

“Some of you knew my mother—she was hard to miss. She was used to being a local legend—prom queen, Miss Mimosa in the town parade. But after that chapter of her life faded …”
After she had me.
“Her drinking became legendary. I started singing at an early age, and, looking back, I think part of the reason I pursued it aggressively was to manipulate the spotlight. I wanted every solo, every leading role in school musicals. Because the second anyone saw me, I wanted them to say ‘You're that girl with the great voice,' instead of ‘You're Mae Wilson's daughter.' I left town in the early days of things going bad for me. I've never been here as a failure before.”

There'd been some scandal over her teenage pregnancy, but her peers had assumed she and Nick would marry anyway, so some found it romantic.

She jerked her thoughts from the past—from him—back to the present. “The spotlight's a lot less pleasant now, but even when people come into the salon and make a snide comment because they think they know my deep dark secrets, I remind myself that what they ‘know' barely scratches the surface. The only person in this whole town who's ever seen me at my worst is me. And I'm determined never to see that woman in
the mirror again. That's what keeps me from picking up a drink.”

After Pam spoke, a married father of four talked about how he'd started drinking after being laid off two years ago. The ironic part was that he hadn't been able to stop drinking even when he did find new employment, ultimately costing himself that job, too. He was openly emotional while he spoke of letting his family down, and Pam could only imagine what it was like to be in his shoes. In some of her more self-pitying moments when she'd first joined AA, she'd told herself that she had it harder than most, trying to cope with her problems alone, no family to support her efforts. But she'd changed her perspective.

Jake, the family man currently trying to get through the probationary period of his latest job, had pressures she couldn't fathom. Any mistake he made affected the five other people in the world he loved most. There was a certain freedom in being alone.
Freedom … or cowardice?

After the meeting broke up, Pam headed for her car, debating whether to go straight back to Aunt Julia and Uncle Ed's and call it a night or continue work on the floors at Mae's house. Pam had made a discovery last night—technically, very early this morning.

At first it had seemed as though the floors were going to echo the walls. Beneath a peeling and unfinished layer of butt-ugly wallpaper, she'd excavated two more layers. When Pam had pulled up a mildewed corner of carpet, she'd found another layer of carpet and thought
here we go again …
but beneath that, hardwood! Honest to goodness hardwood floors. Sure, they weren't in pristine condition, but they were a far better alternative to the dingy carpet rotting atop them.

Did she have enough energy after almost no sleep the night before, a full shift at the salon, learning from Julia how to make a chicken potpie from scratch
and
a post-dinner AA meeting to drive back out to the house and finish liberating that floor? Imagining its full potential was almost enough to give her a renewed burst of energy.

Almost.

“Pam? Hey, Pam!” a male voice called from across the parking lot.

In some of the neighborhoods she'd lived previously, Pam wouldn't have slowed down in a parking lot at night to answer anyone. But the lot was brightly lit with old-fashioned wrought-iron lanterns and she was within both sight and earshot of a dozen or so other people.

“Yes?” She smiled expectantly, trying to remember the young man's name. When she'd spotted him in the meeting, she'd been taken aback; he didn't even look old enough to drink legally, although she supposed you didn't have to be able to purchase alcohol in a bar to develop a problem.

“I'm Richie,” he said. “Two things. First, a couple of us missed dinner trying to get here on time from work, and we're going out for barbecue, if you'd like to join us. But also, I overheard you mentioning that you're trying to fix up the house your mom left you? I actually work in construction, for Bauer and Shepard.”

She immediately had a visual of that company name on the side of Nick's truck—followed by the image of Nick getting out of the truck at her aunt's house, looking great in jeans as he strode purposefully toward her.

Oblivious to the fact that he'd lost half her attention, Richie continued. “I thought that if there are one or two
projects you get stuck on, maybe some of us here can help you.”

“Thank you, that's very kind of you to offer. I've already had dinner, but I might take you up on the—” Her phone, set to vibrate before the meeting, began buzzing around inside Pam's purse like a hive of angry bees.

She flashed Richie an apologetic smile. “Do you mind? Very few people have this number, and it could be an emergency.”

“Not at all.” He waved, then caught up with his dinner companions.

She hit the answer button. “Hello?”

“Pamela Jo,” Nick growled, “what in the
hell
did you do to my daughter?”

Pam rocked back on her heels. “Excuse me?”

“It's bad enough that I find out the two of you are meeting behind my back—didn't you respect me enough to discuss it with me? If you don't recognize my authority as a single parent,
you shouldn't have left her with me in the first place.
”

She was stunned, not only by the out-of-the-blue phone call but also by the depth of emotion in his words. How many years had he been waiting to lash out about that? On the other end of the phone, Nick fell quiet. Was he regretting his outburst or just biding his time until the next attack?

Making her way to her car, she gave him a moment to calm down. She slid into the driver's seat and locked her doors. “Nick, the only time I've seen Faith since that day you dropped her off was at the salon, where she just showed up for a haircut. I had no idea she was coming. She didn't even have an appointment.”

More silence. Pam grew uneasy. He'd seemed upset about more than a single visit to the beauty shop.

When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, but tight, barely restrained. “She looks so much like you,
now more than ever. She never wanted her hair short before.”

Pam ran a hand self-consciously over her own short, spiky hair. “I didn't suggest she get it cut like that.”

“You didn't have to. Don't you see that she—” He edited himself, changing tack. “But what about guitar lessons with that slimeball nineteen-year-old? She said that was your idea! That guy is bad news, and I don't want Faith within three miles of him, much less
alone
with him and
paying
to be there! You can't just waltz into her life—”

Pam's burble of laughter stopped him dead.
Oh, hell.
Where had that come from? There was nothing humorous about this call. Could she convince him it had simply been a nervous giggle and that she hadn't meant anything by it?

“My daughter's well-being is amusing to you?” he asked coldly.

“No, of course not. I … care about Faith, too. And I let her know when she came to the salon that I was worried about how she got there and how she was getting home. Even in a place as relatively predictable as Mimosa, she's too young to be gallivanting around alone and unsupervised.” Too late, Pam realized that might sound like criticism of his parental skills, so she barreled onward. She'd rather he be angry with her for inappropriate laughter than argue with him about Faith.

“Okay, maybe one teensy thing struck me funny,” she admitted. “Nick Shepard, protective father? Vigilant against teenage guys with lustful thoughts! You're right to look out for her absolutely, but in my mind, I can still see
you
as that teenage guy with lustful thoughts.”

“God, if any kid ever did to Faith what I did to you, I'd …”

Pam blinked. Was that self-recrimination she heard in his voice? “It's not like you had to seduce me, Nick.” She'd wanted him so much.

All through their first date, she'd wanted him to kiss her. It had escalated every time she was around him, staring into those blue eyes and breathing in that familiar cologne. Just the feeling of him coming up behind her in the library had sent tingles through her body. He hadn't even needed to touch her. Whenever he'd been close, she'd grown preoccupied with what it would be like when they touched later, when they were away from the school or when his parents weren't in view.

But she doubted telling him that, reminding him how hot they'd been for each other, was going to make him feel any calmer about raising a teenager daughter.

Nick cleared his throat. “You've really only seen her the once that I didn't know about, at the salon?”

“Of course.”

“She made it sound like more. I wish I knew why. We've always been close, so why would she lie to me? Especially about something likely to make me angry. I thought kids lied when they were trying to cover their butts, not to get themselves into trouble.”

Pam didn't have a simple answer for him, but she resented being used as a pawn in Faith's adolescent struggles with her father.

“I guess,” he concluded, “she thought she could justify her actions by making them sound like her long-lost mother's idea, so she exaggerated the amount of time you've spent together. I've caught that friend of hers in situations like this. Since Morgan's parents are
divorced, she feels like she can play them off each other with no one the wiser. It's hard for them to verify stories if they don't even speak to each other.”

“Maybe,” Pam said slowly, “we can nip this in the bud if we show Faith we are willing to talk to each other.”

“Or willing to call each other screaming and hurling unfounded accusations?” he asked ruefully. “I don't normally yell like that.”

“I'll cut you a break this once,” she said, her tone light. While he'd definitely overreacted, these were extenuating circumstances. He was a single father staring down the barrel of the teenage years—that alone could periodically send a sane parent over the edge, much less a dad contending with his ex popping back into their lives after more than a decade. “Just don't let it happen again.”

She'd learned to be a more forgiving person, but she wasn't a doormat. He didn't get a free pass to bite her head off whenever Faith frustrated him.

“You're one hundred percent right,” he agreed. “This can't happen again, and I don't just mean my temper tantrum. We should show her, together, that she can't pull this crap. What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”

P
AM DROVE DOWN
Meadowberry, grinning as she passed Trudy's house.
I should stop by later and say hi.
The old woman would no doubt bluster as if Pam were interrupting something, but it was an act. Probably. Trudy had come into the salon two separate times since Pam started working there. The first to get her curls set, then a few days later for a manicure. And while Trudy had been as crusty as ever, not saying
anything that could be considered warm directly to her erstwhile tenant, she was quick to cut Nancy off at the knees whenever the former cheerleader started in on Pam.

It was like having a knight to ride to her rescue. A misanthropic, senior-citizen knight who wore floral muumuus in place of armor.

Pam was still smiling over the image when she pulled into Nick's driveway. She'd agreed to meet him at his house for a late lunch. Then the two of them would confront Faith as soon as she got home from school.
It'll be an ambush,
Nick had predicted gleefully. At the relish in his voice, Pam had almost felt a twinge of pity for their duplicitous daughter.

She climbed out of her car, processing more of her surroundings. Her stomach fluttered with nerves. Everything was just so domestic—Shepard stenciled on the mailbox, Faith's bike chained up on the covered porch, a pair of muddy male boots by the front door. The house itself looked comfortable, nice without being pretentious or intimidating. A great place to raise a family and unlike any place she had ever lived.

Aunt Julia and Uncle Ed's home was a worthy attempt, she supposed, but smaller and cramped with fussy antiques that didn't encourage a person to kick back and relax.

Pam rang the doorbell, then forced herself to stand stock-still. She called on old drama discipline, the knowledge that she was visible on stage and couldn't fidget. But it took effort, hearing Nick's approaching footsteps on the other side of the door, not to fuss with her hair or smooth her navy skirt or pull at the loose thread she'd just noticed on the hem of her bronze top.
Her clothes were rather lackluster today, but she'd felt the occasion called for something stern.

The door swung open, and Nick smiled at her. “Hey.” And with that voice, those eyes, he could have been seventeen.

And she was seventeen again, too, her entire being lighting up at the sight of him. “Hi.” But then she blinked, and the faint lines that hadn't been around his eyes came into focus. He wore a black polo shirt that bore his company's logo, not a heather gray T-shirt that said Mimosa High Athletics.

“Thanks for coming,” he said, ushering her inside. “It's decent of you to help me out, considering that Faith's sudden delinquent tendencies aren't your problem.”

She tried not to be stung by the reminder that she wasn't a real part of Faith's life. Hadn't Pam told herself all along that was for the best?

“And considering the way I yelled at you over the phone,” Nick added, his expression twisting in momentary self-disgust. “It won't happen again. Faith's a bright kid. If we want her to take us seriously as a united front, we can't be at each other's throats behind the scenes. Truce—for her sake?”

Pam nodded, knowing full well all the reasons he had to be angry with her and grateful that he was taking the high road. Unfortunately, declaring a cease-fire didn't automatically dispel the tension. She cast about for safe conservation.

“Something smells wonderful.”

“Thanks. Gwendolyn's soup recipe, in the slow-cook pot. I thought we'd have some salad with it.”

“Sounds good to me.” She set her purse down next to a decorative umbrella stand that seemed like a female
purchase rather than something a man would think to buy. As she followed him toward the kitchen, she noted a half-dozen more ornamental touches that seemed feminine in nature. His mom, his sister? Or were these things left over from his marriage to Jenna? At the sight of a whimsical throw pillow featuring a unicorn at a waterfall, she added Faith to her list of potential decorators.

The kitchen was fabulous, full of light and open space and built-in shelves stocked with simple but top-of-the-line equipment. She made an involuntary whimpering noise. “No way will the kitchen at Mae's house ever look like this. I don't care how long people worked on it. The chefs at Le Cordon Bleu could consult on the kitchen design, and it would still be a nightmare.”

Nick chuckled. “A nightmare? Guess I won't ask how the renovations are going.”

She scowled. “Let's not speak of it.”

He lifted the glass lid on the slow-cooker and stirred the soup, wafting the warm, rich smells of cumin and garlic and peppers through the room.

“Mmm.” She breathed in deeply. “One of these days, I've got to take up cooking. It's a hobby, sort of, but only as a spectator sport. Most of the shows I watch now are food-related.” She loved them, but tried to skip over episodes where they focused on the perfect wine pairings and cocktails to complement each dish.

“Yeah? Same here,” Nick admitted with a grin. “My favorites are the ones where they travel somewhere exotic and try local cuisine. About the most exotic place I ever made it to was Destin, Florida. Faith and I vacationed at the beach for a few days.”

That was a shame. Although Nick seemed reasonably content with his life—disastrous choices in wives
aside—she remembered all the places they'd talked about seeing together. If she hadn't been pregnant, curtailing his college football plans, where would he be today?

Nick shook his head. “Who knows? Maybe one day I'll take Faith to France. But you … Seen a lot of places?”

“I've seen a lot of the exact same places in a lot of different cities. No matter where I was, it all started to feel alike.” She'd been unhappy and jaded. At fifteen, she would have sworn that merely setting foot in Nashville or Hollywood would make her euphoric. But that had been a kid's dreams, bearing no resemblance to reality.

She'd learned the hard way that you couldn't just go to a new place and find joy there, not if you brought misery and guilt with you.

Changing the subject, she gestured at the produce laid out on the kitchen island. “What can I do to help?”

He set her to work washing and tearing romaine leaves at the sink while he chopped vegetables behind her. The steady rhythm was lulling, as was the simple, companionable silence between them. It wasn't until she noticed the strange limpness in her frame—her body unexpectedly relaxing—that she realized how much tension she'd been carrying lately. With golden afternoon sun streaming through the window and the comforting aroma of homemade soup curling around them, she felt far more mellow than she had since setting foot in Mimosa. This was why many people drank, she mused. That first glass of wine or sip of rich liquor? This warm, calm sensation, as if the soul had
just breathed a contented sigh, was what people wanted to duplicate.

Nick broke into her thoughts. “Not that it's any of my business, but if the house renovations are so hellish, have you considered not doing them? Not doing them yourself, I mean. It might be worth it to hand the job over to a professional.”

“You know any who work for free?”

“Ah, so it's a financial issue. It's possible, if Ed and Julia were willing to co-sign, that you might be able to get a small improvement loan against the projected sale price. Although loans aren't as easy to secure as they used to be in Mimosa.”

Was this all off the top of his head, or had he given her predicament some thought? No doubt he'd made the logical deduction that the sooner the house was taken care of, the sooner she would get the hell out of Dodge.

She brought him the freshly washed leaves to be tossed with diced cucumbers, avocados and tomatoes. “My sticking with the house instead of dumping the whole mess on someone else isn't just about the money. It's also cathartic. I'm never going to get the chance …”

Her throat closed around a lump of emotion, Mae's face flashing in her memory. That was the downside of relaxing—you lowered your guard. In this domestic setting, her mother's death hit her anew. Pam would never share a peaceful moment with Mae as the two of them prepared a meal and simply chatted.

She swallowed, embarrassed that her vision was suddenly blurred and hoping Nick didn't notice her glistening eyes. “I'll never get to repair my relationship with her. Repairing the house is as close as I can get.”