Everything She Ever Wanted (5 page)

muleheaded his father could be, but it was impossible for him to

explain to his bride why they couldn't go calling on his parents.
 
As

much as he loved her, he had already learned that Pat had a way of

aggravating people, of speaking without thinking and saying the wrong

thing at the wrong time.
 
And then there was her appearance.

Personally, he loved the way she looked and dressed, but seeing Pat

through his father's eyes, he shuddered.
 
She showed too much leg and

too much bosom.
 
The little old-fashioned clips she used to hold her

halter tops together had a way of working loose.
 
She was a

magnificent-looking woman, but the sight of her would only give his dad

more ammunition to talk against her.

He wouldn't subject Pat to that.

And now that he was married to her, he saw that Pat was even more

impetuous and sensitive to slight than he had realized.
 
Her

grandmother Siler had died the spring they married and the Siler clan

gathered in North Carolina to bury her, most of them meeting Tom for

the first time.
 
There was a ruckus as the funeral procession was

organized.
 
Pat's aunt Mary Adams and her husband, Charles, pulled

their Cadillac just behind the hearse and waited for the procession to

begin.
 
But Pat had a fit.
 
"Mama Siler would have wanted me to be

first," she sobbed.
 
"I was her favorite.
 
Tom, just you pull the truck

in there-right there in front of the Cadillac."

Bewildered but obedient, Tom jockeyed the farm pickup with the round

Kentwood emblem featuring a Morgan horse on the door into line, edging

out the Cadillac.
 
Nobody stopped him.
 
He was fascinated to see the

way the Silers parted the waters for his beloved.

Pat calmed down some as they led the endless string of vehicles to the

cemetery; her sobs halted and she sat up straight and almost proud.

She explained to Tom how special she had always been to her

grandmother, and he could see that everyone loved Pat, her folks, her

daughters and Ronnie, his grandparentseveryone but his parents, who

were as stubborn- as hogs in a sweet corn patch.

Pat was too smart not to realize that her in-laws wanted nothing to do

with her.
 
She was hurt and angry.
 
It wasn't fair-she hadn't done

anything at all to harm them.
 
Was it a crime for her to love their son

more than life itself?
 
She was six years older than Tom, but no one

could consider that that was robbing the cradle.
 
Why did Walter and

Big Carolyn have to be so petty?

Their relationship with his parents-or rather their lack of

relationship-became a constant irritant to Pat.
 
Although she and Tom

still had wondrous, dreamy days in Kentwood, tiny fissures began to

break through their seamless joy.
 
Pat complained to anyone who would

listen about Tom's father and his ex-wife, Little Carolyn.
 
She

insisted they were somehow responsible for Tom's losing his job at

Ralston Purina: "Somebody called up and told them there was a

countersuit [to the divorce] and they were going to put [Tom] in jail

and all this, and Purina has a very strict law about that-so Tom lost

his job.
 
. . ."

Furthermore, Pat felt Walter was making it his life's mission to see

that Tom never got a job again.
 
"He has had several applications in

for good jobs," she said, "but each one his father has managed to put a

kink in.
 
Tom wanted to be on the mounted patrol, and his father

stopped that too."

It may well have been true.
 
Walter Allanson's animosity toward his

only child was as bitter as gall.
 
He would not accept Tom's divorce

and remarriage, and Pat had a right to feel resentful.
 
But Tom soon

realized that his new wife was no peacemaker and that she had precious

little tact.
 
She was always on his side-and that was good-but she

talked far too much and her comments got back to his father, and things

only got worse.

As the spring of 1974 edged toward full summer, Pat Allanson was a

woman on fire.
 
It was a side to her personality that Tom had never

seen before.
 
He had known her to be loving and passionate, wistful and

sad, and as frightened as a child.
 
He had not seen her rage.
 
Instead

of being content that she and Tom we re finally man and wife and

letting the rest of the world go by, she nagged at him constantly to

"do something" about his father.

"You call yourself a man?"
 
she taunted Tom.
 
"If you were a man, you

wouldn't let him treat us like he does!"

Her tears hurt Tom far more than her words-it tore him up to see Pat

cry-but he had never been able to win in confrontations with his

father.
 
He had no idea what Pat expected him to do.
 
He wanted to run

his own life, his own farm, and his own marriage-but Pat seemed to be

in his face whichever way he turned.
 
He couldn't make her see that

they didn't need his father, or his father's money.

Pat persisted.
 
She wanted Tom to work things out with his parents, and

she demanded to be welcomed into his family-not to be treated like

trash.
 
They were insulting her and embarrassing her, not to mention

her parents.
 
Any husband who truly cared for her wouldn't stand still

for such treatment.
 
Their marriage was only a little more than a month

old, but their bliss was souring like apple cider turned to vinegar.

Pat began to withdraw from Tom.
 
The newlyweds already had

fifteen-year-old Ronnie living with them, and now Pat started asking

her daughters, Susan and Deborah, or other relatives to visit.
 
Her

aunt Alma Studdert and Alma's granddaughter, Mary Jane Smith, were

frequent overnight guests.
 
Pat and Alma would rock for hours on the

back porch glider and watch the sky turn dark over the fields of

Kentwood when Alma thought Pat would have chosen to be in bed with her

new husband.
 
Pat's daughters and relatives couldn't help but notice

that Pat was avoiding being alone with Tom.
 
This struck them as

decidedly odd since she and Tom were technically still on their

honeymoon and should have been in the googly-eyed stage of marriage.

Having family close by was not new for Pat; she had always needed them

for security.
 
But now that she- had Tom to keep her safe, her

relatives were puzzled by her obvious reluctance to be alone with

him.

Maybe she didn't want to say something she would regret.
 
She seemed

quietly heartbroken, and, in spite of her beauty, her family knew that

Pat had always required continual emotional support.
 
Tom's parents'

total rejection had crushed Pat.
 
It had leached joy from her life,

leaving her marriage flat and sere.

Tom and Pat's honeymoon was over far too soon, and the situation only

grew worse when Pat's mother, Margureitte, received an unexpected phone

call at the office of the children's dentist where she worked.
 
It was

from Walter Allanson himself.
 
"Perhaps you have some influence with

Tom," he began without preamble.

"Would you please tell him to stop doing the things he's been doing-and

to do what he's supposed to do?"

Margureitte Radcliffe was a woman who remembered long, complicated

conversations verbatim.
 
Her most common when was one of indignation

and shock over the behavior of less refined people, particularly those

who misunderstood her daughter, Patricia.
 
Pat could do no wrong in her

mother's eyes.

And, ironically, Tom could do no right in his father's.

Her voice full of disbelief, Margureitte later described the bizarre

conversation she had had with Walter Allanson.
 
"He told me that Tommy

had come into his ex-wife's apartment and put formaldehyde in some

milk!
 
[I said,] 'Did you call the police?"
 
He said they did and they

had it tested and there was formaldehyde in it.
 
They were pouring the

milk out into a glass for the little girl.
 
He-Mr. Allanson-said,

'Well, I'm sure Tom did it.
 
, " Margureitte was appalled.
 
It didn't

make sense.
 
It wasn't like Tom to do such a thing.
 
He loved his

children.
 
He would never have harmed them.
 
Of course she told her

daughter about the call, and when she heard about Walter Allanson's

accusations, Pat became almost unhinged with frustration.
 
How could

Tom allow anyone to lie about him that way?
 
He was permitting his

father and his ex-wife to ruin his reputation with vindictive lies.

Margureitte Radcliffe decided she had had enough.
 
She would not allow

anyone to hurt Patricia this way.
 
She spoke to Paw and Nona, Tom's

grandparents, about the trouble between Walter and Tom and Pat, but

there was nothing they could do about it.
 
They explained stoically

that their son was a "cold person.
 
He's never been wrong in his life,

never made a mistake in his life, and he's never admitted he was sorry

for anything .
 
. . not since he was a child."

Never famous for minding her own business, Margureitte took it upon

herself to straighten out her daughter's new fatherin-law.

On Monday, June 21, 1974, she went to Walter Allanson's law offices

without an appointment and asked to be announced.
 
Mary McBride was his

receptionist; her granddaughter Becky had gone to school with Pat's

daughters and she asked how they were.

Margureitte was shocked to realize that Mary didn't even know that Tom

and Pat were married.
 
The Allansons were certainly ones for keeping

secrets.

When Walter got off the phone, Margureitte marched into his office,

undeterred by his astonished stare.
 
Her memory of their first meeting