Everything She Ever Wanted (84 page)

were far from peaceful.
 
It shouldn't have been that way.
 
Not from the

way Boppo remembered her life.
 
"I'm happiest when nd," she said.
 
"I

took the ones that there are children arou needed me most, and I helped

them.
 
I loved them all the same, he one who needs me most.
 
No matter

of course.
 
I just do for t Is there for them."
 
what happenst they

know their Boppo s the one who needed her And, as it happened, Pat was

alway most.

Pat and Debbie grew even closer.
 
With Susan and Bill's "silly moves

all over the country," Pat could count on Debbie staying close to

her.

Gary Cole, Debbie's long-suffering husband, came home one night to find

that his wife, daughter, and furniture were gone.
 
Pat had helped

Debbie move into an apartment, encouraging her to take everything she

needed.

At Thanksgiving, 1984, Boppo, Papa, and Pat drove north to Marion,

Indiana, to have the holiday meal with Bill and Susan.

Susan was delighted to see that everything seemed to be fine with her

mother.
 
But several weeks later, Pat drove up alone.

Somewhere in Kentucky she had one of her "sudden attacks," and after

several anxious hours Susan learned she had been hospitalized.
 
A day

later, Pat came driving up to the Alfords' as if nothing had

happened.

Susan felt a familiar chill, but she fought it back.
 
She wanted to

believe in her mother-probably more than anyone else in Pat's family

did-but she had to work hard not to see small, disturbing

aberrations.

Pat seemed obsessed with retrieving all the things Boppo had given

Susan over the years.
 
She said that she would replace everything with

new merchandise that didn't have so much sentimental value.
 
Still,

they had a good visit, and Susan enjoyed having her mother there.
 
She

had been seeing shadows, she decided, where there were none.

In March of 198S, Pat returned for a long visit.
 
Susan's friends found

her charming.
 
"They loved Mom," Susan said.
 
"But when they were gone,

she told me she hated them-they took up too much of my time.
 
She

wanted me to stay in the house with her all the time."

Pat again insisted on checking through Susan's cupboards, drawers, and

storage areas, even through Bill's office, looking for Boppo's gifts.

"I'm just straightening up," she explained when Susan asked her what

she was doing.
 
"You don't want this candelabra-or this silver

service.

Now that I'm out, you can give this all back to Boppo."

Susan let her have what she wanted, and Pat did replace a few of the

things she carried away, but they came from discount stores, the heavy

sterling pieces supplanted by flimsy silverplated things, nothing like

the items she took away.
 
Later, when Susan and Pat in Florence,

Alabama, 1986.
 
Susan had her mother back at last, and they were closer

now than they had ever been.

Assuming the duties of a nurse, Pat took care of one of the "righteous

sisters," Aunt Liz (left), who barely recovered from her near-fatal

illness.

On the right is Aunt Thelma.

The valuable pearl necklace and bracelet and an antique cookbook that

Pat had given away as gifts would return to haunt her.

Mug shots of Pat Taylor after her second arrest in April 1991.
 
"I

can't understand why anyone in this whole wide world would think Pat

got whatever she wanted," her mother said in dismay.
 
"She never got

anithing she wanted.
 
Her whole life has been tragic.
 
Why can't people

understand that?"

4

i -A Susan and Bill packed to move again, this time to Florence,

Alabama, Susan realized how many things were missing from her house.

Visiting in McDonough, she saw most of her stuff in her mother's

room.

She was perplexed, but not really angry.
 
It was all in the family.

Pat and Debbie branched out to private-duty nursing in the homes and

condominiums of elderly patients.
 
Susan was immensely grateful that

her mother was working and liked her new career.

She was in such demand; Pat and Debbie had only a ortunately, Pat's

jobs had week or so off in between patients.
 
Unf a built-in

obsolescence.
 
The age and degree of infirmity of her employers made it

inevitable that they didn't live long.
 
Both Pat and Debbie took care

of Mrs. Mansfield, an elderly woman who lived in a luxurious apartment

in a retirement condo in one of Atlanta's finest neighborhoods.
 
Debbie

was with Mrs. Mansfield when she died and cried inconsolably.
 
Pat

took it philosophlcally.

"Debbie really loved Mrs. Mansfield," Susan recalled.
 
"Debbie had a

real tender side."

Bill Alford's career involved troubleshooting companies

with poor performance records, mostly in the office supply area.
 
It

meant moving frequently, but he was good, and he rose steadily in his

field.
 
He was happy to be away from c Siler-Taylor-Radcliffe und Drang

of th i Atlanta and the Sturm sited, Susan was always shushing him

family crises.
 
When they vi and whispering, "Be nice to them, Bill!"

It did little good, but his sarcasm was so subtle that

it often went over her family's heads.

loved to Florence, AlaPat was a frequent visitor when they m The Alfords

had a wonderful bama, in the summer of 198S.

le, using a house, and Susan decorated it in a homey country sty number

of antiques.
 
Pat enjoyed being there, playing with Sean and Courtney,

and having Susan wait on her.
 
The Florence house had a pool and Pat

liked to sit beside it on a chaise lounge.
 
She wouldn't wear a bathing

suit-despite her initial weight loss at the halfway house, she had

since regained it all and considerably more-but she sometimes jumped

'In wearing her shorts and blouse.

It was in Florence the next spring that Susan discovered she was

pregnant for the third time.
 
She was thirty-three, and they hadn't

planned on more children, but she and Bill were happy.
 
Her mother was

not.
 
"You're too old to have another baby," Pat said firmly."
 
I think

the only thing is for you to get rid of it."

"It will weaken you, I'll tell you that.
 
You'll never be healthy

again.
 
What about Sean and Courtney?
 
If you die, they'll have no

mother.
 
You'll cheat them."

One of the main drawbacks of having yet another grandchild, Pat

insisted, was that she was already sewing and embroidering full-time

for the family she had; she could never, ever keep up with a fifth

grandchild.
 
Susan thought her overblown view of the importance of her

sewing projects was almost pathetic.
 
Admittedly, for this family,

conception at thirty-three meant an over-the-hill pregnancy, but Pat's

arguments verged on hysteria.

She had been a grandmother at that age, although she had always refused

to be called "Grandma," and only recently had begun answering to

"Grandma Pat."

Despite her mother's dire warnings, Susan carried and gave birth to her

second son, Adam, on January 5, 1987.
 
Through complications that had

nothing to do with her "advanced age," Adam was delivered by cesarean

section.
 
At Susan's request, Pat had been barred from the labor room,

but she talked her way into the recovery room by explaining to the

doctor that she was a registered nurse.

Susan didn't want her there.
 
"I can't say why-maybe it was because she

wanted me to abort my baby-but it was like the time I was little in the

Philippines and my hand was crushed.
 
I didn't want to see my mother

then, and I didn't want to see her after Adam was born.
 
I just turned

my face to the wall.
 
The obstetrician and pediatrician were personal

friends of Bill's and mine.
 
They told Mom that I was the new mother

and they made a policy of letting the mothers have what they wanted."

Perhaps Pat had been truly worried about Susan's health.
 
She made such

a fuss over Adam that no one would ever have guessed how hard she had

fought to have Susan abort him.
 
She cooed over the new baby boy as if

she had never had a grandchild before.

Pat was between jobs right after Adam was born and she spent a lot of

time in Florence, driving the five hours between Georgia and Alabama by

herself.
 
She seemed completely devoted to her newest grandchild.
 
He

was a big strapping baby boy, and Susan dressed him in the lacy

Victorian gowns and little bonnets her mother made for him only long

enough to take pictures-just to keep peace.
 
Pat loved to see him

dressed up, but Sean was indignant, and as soon as the photo sessions

were over he would put a baseball cap and a sports sweatshirt on his

baby brother.

In June of 1987, Susan took her children and drove to McDonough for a

visit with Boppo, Papa, and her mother.
 
She had meant to stay only a

week, but she got sick.
 
"It was the strangest I illness I'd ever had,"

she recalled later."
 
wanted to head home because something in July,

but I had to stay an extra few days d wanting us to come with me.
 
Bill

kept calling me an was wrong home, and I told him, "I can't drive.
 
My

feet won't work right."
 
usan remembered, wincing.
 
"And I "They ached

terribly," S actually had trouble pushing down on the accelerator and

One morning I decided I could make it.
 
I had to try to brake.

get home.
 
Sean had his learner's permit, and I thought I could drive