Pam of Babylon (11 page)

People took her hand and expressed their condolences, “What a wonderful guy…It was so sudden…We feel awful…”
Blah, blah, blah.
Pam did notice that eventually the Manhattan contingency arrived, including Sandra Benson. She came with the others from the office, as a “smoke screen,” she had called it, explaining that it would look too obvious if she refused and came alone. But when she reached Pam in the receiving line, she bent down and embraced her, taking her hands and telling her how terribly sorry she was, and Pam felt it was genuine. It was clear Sandra actually felt worse for Pam’s loss than she did for her own.

What was in reality only an hour seemed like an all-day ordeal as Pam greeted all of his golf buddies, some of them crying, and his coworkers and colleagues, including many, many young women who said they worked with him.
Hmmm
, Pam thought,
in what capacity?
But said nothing. She would have to investigate this further, at another time. At the funeral, Pam spoke first, thanking everyone for coming to Jack’s final send-off. Bill gave the eulogy, a lovely, funny memoir that did not hide the raucous nature of Jack. Several times, inappropriate though it might have been, the audience broke out in laughter.
Oh, he was a comic all right.

The rest of the day went by in a fog for Pam and the rest of the family. She vaguely remembered hearing her nieces and nephews crying or fighting or whining.
What a bunch of brats they were. Thank God it was almost over
, she thought to herself. Marie held it together, keeping away from Sandra Benson. Nelda kept her close, supporting her. At the graveside, just the immediate family attended. Sandra did not come.

Because of the delay between going to the cemetery and lunch back at the house, just a handful of mourners came to eat. Pam spent most of the time saying goodbye to her loved ones. Bill and Anne were taking Bernice back to the city, Marie was leaving and taking Nelda with her, and Sharon and her family were leaving before traffic got too bad on the turnpike. With each goodbye, Pam became more exhausted. She wished everyone would just leave for their homes and let life get back to normal!

Finally, by 6:00 p.m., it was just her children. Lisa was going to stay until Thursday; Brent had to get back tomorrow. Pam changed into sweatpants and got out the biggest trash bags she could find; everything left from the past three days—every roll, every piece of cake, bowls of unwrapped candy, fruit and pasta salads—was swept away into the trash. The kids got into it as well. Brent went to each bedroom and stripped the sheets off the mattresses, took every towel and washcloth that looked used, and stuffed them into a series of plastic laundry baskets in the laundry room. He decided he wouldn’t wait for the cleaning lady to come; he started the washer right then. Later, he told his mother it felt so good that he actually looked forward to doing his own laundry after that. There was something about cleaning up, washing everything, that spoke of new beginnings. Lisa helped her mother rid the kitchen of any leftovers. Several bouquets of flowers were tossed, and all the sympathy cards were packed away.

They scurried around, cleaning and straightening with the music on the radio turned up loud. Then they got into the Lexus and went to Shore Pizza and ordered a large pie, two-dozen hot wings, a greek salad, and a pitcher of Bud Light for Brent and Pam and a Diet Pepsi for Lisa. They talked and ate until midnight. When they got home, Brent dragged the twin mattress from one of the guest bedrooms and placed it on Pam’s bedroom floor. They needed to be together tonight. It would be the last time the three of them, what was left of their family, would be under the same roof for a long time. No one mentioned it, but they also wanted to be close to what was left of their father, his clothing and personal belongings all right there in the bedroom closet.

In the morning, Pam got up and made breakfast for her two children. She and Lisa would drive Brent to JFK later in the afternoon. She could hardly stand the thought of it. While they ate, they tried to stay off the topic of Jack, but he kept popping up, and when he did, someone was bound to cry. Pam kept the coffee coming. Rather than reminiscing, this time around they spoke of the things their father would miss—college graduations, marriages, and grandchildren. It was this sadness of unmet expectations that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Finally, it was time for Brent to leave. He had to be at the airport by two. There wasn’t much left to say, so they turned up the radio and sang along, laughing at made-up lyrics. It was just the sort of thing their father would have done. They arrived on time, not parking and walking in with him, but dropping him off and keeping it brief. Pam didn’t think she could take a prolonged goodbye.

Getting Lisa to Newark was harder, Pam wanted to take her, but six hours round-trip on a good day might be too much for her. She decided to take her back to JFK and hire a limousine. By Thursday afternoon, Pam was alone.

When she returned to the house, she parked the Lexus back in the garage. The mail had come, and there was a paper on the porch. She wanted all loose ends tied up. She didn’t want to think about having one single thing to do. She locked the front door behind her and put her purse and the mail down on the kitchen counter. Then she proceeded to go through the house shutting every shade or curtain that faced the front or could be looked upon. She wanted privacy. She needed peace. She shut the shades in the unused rooms and the children’s rooms and closed the doors. If there was anything of Jack left in the house, besides the bedroom closet and the garage, it was the den. She couldn’t deal with that yet.
Let it be
. But she closed the shades and door to that room as well.

The house was secure, and it was relatively neat. She went into her room, pulled the shades in there too, got into bed, and stayed there for the rest of the week.

14

M
arie gave her mother, Nelda, an ear full on the way home from Pam’s house. She was livid about the way she had been ignored at the funeral, like a nonentity, not given the opportunity to speak, and then afterward tossed aside like a chauffeur, not invited to stay with the rest of the family as she had all of her life. She hated being there anyway. It was obvious to her that Jack had left years prior to his death; there was nothing of him in the house now, nor had there been for years.

Her mother was mortified. It was clear to her some jealous streak that lay dormant was rearing its head in death.
Why now?
Why it took Jack’s death to make her daughter react to it was a mystery. Nelda had always thought Marie’s involvement with Pam and her family a huge mistake. She and her husband, Frank, had fought over it. Then the truth was revealed. He thought that Jack would pay for Marie’s college, and he was right. Nelda never forgave Frank for basically giving Marie up for servitude, the price of a college education. But now she was frightened that some of that animosity was going to be directed at her.
Was Marie going to go down memory lane as part of her coming to terms with wasting her life in return for being a full-time, live-in servant for her sister?
Nelda didn’t think she was up for that sort of restitution. Marie would demand it—a lot of it.

When they got to her flat in Brooklyn, Nelda didn’t invite her in. The tirade was not over yet, but she had had enough. She insisted on managing her own bags, saying, “The meters running; I can manage just fine.” She kissed her youngest child on the cheek and went up the steps.

Marie didn’t seem to notice that she was being dismissed. But as the cab pulled away from the curb, she realized there was no one else who would listen to her, no one else who cared. Her mother and Pam and Jack were the only people on earth who knew all the players, who understood the dynamics of the family. She had not yet recognized her role in Pam’s family for what it truly was, a diversion for Jack and a buffer for everyone else. Since Pam didn’t care for nightlife, she wasn’t used as a babysitter much. Although the day would come when she would begin to resent where that path had taken her, to nowhere with no family of her own, right now the only deficit she felt was being excluded from the grief of the intimate family circle.
The kids even withdrew and clung to their mother! What was that all about?
Marie wondered. She arrived home with a head full of rebuttals to everything that was said to her during the funeral. Someone actually said, “You must be strong for Pam.”
What the hell did that mean? What about being strong for myself? I loved Jack like a brother—like a brother!
Although her counter-ego said,
Really? Like a brother?

Sandra drove in with a group of people from the office. Afterward, after the farce, they were going to a diner in Brooklyn, but she couldn’t stand the thought of sitting and making small talk, rehashing the funeral or worse, talking about Jack, so she had them drop her off at the entrance to the subway.

It was hot and smelly in the train car. She drew her dress close around her legs and sat back, closing her eyes. She took deep, slow breathes of the stinky air, forcing her shoulders and back to relax. Pictures went through her head: moments in time, fleeting glimpses of Pam, Jack’s children, Jack lying in the casket. Pam stood like a statue, barely moving her facial muscles, hands clenched at her sides. When approached by a guest, Sandra watched her go through the exact same motions for each one. She raised her hands, grasped the forearms of the well-wisher, and forced a modicum of a smile onto her face. Sandra could almost read her lips from across the room, “Thank you so much for coming; it would have meant so much to Jack.” When it had been her turn to go through the receiving line, Pam grabbed her like an old friend, tears coming to her eyes. “Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. It’s so sad, so sad.” She could smell Pam’s perfume, a light, floral scent. Sandra could hardly control her grief at that point and didn’t look down at Jack; it would have been too difficult to stay calm.

Now she regretted not looking at him. The last time she had seen him was in the hospital. The others had remarked how good he looked. No one included her in the conversation, a fact she would be grateful for. No one mentioned anything about them being together or acted like they knew. Perhaps that secret had been maintained after all.

She had to change trains. The last stop for her was Broadway, about ten blocks from her apartment. There was no way she was walking in those shoes, so she got a cab. It took forever to get to 82
^nd
. The cool air of her apartment was welcoming. She was not going back out for the rest of the day, and she wasn’t going back to the office for possibly the rest of the week. She didn’t care if she got fired; she needed to be alone.

She got out of her dress and promptly threw it in the trash, knowing she would not wear it again, ever. She found soft pajama bottoms and a T-shirt to put on. Her skin felt like it couldn’t tolerate anything else. She thought she might be coming down with something, having woken up queasy and feeling a little queasy now. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She no sooner turned to walk back through the living room when she began projectile vomiting, a stream of regurgitated water, which hit the opposing wall with a splash. It shocked her. But a little voice deep in her brain said,
Oh…oh….

15

O
n Sunday morning, Pam woke up to rain and a renewed energy. She would get back to her life. The past four days had been spent in despair. She didn’t answer the phone, except for her kids, ate only junk, and watched reruns of
The Twilight Zone
and
Law and Order
.

Every morning she’d gotten up and went through the motions of living, just in case. She took a shower, carefully applied makeup, and did her hair. She found a stylish, but comfortable outfit to wear. If anyone saw her, they would think she had made a full recovery, that her grief had been swift and complete.

She made a dozen chocolate-chip muffins, and every morning ate two with a pot of coffee. She sat on the veranda, shaded from the neighbors by high stone walls, mosquito netting, and pampas grass. When the sugar from the muffins hit her, she returned to her bedroom and crawled back into bed, flicking the TV on with the remote. There she stayed until hunger beckoned her out of bed again.

When Friday came, the worst grief yet hit her. He wouldn’t be coming home. He was dead. Not only that, but the fear that if he hadn’t died, if he’d made it home for the party, the charade of their life would have caught up with him and after their guests left, he would have packed up and left her for good. She imagined the entire scenario; he saying he didn’t want to come home to the beach anymore, that he would stay in the city from now on. She wondered if he would confess that he was in love with Sandra. Although Marie didn’t say it, Pam knew she wanted to go into more detail about seeing the two of them together that day on the streets. Now she was thinking maybe she’d like some of that forbidden knowledge.