A Mother's Homecoming

chapter Seven




By the time AA ended, the sun had fully set. The bob-whites that had been singing when Pam had parked her car an hour ago had been replaced with the harmonious buzz of insects and the low hoot of a distant owl. Even though it was dark, she’d decided to visit Mae’s grave. The idea had come to her during the meeting, when she’d been thinking what a waste it was that alcoholism was probably the strongest bond she and Mae had ever shared. She knew that if she waited until morning, Ed or Julia would probably insist on coming with her, wanting to be there for her, but she preferred to do this alone.



Pam had seen big, formal cemeteries before that were gated and locked up after a certain hour. But Mae had been buried in the small patch of graveyard alongside the old Baptist church, which had been a one-room schoolhouse many decades before and had gradually lost a fair amount of its congregation to newer churches in the area. Anyone could park at the church and walk between the headstones.



The uneven parking lot was empty at this hour, and Pam pulled up as close as she could to the edge of the cemetery. She climbed out of the car, leaving her headlights on for illumination. The headstones closest were the ones that had been there longest, so she automatically went to the back row, looking for a stone not so weathered by time. Even though she had to squint to read it, she made out her mother’s name. Mae Danvers Wilson, Mother and Sister.



Pam swallowed, turning the words over in her head—especially the “mother” part. “You weren’t much good at it,” she said candidly. The sentiment might be disrespectful of the dead, but it was still true. “Wherever you are now, I hope you know I came back. I wanted to see you.”



The odds weren’t good that they would have hugged it out and gone on to be lifelong friends, but whatever happened would have been better than this, this piercing sense of incompleteness. This hollow feeling of unfinished business was a major reason she’d agreed to Nick’s request this afternoon. Pam wasn’t worthy of being anyone’s mom—she hadn’t even been sober a full year—but if letting Faith meet her would give the girl any kind of closure, then her daughter deserved it.



“Your granddaughter’s beautiful,” Pam said. Seeing that school picture had been a jolt, like banging a funny bone against a doorjamb. Tingly and painful all at once. Pam almost envied Mae for the years she’d spent in Mimosa, theoretically able to watch Faith from afar. Truthfully, though, Pam doubted her mother had crawled out of the bottle long enough to care that she was a grandmother. And Pam knew without a doubt that the Shepards never would have let Mae, who’d disowned Pam and hadn’t even attended the wedding, anywhere near Faith. Rightfully so. Faith should be protected from selfish, destructive alcoholics.



Pam took a deep breath. “I’m trying to forgive you, Mom. Some days I’m better at it than others. I wish things could have been different.” She stopped, then felt foolish, as if she were waiting for a response she knew would never come. “I don’t know how long I’ll be in Mimosa, but I’ll come back again. I’ll bring flowers next time.”



Blinking against the glare of the headlights, Pam made her way back to the car. Flowers would help alleviate the grimness of the stark, simple stone. Mae Danvers Wilson, Mother and Sister. If Pam had somehow killed herself during the worst of her drinking, she wouldn’t even have had that much to claim. She’d never had a sister and she’d completely forfeited her right to be a mother. Still, she thanked God that she’d realized something was unnaturally wrong with her in time, that she hadn’t stuck around to damage her own daughter. She wanted Faith to grow up secure in Nick’s love and the adoration of all the Shepards; she never wanted her daughter to be the one standing in a dark cemetery with decades worth of bad memories and self-doubt.



“STRUCTURALLY SOUND, but needs a lot of work. And a lot of love.”



Pam slanted Ed a sidelong glance. Is he talking about the house or me? As a guest in her aunt and uncle’s home for the last couple of days, she’d realized there was a lot more to the man than she’d guessed. As a teen, she’d viewed him as the henpecked, somewhat simpleminded husband of an overbearing woman. But this week she’d witnessed the subtle affection between the couple. Also, she’d learned that while Uncle Ed didn’t talk much, his words often carried more than their superficial meaning.



The man was eerily insightful. She suspected that when she’d said she was going out for a drive to see how the town had changed, he’d somehow known she was going to an AA meeting at a nearby church. Pam had been slow to broach the subject with them because Julia was still so obviously upset by her late sister’s drinking and alcohol-related death.



Ed turned off the car. “Your inheritance awaits.”



They’d met with the attorney this morning, and Pam was the proud owner of one forlorn, neglected house. Last week, all I had to my name was the car, and now I’m a regular land baron. Oh, yeah, things were looking up.



Uncle Ed had discreetly handed her a check for “miscellaneous” costs, like taxes, realty fees and maintenance. But from where she stood, this place needed more than “miscellaneous” repair.



“That additional money you gave me wasn’t from Mae,” she said as they exited the car. “You tried to make it sound that way, as if you were just holding it in trust for me as executors of the ‘estate.’ But there’s no way she had that much.”



“The money’s for you, from family who want to help. Who would have been helping all along if we’d had the opportunity. Don’t worry, our savings are in good shape.” He shook his head. “I had no idea how well your aunt was going to do with her jewelry-making and craft shows.”



“I appreciate the help,” Pam said softly. It would have been less humbling to turn the check down, but she’d learned the value of accepting assistance.



“It’s up to you, of course, how you spend it. You could try to buy a listing for the property and sell the place as-is … or you could invest some time and cash and ask a much better price. Isn’t that what they call ‘flipping’ a house?”



“Mmm.” She didn’t know much about house-flipping, but she was pretty sure no one who was good at it would have picked this particular home. It didn’t offer some of the amenities that were considered standard on newer houses—like a garage—and it wasn’t part of a neighborhood where it could be buoyed by adjacent property values. But she was basing her low expectations on a cursory inspection of the house’s exterior. The inside might be more promising.



Then again. A few minutes later, Pam stood in the kitchen, reevaluating. The inside sucked.



“It could be worse,” Uncle Ed said from behind her.



“Oh, there’s a ringing endorsement. I think that’s how the property listing should read.” Although now that she thought about it, the house might not even qualify for a listing. Didn’t houses have to pass certain minimal inspections before they could legally be sold? She didn’t think the walls were full of asbestos, but it was apparent from the damaged patches in the ceiling that the roof needed work. There were definite plumbing issues, too, from the minor problem that faucets caked with mineral deposits would need to be replaced to the less minor news from Uncle Ed that tree roots had grown through some of the underground pipes. Carpeting and windows needed to be replaced. Vents and ducts needed to be professionally cleaned.



Appearance-wise, the kitchen was the most depressing. The damaged tiles and hollowed-out section of counter told a story of a dishwasher that had leaked water all over the floor and had eventually been removed, but never replaced. Ugly colored paint was peeling off the cabinets, and one or two of the cabinet doors had become so warped they no longer closed properly.



Pam’s lungs constricted in a moment of panicked defeatism. Mae’s parting gift … I always knew she hated me.



“It’s doable,” Ed said, his quiet voice firm. There was something hushed about the rooms around them that encouraged whispering, like a library. Or a haunted house. “It will be hard, sure, but you’ve survived much harder, haven’t you?”



She studied him, temporarily distracted from the two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath albatross around her neck, wondering how much he’d intuited about her. “How do you know my life hasn’t been all rainbows and rose petals?” she joked weakly.



“We took my car today because you weren’t sure yours would start. And your aunt Julia, who has only been outside the state of Mississippi a half-dozen times, owns an entire matched set of floral upholstered suitcases, while your luggage seems to consist of backpacks and recycled grocery bags. You look like you haven’t eaten in a year, and your eyes …” He trailed off, and she didn’t press him for more grim detail. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.



“Busted. It hasn’t been all rose petals,” she confirmed. “Although, for a while, I did try to find rainbows at the bottom of beer steins and shot glasses. I’m an alcoholic.”



He nodded. “Runs in your family. Your great-grandfather and great-uncle both were.”



“I didn’t know that.” She’d grown up painfully aware that her mother had a problem—the entire town had known Mae had a problem—but she’d never questioned whether previous relatives had shared the same vices.



“You got it under control?” he asked.



“For now.” To assume that she had it under control permanently, or to pretend there weren’t days she struggled, would be worse than arrogance; it would be stupidity.



“You planning to tell your aunt?”



With Aunt Julia being a devout teetotaler—literally—the subject might never occur naturally in her house. “Eventually, I guess. It’s not that I’m trying to lie to her, it’s just difficult.”



Ed patted her shoulder. “Let me know what I can do to help. Now, about the hinges on these cabinets …”



Having dispensed with personal conversation, they spent the next forty minutes cataloguing and discussing the house’s many flaws and few attributes—the wiring was in good shape, and both the bedrooms had ceiling fans.



“If you didn’t want to sell the house outright,” Ed began as she locked the front door, “you could always rent it to someone. That would keep it in the family. And if you wanted to partially furnish it, I know someone who could get you some great discounts.” He winked.



She smiled fondly at him, knowing that his owning a furniture warehouse was how Julia had managed to afford many of her favorite pieces. “Thank you. It’s a generous offer, but I don’t think I’m landlord material.” If she rented out the house, it would become an ongoing responsibility, a tether to a place she didn’t want to be. “No, I’m going to fix it up, then sell.”



“Either way, we get to enjoy your company for a while.” Ed glanced from her to the house. “Repairs of this magnitude could take weeks. Months, depending on how much you tackle yourself and how much we delegate. Why don’t you spend the next day or so putting together a list of what you want to accomplish? Then I can recommend places or people to use. I’d offer to roll up my sleeves and help you get started this weekend, but I promised to drive your aunt up to Rowlett for a jewelry expo on Saturday. You’re welcome to come with us.”



“Thanks, but I have a previous engagement. Dawn offered to do my hair at the salon.” Which was entirely true. But there was also the far scarier appointment to meet Faith on Saturday. Nick had insisted they wait until the weekend, instead of throwing something potentially upsetting at his daughter in the midst of her school week. Far from resenting the delay, Pam applauded his paternal vigilance. Maybe, given the extra time, he’d come to his senses and cancel the meeting altogether.



But she rather doubted it.



“HOW DO I LOOK, DAD?”



Nick raised his eyes from his laptop and the monthly bills he’d been paying to find his daughter in the doorway. She’d braided her hair and was wearing a baggy T-shirt printed with the logo of one of her favorite bands over a pair of black jeans. Before he had a chance to say anything, Faith sighed.



“Too teenager, right? Jeans and a T-shirt, ultimate cliché. I have a pair of capris clean, but they were eulcgh.” She demonstrated her distaste for said capris with a derisive, phlegmy sound. She blushed, adding quickly, “Not that I’m worried about impressing her! I don’t care what her opinion is. You think a skirt? Yeah, probably a skirt.”



Despite any momentary bravado about “not caring,” Nick knew Faith was far too emotionally invested in a single milk shake date. He hoped she had realistic expectations about the outcome. He forced himself to keep a light tone rather than reissue any of the cautionary reminders he’d been giving since she’d learned her mother was in town. “Fashion advice from the old man, huh? So I’m like your Michael Garcia now.”



Judging from her vacant stare, his analogy hadn’t been as fitting as he’d hoped. “Isn’t he one of the judges from that runway show you watched over the summer?” He’d come home from work a couple of times to find her and Morgan engrossed in a marathon of repeats.



She threw him a pitying look. “Close, but no. Do I have time to go change?”



He was torn between telling her to take all the time she needed and urging her to hurry; the longer they left Pam sitting there all alone, the greater the chance she might talk herself into bolting.



“Go put on whatever you’ll be most comfortable in,” he advised his daughter, “but do it fast. I know how you hate being late.”



A few minutes later, Faith spun back into the room in a brightly patterned top and denim skirt. Somewhere along the way, she’d also pulled the braid loose; her long hair was still kinked into ripples where it had been plaited together. “Ready,” she sang.



That makes one of us. “All right.” He stood. “Just let me grab my keys, and—”



“Got ’em!” She jangled the key ring in her hand. “And your wallet’s on the counter. You can get it on our way out the door. Let’s go!”



Tension pinched the back of Nick’s neck. One would think they were on their way to a circus, or—realizing that she was a young woman now and not a happy-go-lucky six-year-old—some kind of sweepstakes giveaway shopping spree. Faith gave no sign of being on her way to meet a mother who had ditched her and then never bothered to send so much as a birthday card for the next twelve years. He prayed his daughter would be the same person on the other side of this meeting, that however Pam answered the girl’s questions, she would do so with gentle diplomacy. It would kill him for Faith to feel unwanted or unworthy.



Mimosa was not a big town—you could generally get from any Point A to Point B in under fifteen minutes. But today, it seemed like they made their trip in three. Not a single light turned red in their path, no cars pulled in front of them on the narrow roads.



The moment of reckoning had come.



Faith yanked off her seat belt while he was still parking. “Do you think she’s already here? Do you think I’ll be taller than her? These boots have a heel on them. You’re not staying, right?”



“We’ve already been over that,” he grumbled. Could his daughter make it any clearer that she wanted him nowhere on the premises? He’d agreed to go across the street and browse the hardware store to give the two ladies their privacy. “But I’ll have my cell phone in my hand the whole time. Yours is charged, right?”



She rolled her eyes. “Of course, Dad.”



“Call me or text me if you—”



“Relax,” she teased. “I’m the one who should be nervous. You already know this woman.”



He held open the door to the diner for Faith, scanning the room over the top of her head to see if he spotted—Thank you, God. The bunched muscles in his neck and shoulders unclenched when he saw Pam sitting in a booth over to the side. Even though she’d given her word, he’d had his doubts that she would follow through.



“There,” he told his daughter softly. “That’s her.”



Faith stopped so suddenly in the entrance that he almost tripped over her. He gave her shoulder a squeeze of encouragement, and she was off again. Even though his legs were far longer, he had to quicken his stride to keep up with her.



Pam had stood, rising to meet them. She lifted a hand to just below her shoulder, where it fluttered for a moment before dropping to her side. He recognized the incomplete gesture; she used to fiddle with the ends of her hair all the time. Faith did, too—when she was little, if she’d been feeling shy, she actually stretched her hair in front of her face. Maybe it was a girl thing.



Pam smiled tremulously at their daughter. “You must be Faith.”



She nodded. “Hi, M—” Abruptly she swung her gaze back to Nick, asking in a stage whisper, “What do I call her?”



“Pam,” he said. “Pam Wilson, meet Faith Shepard.”



Pam cleared her throat. “Won’t you have a seat?”



With one last nervous glance at her dad, Faith slid into the booth opposite her birth mother. Nick took that as his cue to make himself scarce.



“If you two don’t need me, I have some errands over at the hardware store. Just across the street,” he reminded his daughter. He didn’t want her to forget for a second that he was close if she needed him.



Faith nodded impatiently, but Pam looked stricken. “You’re not staying?” she asked.



“I thought the two of you would rather chat alone. Girl talk.”



After a second’s hesitation, Pam nodded gamely. “Of course.”



Despite her even tone, her expression was unmistakable. He would know it anywhere because he’d seen that same expression countless times in his own reflection: Don’t let me screw this up. Parenting—particularly parenting a soon-to-be teenage girl—was like juggling flaming objects while walking a tightrope blindfolded with no safety net. Even if it was only for thirty minutes, Pam was getting a taste of what he experienced every day. Feeling an unexpected bond with her at that moment, he smiled at her. She smiled back, and he had the oddest realization.



He’d relegated Pam Wilson and her role in his life to former love. It had never occurred to him that she might still be someone he could like.



FINALLY. FAITH HAD felt like her dad would never leave! Now that he was gone, she turned eagerly to study her mother across the table.



When Faith had been little, her father gave her a picture frame, the kind that held multiple photos and had a little kickstand on back so it would stand up on a shelf or piece of furniture. That frame held the only three pictures she had of her mom. One was a shot of her mom sitting on a picnic blanket by some water; another was of her dad and Pam’s wedding day. It hadn’t looked like a fancy ceremony—he was only in a jacket and tie, not a tuxedo, and the gown had been a simple yellow dress with lacy sleeves and beading on the bodice. They were so young, it looked more like someone’s prom picture than a wedding photo. But they’d been smiling happily at each other. Faith’s remaining picture was from right after she was born. Her parents were sitting on Grandma Gwendolyn’s couch, and her dad was holding her. She hated that one. No one looked happy in it, especially Faith, whose face was screwed up into a red scowl. She was obviously about to cry.



She’d asked Grandma Gwendolyn once if she’d cried a lot as a baby, but her grandmother assured her she’d been an “angel.” Faith wasn’t stupid. If she’d been such an angel, why had her mother left her? She could ask Pam that very question, but her stomach knotted. Faith wasn’t sure she was brave enough to hear the answer.



“You look different than I thought,” Faith said. “Different than in the pictures, I mean.”



Pam smiled, but it looked kind of fake. “Imagine how I feel. You look a lot different than in my picture, too.”



My picture? Surely Pam didn’t mean she only had one. “You’re pretty,” Faith said timidly. It probably sounded like she was just sucking up, but it was true. Even though Faith liked long hair, she thought her mom looked good with shorter hair. And although Pam wasn’t wearing makeup and was way older than she’d been on her wedding day, she was still a lot prettier than Morgan’s mom—a single woman who always flirted with Faith’s dad whenever he came to pick her up from her friend’s house.



Pam laughed, and her smile seemed more natural now. “Thanks. Back atcha, kid. So—” she toyed with the laminated menu “—you hungry? We could order food or split an appetizer if you want. Or just stick to the shakes. There’s nothing bad on this menu.”



“What’s your favorite flavor of milk shake?” Faith asked, hoping her mother would say cookies and cream. That was Faith’s favorite.



“Plain old chocolate. In my opinion, it’s hard to improve on a classic.”



“Oh.” Well, that was okay. Faith and Morgan didn’t like all the same stuff, either. “Just a milk shake for me, please. I already ate lunch.”



Pam nodded, then waved to the waitress. They started to place their order, but Faith interrupted, pulling out her phone.



“Hold on!” She hit the camera function on the menu screen. “I want the waitress to take a picture of us. You don’t mind, do you?”



Pam seemed surprised by the request, but not angry. “No, that’s fine.”



Faith breathed a sigh of relief. “Great.” Both of them leaned across the table, so that their heads were close together in the center, and smiled at the waitress. “Thank you.” Now I have four.



PAM WAS IN AWE OF the way her adolescent companion managed to down a shake yet never stop talking. Pam’s own milk shake had melted into a sad chocolaty puddle while she tried to keep up with Faith’s questions. Most of them were blessedly superficial—what was Pam’s favorite color, had any of Faith’s teachers taught at the middle school back when Pam was a student there?—but a few had been more heavy-hitting.



“Why did you …” Faith hesitated, bending her straw back and forth with such intense focus that Pam expected it to snap. “What made you agree to meet me?”



“It’s the least I owe you,” Pam said quietly. “To tell the truth, I’m surprised you wanted to. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.”



Faith frowned, then said with a directness that sounded much like her father’s, “Only sometimes.”



The two of them locked gazes, neither sure what to say. If Pam tried to explain the paralyzing depression that had engulfed her after she’d given birth to Faith, would the girl somehow feel responsible? Pam would rather say nothing and let her daughter be angry than risk Faith blaming herself.



“At least,” Faith blurted suddenly, as if unnerved by the silence, “divorce is a clean, honest break. Not like what Jenna did when she cheated on Dad. She was his wife in North Carolina.”



“Do you miss her?” Pam asked. After all, that woman had been far more of a mother than she herself had.



“I don’t know. Most of the time I’m cool with it being just Dad and me.”



The words warmed Pam. I knew he’d be a good father. Even in the short while she’d shared Faith with him, she’d glimpsed it. One Nick as a parent was worth twenty of Pam in the same situation.



“But then something will happen,” Faith continued, “that he gets weird about. You know, girl stuff, so he makes me talk to Grandma Gwendolyn or Aunt Leigh. I love them, but Aunt Leigh only has sons, and Grandma Gwendolyn …”



Been there. No one had to explain to Pam how difficult Gwendolyn Shepard could be. Pam should steer the conversation in a different direction before she ended up saying something she regretted about the girl’s grandmother. “Your dad tells me you have a great singing voice. Do you plan to pursue that?”



“Pursue? Like how?”



“Voice lessons or high school choral group or maybe singing professionally one day.”



“I don’t know. It would be such a cool job to star in one of those musicals that tours all over the place, so I could travel to lots of cities. But I think what I want to do is get a job at NASA in Alabama. Dad took me to the Marshall Space Flight Center, and it rocked.”



Pam leaned back in her booth. If she’d been harboring any delusions that Faith was a Mini Me, they’d just been blown out of the water. Pam had barely passed her math and science courses in high school; even if she had, she never would have thought a career using those skills was exciting. This kid sounds more together at twelve than I was throughout my twenties. “I’m impressed. You must be really good in school.”



“I am!” Inexplicably the girl sounded exasperated. “Which is what I keep telling Dad. I’m an A student, so he and Grandma Gwendolyn should ease up. They don’t need to be on my case all the time like I’m some kind of delinquent.”



Pam bit her lip. Gwendolyn’s son had knocked up his teenage girlfriend. Had Nick and Pam’s past behavior caused her to err on the side of prison warden when it came to her granddaughter? And while Pam knew in her bones that Nick adored Faith and would do anything for her, it wasn’t difficult to imagine him being overprotective. Didn’t he understand that kids who felt suffocated by rules and regulations were often the ones who rebelled? Pam couldn’t stand to think of the bright, beautiful girl across the table doing something stupid that would mar her future just because she felt the need to defy her elders.



A chiming sound came from Faith’s phone. She glanced at the screen and sighed. “Dad just texted. He’s on his way. Must be thirty minutes on the dot. He’s kind of a stickler.”



Half an hour had passed already. Pam wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, their conversation hadn’t been nearly as excruciating as she’d anticipated. On the other, she’d had the underlying sensation of walking on eggshells this entire time, afraid that the next thing she said might be the wrong one, and she was looking forward to being able to breathe normally again.



“Thank you for the milk shake,” Faith said, her formal manner making her suddenly seem more childlike. A little girl hosting a tea party for imagined royalty. “And for answering my questions. I only have one more. Don’t you think everyone should have a mother?” She kept her tone carefully neutral, as if she were asking in the abstract rather than about herself.



Ignoring the pang in her midsection—under wildly different circumstances, could she have been a real mother to this girl?—Pam chose her words carefully. “In a perfect world, sure. But in reality, maybe it’s better sometimes not to have a mom than to have one who’s terrible.” Images of Mae flashed through Pam’s mind. It was occasionally difficult to remember what the woman had looked like smiling, but it was second nature to envision her raging drunkenly about how Pam had ruined her life.



Faith straightened, her face alert and anxious. “Were you a terrible mom?”



I was going to be. “Oh, there’s your dad.”



Faith craned her neck, looking back toward the door. She heaved a sigh, clearly not sharing Pam’s ambivalence that their visit was over. “Goodbye.”



Rather surprised by the lump in her throat and how hard it was to get out a farewell, Pam nodded in response. By the time Nick reached the table, she was able to add, “Take care of yourself. And listen to your father.”



Faith crossed her eyes and made a face.



“Hey!” Nick reached out to playfully tap his daughter on the shoulder. “What happened to respecting your seniors?”



“Sorry.” Faith giggled, clearly not.



“You ready to go?” he prompted.



Obediently she stood, but then threw one last imploring glance at Pam. “Maybe I can see you again?”



Behind Faith, Nick’s eyes turned to thunderclouds. He’d been all right with this as an isolated event but obviously didn’t want it to turn into a habit.



“Not unless we happen to run into each other,” Pam said, trying to take the sting out of her refusal. “I won’t be in Mimosa long, and I’m going to be really busy while I’m here. But I’ll never forget today.” That was the gospel truth.



For almost two straight years, Pam’s existence had blurred together in hazy, kaleidoscope episodes, broken up by periodic hangovers and rare moments of clarity and self-loathing when she faced a counter full of empty bottles and had to admit that they could all be attributed to her. There was a lot she didn’t remember. And a lot she did she wished she couldn’t.



What Faith had given her today, this single half hour that Pam would carry with her for the rest of her life—that alone had been worth getting sober.