Choices

by Lyn Gardner

  The protagonists in Robin’s stories were always strong, intelligent women. They’d approach the crime and the clues with clear heads, using logic and science as their methodology. They wouldn’t shriek in terror when a dead body was discovered, or lose their lunch over a decomposing corpse. Their heart rate rarely increased at the first sign of trouble, and their palms remained dry when they entered darkened alleyways or abandoned warehouses. They were calm, cool, and collected, but fixated on the black curtain in front of her, Robin wasn’t calm. She wasn’t cool, and collected was still up for grabs.

  Suddenly, Robin no longer appreciated the imagery her mind could create. Visions of rotting cadavers, skeletons dangling from nooses, and assorted body parts stuffed into little glass jars swirled in her head, and taking a step backward, she shook off the shiver that had just run down her spine.

  Robin rubbed the back of her neck as she stared at the drapes. Her mind began to wander again, and this time it took her to a place that caused a different reaction. Decaying bodies were one thing, but what if Adele hadn’t been hiding the dearly departed? What if she’d been hiding her proclivity for bondage?

  As soon as the thought crossed Robin’s mind, she laughed out loud, the few seconds of mirth erasing her worries in an instant. Her aunt wasn’t a serial killer, and if she had possessed a penchant for leather, gags, and bindings, it would be a secret Robin would take to her grave. She filled her lungs as she stepped up to the wall of black fabric, deciding it was time to rip off the Band-Aid. She flung open the drapes...and a nanosecond later, Robin’s scream shook loose the dust clinging to the joists above her head.

  Chapter Twenty

  Pam Burton sat on her sofa with her laptop balanced on her legs as she took another sip of coffee the shade of buttermilk. She glanced at her watch and smirked. It was still too early to make the phone call, and after waiting for four days, Pam wasn’t about to jump the gun now. Her eyes returned to the screen, and as she clicked from one page to the next and then back again, her lips twisted into a snarl as she viewed the photos of floral finery. Throughout her life, Pam had professed to like flowers, to appreciate their beauty, their fragrance, and all the sentiments connected with them. She was a woman, and it was expected, but flowers were merely another ploy in Pam’s repertoire. Another trick she’d use to deceive, she’d bestow her latest victim with long-stemmed beauties, for what better way to prove her love. After all, it worked in the movies.

  The oldest of four daughters born to a construction laborer and a waitress, for the first few years of Pam’s life, she shared her parents with no one. She was the center of their tiny world in their tiny trailer, and while her surroundings would change as they moved from one state to another for her father to find work, Pam didn’t care. Her playmates were just that, trailer park children who came and went with the rise and fall of the sun, so leaving them behind caused not one flicker of emotion to appear on her chubby face. There would be more at the next place, more clueless little children anxious to find a new friend to play with, and Pam would easily slip into that role...at least for a little while.

  All was right in Pam’s little world until one summer morning her mother informed the four-year-old she was going to be a sister, and in an instant, Pam’s attitude toward her parents changed to one of repugnance. She didn’t want to share her life with a stranger, with some annoying, smelly baby demanding attention with every cry, coo, or gurgle that erupted from its splotchy, cherub face. She wanted things just as they were, and Pam made that blatantly clear. In the first of what would become dozens of tantrums she would throw over the coming years, she flailed and wailed, tossing out all the bluffs and demands her infantile mind could come up with. She threatened. She pleaded. She promised, and she lost.

  As her mother’s belly grew, Pam was fawned over by her parents as they tried to convince her all would be okay. They treated her to ice cream, and stuffed animals bought at the dollar store, and it was at that time a ritual was born. A ritual that eventually provided Pam the knowledge about all the emotions she did not possess.

  A fan of romance, when Pam’s mother wasn’t tending to her firstborn’s demands, she’d spend her afternoons reading gothic love stories and her nights, watching old Hollywood classics on a television, atop which were rabbit ears wrapped in foil.

  One night, after an unusually lengthy tantrum, to calm her four-year-old daughter down, Pam’s mother placed her on the sofa, turned on the TV, and introduced her child to movies. Immediately, Pam quieted. These weren’t cartoons, stupid little animations of odd-shaped characters with whiny voices. These were real. These were snippets of someone’s life she was watching, and she was enthralled. Her picture books taught her colors and shapes, but movies...movies could teach her so much more.

  Over the next several years, her parents would continue to produce offspring until eventually, Pam had three younger sisters, but she refused to allow their existence to interrupt her life. She still threw tantrums, outbursts of anger supposedly based on her siblings’ annoyingly screechy voices as they cackled and tittered their way through their days, but at night, her obsession with films and eventually books silenced her hatred for her family.

  Movies and paperbacks became her dictionaries, explaining with words and images concepts as foreign as breathing water instead of air. Sympathy, the feeling of pity or sorrow for someone else’s problems, seemed preposterous. In her young and rapidly warping mind, Pam had enough problems of her own without caring about another’s misfortunes. Did they have three annoying siblings living with them in a tiny trailer in an RV park overrun with weeds, beer-bellied men, and women prancing around in skimpy outfits two sizes too small? Were their clothes purchased at second-hand stores? Did they eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast, or gobble down pasta and potatoes every night of the week because it was cheap, and it went far? Those were the only things important to her, so movies taught Pam what she had to do in order to pretend to be sympathetic. Acknowledge the pain, appear concerned, offer condolences, and perhaps when she got older she could even deliver a home-cooked meal...and sympathy would be shown.

  The idea of empathy was farcical to Pam. To be empathic required putting aside her own views for those of another, and to not only listen but to also accept that another person’s perspective was as viable as her own. That would have required Pam to admit she was wrong about something, and Pam was never wrong about anything. Luckily, her mother’s collection of romance novels contained stories that gave Pam a clue as to what she had to do. A headstrong heroine, beautiful and svelte, meets a debonair swashbuckler, athletic and brash, but their views are as distant as the North and South Poles, so a battle begins. Neither wants to listen. Neither wants to understand. They only want to judge, but once they put aside their egos and open their ears, their hearts would follow, and they would live happily ever after. That gave Pam the answer she was looking for. Behind false validation and quiet nods of understanding, she could appear empathic even though she didn’t give a damn about anyone else’s opinion except her own.

  By far, the hardest emotion for Pam to comprehend was love. Without a doubt, it was the most common four-letter word appearing in all the books and movies. It was even bandied about by her parents and siblings, so she had learned to respond in kind, but her response was mere mimicry.

  Love is often explained as an intense feeling for someone or something. It can be as inconsequential as adoring that first cup of coffee in the morning or as monumental as devotion so undying and unyielding, countries fall in the name of it, lives are lost because of it, and families divide as a result of it. And while Pam understood the enjoyment she got from eating her favorite ice cream, to have a feeling so intense for another that nothing else mattered left a foul taste in her mouth. It was self-deprecating and beneath her to ever put someone before herself, to downplay her superiority and intelligence simply because of love? What could love ever possibly bring her?

  It would take several years before Pa
m began to grasp the potency of the emotion called love, but by the time she reached her early twenties, her playbook was glutted with tidbits gathered from novels and films. Like scraps of meat, she devoured every morsel, chewing on the perception each would give until they were forever etched in her twisted mind.

  Diamonds were the most influential, but far too expensive for Pam to ever give to another, so she settled on the usual suspects, most of which could be purchased in dollar stores or markets if she were lucky. Greeting cards gushing sonnets were perfect if she wanted to produce tears of understanding and forgiveness. Chocolates, dark and easy on the palate, would ensure her a night of rapture when their sweetness was blended with wine, and then, of course, there were flowers.

  Each variety held in its petals underlying meanings, and Pam had memorized them all. Calla Lilies symbolized beauty as did the vibrant amaryllis, while asters embodied patience and chrysanthemums, fidelity and joy. The iris signified wisdom, and the snapdragon, graciousness and strength, but the flower that had always worked to Pam’s advantage, exemplifying the unmistakable expression she was pretending to convey, was the red rose. Its bouquet was sweet and delicate and its color, dark and sensual, and with a dozen of those in her hand, Pam knew between the roses and the sugary little promises she would have to whisper, she’d get her way. It was a skill she had honed to a razor’s edge in her youth.

  Lessons are learned by trial and error, and throughout Pam’s childhood, she learned some invaluable ones. Scream loud, and you will get heard. Threaten to tell on your siblings, and they become your servants, and by weaving the most ingenious of lies, you can almost guarantee in getting anything you want. But Pam had learned other lessons too, the ones taught in school which she absorbed like a sponge, so by the time she headed off to community college, Pam knew how to read, write, multiply, divide...and manipulate.

  Pam slurped down what was left of her coffee and looked at her watch again. It was five minutes to four, so it was time to do what Pam did best. She had spent every night that week studying the flower shop’s website. She knew what they offered. She knew their hours. She knew they weren’t open on weekends, and if their employees were anything like most of the blue-collar peasants in the world, they were looking forward to their upcoming weekend. A last-minute call would delay their escape, and they’d do and say anything to end it as quickly as possible. Picking up her phone, Pam tapped in the number and waited for the call to go through.

  “Thank you for calling The Flower Patch. How can I help you?”

  “Oh, thank God,” Pam blurted. “Look, I know you’re about to close, but if I don’t get these flowers ordered my boss is going to kill me!”

  Fiona Phillips pulled the phone away from her ear for a second, her eyes widening at the dread in the caller’s tone. “Calm down, dear,” she said softly. “I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

  “You don’t know my boss. He’s a tyrant, and if he finds out I didn’t order these flowers, he’s going to fire me.”

  “He will do no such thing,” Fiona said as she pressed the power button on her computer. “And we’re open until I say we aren’t. Just give me a second while my computer warms up, and we’ll get your order placed. How’s that?”

  “Oh, I can’t thank you enough. You’re a life saver!”

  “I’m just trying to brighten the world, one petal at a time.”

  Pam curled her lip. She had seen their motto on the website, and it was all she could do to keep the bile from rising in her throat. “That’s so sweet.”

  “Thank you,” Fiona said, tapping away on the keyboard. “And now that this goofy thing has finally decided to work, we can get your flowers ordered. Have you ever ordered from us before?”

  “Yes...um...a few weeks ago. While I was out sick, my boss managed to place an order all by himself, but now that I’m back, it’s beneath him to do it again. Typical man. If the pay weren’t so good, I’d tell him where he could put this job.”

  “I see,” Fiona said quietly. “And his name would be?”

  “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. It’s Declan. Declan Kennedy,” Pam said, glancing at the credit card statement in her hand. “He placed the order in late October.”

  “I found it. The Sun and Roses bouquet delivered to a Miss Robin Novak.”

  A sneer snaked its way across Pam’s face. “That’s it.”

  “All right, so what arrangement would you like to order now?”

  “The Harvest Sunset centerpiece.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely,” Fiona said as she entered the information for the most expensive flower arrangement she had. “And that centerpiece comes in three sizes. Do you know—”

  “He wants the biggest. Like I said, he’s a typical man. The bigger, the better.”

  Fiona arched one sliver-thin eyebrow. “Yes, well, I have the order entered. Should I assume this is being delivered to the same person? Miss Novak?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good. Well, we have her information, so all I need is a credit card number, and we’ll be good to go.”

  Pam had planned to call back on Monday to cancel the order so it wouldn’t appear on Declan’s credit card, but this was even better. This was perfect. Letting out an exaggerated sigh, Pam said, “Oh, darn.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “He’s already left for the day. I guess he thought you’d have it on record.”

  “I’m sorry, but once the orders are processed through the bank, we destroy all credit card information. In this day and age, you can’t be too careful.”

  Superiority oozed from every pore Pam owned, and puffing out her chest, she said, “Yeah, I guess that’s true, but you know what? I have an idea. Can you keep the order until next week? That way, you already have all the information.”

  “I can do that. I’ll just put it in my pending file.”

  “Great, and while I have you on the phone would you mind confirming Miss Novak’s address? That woman seems to move every other week. I just want to make sure it matches what I have.”

  “Of course,” Fiona said, looking back at her computer. “It’s 7760 Main Street on Mackinac.”

  ***

  Judy felt as if she was in a vacuum being sucked back through time, through birthdays and holidays, and marriages and wakes, for this was the room where her family had always gathered. Around a lengthy table of oak, its edges now worn and its surface faded and scratched, presents were opened, candles on cakes were extinguished, toasts were made, and the fond memories of the dearly departed were shared.

  The old Windsor bow back was still as uncomfortable as it had been in her youth, and shifting in the chair, Judy looked around the room. The walls were as beige as they’d ever been and family photographs filled every void available like they had done throughout her life. The doilies her grandmother had tatted still lined the shelves of the hutch and showcased on top of them was her mother’s prized China, the vintage porcelain having never been used, and Judy doubted it ever would be.

  The sound of silverware clinking got her attention, and it was all Judy could do not to laugh. In her mind was the voice of her father, bellowing that children were to be seen and not heard at the dinner table. He had always believed silence was golden and Patrick had not fallen far from his father’s tree, and this was his house now.

  Patrick had just turned twenty-two when he, along with his siblings and mother, stood beside a hospital bed, listening as their father took his last, ragged breath. It was a time of tears and mourning, and countless casseroles being delivered by neighbors, but life does go on...and it did.

  No one questioned when Patrick assumed the role of patriarch. He, like his brother, Doug, had been groomed to one day take over the family business, so Patrick lost no time in making the business and the family home his own. His mother didn’t balk. She welcomed her eldest and his new bride, Louise, with open arms, and when Doug graduated college two years later, he, too, moved back home, taking his place at his brother’s
side.

  Neither ever wanted to do anything else. Since they had first walked the orchard with their father, his plans became ingrained in them and the future he imagined soon became theirs. Their family would forever be together. Grandparents, parents, and children would work side-by-side just as they always had, creating a legacy to be handed down again and again, but castles in the air don’t always come to fruition. Astronauts become accountants. Firefighters become financial planners. Ballerinas become brain surgeons, and daughters of orchardists sometimes become teachers.

  If it had been up to her older brothers, Judy would never have gone to college. Patrick and Doug adored their little sister, but like their father, they believed women to be the weaker sex. So, in the kitchen one night a few months after their father had died, they rattled off reasons to their mother as to why their little sister couldn’t possibly go to college. How could she get along without them to protect her? Who would help her with decisions much too complicated for her to understand, and when young men came calling, whispering promises of love and forever after, how could little Judy possibly comprehend their true, crotch-driven intentions?

  Harriet Lawton was no fool, and she saw through her sons’ smokescreens in an instant. There was no doubt in her mind they truly loved their sister, but this had nothing to do with love. This had to do with her husband’s pipe dream, an absurd notion she had had to listen to for nearly thirty years, and it was one she had never agreed with. Children aren’t supposed to blindly follow the paths carved out for them by their parents. They’re supposed to discover their own passions, chase after their own desires, and create their own dreams, and Harriet knew her daughter’s.

  How many times had they whispered in the kitchen, Harriet drying the dishes Judy had washed while she hung on every word her daughter spoke? Words about furthering her education and going out into the world made Judy’s dimples grow large, and she’d prattle on about wanting to be a high school coach. The values instilled by sports equally as important as those found in classrooms, Judy wanted to mold not only young bodies but young minds as well. To teach them commitment and responsibility, teamwork and friendship, and pride in not only themselves, but in others as well, Judy wanted to be a part of making future generations of women stronger than she knew she’d ever be.