Prayers for the Dying: Pam of Babylon Book #4

by Suzanne Jenkins

  A couple of years before, right out of college, an acquaintance got married and pregnant in quick succession. At a few months, she lost the baby. Sandra ran into her in Duane Reads and the girl looked like hell, pale skin, ratty hair, sweatpants and a T-shirt in public. She grabbed Sandra’s arm and dragged her to an empty aisle in the store.

  “I lost the baby,” she said, and began to weep. Sandra was appalled; what did she expect her to do?

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” was all she could squeeze out. And then, what she now knew was cruel: “You weren’t very far along, were you?” The young woman let go of Sandra’s arm and lowered her eyes. The pain should’ve been obvious, but it was not to stupid Sandra, who’d lived the charmed life. “I’ve got to go,” she’d said, and left the store.

  Sandra now felt shamed, wishing she could call the girl and apologize. She’d say, “I am so sorry. I didn’t understand.” Even if the baby was a week old, and you wanted it, its loss would be difficult. She had to forgive herself for being callous; how was she to know?

  The train rocked back and forth as it sped through the tunnel. She was looking forward to getting back to Tom’s apartment. She smiled when she thought of the gossip he might have to share. She hoped his sisters had something exciting to say. She couldn’t wait to tell him about Sylvia. They would have to make a trip to Bergen County, New Jersey, to see Sylvia and her family. Sandra could not see her in Brooklyn, no matter how hard she tried! Although Hell’s Kitchen, where they grew up, was a trendy neighborhood now, it was a no-man’s land when they were young. But it was Manhattan. Face it, you’re a snob, Sandra thought. And then she smiled. So what? I might live in Brooklyn now, but I was born and raised in Manhattan.

  A strange feeling flooded over her as she walked along Fourteenth Street to the Williamsburg train. What are you doing, Sandra? You’re running away. You can’t run. But she pushed it down, down, down. She couldn’t make any decisions yet. They weren’t hers to make.

  Ashton spent the weekend at his computer, getting “caught up”; a misnomer in his industry if there ever was one. The jobs came along, you did them in real time, and when they were over you had exactly the same amount of time to tear them down and get to the next job. It was a revolving door of furniture, art, and rooms. He didn’t have to look for the work anymore; it came to him in droves. He was grateful to Jack for much of his success. Every meeting Jack attended, every job he did, Ashton’s cards were always passed out. Jack never carried his own business cards. When asked about it, he said, “Why? Everyone already knows me.” Without Jack’s referrals, he might still be scraping along.

  Sunday morning, he took a break from work to read the paper. He saw Dale’s obituary; her viewing and funeral would be at a funeral home in the neighborhood on Tuesday. He entered it in his calendar with an alarm reminder. He wanted to pay his respects, but more than that, he wanted to see Ted again. There was a nice symmetry about meeting a man who was related to Dale. Jack would have approved.

  Early Saturday morning, Lisa Smith’s plane landed on Oahu. She struggled getting her bag out of the overhead compartment, ignoring the offers of help from young men on each side of her. She wasn’t able to hear them because she had her ear plugs in with house music blasting away, muffling her inner dialogue. It was the only way she could survive the flight after treating her gentle mother like shit. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to get out her cell phone and call to apologize. Every time she came to the realization that she needed to do it quickly, something would hold her back. She had ten hours of flight time with a six-hour layover in LA to rationalize why she should be mad at her mother. Every reason she was able to come up with had a counter reason in her mother’s favor, but she still couldn’t make the call.

  She dragged her carry-on behind her through the airport, marching with determination to the baggage claim area. Her mother was at fault. She allowed what should have been a perfectly lovely Thanksgiving Day to be destroyed. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Pam had taken the protective cover off so the truth about their life could seep out. Lisa lived a dichotomy; she was a consummate spoiled brat who had a brain full of skeletons from her father’s closet. She grew up looking the other way. She had built a successful wall around the creepy shit she had seen. The wall needed to come down now, but she was afraid. How can you pretend your life was one way when it was just the opposite? And that was when reality hit her. It must be inherited, she thought. She’d accomplished exactly what she was accusing her mother of doing. Like an overfilled balloon poked with a pin, Lisa exploded in the middle of Honolulu International Airport. Pam would be called with an apology before the end of the day.

  After her antibiotic treatment Friday morning, Marie went downhill steadily until she was confined to bed. Steve called her doctor, who said the drugs were powerful enough to knock a strong person down. Keep an eye on her and if she spiked a temperature, call him back. Steve tried to get her to eat, but she refused, only taking a little water when he threatened her with a trip to the ER. When she refused the suggestion of a bedpan, Steve carried her to the bathroom. Since he had to go back to work on Monday, there wasn’t going to be an argument about her going back uptown to Columbus Avenue. Sunday night he called Nelda and told her to expect a much worse Marie. Nelda had to take care of her because there was no one else.

  33

  Sandra had a doctor’s appointment in Manhattan late Monday morning. When Tom left, she kissed him good-bye and had the apartment to herself for a few hours. When she went to the refrigerator to get milk for her tea, she saw the multitude of plastic containers of food, leftovers from his mother’s house. It made her sick, actually. They’d been in there for three days. She hoped he wasn’t planning to force her to eat any of it.

  His visit to Virginia’s house while Sandra was uptown at her old apartment was uneventful, the behavior of his sisters forgotten. No one had apologized to him for the way they treated Sandra, or if they had, he didn’t tell her. She imagined Sylvia treating Tom the way his sisters had treated her. She’d never speak to her again. Knowing she was nit-picking, Sandra reeled her thoughts in. She couldn’t expect Tom to behave the same way she would. It wasn’t realistic.

  At ten she left the apartment and started to walk to the train. She tried to keep her head clear of thoughts of the baby; it would be enough that this visit would focus on the experience. Tom had offered to go with her, but she wanted to be alone. It wasn’t his baby so there was really no reason for him to be put through the appointment.

  She arrived at the doctor’s office with time to spare. Sitting down in the waiting room, she picked up a magazine and as she was absently thumbing through it, she realized it was one she’d already read there. An old Parents magazine. She threw it back on the pile. Pregnant women sat around her reading old magazines, killing time. The receptionist came to the door and called her name. Sandra got up and followed her to an exam room, where she was told to take her clothes off and put on a paper gown. She did as she was told and got up on the table to wait. Her doctor came in with Sandra’s chart in her hand, refreshing her memory. She shook Sandra’s hand, which Sandra thought was a nice touch. They made small talk about Sandra’s general health while the doctor read a report in her chart.

  “The baby did test positive for HIV,” she said. “We don’t know why, since you were compliant about taking your drugs.”

  Sandra didn’t hear the last part. She was falling down a rabbit hole with the echo following her. The baby tested positive for HIV. “I have to advise against another pregnancy, Miss Benson. Of course, it is your decision to make. But your own blood values are much lower than they should be, too. The pregnancy was hard on your body.” She examined Sandra and said she was fine; she could have intercourse again since it was past six weeks. Oops, didn’t remember that one, Sandra thought. The doctor shook Sandra’s hand again and left the room. Like a robot, Sandra got dressed. She wadded up the paper gown and threw it on the table. She left the room, walking down the h
all in a daze, not stopping at the receptionist window on her way out. She wouldn’t be returning to this office.

  She walked to the bus stop and got on a cross-town bus to go back to her apartment. She wasn’t going to work today, and she certainly wasn’t going back to Tom’s, with his black vinyl chairs and chrome dining set, mother’s leftovers in the fridge. Advise against another pregnancy echoed through her head, along with, I want kids. I want a lot of them. She would find a reason to reject Tom first, so he couldn’t reject her. Maybe it would be enough that she wanted to get into flannel pajamas and get into her own bed. Unplug the phone, turn her cell off, close the blinds, and sleep. He’d find a reason to get pissed off at her for doing those things. She got to Eighty-Second Street and her pace picked up. She couldn’t wait to get inside. The key was hard to turn again, but she got in. She locked her door and put up the chain. From the hallway she could see out the kitchen window at the empty birdfeeders rocking in the wind. Throwing her purse down, she ran down to the lower level and opened the plastic container of bird seed. She got a scoop of it and went out to the side yard to fill the birdfeeders. Immediately, a black-capped chickadee swooped down and took a seed, looking at her with reproach.

  “I’m sorry!” she said to the bird. “Tell your friends to come back, please. It won’t happen again.”

  34

  Brent went back to school Sunday, leaving his mother in a state of depression. Pam lay in bed Monday morning as the sun started to peek over the tops of the drapes in her bedroom and she wondered why she should get up. What was the point? But after five minutes of self-pity, she pulled herself together and got up for her day. She took her usual extra care with her appearance and noticed that she truly was beginning to look like an “older” person. Well, plastic surgery wasn’t an option. She hated the hospital too much and it would mean more people knowing about her AIDS status.

  She was drinking her second cup of coffee when the phone rang. It was Lane, Smith and Romney.

  “Mrs. Smith, its Jennifer,” Jack’s secretary said. “I hope this isn’t too early.”

  “Not at all, Jennifer! How are you?” Pam said. She’d always liked the young woman, but wondered if her name was among the list of his conquered. She shook her head to clear the thought.

  “I’m okay. We really miss your husband around here,” she confided in a whisper. “It’s so boring.”

  Pam laughed. “Yes, he knew how to liven up a place, that’s for sure.”

  “Anyway, a registered letter came here for Jack late yesterday. It isn’t a business matter; it looks like it’s regarding a piece of rental property he has uptown. Do you want me to fax it to you?”

  Pam was confused for a minute. “Is it a storage locker?” she asked.

  “No, it looks like either an apartment or retail space off Broadway in the Times Square District. It may be something he was subletting for a client,” she explained. “I’ve checked and there isn’t a key, so maybe he left something there at home.”

  Pam thanked her and before they hung up, she could hear the fax machine in the den whirring. She walked in to get the paper, and sure enough it was a rental agreement renewal. Oh hell, she thought. She went back into the kitchen to finish her coffee with the rental agreement on the counter in front of her. She read through it and saw a date that took her breath away: 1992. Pam looked at the water and tried to piece time together. What was she doing thirty years ago? She slid off the stool and went into the mudroom to get the keys for which she couldn’t find locks. On his Lexus fob was a gold key with Master Lock stamped on it. She never could figure out what it was for. In September, she’d finally made it to his club to clean out his locker and there was a small plastic box like those used by seamstresses to hold notions, and in the box was another set of keys. Reaching for those as well, she suddenly recognized what could be a safety deposit box key. She’d already cleared out one box they held jointly in Babylon, but this one had a different number on it. Deciding to throw caution to the wind and forget about her pride, she called Jennifer back.

  “Jennifer, do you know if Jack used a particular bank in New York for work?” She realized it sounded secretive but that’s all she was going to give up.

  “Well, let me think a minute,” she said. “I can’t think of any that he used, but we use Bank of New York for the office. You could try that.” They hung up.

  Pam didn’t want to go into Manhattan, but it might be what she needed to avoid sitting around thinking about how she’d destroyed her children’s lives. The phone was still resting against the palm of Pam’s hand when it rung again. This time it was Lisa.

  “Mom! Mom, I am so sorry,” she yelled. Pam held the phone from her ear.

  “Lisa, are you okay?” Pam asked, ridiculous because it was clear she wasn’t okay, but she just wanted to make sure she hadn’t been in an accident or anything. “Are you in Honolulu?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m here, I’m fine. Mom! I’m so sorry about leaving like I did. No matter what happened, I shouldn’t be cruel. Do you forgive me?” Lisa asked.

  Pam could hear her sniffing and blubbering. “Of course I do. But do you forgive me? We can’t go back to pretending we had something that didn’t exist,” Pam said.

  There was a brief pause. “Did dad give you AIDS?” Lisa finally asked the big question.

  “Yes,” Pam answered. “And to Marie, and Sandra, and many other women, I’m afraid. As a matter of fact, I’ve become friends with the people at the New York AIDS Surveillance Task Force.” Pam could hear Lisa crying. “Lisa, if you can possibly manage it, don’t make this about you. Your father was the one with the problems, not you. I didn’t protect my children from information they didn’t need to have.”

  “Oh Mom, I’m so sorry! I know you loved Dad! And he told us he loved you, many times. He must have been fucking sick. There is no other explanation,” Lisa said.

  Pam was glad she had reached that conclusion already. But she was getting tired and had a trip into the city ahead of her today. “You are so smart, Lisa. You’ll figure this out. I can’t really help you now; unfortunately, it’s your issue to deal with. I have to go into the city today so I better hang up now, but we’ll talk later, okay? Everything will be okay, I promise you.” They spent a few more minutes confirming their love for each other and finally hung up. Talking to Lisa was almost always exhausting.

  While she was getting dressed in her “goin’ to town” garb, Pam decided to stop at the mansion to see her mother and sister and mother-in-law while she was in town since her day was already ruined. She was gathering up a bottle of water and putting some cut-up fruit into a baggie to take when the phone rang again. She looked at the caller ID and saw Sandra’s apartment number and answered it right away. What was she doing there during a work day?

  “Hi, I am surprised to see this number,” Pam said.

  Without wasting time with small talk, Sandra launched right in. “I know we haven’t had much contact, but boy, do I need your friendship right now. I would love to see you today if I could. I can get on a train and be there by noon if you just say I can,” Sandra said.

  Pam paused for just a second; there was no reason on earth that she couldn’t see Sandra unless Tom the Tyrant didn’t want her to.

  “I’m coming into town today. It is for a very strange reason; evidently Jack had a rental property in Times Square and the lease is up for renewal.” Pam explained.

  “Yes,” Sandra said. “I just dropped in, but am thinking I might stay. Can I see you while you’re here?”

  “Do you want to go on an adventure with me? I don’t know why, but I feel like this might be one experience I shouldn’t have alone, and frankly there is no one else who could go with me,” Pam confessed.

  “Of course I’ll go with you, but what about Marie?” Sandra asked.

  “Marie’s not well. That’s a whole other story. How about I come to your apartment, in say, about two hours? I’m just getting ready to leave now. Traffic shouldn�
�t be too bad,” Pam said.

  “I’m truly sorry about Marie,” Sandra said.

  “Yes, well, I’ll tell you about it when I get there. Two hours then?” Pam repeated as she grabbed her keys. They confirmed it and said good-bye. Pam hung the phone up and went through the mudroom to the garage, feeling eager to see Sandra now, her one human contact that wasn’t a needy relative or a guy with a possible agenda.

  Sandra’s cell rang and it was Tom. He must have tried her office number first and discovered she wasn’t there; her cell got horrible reception in the office so he rarely called her on it during the day.

  “Where are you?” he said when she answered. She explained about the upsetting news from the doctor, although not specifically what the news was, and her need to be in her own space for a while.

  He didn’t get it. “I don’t understand why you didn’t call me right away. If you’re upset about something, you should let me have a shot at supporting you,” he said.

  “I wasn’t thinking about anything but the news,” she said.

  “Okay, what was so bad that you couldn’t go to work?” he challenged.

  “Well, I found out the baby tested positive for HIV. It’s not why she died, but it’s not good news. I’m also sicker than I was, which sucks,” she explained.

  “Do you have AIDS?” Tom asked quietly.

  “No, not yet. But there’s more. The doctor strongly advised me against getting pregnant again. She said it could have devastating results.” There, let him stew in that for a moment, she thought.

  “Oh boy, that’s awful,” he said. And there was a brief pause. “I’m so sorry Sandra. I see now why you wanted to be alone,” Tom said. There was a longer silence.

  “Pam just called. Evidently Marie is ill, so she is coming into the city to see her and asked to see me, as well,” Sandra said. She would give more information to him as he asked for it.