The earliest they could do it would be Tuesday morning, a two day wait. Pam wasn’t sure how the kids would hold up. She looked at her watch; Lisa was just landing, and Brent was an hour away. Once the kids got home, she was hoping some feeling would return to her mind and body. She also wanted to be alone with them. That would be tough. Sharon and her family were staying for the funeral. She could hardly ask Bernice to leave. She’d have to find a way to let them know she needed time with the kids.
They pulled up to the house just as Lisa and Sharon’s family were getting out of the station wagon. Lisa saw Pam and ran to her, crying. They embraced. The others walked away, giving them privacy. Marie, hesitant decided in favor of her own well-being and went into the house. Mother and daughter stood holding each other, while Lisa got her emotions under control.
“Oh, Mother,” she said, “I feel so horrible for you!” Pam led her over to the car.
“Let’s get in, shall we? There is a house full,” Pam explained.
“I really am not in the mood to have to deal with anyone else’s emotions right now,” Lisa said.
“I think they know that, honey,” Pam said. “They’ve been leaving me alone.”
“Mom, what happened? I just saw Dad last month and he looked great! I kept saying, ‘Gosh, Dad, look how thin you are!’ Did he know he had heart trouble? Aunt Sharon said someone took his wallet while he was on the train. Did that cause his heart attack?” Pam willed herself not to decompensate. Her daughter needed her questions answered. Maybe she should have invited Marie to stay, dividing the answers between them. She knew she had used her sister for just such issues in the past. Marie acted as a buffer in so many ways for the family. Maybe now was the time to end that. Jack was gone. It was just the three of them. She reached across the center console to embrace her daughter. Lisa started to cry again.
“I think his heart simply gave out. It was his time to die. Poor Lisa, I wish you didn’t have to suffer through this! You are too young to lose a parent.” Pam thought of the ages she and Jack were when their own fathers had died. It hadn’t been easy at any age.
“Was it hard for you when Grandpa died?” Lisa asked.
“You cope somehow,” Pam told her daughter. “There is an inner strength that rises to the surface. But I still miss him every day.”
“How are you going to get through dad dying?” Lisa asked.
“I feel like the other shoe will drop soon, but right now when I have to be out there in front of everyone, I can be strong. Dad’s mother for instance, what must this be like for her? Oh, how horrible.” Pam lowered her face and started to weep. “I go up and down like this. One minute I am calm and the next, crying like a baby.”
“I love you, Mom!” Lisa said.
They waited until they regained their composure, drawing strength from each other so they could enter the house and not have a torrent of sympathy flood their way. The thought of it was intolerable.
Inside, Bernice was looking out the kitchen window at her daughter-in-law approaching the house with her granddaughter. She had not seen Lisa in months. Neither was a good letter writer. What would we say to each other now?
Lisa walked through the door first, and seeing her grandmother standing there dressed to perfection as always, hair and nails done, just the slightest red around the eyes she flew to her, crying out, “Oh, Bubby! Oh, I am so sorry!” And they grabbed each other and began weeping; loud, mournful sobbing that brought the rest of the house to join in.
It was probably the most therapeutic moment, because after just a few minutes, Bernice stopped and laughing out loud, said, “Oh, for God’s sake! Let’s pull ourselves together!” She took Lisa by the shoulders and at arm’s length, said, “What do you suppose your father would have said if he walked in on this scene?”
In unison, everyone said, “Who died?” The rest of the family laughed.
“Okay, so what news do you have?” Bernice said. Marie had waited until Pam came in to let her make the funeral plans known. She had also neglected to tell the group about Pam’s fainting spell, either out of protection for her privacy or some other, less noble, motivation. She was tired of Pam getting all the attention after all.
“The viewing is Tuesday morning, and the funeral is at eleven. The burial will be private. The little cemetery in Amityville can’t handle more than six cars at a time.” Pam looked around at everyone. They stood together, looking to her for direction. It was five. Brent’s plane would have landed by now and he on his way home. She had to lie down for just a bit before facing that emotional meeting. “I’m sorry, I know I haven’t been much help to you, but please, if you don’t mind, I would like to rest for a few minutes before Brent gets home.” The family rushed toward her, encouraging her to go, making sounds of empathy.
The shaded coolness of her beautiful bedroom had the desired effect. The moment she stretched out on her chaise, she fell asleep. It felt like no sooner had she closed her eyes that she felt a hand on her shoulder and a kiss on her cheek. Jack? She opened her eyes upon her beautiful son, her oldest child.
“Brent,” she said, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the chaise. He sat down next to her and with one arm around, lowered his head on her shoulder. And by the shaking of his body, she surmised that he was having a good old-fashioned cry. She knew that to lose it at this point was to doom both of them to an afternoon of misery. He was so like his father that she better keep it together or suffer the consequences. “Smith men cried at a good steak,” it was said.
“Brent, I am so sorry!” she muttered the same words to him that her daughter had said to her. “What a thing to happen to you.”
“What about to you, Mom? God! He was only fifty-five!”
She reached over to her table and pulled a tissue out of the box. Handing it to him and soothing his cheek with her hand, she said what she had said to Lisa. “I am still numb. Probably, after the funeral it will become real to me—the loss.” She wanted to say, our life stretches out ahead of us without him. Then she remembered another person who was suffering, who needed validation. When she had a chance that evening, she would call Sandra. She stood up and taking his hands, attempted to pull him up to his feet. They both laughed, he being over six feet tall and close to 200 pounds like his father. “Come and see your grandmothers,” she said.
“I already did, Mom. I’ve been home for two hours.”
“What time is it?” she asked. “I must have been sleeping then for hours!”
“It’s almost seven-thirty. Come on, Bubby is making dinner.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me! She hasn’t had to cook in fifty years!” Pam said. They laughed together once again. He took her by the elbow, leading her out of the room as though she were a queen or a bride. Her heart did a somersault. She felt guilty for dreading the homecoming of her two wonderful children. “I have to make a phone call, okay? Tell everyone I’ll be there in a minute.” She went back into her room, quietly closing the door behind her.
She dug through her purse for the scrap of paper that contained the phone number of Jack’s lover. She still felt no animosity toward Sandra. If anything, she needed to talk to her. Having done so she would be stronger for it, they were allies. She keyed in the number and waited it for it to ring. After six long rings, it was finally answered by a quiet hello.
“This is Pam Smith, Sandra. I’m so sorry that I am just calling you now about the funeral. Both children came home in the interim since going to the funeral home, and this is the first chance I’ve had.” Sandra didn’t know what to say. How do you thank the wife of your lover for calling you?
“Thank you. I appreciate it,” she said.
“The viewing will be held at nine on Tuesday morning, with the funeral to follow at eleven. The burial is private, but of course you will come to that. If you don’t mind, for the sake of the children, I will introduce you as Jack’s friend.” She realized how inane that must have sounded to Sandra, but she didn’t know wh
at else to do. She felt her nerves faltering. She decided to throw caution to the wind and go at it. It was better than hanging up. “Sandra, please help me. Help me understand. I feel like you are the only one who can possibly understand me or what I am going through. You are going through it, too—alone. You don’t know how I wish you could come here and talk, share your memories, your observations. If you can figure out a way to do it that won’t hurt you or anyone else, it would be wonderful.” She was out of breath. And then, sadly, she started to cry. “I don’t understand. Why did he die? What earthly purpose did it have to take him so early?” She was crying out loud now, snorting into the phone. She reached for a tissue, and several came out of the box at once, stuck together. She blew her nose. There was silence, and then Sandra spoke.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’ve asked myself the same question again and again. Mrs. Smith, I wish I could tell you everything. There is so much you should know about how much he loved you, how screwed up he was. His being with me didn’t have anything to do with you. You know that, don’t you? It was just a lapse of moral judgment.” She was crying, softly, then into the phone. “I think he had a premonition that he was going to die. I think he knew.”
Pam was shocked at that comment. “We have to meet before the funeral. I have a house full of people, but I could come to you. I could come to the city.” She thought of their apartment on Madison Avenue. She could search for some evidence of what Sandra just said. She made up her mind. The next day Pam was going into the city to see Sandra. Of course, she wouldn’t tell anyone. Marie might suspect but she wasn’t telling her, either. She wanted an untainted perspective. “I’ve decided. I am coming tomorrow to our apartment. Do you know where it is?” She gave Sandra the address. “I’ll call you again when I get in okay? I feel so much better all ready.” Sandra agreed, somewhat reluctantly. What did this woman have in mind? Sandra felt like she had done enough damage already. Pam put down the phone, feeling at peace.
The rest of the night was spent with the kids going through old photo albums, their idea. It turned out to be the best idea yet because, it chronicled Jack’s metamorphous from young, gorgeous guy to handsome businessman and was a wonderful review of where their dad had been and where he ended up.
Marie suddenly said, “We forgot the car!” Brent said he would go with her to pick it up. She hid her disappointment; he would most certainly drive his father’s car home from the train station.
9
Across the East River to the north, Sandra was sitting at the table looking out a window at nothing and sipping a hot cup of tea. It was a warm night, but she didn’t care. The tea was relaxing her, clearing her head.
The call from Pam Smith was nerve-wracking. She was specific about what she expected from Sandra, but it just didn’t ring true. Sandra didn’t understand what Pam was going through. She was the wife, with the kids and the history. All Sandra was, in addition to a work buddy, was a girlfriend, a dinner date on lonely nights. They loved each other but now, seeing the devastation of his family, knowing the loss the children would suffer, the relationship revealed what it really was—an immoral affair between a married man and a woman young enough to be his daughter. No matter how much she rationalized what they had, it was wrong. And it couldn’t be taken back.
Sunday morning dawned gray and rainy. Pam woke up early after a sound, dreamless sleep. She rolled over to face Jack’s side of the bed. Had he ever slept there? Had his impact on her life diminished to the point that she was over it already, after two days? “Stop it,” she said to herself. She got up to begin her day, going through the steps she always took, carefully bathing, doing her hair and makeup, preparing for what she did not exactly know. She thought in the past that she was doing it for him, for Jack. He used to say how proud he was of her, how she looked so nice all the time, and how was in good shape for her age. What did that really mean? It didn’t keep him from being unfaithful. Well, too bad, she thought, I’ll continue doing this for myself.
The house was quiet. Pam didn’t feel like making excuses for going into the city. Marie or Lisa would want to go with her and she was making this trip alone. She would take Jack’s Lexus. He called it their “city car.” It would make a final trip in to Manhattan; this time without him.
She wrote a note in her neat hand saying she wanted to go in to look at the apartment alone. Propped on the coffee pot where no one could miss it, it looked furtive but she didn’t care. This was her house; it was her husband who had just died.
As she got into the car and pulled out of the garage, she realized that she was looking forward to this being over, for everyone to be gone so she could begin her life. The kids would be gone soon enough and that might be difficult. She missed them all of the time, never getting used to their absence.
Traffic wasn’t bad on the Long Island Expressway on an early Sunday morning. She got into town quickly and would have plenty of time to putter around before Sandra arrived. Going up in the elevator, Pam’s resolve started to whither. What am I going to find? Was it Jack and Sandra’s love nest? She hadn’t visited in over a year, so he might have felt safe to take another woman there. She stepped off the elevator into the dimly lit hallway. Their apartment was on the fifteenth floor, not high enough to escape the shadows of other buildings. Her hand trembled as she put the key in the door. The door scraped on the carpet as she pushed it open. She always hated having carpet at the door; tile or stone should be at an entrance. But Jack argued that your shoes would be cleaned off and dry by the time you rode up fifteen floors.
Everything was exactly as she had left it the last time and it surprised her. There was a year-old House Beautiful magazine on the coffee table right where she had put it down. She stood in the middle of the room and slowly turned around. He had lived here alone, five days a week. Shouldn’t there be a sweater thrown over the back of a chair? A pile of mail, the top piece with an opened envelope? A used coffee cup with cold coffee? She wondered if perhaps Sandra had come in right after talking last night and cleaned up.
Pam turned around and walked into the kitchen—completely cleaned. The cleaning lady came on Friday she finally remembered. Opening the refrigerator, she saw milk for his cereal, bread, margarine, a jar of peanut butter, pizza slices wrapped in plastic wrap, and a lone orange. On the counter was a bowl with two ripe bananas in it. She would take them home or throw them away.
She entered the bedroom Jack used as a study. There on the table that held the television was the mail she was looking for, a big pile of it. She shoved it in her purse. Suddenly, she felt as though she couldn’t spend too much time in the apartment; its walls were closing in on her.
She left the study and went into their bedroom—Jack’s bedroom. The bed was made, but it had a rumple where someone had sat. Maybe Jack sat down to change his shoes for the trip home. She sat on the spot. She imagined could feel him there. His presence suddenly filled the room. Her purse slid down her arm. She lowered her head into her hands and began to weep, laying down on the bed, pulling the covers up over her body. She cried until she fell asleep.
The ringing phone woke her up. She picked the phone up, looking at the number on the caller ID. It was home, but she wasn’t going to answer it. She was an adult woman. If she wanted to spend a week here, she would. The emotion had gone. Now she was just sad. Her husband had lived his life here, away from his family so they could be comfortable. He had provided a wonderful and abundant life for them. Did I ever say thank you? Her heart was beating wildly in her chest. She supposed this was the feeling she was waiting for. She had to come into Manhattan to find Jack. He wasn’t there at their house after all.
She got up and went into the adjoining bathroom. She looked in the mirror. What a mess! She opened the right drawer in the vanity, and to her surprise, all of her cosmetics were still there. She supposed he would have thrown them out. He was always waiting for her to visit him on her own. She sat down and touched up her makeup, the cover stick almos
t hard from a year of disuse. She would have to get rid of the stuff eventually, but was glad it was here now.
She got up and went into the closet. He was a real neat nick. He saved everything, but it was organized. She could smell him in the closet; the scent of his aftershave and deodorant combined with that of dry cleaning fluid. Her side of the closet was empty except for a robe and a pair of slacks. There was also a pair of her sneakers on the floor. She went back into the bedroom and opened the drawers in the bedside tables. On her side, there was nothing. On his, she found a pair of reading glasses and a pair of binoculars for spying. She remembered nights looking down at the street with those things. They often had laughing fits at what they saw. “This is an invasion of privacy!” she would warn. “Oh, just come and look,” he’d say.
This was just a place where he hung his hat. There must be more of him at home, maybe in his desk or the garage. A thought occurred to her. There was a closet between the bathroom and the den that she didn’t check. She went down the hall and opened the door. There on the shelf above the empty clothes bar was a clear plastic container. She couldn’t reach it, so she went back into the den and dragged the desk chair over to the closet.
Carefully, she stood on the chair and grasped the container. It was heavier than it looked. Hoping the people in the apartment below were out, she let it drop to the floor with a thud. She hopped down from the chair like a teenager. Dragging the box back into the bedroom, she decided she would unpack it and spread everything out on the bed. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but there had to be something in there that would shed some light on the man her husband had become.
Checking her watch, she noted that it was nearing lunchtime and she better call Sandra by one. Quickly, she took the lid off the box and lifted out the first sheath of papers. They looked to be mostly receipts he was keeping for next year’s taxes—gas, tolls, paper supplies, and that sort of thing. Under the receipts was a manila folder that had seen better days. She set it on her lap and slowly opened it. What lay on top looked to be a birth certificate. It was yellowed with age and bore a stamp on the lower left corner that certified it was from the State of New York. She picked it up and carried it over to the window.
Pam of Babylon Page 5
