A Mother's Homecoming

chapter Twelve




When headlights flashed through the untreated windows at the front of the house, Pam assumed her aunt and uncle had forgotten something. After all, they’d only left about ten minutes ago. She went to the front door, which she’d locked behind them, and was surprised to glimpse Nick coming up the sidewalk. Her first panicked reaction at seeing him out here unannounced on a Friday night was that something must have happened to Faith. But logic kicked in as she was opening the door—in an emergency situation, it would have been quicker to simply call her.



Still, she couldn’t help greeting him with, “Is everything okay? Faith, is she—”



“She’s fine,” he assured her. “She’s at a slumber party at her friend Tasha’s house. Of course, Morgan was invited, too, so they’ve probably all sneaked out and are merrily toilet-papering the neighborhood even as we speak.” He swatted away a couple of moths that were drawn to the light spilling from the doorway. “Can I come in?”



Pam took a step back, giving him room.



He glanced around, his expression unreadable. “You’re making progress.”



“Thanks,” she said shyly. She felt like a painter who’d had an unexpected visitor to the studio, viewing a potential masterpiece when it was only half-finished. Did Nick see the as yet unrealized charm in the place, or was his vision obscured by holes that still needed to be spackled in the walls and a naked lightbulb shining where she hadn’t hung the new fixture?



Furnishings in the house were sparse but adequate. In the living room, she had a couch from her uncle’s store and an Ole Miss beanbag chair. The closest she had to a table was a crate, but Uncle Ed was expecting a shipment of secondhand furniture from an estate sale next week; there might be something promising in that. She didn’t have a television, which wouldn’t have done her any good, anyway. Although the electricity was on, as well as running water in all but the smaller bathroom at the end of the hall, there was no gas or cable right now. The only cooking she could do was in the microwave, but it would be November before anyone would need central heating out here.



A semi-stocked refrigerator hummed in the next room, Aunt Julia had given her a free-standing, antique linen wardrobe for towels and sheets, and in the main bedroom, there was a futon that pulled out into a queen-size bed. Beats sleeping in my car.



She gestured graciously toward the new sofa. “Have a seat. Want a bottle of water? Afraid I’m pretty limited in my refreshment options.”



“No, thanks. I’m good. Did I catch you at a bad time? If you have a few minutes to take a break, I thought maybe we could talk.” He patted the cushion next to him.



Pam’s self-preservation instincts murmured that she should ignore the patting and take the beanbag chair, but that was ridiculous. She didn’t want to sit at his feet, looking up at him like a child at story time, and there was plenty of room on the couch. She’d survived sitting right next to him in his living room the other day. We were chaperoned then.



They hadn’t been alone in a dark house, in the exact room where they’d first made love. She brushed her hands over the denim cutoffs she wore, trying to dust away the memories with the grit. Staying as close to the opposite edge as possible, she sat with him.



“I probably don’t smell so good,” she said bluntly. “I’ve been working hard since two o’clock this afternoon.”



Nick laughed. “You smell fine, but thanks for the warning.”



Curiosity was eating at her. “If you’re not here because of Faith,” she wondered, “what was so important that you drove out after dark instead of just picking up the phone?”



“Because I thought what I had to say, you deserved to hear in person.” He drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”



She frowned. “Is this still about losing your temper on the phone earlier in the week? That’s behind us.”



“No, this is about our marriage.”



Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re sorry about our marriage?” Not that she blamed him—she’d be sorry if she married her, too—but she was still surprised that it had merited a middle-of-the-night visit.



“I’m sorry I screwed it up so badly and didn’t do more to protect you. You have to understand, my mom loves me a lot. My dad did, too, so I got to see the occasional kinder, gentler sides of them. But I’m aware that she can be a dragon lady to people she …”



“Hates?” Pam suggested cheerfully.



“Doesn’t understand, I was going to say.”



He made it sound as if they were two small nations who’d suffered from cultural miscommunications. “Dude, I’m pretty sure she wanted me dead. If I hadn’t been carrying her grandchild, she would have put a hit out on me.”



Nick snickered but tried to cover it by running his hand over his face.



“This is one of those ‘funny because it’s true moments,’ isn’t it?” she asked drily.



“Well, it’s just interesting that you should mention my mother in the context of a hit-man contract. I told her the other night that she had to stop acting like a mafia don.”



“You did not.” Pam tried to imagine Nick standing up to his mother; based on her experiences during their marriage, she couldn’t do it. “To her face?”



He sobered, the traces of shared humor fading from his expression. “Yeah. And I should have done it years ago. This is my point, that I let her make my wife feel so unwanted in our family.”



As Pam had done at his house during their talk with Faith, she reached out unthinkingly, squeezing his hand for moral support. But this time, he flipped his hand over, lacing his fingers between hers.



“You were just a kid,” she said, absolving him. “You weren’t ready for marriage and the politics of balancing between your wife and family, much less a baby on the way.” Very subtly she tried to wiggle her fingers free. She supposed she could just yank out of his grasp—it wasn’t as if he was going to hold her hand against her will—but she was hoping the withdraw might go unnoticed.



The knowing grin he gave her made it clear she wasn’t nearly covert enough. He leaned even closer. “I know it’s not fair to put you on the spot, all these years later, and play the what-if game, but I can’t help it. If I’d stood up to my parents, showed you more clearly that you were loved, do you think you might have stayed?”



She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut against the hope in his gaze. It was like staring into the sun with a skull-splitting hangover. “No.” She pulled her hand back, subtlety be damned. “I wouldn’t have stayed, Nick. Nothing you could have done or said would have changed that, so you can let it go. You’re absolved.”



The hope vanished, replaced by irritation. “Explain it to me,” he demanded. “After the years we had together, you owe me that much, Pam. I thought that, after all this time, it wouldn’t matter anymore. Seeing you again, it does.”



She stood, deciding brutal honesty was her best bet but not entirely sure how to articulate what had she’d gone through. “I don’t know how well I can explain this. Hell, I don’t even remember those months very clearly. Most of the time it was like I was sleepwalking, or like I wanted to be asleep. You were so cute with Faith, looked so happy when you were holding her, and I just … Annabel and I talked about this a lot last year. I did some research on postpartum depression. Statistics indicate that it’s more common and more severe in teenage mothers.”



Nick nodded. “I thought of that. Not at the time, but later. One of the guys who works for me, his wife Lisa had twins and she had trouble with PPD after they were born. They missed the signs at first, assuming it was just the understandable fatigue of dealing with two newborns. But after it got worse, they talked to a doctor. If that’s why you left … how come you never came back?”



He rose, too, and paced back and forth across the small room. “After you’d been gone a few months, I got scared to death. Despite the note, I was convinced you wouldn’t have stayed away from us that long. I thought …” He swallowed, shaking his head. “I thought something had happened to you. And when you popped up on that cable show? I hated you so damn much. Two and a half years of worry replaced with the realization that while I was trying to potty train Faith and roofing out in the hot sun for Donald Bauer, you were hobnobbing with country music stars and going to work every day at a television studio.”



“I should have sent you a letter telling you I was okay.”



“You think?” His voice was level, but old embers of banked fury still glowed within him.



She couldn’t stand for him to think she would have blown off her husband and baby to go play guitar. She had to make him understand.



“I told you that most of it’s a blur,” Pam said. “But there’s one day I remember. She was crying—which could have been any day. Whenever I was with her, she was crying. She smiled at you, even your mom, but I think she sensed the tension in me. Anyway, she was shrieking because she had a rash and had done something toxic in her diaper. I was trying to change her, and I was making a mess. She just kept kicking, and I couldn’t get her clean. I heard myself yell, ‘You’re ruining my life’ and it was Mae’s voice coming out of my mouth. I might … I’m so sorry, Nick—I might have even shaken her. Only for a moment, but long enough to be horrified at my behavior.”



Pam pressed her fingertips to her eyes, belatedly aware that she was crying. Tears ran down her face, but she forced herself to keep going so that he could understand how truly awful she’d been. Maybe then he’d stop mourning the abrupt end of their marriage and just be glad Faith hadn’t been subjected to her.



“It was an epiphany,” she said. “I was going to be Mae. She’d raised a daughter she hadn’t wanted in the first place. Even though she was a married adult when she got pregnant with me, she resented me my entire life, certainly never gave me a role model for loving maternal behavior. And even though I couldn’t bond with Faith, couldn’t love her, I knew for damn sure that I wanted better for her. I wouldn’t wish my childhood, my mother, on anyone. So I got the hell out of there. And I feel like, with your questions tonight, you want me to say I’m sorry for what I did. But the thing is, I can’t.”



He understandably viewed her actions as desertion, but the other way to look at it was that she’d set them free. In a moment of piercing clarity, she’d embraced the truth Gwendolyn Shepard had made clear all along, that Nick would be far better off in the long run without her.



Did Nick see that now, that she’d done them all a favor? “Faith’s had you, and even your dragon lady of a mother, and our daughter turned out … She’s beautiful. Smart. A little bit of a pain in the ass, but that just means she’s a normal kid so you’ve done your job right.” Pam hiccupped, aware she was rambling hysterically, but Nick watched her, silent and dry-eyed, letting her get it all out. “I can’t apologize for leaving the two of you. Because I knew in my bones that it was the right thing to do and the horrific mistakes I made after I left here prove that.



“Nick, you would have been so ashamed if you could have seen me. I was not someone you could have in good conscience let near your child. Even though I tried to run away from it, I still turned into Mae and every ugly thing I ever hated about her. Given the same set of circumstances, I’d leave you and Faith again.” And maybe that was what she felt guiltiest about, above everything else. What kind of unnatural woman not only abandons her baby but can’t even bring herself to regret it?



The tears were a torrent. “I … I could have hurt her if I’d stayed. I couldn’t risk that, couldn’t live with it.” She buried her face in her hands, wishing that the crying could wash away the past, make her clean again.



Then suddenly Nick was there, tugging her clumsily into his arms and folding her against his chest. He was out of practice—he’d done this so many times before, whenever her mother said something awful. Or that day when Pam had found her mother passed out and had thought for a split second that Mae was dead.



She’d sobbed afterward because one of the feelings she’d experienced before panic kicked in had been relief. She’d trusted Nick enough to admit that to him, and he hadn’t judged her. He’d just listened.



I’ve missed him so much. She looped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. The rhythm of his heartbeat steadied her, and as she calmed, her gratitude gave way to hypersensitivity. The plane of his chest was well-muscled from time spent in construction, hard beneath his shirt and against her body. He still used the same shampoo he always had, and she inhaled the familiar smell, letting the memory take her back. The soothing metronome of his pulse had picked up speed. She wasn’t the only one reacting to their embrace.



His breathing grew rougher. “Pam.”



She looked up reflexively, and his mouth took hers. Heat arced between them, invisible lightning that singed her in all the right places. The kiss quickly turned into a frantic homecoming, each of them desperate to touch and taste. There was nothing harmonious or well-orchestrated about their movements, simply raw feeling. They bumped noses and foreheads in their haste.



He backed her against the couch and they toppled together, landing in a pile of limbs and pleasure. Her breasts tingled beneath his weight, and she rocked her hips upward, denim scraping denim, to meet his. He was so hard it made her dizzy, imagining what they’d be like, the slide of him inside her.



She hooked one ankle behind his calf, pushing him against her, and he nipped her earlobe. His hands seemed to be in so many places at once. He cupped her under her shirt and the symphony of sensation overwhelmed her. Arching her back, she bit back a cry, marveling that she could be so close to the brink of orgasm. The desire she felt was so sharp it was uncomfortable.



Nick dragged his kisses downward, his lips closing around her nipple as he kept moving against her, the pressure maddening and demanding, and she broke, this time unable to keep herself from crying out as wave after wave rippled through her. Her body felt swollen and sensitized in the aftermath, and dazed, she tried to shove him away.



“I cannot believe I did that,” she said to the ceiling, embarrassed. “That was …”



“Earth-shattering?” Nick flashed her an adorably cocky grin.



Out of control. She sat up, tugging her shirt and bra back into place. Letting her common sense get eclipsed by the moment was a bad idea for an addict. One kiss had turned into much more so fast her brain hadn’t been able to process it. It was reminiscent of the way a single drink to help her loosen up before a show had once turned into a sloppy, intoxicated performance that had tanked the last of her professional credibility.



“That was too much,” she said. “What happened to discipline?”



He reached for her, trying to joke away her tension. “I didn’t know you were into the discipline stuff. Maybe next time.”



“Nick! I’m serious. That …” She blinked. “I’ve had too many mindless one-night stands.”



“We don’t have to talk about that. Neither of us have been completely celibate, and I’m not going to hold your history against you.”



“It’s not about you holding anything against me, it’s about me holding myself accountable. I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want you to be just a quick lay.”



He flinched, then stood. “That kind of talk is kind of a mood killer, sweetheart.”



Good. Because it would have felt too selfish to send him out of here still aroused while she was satisfied. Sort of. Her body might have just released months of tension, but she wasn’t exactly giddy with afterglow. She wanted to curl into a ball and cry, which was what had landed her in this mess in the first place. Tears weren’t the answer.



With a sigh, Nick resumed his pacing. “I don’t mean to downplay what you’ve been through, but is there any chance you’re overreacting? Getting swept away with your ex-husband is hardly the same thing as taking home a stranger. There’s a difference between self-control and self-denial.”



She pulled her legs up against her body and turned her head, resting her cheek on her knees. It gave her a strange, sideways view of his concerned expression. She appreciated that he was at least trying to understand her perspective rather than fuming at her for leading him on, not that Nick ever would.



He’d always been a gentleman … just, a gentleman who ended up getting her naked more often than not.



“You may have a point,” she conceded. After all, it wasn’t so impromptu, her being attracted to him. She’d felt that pull most of her life. “I didn’t realize the chemistry between us would still be so potent.” In a smaller voice, she confessed, “It rattled me.”



He held one hand out in front of him; they could both see his fingers trembled slightly. “I’m not exactly steady myself. I want you.”



“I want you, too. But not like this.” Sweaty and sore on a secondhand couch with bits of plaster and paint stuck in her hair? She’d been intentionally abstinent since joining the program. If she slept with him, it would be the first time she’d had sober sex in years, and she wanted to remember it as more than a savage haze. To savor it. To know that she was doing something deliberate and not just losing herself in a different kind of intoxication. “Go home, cool down. And after you’ve had a chance to think about it, ask me out. If you still want to.”



“So you’re not saying no?” he asked, looking cheerful again. “I just have to put some thought and effort into it?”



She chuckled. “That’s not exactly how I meant it, but okay.”



“You’re worth the effort. I used to love that, planning how to get you alone, what I would say, where I wanted to touch you first. It’ll be just like old times.”



“No.” She winced. They weren’t seventeen anymore. “It won’t be.”



“All right.” Nick leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It’ll be like new times, then. Even better.”