A Mother's Homecoming(3)
Pam grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler against the far wall and took it to the register. Her stomach growled when she passed a display of candy bars and potato chips, but snacks were a luxury item. Maybe the possibility of food at Mae’s house would keep her motivated to finish her journey.
Eyes down, she slid her cash across the counter to Travis. “Put whatever’s left after the water on pump two, please.”
“Sure th—” At his abrupt halt, she reflexively raised her gaze, immediately wishing she hadn’t.
His dark eyes widened.
Oh, no. She wasn’t naive enough to think she could be in her hometown without people finding out, people recognizing her, but she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. Annabel was wrong, I’m not ready.
“Uh, sure thing,” Travis finally said. He glanced out the window to where her heap sat, lowering the property value just by being there.
“Thanks.” She turned to go. With concerted effort, she kept from sprinting like some overage Ole Miss student trying out for the Rebel’s track and field team. After all, the one thing she’d learned in the last twelve and a half years was that she couldn’t outrun her past—not at any speed.
Behind her, Travis called, “You have a nice day, Pamela Jo.”
Too late.
IT WASN’T THAT YOU couldn’t go home again, Pam thought as her car bounced in the exact same pothole that used to make Nick’s vintage Mustang stutter after their dates. You just have to be crazy or desperate to do it. In her case, both.
But maybe people with closer-knit families viewed revisiting their roots in a different light.
She turned onto the long and winding gravel driveway. The Wilson mailbox was the same faded, ugly mustard yellow. An enduring copse of trees still blocked the view of the house from the road. However, the weeping willow that had once been at the front of the wild and unruly yard was gone.
Mae’s 1980 LTD Crown Victoria was parked in the carport attached to the brick two-bedroom home; the rusted vehicle clearly hadn’t been roadworthy in some time. Pam leaned forward, staring through her windshield. The car wasn’t the only thing in a state of disrepair. Instead of curtains or the familiar living room suite visible through the house’s grimy windows, there were large flat boards blocking further view. The concrete slab generously called a front porch had cracked, and flower-topped weeds flourished in the fissures. Several roof shingles had fallen atop neglected shrubs, and another hung precariously, as if it were barely holding on and planned to give up the ghost at any minute.
Pam knew the feeling.
She parked the car, sagging back against her seat. Defeat and relief swirled in a bitter cocktail. Mae didn’t live here.
No one lived here. It didn’t appear as though the house had been sold, what with the Victoria parked in its habitual spot. If not for the deliberately boarded windows, she might have worried Mae had simply slipped and broken her fool neck with no one the wiser. Pam experienced a rare twinge of regret that she and her mother hadn’t kept up some sort of communication over the years … Christmas greetings, postcards, hate mail with a return address.
Had her mother moved into the nursing home in Mimosa? Surely not. Although the woman’s lifestyle had probably aged her prematurely, she was only in her fifties. Had she perhaps moved in with her pursed-lip, disapproving older sister Aunt Julia? Pam shuddered at what that household would be like. Poor Uncle Ed.
Pam opened her car door, though she wasn’t sure why she felt the need for a closer look at her childhood home. She didn’t have a key. Breaking in to the tiny residence would be relatively simple but also relatively pointless. She doubted she’d find more than spiders and field mice. Why waste time here when she should be tracking down Mae? As much as the thought of talking to her mother ripped at the lining of Pam’s stomach, that’s what she had come all this way to do.
During a discussion with Annabel about making amends, she’d groused in a moment of self-pity that it was too bad Mae had never joined the program because there was a woman with some amends to make. No-nonsense Annabel had pointed out in her wry, get-a-clue way that hating Mae was damaging Pam far more than her estranged mother.
Pam had decided that if she couldn’t get forgiveness from the people she’d hurt—Nick’s face flashed in her mind—the next best thing she could do was to forgive the person who’d hurt her. Maybe once Pam made peace with her mother, she could truly move forward. Because right now, Pam’s life was as much in shambles as this pitiful little house.