A Mother's Homecoming(40)
Pam watched the girl slink out of the salon, replaying her last words and wondering how literally Faith meant them. With most people “see you around” was a casual farewell. So how had her daughter managed to make it sound like a warning?
ALTHOUGH PAM DIDN’T see Martha at Tuesday’s meeting, there were other people who offered a friendly smile and word of welcome. After about twenty minutes, she decided she was comfortable enough to talk.
“Some of you knew my mother—she was hard to miss. She was used to being a local legend—prom queen, Miss Mimosa in the town parade. But after that chapter of her life faded …” After she had me. “Her drinking became legendary. I started singing at an early age, and, looking back, I think part of the reason I pursued it aggressively was to manipulate the spotlight. I wanted every solo, every leading role in school musicals. Because the second anyone saw me, I wanted them to say ‘You’re that girl with the great voice,’ instead of ‘You’re Mae Wilson’s daughter.’ I left town in the early days of things going bad for me. I’ve never been here as a failure before.”
There’d been some scandal over her teenage pregnancy, but her peers had assumed she and Nick would marry anyway, so some found it romantic.
She jerked her thoughts from the past—from him—back to the present. “The spotlight’s a lot less pleasant now, but even when people come into the salon and make a snide comment because they think they know my deep dark secrets, I remind myself that what they ‘know’ barely scratches the surface. The only person in this whole town who’s ever seen me at my worst is me. And I’m determined never to see that woman in the mirror again. That’s what keeps me from picking up a drink.”
After Pam spoke, a married father of four talked about how he’d started drinking after being laid off two years ago. The ironic part was that he hadn’t been able to stop drinking even when he did find new employment, ultimately costing himself that job, too. He was openly emotional while he spoke of letting his family down, and Pam could only imagine what it was like to be in his shoes. In some of her more self-pitying moments when she’d first joined AA, she’d told herself that she had it harder than most, trying to cope with her problems alone, no family to support her efforts. But she’d changed her perspective.
Jake, the family man currently trying to get through the probationary period of his latest job, had pressures she couldn’t fathom. Any mistake he made affected the five other people in the world he loved most. There was a certain freedom in being alone. Freedom … or cowardice?
After the meeting broke up, Pam headed for her car, debating whether to go straight back to Aunt Julia and Uncle Ed’s and call it a night or continue work on the floors at Mae’s house. Pam had made a discovery last night—technically, very early this morning.
At first it had seemed as though the floors were going to echo the walls. Beneath a peeling and unfinished layer of butt-ugly wallpaper, she’d excavated two more layers. When Pam had pulled up a mildewed corner of carpet, she’d found another layer of carpet and thought here we go again … but beneath that, hardwood! Honest to goodness hardwood floors. Sure, they weren’t in pristine condition, but they were a far better alternative to the dingy carpet rotting atop them.
Did she have enough energy after almost no sleep the night before, a full shift at the salon, learning from Julia how to make a chicken potpie from scratch and a post-dinner AA meeting to drive back out to the house and finish liberating that floor? Imagining its full potential was almost enough to give her a renewed burst of energy.
Almost.
“Pam? Hey, Pam!” a male voice called from across the parking lot.
In some of the neighborhoods she’d lived previously, Pam wouldn’t have slowed down in a parking lot at night to answer anyone. But the lot was brightly lit with old-fashioned wrought-iron lanterns and she was within both sight and earshot of a dozen or so other people.
“Yes?” She smiled expectantly, trying to remember the young man’s name. When she’d spotted him in the meeting, she’d been taken aback; he didn’t even look old enough to drink legally, although she supposed you didn’t have to be able to purchase alcohol in a bar to develop a problem.
“I’m Richie,” he said. “Two things. First, a couple of us missed dinner trying to get here on time from work, and we’re going out for barbecue, if you’d like to join us. But also, I overheard you mentioning that you’re trying to fix up the house your mom left you? I actually work in construction, for Bauer and Shepard.”