A Mother's Homecoming(50)
“Even if her being here is detrimental to an innocent child?” Gwendolyn demanded. She looked over Julia’s shoulder, once again skewering Pam with the force of her contempt. “I hope you’re happy! You’ve been here a matter of weeks, and already you’ve ruined that girl.”
Ruined? And I thought the twelve-year-old was melodramatic.
“That terrible haircut,” Gwendolyn sneered, taking in Pam’s own short hair. “Ditching class, running around with inappropriate boys!”
“As inappropriate as your son was as a teenager?” Julia interjected with saccharine sweetness.
Wow. You go, Aunt Julia. Pam was shocked to hear her aunt stick up for her so forcefully. Still, the last thing she wanted was an over-fifty catfight in the craft store.
“Ladies, why don’t we all agree to disagree and go our own separate ways?” she said. Would Nick tell his mother about this afternoon? No doubt Gwendolyn would add the blame for Faith’s outburst atop Pam’s other sins.
“Separate ways is a fine idea,” Gwendolyn said. “Keep that in mind, and stay away from my granddaughter and my son.”
“Nick’s a grown man now,” Julia said. “You can’t control him anymore. Not that you did such a great job of it even when he lived under your roof.”
With that Julia spun on her heel, and Pam quietly followed suit. They left the store without having bought anything. Once they’d reached the parking lot, Pam said, “Not that I don’t appreciate your taking my side … but what you said wasn’t particularly nice, Aunt Julia.”
Her aunt glanced up sheepishly from the remote that unlocked the car. “You’re right. But it was tremendously fun. Are you disappointed in me?”
Pam finally released the laughter that had been building ever since Julia had rendered Gwendolyn Shepard speechless. “Disappointed? If I ever win the lottery, I’m having a statue built in your honor. That was awesome!”
Julia smiled beatifically. “Drink more tea and eat less salt, dear, and we’ll call it even.”
NICK MARVELED AT the unspoken family politics that allowed his brother-in-law, A.J., as man and wage earner, to sit in the living room and unwind while the women cleaned up, yet Nick—also a male breadwinner—was expected to help with the dishes. Not that he minded working in the kitchen. On the contrary, if he could get Leigh and his mother to go in the next room, the cleaning job would be downright peaceful.
Instead, his mother and sister were harping at him. Faith and her cousins were all upstairs doing homework. Nick was seriously willing to consider some night courses if it got him out of this customary, tag-team browbeating.
“I’m not saying that I have an opinion on her hair,” Leigh explained defensively.
“Well, I do.” Their mother shoved a baking sheet into a cabinet with a metallic clatter. “And I hate it.”
“My point,” Leigh continued, “was simply that the hair is a first step. She did it without your permission, Nicky. The next thing you know, it escalates. Getting her ears pierced without asking first.”
“She already has pierced ears,” Nick pointed out, not that either of the females he was related to listened. He’d agreed to let Faith have her ears pierced as her birthday gift for her tenth birthday. How could it seem like such a long time ago and yet also feel just like yesterday? Having a child seriously messed with the time-space continuum.
“Tattoos!” Leigh was saying. Apparently her parenting credo was “Today, Short Hair—Tomorrow, a Belly Ring and a Boyfriend Named Viper.”
Nick banged a pot down on the counter, effectively catching both women’s attention. “Knock it off,” he said when he was certain they were listening. “For starters, Faith is scared of needles, so I think we can rule out tattoos.” She’d gone so pale after her ear piercings that he’d worried she would pass out. Although, even if she did come home with a nose or belly-button ring, it wasn’t as though he’d love her less.
“I’m proud of Faith,” he said. “My biggest overall complaint about her behavior, quite frankly, is her tendency to overreact. And now I’m thinking she gets that from us, the adults in her life. Leigh, you might as well be running in circles shouting, ‘The sky is falling.’”
His big sister sniffed. “That’s a hell of a way for you to talk to me in my own home!”
“I doubt you would have taken it any better in anyone else’s home,” he said. “You have got to get a hobby, take up meditation, find some way to relax. Along the way, you seem to have forgotten how to breathe.”