Chapter 16 Deal Breaker #2
“Who is it?” Helen says.
Pam tilts her chair way back on its hind legs, just to get some distance from the table.
“Don’t do that,” her mother says.
“His name is John.” Pam thumps to earth, all four chair legs on the floor.
“How did you meet?” Charles asks.
“John who?” says Helen, because, as she’s told Pam many times, it’s irritating when people are introduced by first name only.
“John O’Neill,” says Pam.
“Okay,” her dad says.
“What does he do?” asks Pam’s mother.
“And no, he isn’t Jewish.” Pam’s cheeks are burning now.
“I gathered that,” Charles says. “I figured that out.”
Helen says, “It doesn’t matter.”
“What?” Pam splutters, half laughing, half indignant. “You always said that was a deal breaker!”
“At your age?” says Helen.
Charles looks miffed. “Who do you take us for? Your sister married a woman.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“A Catholic woman,” Helen adds.
“Right. Give us a little credit,” Charles says.
“He’s divorced.” Pam tests her mother.
Helen doesn’t even blink. “The main question is what he’s like.”
“He’s a good person,” Pam answers, and she resolves to say no more. Not another word. But her mother doesn’t honor this.
“A good person? What does good mean?”
“Good. Just good,” Pam tells her.
“So, you know him well?” says Charles.
“How long have you been dating?” Helen asks.
“Seven months.”
Charles says. “All right. We’re not going to put you on the spot.” But then he can’t resist. “What does he do?”
He kisses me, thinks Pam. He holds me in his arms at night. She says, “He’s a lawyer.”
“How long has he been divorced?” asks Helen.
Here we go, thinks Pam. “A year.”
“That’s not very long.”
“How long should it be?” Pam laughs a little.
She can’t help it. Even speaking about John makes dinner bearable.
Even speaking about him to her mother. Strangely she doesn’t mind talking, now that she’s begun.
Somehow, nothing Helen says can hurt her.
In fact, at this moment, her mother seems gentle.
What is happening? Helen’s eyes are kind. She seems open, pleasantly surprised. Charles does too.
“Does he have children?” Helen asks.
“Yes,” says Pam. “He has a daughter at Winsor.”
“A good school,” says Charles.
“What’s her name?” says Helen.
For a moment, Pam doesn’t want to answer. She wants to declare, I’m not at liberty to say, but she has come this far. She tells them. “Isabella.”
“That’s pretty,” Charles says.
“Is she in high school?” Helen asks.
“She’s in ninth grade.”
“John must be much younger than you,” Helen says.
“No, he’s my age.”
“Then he’s quite an old father!”
Charles turns to Helen. “Lots of people have children late.”
“I am aware,” Helen tells him. Then she asks, “What’s the daughter like?”
That question needles Pam. “I haven’t met her yet. We’re planning to do something together.”
“Dinner?” Charles says.
“The Gardner Museum.”
“Oh! Wonderful,” says Helen. “Does she like art?”
“She’s an artist.” Pam feels the conversation spinning out of control, but she can’t stop talking. “She’s an amazing painter.”
“You’ve seen her work?” her dad says, as though Bella is professional.
“I mean, only in John’s kitchen.” Why does she say that?
Why does she say anything? Pam learned long ago not to confide in her parents, but now she’s blushing, and it’s not the wine.
It’s happiness. Here she is whipping out her phone to show them a photo of Isabella’s painting.
The portrait of John, radiant with his green eyes and the glowing dome of his pink forehead.
Helen says, “Hold on, I have to get my glasses.”
Meanwhile, Charles squints at the phone. “That’s very good. Is it her father?”
“Let me see.” Helen takes a long look. “The flat face and green eyes remind me of Modigliani.”
“Really?” says Pam.
“If he were painting a middle-aged man,” Helen says without irony.
“With a short neck,” says Charles.
“He doesn’t have such a short neck,” Pam defends John.
“You’re right,” Charles says. “It’s not that his neck is short. It’s that the necks in Modigliani’s paintings are so long.”
“She’s talented,” Helen declares.
“She is,” says Pam.
Charles says, “When are you taking her to the museum?”
“We’re trying to—we have to figure out the schedule.”
“Oh.” Helen sounds more like herself. Just a little colder. Firmer. “Because she’s living with her mother.”
“John has joint custody.”
“And who is the mother?” Helen asks.
Pam thinks fast. Mostly, she knows what John told her, which is that his ex-wife broke his heart and smashed it into little pieces.
“Her name is Alison. She’s an oncologist at the Brigham.
” She says this for her dad’s benefit, because he is a retired otolaryngologist. He is always modest about his career.
He says he could never fix a broken heart like Grandpa Morris.
Still, he was an Attending for many years at Mass Eye and Ear.
“Alison who?” Charles asks in case he knows her.
“Alison Friedlander.”
“Jewish!” Helen says.
“You don’t know that,” Pam says.
“Of course I do.”
“It’s a Jewish name,” says Charles.
“Isn’t it German or something?”
“No,” says Helen. “It’s a Jewish name. She’s Jewish.”
Charles chimes in, “And you know what that means!”
They have that twinnish look they get when they solve the acrostic in the Sunday paper. Almost in unison, they say, “John’s daughter is Jewish too.”
“You guys are terrible!” Pam says, because what are they doing seizing this innocent child? Five minutes ago, Pam admitted she was dating, and now they’ve claimed a girl they haven’t met. A girl she hasn’t met. They’re ready to adopt John’s daughter. “You don’t know anything about her.”
“Her mother’s name is Friedlander,” Helen says.
“Believe me, no one’s raising Isabella Jewish,” says Pam.
“That doesn’t matter,” Helen tells her.
“She celebrates Christmas with John’s parents.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Charles intones.
“John and Isabella decorate a tree each year.”
Helen dismisses this. “Her mother is Jewish, so she is a Jew.”
“What else can she be?” says Charles.
They are so pleased. They have forgotten John entirely. They’ve nearly forgotten Pam across the table. It’s as if they have an instant granddaughter. Already, they are plotting. Pam can see it in their eyes. “Don’t get excited,” she warns. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“Who’s jumping?” Charles says.
“Just don’t get your hopes up.”
“About what?” says Charles.
“About anything!” Pam feels superstitious. Relieved and yet regretful that she told them. “Don’t assume.”
“I don’t assume anything,” Helen says, and yet she’s smiling. “Charles, would you get dessert plates?”
—
Usually, Pam escapes as fast as possible.
She’ll drive home early, the morning after Thanksgiving.
This weekend, she lingers most of Friday.
Partly to stack firewood, because her dad can’t do it anymore.
Partly because her mother is so pleasant.
Helen does not question Pam’s short hair or tell her wistfully, But you could get the gray out.
There are no dark comments about living alone.
No mournful speeches starting with the words I worry…
Most surprising, Helen does not interrogate Pam about John.
Clearly Helen has decided—maybe she and Charles have decided together—that they will not intrude.
It’s like a staring contest, these two keeping their mouths shut. Helen does not say a word about Pam’s relationship. Charles does almost as well. True to form, Helen maintains discipline, but Charles cracks.
They are standing in the driveway, and Pam is about to head home to Providence where Rosie waits for her. Helen says, “Goodbye, dear. I’m so glad you could come.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Pam says.
“Drive safely,” Charles tells her. “Keep us posted.”
Helen shoots him a warning look—but she’s amused by his little hint as well. She’s won! “Just let us know when you get home,” she tells Pam.
“Okay, bye. I’ll call you.” Pam’s words are swallowed up in her father’s embrace.
And he cannot resist. “Tell us all about the Gardner.”
“Only if you want to,” says Helen, radiating curiosity and hope.
Pam’s parents are funny, almost charming as they stand in front of their brick house. I love you, Pam thinks suddenly. “I will,” she promises. “I’ll tell you how it goes.”
—
If only she had something to report. The visit to the Gardner keeps getting postponed.
First it’s Isabella’s choir concert and then she has exams and then the holidays are coming and there will be no weekends left.
Pam and John can hardly see each other, let alone take Isabella to the museum.
All that’s left is the Friday Isabella gets out of school for winter break, but after Pam reserves tickets, there’s yet another problem.
She drives to John’s office in Jamaica Plain so they can pick up Bella together.
His building is a small Victorian that used to be a house.
An orthodontist leases the first floor, and John shares the second floor with an insurance agent.
John’s space is in front. He’s got a big bay window which would be perfect for plants, but he has none.
The only pictures are those of Bella on his desk.
“Hold on.” He is typing something on his phone. “One second.”
Pam takes a seat in a blue-and-chrome chair and looks at Bella as a tiny girl on the beach and Bella in her choir robe and Bella smiling with braces on her teeth.
Does she go to the orthodontist downstairs?
Her eyes are brown. Her hair is long and shining, perfectly brushed.
Burnished. That’s the word that comes to mind.
Some combination of brushed and polished.
She is not just pretty. She is cherished.
“Hi,” John says.
“Hi!”
“There’s a problem.”
Again? Pam thinks. Really?
“Alison broke her foot.”
“What?” Pam blurts out. Then she says, “Oh no.”
“She just had an X-ray.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Pam asks, because she’s been driving for an hour.