Chapter Twenty-Two #2
lives at home, so we’re going to wait until he’s ready to go. But he’s twenty-five now, so you know, it’s gotta happen someday.
Your father is very understanding about it. He likes that I’m a family-first kind of person.”
“Well, my sister and I are so happy he’s met someone. Really.”
“We’ve known each other for years. You see, I work in admin at the plant and he’s always been nice to me. And last year at the Christmas party, wham! We fell in love.”
I could not picture my father at an office Christmas party, but I offered a smile with my lie: “That’s a great story.”
She had a tray prepared with four cups, the tall sturdy glasses we called “the good ones” when I was a kid that we drank from
at supper before my mom left. Pamela poured from several cans of Cherry Sprite until they were all full and fizzing. She handed
me the tray and I walked it to the living room where Hailey and my dad were sitting in silence. In that moment I could see
my dad through Pamela’s eyes. A kind of awkward, overgrown child, capable of designing machines but not so great at the personal
interaction part of being human. We sipped our drinks while Pamela did most of the talking. He glanced at her, looking grateful
and happy to be in her presence. After a few moments of silence, I decided not to beat around the bush. “Well, I’m going to
go up and look through the boxes upstairs. For the wedding scrapbook.”
“Oh, I got everything out for you,” my dad said, and opened the box that was sitting beside the coffee table. It contained
Sarah’s old scrapbooks and journals.
“You know, Dad, Mom has been staying with me in the county this summer. Did you know that?”
“Yes, Katie told me when we went to see Come from Away with her and Sarah last week.”
“We had a lovely dinner on Richmond Street. Sarah knows all the fancy places!” Pamela said. Her cup had bright pink lipstick
on the rim, and she held it aloft, nervously. I tried to telepathically let her know how much I liked her so that she would
relax.
“Anyway, Dad. Can we chat alone for a minute?”
“Sure,” he said, standing up. He was getting the kind of old that made tall, skinny men look fragile when they stood up from chairs.
The whole walk toward his small home office off the kitchen, I could feel myself wanting to chicken out.
But if I didn’t say what was burning up in my chest, it would come out after I had one glass of wine at the wedding.
And I’d promised Kate and Sarah no drama.
His office was an utter mess, with things pinned to the walls that he’d had tacked up in his old office, like a Star Wars poster and a second-grade school photo of me that Katie had scribbled over in fading green marker. I pressed a finger into
the soil of an aloe plant on the windowsill, looking out into the backyard. “Mom told me something yesterday. That she didn’t
just decide to leave, that you told her she couldn’t take the job, and that if she did, you wouldn’t let her come back. That
you’d sue her for full custody.”
“Oh honey, it was such an awful time. The specifics of it all are a bit fuzzy. But I’ve always said I feel badly for how things
went. I’m not blameless.”
I’d actually never heard my father take any responsibility for those years.
“But this whole time, I thought she just left you, left us, and that you were the one who loved us enough to stay, to be the
full-time parent.”
“Well, that is objectively true.”
“But she said you didn’t want to be a solo parent.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t feel capable. Your mother did so much. Filling her shoes while working full time, and you girls were almost
teenagers, it was overwhelming to contemplate. She was abandoning me. Us.”
“But she just wanted to do the job, the research. She would’ve come back in under two years.”
“Who wants to leave their children to live in the Arctic for two years? It’s insane.”
“I mean, yeah, you’re right. But she wanted to come back, she wanted to and you didn’t let her.”
“She abandoned us. Why should she get to just waltz back into our lives?”
I could understand emotionally where he might be coming from, but I felt confused.
“But if you were thinking of our needs, we needed her back. We thought she just left. I’ve hated her for so long thinking
she just didn’t care. And I thought you wanted to be with us, but she said you didn’t. And then I picked up the slack! And
she didn’t tell us because she didn’t want to poison us against you.”
“That’s ridiculous. Your mother just wanted her way. And to be with her young boy toy. She wanted out, she got out. You’ll
understand when you’re a parent why I made that decision.”
“Well, I wish you’d let her come back.”
My father crossed his arms and squeezed his eyes closed. He made an exasperated sound I hadn’t heard since I was a teenager.
He pinched at the bridge of his nose and spoke to the floor. “It was a very hard time, I wasn’t in the program yet. I had
no support. I know I wasn’t perfect.”
It was the exact conclusion my mother got to. Not perfect. Those words were true, but also, they said it like my concerns
were unreasonable. But I didn’t know how to say that without feeling like I was kicking him.
“I know, I know,” I said, giving him a hug. I was comforted by it, but at the same time, I felt like he was the child.
“Pamela seems just great.”
The anguish and guilt left his face. He smiled, wide, like a child with a lollipop.
“She’s a very loyal person. Like me. She might not be science-minded or worldly brilliant like your mother, but she knows
her own heart. And she’s got this incredible gift for emotional wellness. You know? She’s very self-actualized. She’s very
smart that way,” he said. “We’re playing pickleball now on the weekends.”
“Uh-huh, OK, well great. I’m happy for you, really I am,” I said, heading back to the living room.
“You don’t want to stay for dinner?” Pamela asked
“Next time,” I said, giving her a hug. She was warm and ample in the best way, for an embrace that maybe lasted too long for someone you just met, but I loved that she was effusive, and she smelled like vanilla cupcakes.
When she pulled back, she kept both hands on my shoulders and gave me a squeeze while she really looked at me.
Her green-blue eyeshadow was smudged at the edge of her eyes.
Everything about her said, I’m a Mom who loves you.
The ten-year-old inside my heart still wanted a mom just like Pamela.
I grinned at her before I realized I was grinning.
I bet she made really good tuna salad and clapped the loudest at school plays. I saw the appeal of Pamela from my father’s
perspective, too. She beamed at him, my weirdly proportioned, socially awkward father who always spilled his coffee on his
shirt. She was proud to be with him, and she had a plan for his life. Even though she wasn’t the kind of person I related
to, I wanted to be around her. She was easy to be with. Of course, my logical and feminist brain knew she was possibly just
conditioned to be this warm, to want someone like my dad who maybe didn’t even deserve her. But my inner ten-year-old didn’t
know who Gloria Steinem was.
When we got back on the highway and Hailey fell asleep, I wondered if I was off-putting like my mom, or if I could be warm like Pamela.
My inner monologue was too rapid fire, maybe, to be that warm with everyone.
But I aspired, in a way, to make others feel at ease this way.
Katie could do it, put people at ease. But I often sensed this was a trauma response in her, and also a part of her job.
When we turned off at the Prince Edward County sign, I stopped hunching up my shoulders and tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, singing along with Kelly Clarkson on the radio.
I felt calmer again, at the expanse of cornfields, the horses just having their regular day.
Sarah always told me to pay attention to how things feel in my body.
And the county outside my window told me in no uncertain terms: I felt better in this landscape, with this space to breathe, with this beauty all around me.
When I pulled up to Hailey’s place, I saw that her mom was sitting on the porch of their white stucco two-storey house on
Bridge Street.
“You should tell your mom all about your day,” I suggested as she gathered up her things and clicked the door open.
“She doesn’t care. She thinks acting is a phase and that I should be concentrating on my GPA and getting into university.”
“She’s probably just worried about your future.”
“I wish I had a mom I could talk to like I talk to you and Neve.”
“I know how you feel. I find it hard to talk to my mom. But maybe cut her some slack. She did wait up for you?” Hailey shrugged
and got out of the car, but as I pulled away and waved at them both, I noticed Hailey had put her backpack down and was talking
to her mom. It’s always so much easier to know what other people should do with their problems. And now that I know what I
know, there are so many moments that I wish I had talked to my parents when I was her age.
When I got home I stood outside listening for the cat. I thought I heard meows, and I walked around in circles trying to locate
the source. My mom came out of the cabin in her nightgown and told me there’s a bird called a catbird and it can mimic any
sound, and often meows like a cat. She always had a fact to offer, and never a comforting word about your strangely deep love
for a rambling tomcat. I knew about the catbird already but pretended I didn’t.
“Neat,” I said, semi-sarcastically, which she didn’t note.
Dave’s cabin was dark. It took me a second to realize it—all of the renovations were complete.
The porch had a beautiful rich stain, the door was the same bright pink as our cabin door, and the trim was done around the windows.
There was a new planter on the porch with a fern in it.
The two chairs had cushions that matched the door.
It looked great. I picked up my phone to tell Dave bravo about his work but I paused.
Are we texting casually, like friends? I wasn’t sure.
I was tired, and my right shoulder hurt the way it did when I drove too many hours in one day, aching even more from swatting
away mosquitos. The night air was still warm and summer fragrant, an owl hooted, and the cicadas and crickets began their
nightly warm-up choir. I went inside and got ready for bed. I sent Katie a text: I think I want Pamela to be my mom before I put in my earplugs.
I woke up to a text: she’s like, made from the Mom factory. But fwiw, don’t ask her who she voted for in the last election. Not in my best interests,
let’s just say. I sent her a frown emoji.
I made myself a coffee and went out on the porch in my nightgown. I stretched my arms up high, scanning the early light for
signs of the vagabond cat. It’s only when I turned to my left that I saw the parking lot with three cars, and then Ben, Neve,
an older woman—slightly frail, who must be their mother—and Dave staring up at Dave’s cabin. They were all looking at their
mother expectedly.
“It’s lovely, thank you, David. Great job on the trim.”
“I’m glad you like it,” he said, looking relieved.
“I told you he’d do a great job, Mom,” said Neve, who then threw her arm around Dave and squeezed. I knew they were just friends,
but my gut surged with jealousy anyway.
“My husband will come and take the photographs for the rental listings sometime after camp is over,” she said. I realized
when she said this that it wasn’t just me who was moving on soon, but Dave would also be going somewhere. I had no idea where.
Probably back to Stirling to be closer to Finn. It was strange to have spent so much time so closely entwined and not know
some basic things. Even watching him now, without him being aware that I was watching him, it was like looking at a different
version of him.
I ducked back inside before they noticed me in my sleep clothes. When I emerged a while later on the way to camp, everyone
had left.