Chapter 13
John allowed her to go on the trip. She wondered if he did it because somehow he knew she was having second thoughts herself, but any reservations were gone by the time she was to leave.
Hanging around the house for the first time in months, she found herself thinking about the past and the future, brooding about things she couldn’t change.
She was on edge even when John wasn’t at home.
She knew that if she spent the summer at home, regardless of how many weekends she spent in Timiny Cove, she would be a basket case come fall.
The trip was fun. Pam easily made friends, saw Yellow-stone, the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Beverly Hills, and Las Vegas. She would have kept going when the seven weeks were finished if it weren’t for missing Cutter. And, of course, there was school.
Despite her good intentions, the fall semester didn’t get off to quite the start for which she hoped.
John was right, she knew. If she paid attention in class, did all the assignments, stayed home and studied more, she would do better.
But it was hard to pay attention in class when her mind kept wandering.
The same went for homework. There was always something better to do in the afternoons than to study, and as for the evenings, if she could linger at a friend’s house so that she didn’t have to return to the townhouse and John, she was happier.
She was his whipping boy, the one he lashed out at when any little thing in his own life wasn’t quite right.
He found fault with what she was doing, how she was doing it, where she was going, and with whom she was going.
He never yelled—he was always in control—but his words were sharp, quite effective in telling her how irresponsible he thought she was.
In moments of pique she wondered what she’d done to deserve his torment, but when those moments settled and she thought clearly again, she knew.
She was Eugene’s daughter. John took one look at her and was defensive.
By the same token, he had come to represent everything negative in her life.
Come late October, when her midterm grades came in, he imposed a weekday curfew.
When three nights running she dashed in late filled with excuses, he took the car away for a week, but that didn’t slow her down.
She simply arranged for transportation with her friends.
On various occasions he threatened to cut off her allowance, to disconnect her phone, to sell her car—but none of that would have crippled her.
John was the materialistic one, far more so than she.
There were things that meant more to her than a telephone or a car.
It took him a while, but he finally came to that realization.
So when her term grades arrived at the end of December showing no sign of improvement, when she came in at two in the morning from a party he’d told her not to attend, when she ran off the next day on a ski trip to Vermont without asking permission, he lowered the boom.
“Enough,” he declared from the door of her room the evening after she returned.
“From now on, I want you home for dinner and the evening on weeknights. You can do what you want when you’re here.
If you don’t want to eat, you don’t have to eat.
If you don’t want to study, you don’t have to study.
And you can do what you want on the weekends—come and go as you please, go to Maine, whatever. ”
Pam held more tightly to the book she was reading.
It was Love Story. She had started it while she’d been away, when the others had driven off to another party and she hadn’t felt like going.
She was thoroughly caught up in the pathos, or had been until John had intruded.
Now, listening to him, she waited for the other shoe to fall.
Nothing he had said so far was particularly new or upsetting, but she had an uneasy feeling that something was coming.
“I don’t like feeling foolish when I tell you to do something, and you don’t,” he went on in such a reasonable tone that her unease grew.
“I’ve had it with laying down laws you ignore.
I can’t watch you every hour of the day.
It’s time you show some responsibility. You’ll be seventeen in a few months. ”
She waited. He was making her nervous by deliberately drawing out his ultimatum.
“All I ask,” he said finally, “is that you make honor roll at school.”
“All,” she echoed.
“It’s not so much. You’re not dumb. Just unmotivated.”
She thought about that for a minute before saying slowly, “If the problem is motivation, what’s to make the difference?”
“Responsibility. I’m wiping my hands of it. It’s all in your lap. It’s your responsibility to make the honor roll.”
“And if I don’t?” She held her breath.
“If you don’t, I’ll do two things. First, I’ll fire Marcy. Then I’ll sell the house in Timiny Cove.”
Pam sat forward so suddenly that the book tumbled to the carpet, but she didn’t notice. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.” His dark eyes gleamed. “Make honor roll, or Marcy will be out of a job. She can look for another, but she’ll have trouble matching the pay I give her. Besides, she’ll have a hard time of it with no letter of recommendation.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“But I love Marcy!”
“I know. Did you know she’s been helping her mother out with what I give her? If I let her go, it’s done. Do you want the responsibility of that on your shoulders?”
Pam didn’t, not in a million years. The look of horror on her face must have encouraged him, because he went on more smugly. “As far as the house in Timiny Cove goes, it’s superfluous anyway. I make day trips mostly. The house has outlived its usefulness.”
“But I use it!” Pam cried. She was trembling inside and with good cause; the scaffolding around the frail fabric of her life had been shaken. “I love that house. Daddy loved that house.”
“Daddy’s dead,” he mocked coldly.
“But it’s all I have of him!”
“Fine. Make honor roll, and I’ll keep it.”
“John,” she pleaded.
“Make honor roll, Pam. It’s all in your hands.” Before she could do more than cry his name again, he left the room.
Her first impulse was to run after him and tell him exactly what she thought of him, but then she thought of Marcy and quickly reconsidered.
Her second impulse was to grab her coat and keys and go out, but it was Thursday night, and although she was still on vacation, it was a weeknight.
Her third impulse was to call Hillary—but Hillary was in New York, and besides, John wouldn’t listen to her when it came to something like this.
He felt that he’d found the way to make Pam toe his mark, and maybe he had.
Her fourth impulse was to call Cutter. But Cutter didn’t have a phone.
So she had to settle for leaving first thing Saturday morning for Maine.
It was noontime before she arrived and three in the afternoon before Cutter pulled up in the small pickup he’d bought the year before.
She had been pacing the inside of his cabin for three hours and was in a mood to beat all moods when he arrived.
“You need a phone, Cutter!” she cried the minute he opened the door.
She knew she looked a little wild, but that was just how she felt.
“I’ve been needing to talk with you since Thursday night, and I couldn’t!
Can’t you get one? You’ve made so many other improvements around here, and a phone doesn’t cost that much.
I’ll pay for it if you want. I have to talk with you sometimes! ”
Cutter was standing in the open doorway, caught short by her outcry. Closing the door behind him, he crossed to where she stood, but when he tried to touch her she batted his hand away.
“I’m serious, Cutter. I was stuck in that house and couldn’t go anywhere because of John’s threats, and the one thing that might have helped was talking with you.
But I couldn’t.” Again he reached for her; again she stepped away.
“I thought of sending a message through Simon, but if I’d done that, he’d have called John in a minute.
Same with Leroy or any of the others. They’re all afraid of him. ”
Cutter came toward her once again, but this time she wheeled around and went to the window.
It was too clean, clearly depicting the winter woods dappled with patches of snow.
What wasn’t cold and white was dismally gray, perfectly matching her mood.
“A telephone isn’t such a big deal,” she cried, hugging herself against the chill.
“I mean, I couldn’t call you. I couldn’t call Hillary.
I could call my friends as much as I wanted, except they don’t understand what I’m feeling.
They aren’t the ones living with a sadistic monster.
They aren’t walking a tightrope. They may have fights with their parents, but at least they have parents!
” She whirled to face him. “More than anyone else, you would have understood, but I couldn’t talk with you! ”
When he next started toward her, she made for the kitchen, but he’d had enough of her evasion. A long arm reached out and snagged her. She tugged, but he tugged right back, bringing her fully against him. She tried to twist away, but he wouldn’t allow it.
“Cutter!”
“Easy, babe.”
“I wanted to talk with you!” she protested, but her words were muffled in the sheepskin lining of his jacket, and her will to fight was dying fast.
“I’m here now,” he said in a low, soothing voice. “Calm down. You’re all tight and shaking. Relax, Pam.”
She felt his hands on her back, coaxing the tremors from her, while his cheek rubbed the top of her head. Slipping her arms inside his jacket, she took a deep breath and let herself be sedated by his strength and his scent.
“Oh, Cutter,” she murmured.
His lips brushed her forehead. “Better?”