SIXTEEN
Dear Diary,
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I don't know why I didn't tell Chad when I had the chance, before everything got so mixed up and out of control. I could look at him and see that he was hurting. He pretended to be okay with what happened and he never talked about it, but I've known him long enough to know when something is bothering him. He would've gone to her and maybe they would've been able to get past Pam's issues. Before Pam left they were in love. She didn't have to tell me that because I saw the light in her eyes and the ring on her finger. Knowing all that, I should've told him what I knew and helped them to heal.
But I didn't.
I'm not a bad person. I know that too. Can I help it if I was tired of everything always being about Pam? She's my sister and I love her with everything that I am, but she was always in the spotlight, while I stood on the sidelines and let life happen to me. Even today she goes after what she wants and I just take what I can get. I was never jealous of her (I wasn't!) and many times I feared for her safety because she never seemed to look before she leaped, but I did always wonder what she had that I didn't that made her so spirited and tough. I wished I could stand toe-to-toe with someone and scream into their face, even as they screamed into mine, and then throw my head back and howl with laughter in the next breath. I wished I had the guts to fall in love with someone and then do whatever love told me to do, without regret.
She had that with Chad, that no-holds-barred love. They were just kids, but it didn't matter to them. They were making love and carrying on long before what happened, happened and it became obvious that's what they'd been doing. She always did think she was grown and the thing with Chad was no different. She put herself in it all the wayâsoul, mind, and body.
Chad was always so intense, so strong-willed and possessive of her, in that quietly reserved way he has. His face was never expressionless when he looked at her. Even on the day we met him he was intent on Pam, focused on her in a way that he was never focused on me. We look just alike, I remember thinking then, so why doesn't he look at me the way he looks at Pam?
I guess I never had whatever it was he saw in Pam. I accept that and I don't envy Pam, her liveliness and vibrancy. I love her for being who she is. She balances me out; the same way she tells me that I am the voice of reason for her. She talks me into wearing bright pink and showing a little cleavage, and I remind her not to get herself arrested when she is angry with someone. That's the way it has always been and it works.
So I should've remembered what Pastor Young always said during sermon, “What God has joined, no man can put asunder.” He makes that saying applicable to all kinds of situations and he is right. I should've told Chad.
At first I think it was like a game to me. I wanted to see if I could make him love me the way he loved Pam. After all, I had something that was priceless to him and I looked like his precious Pam. Maybe I could make him look at me with those big eyes of his and see Pam. Like that silly movie with the twins who were separated at birth and then tricked their parents into getting back together. It was an experiment that went horribly wrong. He never looked at me with anything other than sorrow and guilt because we both knew he didn't really love me, not like that anyway. Still, I held out hope that something would grow between us. Then he called out for Pam in the dark, in the middle of the night and I knew . . .
Twice before that he called out for her, and once he opened his eyes and looked at me and started crying. We were married almost a year by then and he could only bring himself to touch me in the black of night, when he couldn't see my face and know that I wasn't her and only after he'd been drinking. I know it's not normal to be married all these years and only have your husband touch you a handful of times. It sickens me to think that he had to be drunk and hallucinating to touch me. Not because I'm angry with him, but because I'm angry with myself. I am a liar and a thief, and I feel so guilty about it that sometimes I can hardly stand to look at myself. All of this started with me wanting to have something that was never meant for me.
No . . . that's not quite true. It all started with Pam running from Mercy. But regardless of that, I should've told him and let him run after her. He's been waiting for her to come back to him all these years anyway.
I hope God can find it in his heart to forgive me when my time comes. Pam too.
Paris
Pam and Nikki didn't pull into the driveway behind Chad's car until well after eight that evening. At the last minute, Pam decided to take Nikki school shopping and they had driven to Atlanta to scour the malls there. Afterward, they'd had lunch and then taken in a movie. Pam shut the car off and elbowed Nikki, who was in the passenger seat with Pam's cell phone glued to her ear, talking a mile a minute to Gillian. Nikki reluctantly turned the phone over to Pam.
“Are your jaws even a little bit sore?” Pam asked as they climbed out of the car and headed to the trunk. Nikki stuck her tongue out and grabbed an armful of bags. Pam grabbed the rest and they made their way to the porch. “Okay, Gil, I better go now,” she said into the cell phone.
“What? Hell no, I'm not helping Nikki put away all this crap. My duty is done. I'm hungry and I'm tired. She can handle the rest.”
“Bye, Gillian,” Nikki loud-talked so Gillian would hear her and then pushed the front door open with her elbow. She staggered into the house juggling bags and with Pam on her heels.
“Nikki, get the molasses
out of your ass
,” Pam grumbled, pushing Nikki farther into the house none too gently. “My feet hurt and I'm hungry again. Hurry up.”
“I'm going, Aunt Pam,” Nikki snapped back. One of the bags slipped out of her hands and landed at her feet. Colorful bras and matching panties were draped across the tops of her sandals and she was trying not to step on them as she walked. “Wait a minute, don't step on my pink panties. I'm putting those bad boys on after I get out of the shower tonight. Dang, Aunt Pam!”
Pam looked down at the pink panties wedged under the sole of her Manolo's and cringed. “Shit, sorry. If you weren't such a butterfingers this wouldn't be a problem. And I thought I said no to the pink panties anyway?” They were little more than thongs and she distinctly remembered vetoing them outright.
“You left me your credit card when you went to the restroom.”
“Ah,” Pam said expansively, narrowing her eyes. “Why don't we let Chad have a look at them and see what he thinks?”
“Aunt Pam, please, they're just panties,” Nikki protested. The last thing she needed was to have her father inspecting her underwear.
“Yeah, underwear grown women wear. What's that little four-eyed boy's name, the one who was drooling after you like a little puppy the other day?”
“Alan,” Nikki supplied with a long-suffering sigh.
“Well, Alan won't be seeing these panties anytime soon. Make sure they're in my hands when I leave, will you?” Nikki huffed and gathered up the garments. Pam huffed to mock her and helped her set the bags at the base of the staircase, out of the way. They made their way down the hallway to the kitchen, snipping back and forth at each other.
Nate rose from his seat in the sitting room and walked into the kitchen just as they crossed the threshold and they both froze, their mouths dropping open in surprised shock. They stood there, staring at Nate and his face split into a wide smile as he stared back, thinking that the daughter was more and more the spitting image of her mother everyday. Pam cried out and catapulted across the kitchen to throw herself into Nate's open arms.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist and pressed her lips to his in a smacking kiss that lasted five long seconds. Nikki had never seen her aunt swinging from a man's arms the way she was swinging from Uncle Nate's and she was almost scandalized. Nate's big hands cupped Pam's butt and held her close as she took her mouth from his and turned it loose all over his face.
“Nate, they told you . . . Paris . . .” Pam's voice trailed off as she swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed her face into the side of his neck to breathe in his scent. “Where
were
you?” she asked a few minutes later, pulling back to look in his eyes.
“You don't want to know where I was, Pam. You know I would've been here if I had known. I almost died myself when I found out.”
“I know, Nate. She knows, too.” She leaned forward and touched her nose to his briefly before grinning lightning quick. “Did you bring me something from Iraq?”
Nate was tall like a tree and as solid and steady as one, too. She couldn't recall a time when she hadn't swung around on him like a monkey and loved every minute of it. His skin was a perfect shade of chocolate brown, soft where it should be soft and hard where it should be hard and he had a head full of curly black hair. It was pulled back into a ponytail now and she slid the rubber band off and pushed her fingers deep into the midst of it, scrubbing her fingers through it wildly. Because she couldn't help herself, she pulled his face back to hers and kissed him on the lips again.
“No, I didn't bring you anything, you heathen. Now get down, you're too old to be hanging off of me like this.” He slapped her on the butt sharply and laughed out loud as she slid to her feet with a pout on her lips. “I still love you,” he said, pinching her chin and stealing one last kiss before he stepped around her to get to Nikki.
“Hey, Peachy.” He hugged his niece tightly to his chest and breathed in the floral scent in her hair. The top of her head fit under his chin and he dropped a kiss there. “You doing all right?”
“I'm okay, Uncle Nate. I'm glad you're here though,” Nikki said. She reached up to kiss his cheek and blushed when he gave her one of his lady-killer smiles. She thought her Uncle Nate was fine, even if he was pretty old. She liked the way his hazel eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed and made you laugh with him. He had thick black eyebrows and a dimple in his chin, which made him look like a pirate when his lips parted and he gave you a glimpse of all those sparkling white teeth. The fact that he traveled all over the world, taking pictures and writing about the things he saw, only added to his mystique, as far as she was concerned.
“All right,” Pam piped up. “Back off, Nikki. He's mine.” She latched onto Nate's arm and grinned up into his face. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Still possessive, I see,” he teased her.
“That's not true. I share with the people I love. Most of the time anyway. Were you careful over there, Nate?”
“I'm standing here right now, am I not?”
“Yeah, but don't go back over there. I don't like not knowing where you are or if you're safe. I saw that story on television, where they had that one man and they . . .”
“Shhh,” Nate said, pressing a finger to her lips. “I called you from over there all the time, so you'd know I was safe. Plus, I came out to see you before I left.”
“I know, but still. Paris is gone and I still can't believe it. And then you were over there in that crazy place and . . .” Tears stood in Pam's eyes. She ran her hands over her hair and pushed out a sharp breath. “God Nate, if something had happened to you over there I would've lost it. I swear to God, I would've. You know I'm not lying either.”
He did know. That was why he wrapped his arms around Pam's waist and lifted her high into the circle of his arms, and let her hold on as long as she needed to. The trembling in her shoulders told him she was crying and he spent a few minutes rubbing her back soothingly. Then he shifted her weight and opened an arm for Nikki.
Nikki's mind was clicking as she hugged her uncle. She wondered if there was any truth to the old rumor that Aunt Pam and Uncle Nate had messed around back in the day. She knew they'd grown up together and were best friends, but they seemed totally comfortable kissing each other on the mouth and holding each other close. She wondered if they had secrets between them that no one else knew. Her friend Kelli swore up and down that men and women couldn't just be friends without wanting to screw each other at some point in time. And, as Nikki thought about her friend Alan, she had to admit that she wanted to do more with him than just talk. Had Aunt Pam and Uncle Nate ever felt that way about each other?
“Did I miss something?” Chad spoke into the silence in the kitchen. He came through the back door and looked at the scene before him curiously.
“Peachy and Pam are feeling me up and I'm letting them,” Nate said over Pam's head.
“Uncle Nate,” Nikki chastised softly and stepped away guiltily. She
had
been appreciating the hardness of his back. She felt her face glowing bright red as Nate's knowing chuckle reached her ears.
Nate slapped Pam's butt again. “Pam get down, damn. Isn't this what she was doing when you first met her and Paris, Chad?”