EIGHTEEN
Moira was inside, she knew that much because she could hear her talking through the closed door. Pam didn't think she'd ever heard Moira speak in anything other than soft tones and, as she realized that Moira's voice was raised far beyond that, she frowned. She hadn't bothered to call before coming, and it was obvious that this was a bad time to have it out with Moira. She seemed to already be having it out with someone. Pam took two steps back and turned toward the steps, intending to return to her car and leave, but halfway down the steps, she heard her name. She froze and stared at the door curiously. At least she thought she'd heard her name. She went back to the door and listened.
“I mean it, Miles. Go back to New York and forget about this crazy plan of yours,” Moira was saying. Her voice was strained and high-pitched, as if she was on the verge of losing the ability to talk completely.
Hearing Miles's name and knowing that he was on the other side of the door revived Pam's anger. She heard Nate's voice in her head, telling her to let him handle Miles Dixon, but she wasn't listening. Without thinking, she opened the storm door and touched the brass knob softly. Enough to show her that the door wasn't completely closed. It eased open silently and she stepped inside the foyer, drawn by the strength of Moira's tone and the ferocity of Miles's response, when it came.
“I can't do that, Moira,” Miles barked. “And why are you so upset about this anyway? It's not really about you, it's about Pamela Mayes. If you would just calm down and think about this rationally you'd see that this really has nothing to do with you at all.”
“This has everything to do with me, you idiot. You were in my home, rifling through my personal papers and violating my privacy. You had no right to do that and you have no right to take what you saw and use it to destroy people's lives.”
“Destroy people's lives?” Miles's tone was incredulous. Pam could almost see his head snapping back on his neck. She heard his feet shuffling on the carpet in the great room where they were. “You've kept the secret all these years because you were too cowardly to own up to what you did. You were going to wait until after you were dead to tell the world about the cruel thing you did and
I'm
destroying people's lives? Come on, Moira. You know as well as I do that's bullshit.”
“I had no choice!”
“You had choices. Hell, it was the seventies. Free love and sex and all that shit. Even in Georgia you could've gotten away with keeping those girls. You didn't even have to stay here. You could've taken them somewhere more liberal and raised them yourself.”
“I was afraid, Miles. Don't you understand that? Georgia in 1970 was not the place you obviously think it was. Everyone knew that Jasper Holmes was doing some work on my stables. Do you think they weren't paying attention to his comings and goings, waiting for the slightest sign of impropriety? The Klan might not have been marching up and down the street in full view, but they were still here lurking around. And suddenly I pop up with brown babies?
God
, Miles. Innocent people would've been hurt.”
Miles stopped pacing and looked at Moira. He ran a hand around the back of his neck and hissed through his teeth. A few minutes ago, she had been standing tall, confronting him with fire and fight in her, but now she was slumped in a ridiculously fluffy chair, clutching her trembling hands in her lap and fighting back tears. She suddenly looked every bit of her seventy-five years and pitiful with it. He felt like shit for being the cause of her distress.
His head rolled back on his neck and he studied the domed ceiling at length. In the silence, Moira began crying softly and the sound squeezed his heart. She had been more like a mother to him than his own mother and all of his stepmothers combined and he truly did love her. “Tell me what happened, Moira,” he said a long time later. “Tell me how you could give up your daughters and let them grow up in an orphanage, thinking no one wanted them. Do you know that's what Pam said to me once? That no one wanted them?”
“I stayed here, Miles. Even though it killed me to look at those beautiful girls, to face them knowing who and what I was, I stayed.” Moira's voice was low and injured sounding. “I fixed it so they would always be here and I made sure they had everything they wanted and needed. We did that, Jasper and me. We talked about it once, when they were still babies, about how we'd do things. I'd go there and take things.” She waved her hands negligently, then let them drop back in her lap noisily. There, they shook as if currents of electricity were flowing through her body. “Clothes and things for the other children and toys. I'd play with the other children and hold them in my arms for a while, but I'd sit with my girls for hours, just watching them together. They were always so close and so good to each other. Jasper went too, and he looked out for them when they were running around town.” Her next thought widened her eyes and staggered her breath. She sat up in the chair and pinned Miles with her eyes, intent on making him understand. “When they were older, I made sure they weren't kept locked up in that home all the time. I wanted them to be free to run and play . . . and to come to me whenever they wanted to. They came, Miles . . . I had my babies and they had me.”
Moira's face crumbled right before Miles's eyes, and it was a humbling thing to see. This woman who was always so strong and independent, crying like a baby and wiping her face with the sleeves of her shirt.
I did this to her,
he thought and sighed tiredly. He went to her and kneeled beside her chair, squeezed her hands.
“You never got the chance to meet Paris,” she said in a dreamy voice, lost in thought. “You would have really liked her, Miles. She was sweet and soft and shy. She had this way about her that people were drawn to, this light in her eyes. I always said she got her personality from Jasper.” She chuckled ruefully and took her hands from Miles to rub her face. “Oh, but Pamela, she's all me, but even bolder and brassier than I was at that age. She doesn't have light, Miles, she has fire, and people are drawn to her because they can't help wanting to be burned. She was fifteen and keeping company with all those boys, and I could see that every one of them was half in love with her, so I pulled her aside one day. And I told her, I said . . .”
“Pamela,” Pam mocked Moira's tone as she came forward and stood in the great room doorway. Moira gasped and Miles came to his feet slowly, both of them wearing mirroring expressions of shock and remorse. Pam ignored them and continued with the memory. “That's what you said Moira. Pamela, you have a gift and you have to be careful how you use it. Men will either love you to distraction, desire you unreasonably, or loathe you intensely. Many times it might be all three at the same time, so you have to be careful. Please always remember to be kind, no matter what you do.”
Pam watched Moira come to her feet and start across the room in her direction. She locked eyes with her and shrank away, though she hadn't yet been touched. “Please don't come any closer, Moira. I might have to kill you if you do. I might start remembering all those years we lived in that fucking home, while you knew,
you knew
, and you never came for us. All the holidays we had no one and you were here all the time, embarrassed because you had a black man between your thighs and got yourself knocked up.” Her head jerked toward Miles as if someone had snatched it. “And you, you lying son-of-a-bitch.”
“Pam.” Miles stepped toward her with his hands out in surrender.
“Fuck you,” Pam spat. “Go back and write your
unauthorized
book, you bastard. I'll see you in court about that underhanded shit, by the way. How
dare
you follow me here and pretend to care that my sister is dead just so you can get a story. Moira, I swear to God, don't fucking come near me.
I mean it
.”
“Pamela, please,” Moira begged. She came forward anyway and reached for Pam's hands. “Come in and let's talk about this. There's so much I want to say, so much I need to say to you. I didn't want you to find out like this.
Please
.”
Pam felt Moira's hands brush hers and jumped. She held her hands out of reach and backed into the foyer. “There's nothing you could say that I want to hear right now, Moira. And whatever you were planning to reveal after you died, don't. I'm just as embarrassed as you are at the idea of people knowing who gave birth to me. So don't do it, okay?”
Pam almost tripped in her high heels, racing out the door and down the steps. She moved like the hounds of hell were on her heels when it was really Miles who was behind her, calling for her to please wait. She locked herself inside her car and fumbled with the key until it was in the ignition and the engine roared to life. Miles ran around the perimeter of the car, checking the doors, hoping to find one unlocked. He slapped at the windows and yanked at the doors uselessly. Pam shot him a venomous look as the car shifted into reverse and she pressed down hard on the accelerator. He stepped back just in time to avoid being dragged alongside the car.
“I will
not
have an attack,” Pam chanted to herself as she drove. “I will
not
have an attack. I am in control of myself
and
my feelings. I
know
that what is happening to me is not real. I
am
strong enough to fight it.”
She repeated the affirmation to herself over and over, taking deep breaths in between, and cursed herself when she faltered. “
Dammit
, Pam. You
know
this shit. Say it without
fucking up
,” she told herself. “For
once
in your life do
something
right.”
Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into Chad's driveway and shut the car off. She climbed out of the car on shaky legs and counted the number of steps she needed to take to reach the door. Nineteen, she told herself as she went inside. Nineteen steps to sanity.
Chad was pacing back and forth in the living room when Pam came through the door. He did a double take, then whirled around to face her angrily. “Where in the hell have you been?”
“What?” Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. She stared up at him and blinked rapidly. She was cold, frozen, really, but starting to perspire like she was at the boiling point.
Chad recognized the signs of an impending attack and gripped her shoulders, shook her so hard her teeth rattled. “Snap out of it, Pam. This is not the time for one of your performances. Did you get any of the messages we left?”
Numb, she shook her head. Her hands flew to her ears and covered them, but the ringing grew louder and louder. She shook her head and tried to sink to the floor at Chad's feet, but his grip was strong. He held her up even as her legs buckled.
“What the hell is the matter with you, Pam?” She said nothing, just stared at him like she didn't know who he was. He shook her again. “Talk to me!”
“Moira . . .”
“Moira? What about Moira? Is she sick, did something happen to her?”
“No, Chad. I'm trying to tell you . . . it's Moira . . . all this time it was Moira and we didn't even know. I heard them talking . . . David . . . his real name is Miles . . . he was there and she admitted it. I can't . . . please . . . I need to sit down.” Nate walked into the room and Pam reached out blindly for him. “Nate! It was Moira. She put us there. Me and Paris. She left us there. Her and Jasper, they're the ones.”
Nate soaked in the brief sentences and understood completely. He was sure the expression on his face conveyed the shock and disbelief he felt, but there wasn't time to get into it right now. Nikki was on a rampage and he needed to . . .
The diary flew across the room and rapped Nate between his shoulder blades. He jerked and spun around to intercept Nikki as she stormed into the living room from the kitchen. Chad stepped in front of where Pam sat on the couch and caught Nikki's eyes.
“Nikki . . . could you give us a minute . . .”
“She doesn't need a minute, Dad,” Nikki shouted. She was busy trying to get past Nate. “She's had eighteen years worth of minutes. Now I need a minute, okay? That's all it'll take for her to explain to me why she gave me away. Why didn't you want me? What did I ever do to you that you had to give me away?”
“
Oh God . . . oh God . . . oh God . . .
” Pam covered her face with her hands and sang childishly.
She rocked back and forth, powerless to stop her voice from steadily rising, until hers was the only sound in the room. They were all staring at her, silently wondering if she was losing her mind and asking themselves if they should call someone to come for her and take her away.
Chad knelt by her legs and rubbed her thighs soothingly. He'd never seen Pam so upset, and he struggled with wanting to cradle her in his arms and not being able to. He smoothed strands of hair away from her face and traced his thumb along her cheek to catch her tears. He had never loved another woman the way he loved Pam. Never loved another woman, period. “Baby, please . . . come on . . . what can I do for you? Anything . . . tell me and I'll do it . . . you know I will.” He eased her hands away from her face gently.