Learning to Hula. Lisa Childs
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so close, we are as much or more friends than sisters.
I smile at her, hoping to reassure her. Then I gesture toward the stained butcher-block counter where the Lambrusco sits. “Nobody’s opened the wine?”
Three short strides bring me to the counter, where, grateful for screw caps, I open the bottle. Pam’s wineglasses are on the counter, too, a bright red bow atop them; obviously they are Emma’s gift to her. I don’t worry about washing them before I pour burgundy liquid into three. I reach over, setting a glass in front of each of my sisters on the small, cottage-blue table. Wine sloshes close to each rim as the table teeters.
Pam looks from me to the glass clutched in my hand and back, her blue eyes full of questions. Unlike Emma, who exercises tact she’s had to learn when dealing with exes, hers and his, Pam asks, “What? Looking to drown your sorrows?”
“Hell no, I’m celebrating.” I lift the glass and offer a toast to myself instead of drinking to her new life. “I kicked Kitty’s ass.”
“Massacred is more like it,” Emma mutters, just loud enough that I catch it and am reminded of the little girl shopping with her mother.
A twinge of guilt steals some of my triumph. I hope I haven’t scarred her for life. But then if this incident keeps her away from the little killer cakes, I don’t feel bad at all. In fact I feel powerful. Wonder Woman and Charlie’s Angels all rolled into one small package.
I can feel my smile against the rim of the glass as I take a sip. The warm, sweet wine joins the laughter bubbling inside me. “Yeah, massacred,” I gloat.
“I can’t believe you—” Pam chokes out, for maybe the first time in her forty-seven years at a loss for words.
The mayor of our town is a bachelor, so as the bank manager’s wife, Pam has been the first lady of Stanville for as many years as Keith’s held his position. She’s used to maintaining a certain level of decorum, of class, and commanding respect because of that.
That’s probably why she and Rob had always clashed. Rob never cared what people thought of him. No, that’s not true. He wanted people to think he was fun, and enjoy being around him. He just hadn’t cared whether or not they’d respected him.
I wonder how much respect Pam is going to get for leaving her husband and moving into the tiny apartment above The Tearoom. But that’s her problem.
Right now she’s worried about mine, floundering to find words to no doubt offer her infinite opinions. I’m loving this more and more.
“Yes?” I tease, knowing that somewhere Rob is giving me a thumbs-up.
“You really…”
I catch Emma’s gaze, and she starts giggling now. “Oh, yeah, she really,” she adds to the bizarre conversation, one that would cause anyone eavesdropping to think we’d had more than a sip of wine.
“But Holly, how could—”
“She snapped,” Emma says, confirming my suspicion that she had watched the whole thing.
“I snapped,” I agree wholeheartedly.
Pam finally finds her voice and an opinion. “I think you better go back to that grief counselor.”
But this is the first time in six months I feel like I don’t need counseling. Everyone else might have thought I was doing better, but I didn’t. I felt as if I was in a haze, barely able to function.
Until now. I snapped, all right—everything back into place.
The setting sun is painting the lawn gold when I pull into the driveway. I press the button for the garage door, and as it’s opening I ease the Tahoe close to the stall on my side of the garage, except now both sides are mine.
Since I loaned Rob’s ridiculous orange Beetle to Emma’s college-commuting daughter, the garage is empty when I’m not home. Except for tonight. Tonight boxes randomly dot the cement floor. I press on the brakes to keep the Tahoe from crushing them. What’s happening now?
Has Keith snapped like I did tonight? Instead of letting Pam take her sweet time moving her things out, has he flung them into boxes and parked them in my garage while he’s changing the locks on the house?
She’s my sister, and I love her. But I feel nearly as much satisfaction in that as I had in crushing the Kitty Cupcake display.
Rob had often said that Keith needed to grow a set of balls. He always let Pam boss him around, telling him what to wear and how to act. I guess she’s like that because she’s the oldest, but Emma and I had never put up with her bossiness. Keith, on the other hand, had had no problem with it for twenty-five years.
Pam was the one to leave, although she and Keith had kept that to themselves for a while. Only a few more know it now. She stayed with me after Rob died, helping me through those first few weeks of paralyzing grief. I thought then that I had been her only reason for staying; I hadn’t known how unhappy she was in her marriage…until she admitted to needing to get away from it…and Keith.
She might have stayed with us indefinitely if not for Robbie taking over in the prank department for his father. Pam hadn’t appreciated his putting cellophane over the toilet seat in the guest bathroom, nor his switching of the hot and cold knobs in the shower. I probably should have gotten upset about his behavior, too, but it had felt good to laugh again. And because of Pam’s control-freak tendencies, I hadn’t wanted her to stay indefinitely.
So she’d gone back home, but she never returned to Keith’s bed, choosing to sleep in her daughter’s old room until she could find another place to live. He offered to move out, but Pam wouldn’t let him. Since the separation is her idea, she feels she needs to be the one to leave.
I think there’s more to her decision than fairness, though, because she had certainly never worried about that when we were growing up. I think she wants to leave the old farm, like Mom did when Dad died. Pam wants to get away from here and start over completely.
I can’t say the thought never crossed my mind during the past six months. But I’m not like Pam. I can’t consider just what I want. I have to think about the kids, even if they might not always believe that I do.
I park the Tahoe, and as I jump out, I glance across the gravel drive to where Pam’s modern house juts behind a stand of pines. The big tinted windows are aglow with the sunset; I can’t tell if Keith’s home or not. No locksmith truck is parked in the driveway. Maybe they’ve already been and gone. It’s pushing eight o’clock now.
I step over boxes on my way to the side door, which stands open. Light from the kitchen spills into the garage. “Hello?” I call out, a bit nervously. Since Rob’s death, I’m not quite sure of the reception I’ll get in my own home.
Some garbage bags sit outside the laundry room. I can’t believe the kids would have been cleaning while I was gone. They don’t do their chores when I’m here, nagging them. Like Pam, they’re using Rob’s death to excuse some of their behavior.
But maybe that has changed.
“What’s going on?” I call out again, when no one joins me in the kitchen. My voice bounces off the antique-white cabinets and oak floor.
From the dirty dishes sitting on the Corian island instead of in the sink, I’m thinking not that much has changed. It’s good that the kids ate dinner while I was with my sisters, but they could have cleaned up the mess.
The garbage bags probably contain Pam’s clothes, things Keith hadn’t felt comfortable leaving in the garage. Even fed up, he could be considerate.
I hear a door open from one of the bedrooms off the hall at the other end of the great room. The master suite is next to the formal dining room, which is separated from the great room, kitchen and breakfast nook area by plaster columns. Rob and I spent a lot of time designing our home so everyone would have their privacy, most especially us.
Claire comes around the corner,