A Mother's Homecoming (11 page)

Nick brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. The gentleness of the gesture made her eyes and throat burn all the worse. “She loved you,” he said quietly. “I don't know if it helps, after everything that happened, to believe that, but she did.”

Pam bit the inside of her cheek. Despite what filmmakers and greeting card companies would have an audience think, maybe there were some things love couldn't overcome.

“Can I make a suggestion?” he asked, his voice still feather-soft. The tenderness was too familiar, bringing to mind so many past conversations and caresses. Her skin heated and she tried not to breathe in how good he smelled.

“S-sure.” Pam made herself focus on his words rather than his nearness. “But if it's good advice, I can't promise I'll take it. That's not always been my strong point.”

His lips quirked in homage to a smile, but his blue eyes were serious. “You sound like you regret the missed opportunities with your mother. And you're right, it's too late to do anything about them. So maybe keep your eyes open for future opportunities with other people.”

Like you?
She wanted to ask.
Like Faith?
She was here now, wasn't she? She was taking the opportunity—she just wasn't sure how far to take it. At what fork in the road did courageous wisdom become risky stupidity? Her gaze held his, broadcasting the questions she was afraid to put into words.

But apparently Nick didn't have the answers, either.

Stepping back, he cleared his throat. “We should eat. You can't properly reprimand a sullen tween on an
empty stomach. Eating at the counter okay with you, or should we be fancy and have lunch at the table?”

“In the last week, I've eaten half my meals either in the storage closet at a salon or sitting on an upturned crate in a living room that's between floor treatments. The counter is plenty fancy for me. Actually, it might be too fancy. I'd feel more at home if we put a plastic drop cloth down and scattered some sawdust.”

He laughed, and she grinned back at him, relieved at the lighter mood. As long as they stayed away from combustible topics like Faith and Mae, she was free to concentrate on a tasty lunch and undemanding conversation. They chatted about their favorite reality cooking show and who they thought should win. Eventually they even got brave enough to skirt the past and discuss people they'd gone to school with. Nick filled her in on details of who had ended up where, from those still in Mimosa to one who'd joined the military and was, as far as anyone had last heard, living in Alaska.

“I think I'd like to live in the north,” Pam mused, “where there's snow. Sunny L.A. was not for me. I'd rather be somewhere cozy, wearing lots of sweaters and eating lots of soup.”

Nick grinned at her. “They don't have soup in California?”

She rolled her eyes, not dignifying his smart-ass comment with a response.

“So that's the plan?” he asked. “To trek to the great white north after you leave Mimosa?”

“No firm plan.” That was an understatement—she barely had a gelatinous plan. “I'm taking things one day at a time. Occasionally one hour at a time. Speaking of which, shouldn't Faith be home from school about now?”

He followed her gaze to the clock above the stove. “Whoa, I didn't realize it was so late.” He bounced off his seat, grabbing his empty plate and bowl as he went.

She slid down off her own stool and carried her dishes around the counter to deposit in the sink. “Thanks for lunch. Your culinary skills have improved a lot since you took me on that picnic where you made peanut butter sandwiches.”

He laughed. “You mean that time when I was in such a hurry to get you alone that I forgot the jelly and the drinks? Not my finest hour.” Peanut butter on plain bread, with nothing to wash it down. “Tell you what, maybe I can make it up to you sometime. Cook you dinner?”

She blinked, dozens of questions fizzing to the top of her head like a carbonated soda someone had dropped before opening. Before she had a chance to articulate any of them—he didn't mean as a date, did he? With Faith or just the two of them? Did his willingness to spend time with her mean he'd forgiven her? She heard the front door open and shut.

“Hello? Dad? I saw the truck outside.”

Nick and Pam exchanged glances. Showtime. As of this moment, they were a parental team, not to be taken lightly or easily divided and conquered.

“We're in here,” Nick called. Would Faith notice the subtle way he'd stressed
we?
Would she have recognized Pam's car in the driveway?

Faith clacked into the kitchen in a pair of stylishly heeled boots. She looked startled but excited when she spotted Pam. “Hi! What are you doing here?”

“I invited her,” Nick said in his Grim Father voice. Pam knew instinctively that Faith would be hearing that
tone again the first time she ever broke curfew or got a ding in the family car. “Because I think the three of us need to talk.”

“I agree,” Pam added quickly, not wanting Nick to come out of this looking like the bad guy.

“Oookay. Can I, like, get a soda first and sit down, or do we have to all stand here being weird about it?”

Nick jerked his thumb toward the living room. “In there. Now.”

By unspoken consent, Nick and Pam took the larger sofa, leaving Faith the matching love seat on the facing wall. As she studied them, Faith raised a hand next to her face—looked confused for a second—then dropped it. The longer Pam watched her, the more she agreed with Nick's assessment from last night:
she does look more like me now.
The biggest differences between them were age and Pam's hair being far lighter.

Nick steepled his fingers under his chin, affecting a look that suggested his ancestors might have been Inquisitors. Pam bit the inside of her cheek to suppress a highly inappropriate giggle. This stern disciplinarian was a guy who'd once been in on the plot to “borrow” a rival team's mascot.

“When I came home early yesterday,” Nick began, “and found you here alone with a boy, which you know is completely against the rules—”

“He's
nineteen,
” Faith interrupted. “More man than boy. And I told you, he's a teacher. It's not like I'm dating him, Dad.”

From the way Nick's jaw clenched, it was easy to tell Faith wasn't helping her case. “We'll get back to the advisability of you being alone in the house with a nineteen-year-old later,” he promised. “But the part where you hired him, without talking to me about it
first, as a teacher? Whose idea did you say that was again?”

Faith squirmed but glared at Pam, not ready to back down just yet. “I told you at the salon that my friend knew a guy, and you said it was a great idea. You said I should go for it.”

“Ah,” Nick said. “So it was your idea initially, not Pam's. And how about the way you made it sound as if the two of you had been regularly corresponding? How many times have you actually seen or talked to her?”

“Three.”

“Not counting today or that day you met for milk shakes,” Nick added.

The girl's gaze dropped. “Once.” Her mumble was barely audible.

“And that's when you ambushed her at work?” he persisted.

In lieu of an actual answer, Faith crossed her arms over her chest and huffed out an aggrieved sigh.

Pam decided it was time for her to wade into the conversation. “Faith, you've made it seem like you want us to be … friends. But friends don't screw each other over. Why did you try to get your dad angry with me?”

“It wouldn't have happened if you'd taught me to play guitar like I asked,” Faith accused her. “But you told me to get a regular teacher, one who wouldn't ditch me at the first opportunity.”

As it turned out, working with Nancy Warner was fantastic practice for dealing with an angry young woman. “I did tell you to find a regular teacher,” Pam agreed mildly, “but you're an intelligent girl and you know full well that I didn't mean you should find someone your father disapproved of behind his back.”

“You never even mentioned wanting guitar lessons,”
Nick pointed out. “Yesterday was the first I've heard of it.”

“You know I write my own songs,” Faith said, picking at one of her cuticles. “I love music. Guess I inherited that from her.”

The way she said it made Pam think it was a deliberate attempt to pit the two of them against Nick. Reflexively she reached out and put her hand atop his, making sure he knew they were in this together. “Your dad's a reasonable man, and you are his pride and joy. I'm sure that if you'd discussed this with him in a rational manner, letting him know guitar was important to you, he would have been open to the idea. But did you also know he has a helluva temper? You should have heard him when he called last night.”

Faith had the grace to look abashed. “I didn't mean for him to take it out on you. Not really.”

Pam waved her free hand dismissively. “That wasn't my point. I'm a big girl, and your father has already apologized. My point was that if you mess up and antagonize him and generally act like a bratty prima donna, you're going to lose your chance to do things you really want. And you'll only have yourself to blame.”

Nick nodded. “Couldn't have said it better myself. Next week, you and I can talk about the guitar thing again. But I promise that if you do get lessons, it will be through an adult teacher I help select. Not some rocker bad-boy wanna-be your friend Morgan knows. In the meantime, you're grounded.”

“
Again?
” Faith wailed. “I just got ungrounded.”

“Make better choices,” Nick advised calmly, “and maybe you'll stay ungrounded. As for Pam, don't stalk her. She has a right to go about her daily life without worrying about you showing up and making trouble.”

“She's my mom,” Faith argued. “I'm not allowed to go anywhere near her? Do you two even know how freakishly unfair that is? Other kids don't have to make hair appointments just to say hi to their mothers.”

Pam's heart caught. Faith might be acting like a melodramatic tween, but nothing she said was untrue.
I need to get out of Mimosa as soon as possible.
It seemed that her staying here was having a negative impact on Faith. “I'm sorry this is hard on you—”

“Those are just words!” Faith said, eyes blazing. “If you were truly sorry, you'd see me. Talk to me, teach me guitar, take me shopping, ask about my homework. If you really felt bad about any of this, you'd be a mother!” With that, she raced out of the room.

Tears in her eyes, Pam sat rooted to the sofa. She didn't even realize she was still holding Nick's hand until he squeezed it. She was half-afraid to look at him, aware that she might find everything Faith had just said echoed in his gaze. Instead, when she chanced a glimpse at him, it was to find him watching her with a sad smile.

“Well,” he said, “I guess we can agree she got my temper.”

F
AITH KNEW THAT BEING
grounded meant no phone, too, but she couldn't help herself. She called Morgan anyway. She figured her dad would be too busy talking to Pam for a while—they'd looked pretty cozy down there together—to check up on Faith.

“Yo, Shepard,” Morgan said as soon as she picked up the phone.

“My father is so unfair!” Faith announced. “I'm grounded again.”

“What class did you skip this time? And why wasn't I invited?”

“It's not funny, Morg. This is because of him finding me here with Rock yesterday. He went completely off the rails. He even called and yelled at Pam. She came over today so that they could both lecture me.”

“Sucks,” Morgan commiserated. For a girl who'd tested into advanced English, she was often a person of few words. “Sounds like the convos I used to have with my parents, back when they'd consent to be in the same room with each other.”

“You think?” Faith hadn't really thought of it that way. She'd been so put out over the colossal injustice that her father could go see Pam without even telling his daughter that her mom was in town and that, judging by the two glasses at the counter and the dishes in the sink, it was okay for the two of them to have lunch together, but Faith was supposed to stay away from her mother.

The way Morgan put it was better. It almost made what happened this afternoon sound like a family moment.

Faith chewed on her lower lip. If she got herself in more trouble, would the three of them spend even more time together? Maybe they could even do some kind of family counseling. Would it be enough to keep Pam in town longer?

Bad idea.
Faith shook herself out of the fantasy. If she wasn't careful, she could chase Pam out of town. After all, Pam had been quick to leave her behind before, and that time Faith hadn't even done anything—other than cry and poop or whatever, but all babies did that. If Faith was a brat, she might cause her mother to bolt.

Besides, she was sick of being grounded. Especially if there was a chance Bryce Watkins was going to ask her to the middle school's big fall dance. Homecoming might officially be for the high school, but all of Mimosa celebrated.

Maybe she should switch tactics, be the model daughter and student. If she did that, her dad and Pam might agree to let Pam take her dress shopping for the dance.

Assuming she's even still around.
Her mother had always been very clear that she wasn't moving back to Mimosa. Why would she? She'd lived in far more exciting places—heck, she'd been on television! If her family hadn't been enough to keep her here when she'd actually been married to Nick, it was insane to think she'd choose Mimosa now. Part of Faith wanted to plead the case for Pam to stay, but her stomach roiled at the thought of being rejected. It was one thing to grow up without a mom and accept that as your norm. It would be far worse to be told you're unwanted.