Prayers for the Dying (Pam of Babylon Book Four) (15 page)

“I don’t know what to say,” Dave said. “What could be wrong with her? She was fine yesterday!”

“You know how she is, working out like a fiend and not eating enough to keep a bird alive. I bet it’s something minor like that. She’s had this before, where she gets depleted and it takes her down. She doesn’t like anyone seeing her without makeup and a hairdo, so it’s best if we both stay away until the hospital calls me that she is awake. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything. Does that work for you?” Jeff asked.

“Okay, please do let me know right away. Thank you for calling me, Jeff.” They hung up and Jeff went back into Pam’s bedroom to her closet and retrieved the overnight bag that contained everything she needed for an emergency room visit. It turned out that she was simply suffering from exhaustion and after an EKG came back showing a normal heart, they discharged her. She was waiting in the lobby, embarrassed and contrite, when Jeff came to get her. Jeff was her rescuer.

He told her about his call to Dave and she resolved to phone him as soon as she got home.

“What would I do without you? Jeff, you are my best friend,” she said. “I hope I can pay you back some day.”

He patted her hand. “You pay me back every day just by being there for me. Thank you, Pam,” he said. He dropped her off at the front door. She promised to call him later in the evening. She wanted to freshen up and get in touch with Dave. She was sure he was concerned and probably confused, as well.

“I was shocked to get the call from that guy,” he said when Pam called him. “I’ve been worried all afternoon.”

“That’s why I’m getting in touch now, Dave. I knew you’d be concerned.” She detected a tone in his voice and decided to ignore it; it could be her imagination.

“Why does Jeff have a key to your house, if I may ask?” Dave said.

Pam thought,
This guy is jealous of my gay friend?
However, she wasn’t going to out Jeff, who was as private as she was. Not only that, but it didn’t escape her that rather than asking about her health and well-being, Dave was concentrating on Jeff.
Oh shit, not another jerk.

“He’s my friend and neighbor, that’s all, Dave. I trust him to be discreet, as he does me.” She was praying that he would notice he hadn’t said anything about her health before too long; if the conversation lingered on Jeff she would chalk it up to bad manners on Dave’s part and call it a day. She couldn’t be in another relationship that revolved around the man.

Dave was silent for several moments. “So how do you feel?” he asked.

“I’m better, thanks.” She was biting her tongue and realized she was not going to ignore his bad behavior. “I was wondering when you were going to ask me.”

“Well, since you’re discharged already, there must not be anything wrong with you. False alarm!” he said, laughing.

Something about his cavalier attitude bothered Pam. It was one thing for the patient to laugh off an unnecessary trip to the ER, but quite another for an observer to do so. She was so relieved that she hadn’t slept with him yet, and for a moment she never wanted to see him again.
Oh my God,
she thought.
I’m running through all the single men in town. First the cop, then the grocer. Who will be next? The hardware guy? My husband has only been dead for seven months. I’m going to end up with a reputation if I’m not careful. Would Dave tell his next girlfriend I have AIDS like that awful Andy did?
Pam’s imagination went wild. She decided then to let him think that she was fine, that there was nothing wrong. She thought Dave wasn’t going to be loyal to her. He was critical and jealous. She would be cagey about ending their relationship; let him think he was in control.

“Yes, false alarm! I probably would have come to if Jeff hadn’t come by.” A lie, but one that would serve.

“I’ll bring dinner tonight,” he said. “What are you hungry for?”

Pam had no desire to spend a quiet evening by the fire with Dave. But she had just said she felt fine; how would she get out of it? “The doctors said I need to rest. I might be fine and a false alarm as you said, but I was still unconscious for three hours. I better beg off tonight,” she said with a hint of tiredness in her voice that was real.

“I’m sorry,” Dave said. “Get some rest, then. We’ll talk tomorrow?”

“Okay, tomorrow it is. Good-bye, Dave.” She hung up without waiting for his reply.

.

19

B
y the time both of his children were in college, Jack was finding it more and more difficult to spend an entire weekend at the beach. He still loved Pam, but his “craziness,” as his friends called it, was escalating. Ashton was getting worried about him, too. They were still close, but their relationship had taken on a platonic character as Jack aged and his testosterone level got lower and lower, their sexual acts limited to mutual masturbation.

“I’m worn out,” he said. “Who’d have ever thought it? Me! Spent!”

Ashton was trying not to drop to the floor laughing. “Oh my God, now you’re a drama queen, too! Honestly Jack, you should hear yourself. If you are worn out you should go home and stay there with your wife. From what I hear around town, she looks better now than she did ten years ago,” Ashton said. “I don’t understand what those other women are supposed to do for you. You have a beautiful wife waiting for you, and then you spend the evening with Maryanne.”

“Don’t talk about her. You don’t know anything about it,” Jack snapped defensively.

“That’s my point! Why don’t I know? It doesn’t make any sense, Jack.” Ashton wasn’t going to let it go this time. He was tired of Jack’s elusiveness. If Jack got angry and left, never to return, it would be the best thing that could happen for Ashton.

“What doesn’t make any sense is for me to be with
you
,” Jack said, hoping to leave a little sting behind. “I’m not gay. I’m a straight man, married with two children who are both in college. I have a lovely wife and a beautiful house on the ocean. And let’s not forget, a gorgeous girlfriend waiting for me every night.”

Ashton laughed out loud. “I hate to tell you my dear friend, but that blow job you just got? The one where you cried out my name and held onto my head like a basketball? You’re gay! Oh Jesus Christ, you have really lost your mind.” Once he stopped laughing he looked at Jack. Suddenly, it wasn’t a laughing matter. Ashton saw the glassy look in Jack’s eyes, the gaunt frame, stylish in its slenderness but the opposite of the healthy Jack, the vibrant Jack. He’d been watching his weight; the doctor said his blood pressure was high. But Ashton wondered if the doctor really said that—if he was really supposed to be watching his weight. Could Jack’s HIV-positive status have converted? Did he now have AIDS? He walked to Jack’s chair and bent over him, wrapping his arms around his old friend, his lifetime lover. He took Jack’s chin in his hand and looked into his eyes. They told the story. Jack was dying. The whites of his eyes were slightly yellow, there was a vacancy in his stare that probably only Ashton could see. He knelt down next to Jack’s chair and holding him, he started crying.

“How long have you known?” he whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jack reached up and stroked Ashton’s back. “It had to happen eventually. What really irks me is that I had to start getting sick when Sandra came into my life. I think I love her, Ash. I think I want to be with her for the rest of my life, as short as that may be.”

Ashton lifted his head up from Jack’s shoulder. “Are you protecting her?” he asked. Jack could be careless about so much; Ashton hoped it didn’t include keeping the woman he loved safe.

Jack wouldn’t be drawn into the conversation; it was answer enough. He wasn’t protecting Sandra, as he hadn’t protected Pam or Maryanne or Dale or the other women he’d been with. He didn’t care about them, because he didn’t care about himself. “Don’t cry, Ashton. I love you. You’ll see; I’m not going anywhere. They say you can live a normal life with AIDS now.”

“Yeah, but that’s if you take the drugs for it, you fool! You should be taking everything they have to offer,” Ashton said. “I take six pills a day.”

Jack looked him, confused. “You take something for it? I didn’t know,” Jack said.

Ashton just shook his head. “We were together at the clinic, don’t you remember? Oh, Jack.” A fresh torrent of tears, but not for long. He wouldn’t cry again for his beloved friend because the end was coming for their relationship. Ashton was tired of Jack disrupting the peace and rhythm of his life. He would no longer beg Jack to make time for him as he had in the past. Their morning coffee would be enough from now on. Ashton had made the vow to himself and it stuck. What troubled him was that Jack never asked for more. Was he being dragged into their relationship because Ashton demanded it? Pam would confirm it when she told Ashton after Jack’s death that Jack hadn’t really been there with her anymore. He’d responded, but never initiated. And he had a new young girlfriend who would later say that the sex was just so-so. Poor Jack was just tuckered out.

.

20

N
elda Fabian was doing the best she could to hide how annoyed she was at having her day disrupted. Pam called to report that Marie was ill; she’d been hospitalized over the weekend, and now her boyfriend had to go to work and wasn’t comfortable leaving her alone.

“Mom, just go down there for a few hours a day until she up to taking care of herself. No one is asking you to move in with her,” Pam said.

“How sick can she be that she needs a babysitter?” Nelda retorted with her usual compassion. “I finally have some time to myself and now I’ve got to start with Marie again.”

“Mother, you’ve had time alone for the past thirty years. Marie needs someone to help her out and I can’t do it. That leaves you. If you aren’t able to, maybe you shouldn’t be left alone, either,” Pam said, hinting at the assisted living center two miles east.

Nelda huffed, “Well! You don’t have to threaten me! I’ll go! What’s the address? I suppose I have to take the subway,” she complained.

“Mother, when in God’s name did you ever have to take the subway? Ben is right there at your beck and call. He’ll drive you downtown.” Pam was prepared to harp at her mother until she caved, and Nelda felt it. She noticed that her wimpy daughter was not going to back down. She had to admit it; the girl had gotten it together.

Nelda rode to Twenty-Third Street in a limousine. She sat in the back like a prim little bird and waited for Ben to get out and open her door, and then insisted that he help her up a flight of six stairs, even though in the mansion, she ran up and down flights of twenty steps without problem.

“Please wait until she answers the door,” Nelda instructed Ben with her chin in the air. In less than a minute, the buzzer sounded and Ben opened the door for her. “Please come back for me in an hour.”

Ben tipped his hat and turned his back to her to descend the steps, rolling his eyeballs. She could be impossible. He would call Pam to find out when to pick Nelda up.

Nelda expected Marie to be waiting at the door, so as she mounted the steps to the apartment, the tension built in her neck and shoulders. She set her jaw.
This child has been a pain from the beginning.
Nelda conveniently forgot the stress of having a mentally ill child while she was living at the mansion. She pretended to belong there, that the staff were her servants. She forgot about grandchildren and anorexia, dead husbands, and houses in Brooklyn. When she got to the top of the landing, the door was open a crack, so she pushed it open and went in.

The apparition sitting in the chair at the kitchen table wasn’t anyone she knew. It was a skeleton with a ravaged face, scalp showing through bald patches of dirty hair, smoking a cigarette. She was sitting with one stick leg under her.

“Marie?” Nelda asked, unsure if she had walked into her death chamber or if this was the house of her daughter. The apparition blew cigarette smoke out in a stream and focused her eyes on her mother.

“That’s me. So, mother! You made the trip down! Was it awful? Or did that limo driver take some of the effort from you?” Marie lowered her eyelids. “Did you come on your own? Or did Pam have to pay you to visit me?”

Nelda felt Marie’s hostility. In times past, it would have angered her but this time she was frightened. She knew she’d been a bad mother, but since everyone had turned out okay, she thought maybe she’d gotten away with it. Maybe there wouldn’t be any retribution. Now she wasn’t so sure.

“Of course Pam didn’t have to pay me! She told me you’re sick and needed someone to come by and see you. If you are going to be mean to me, I’ll leave,” Nelda said, knowing that if she did, there would be hell to pay.

“Leave. It won’t be any sweat off my ass. As you can see, I’m not in any position to make you stay.” Marie took a last drag off the cigarette and smashed it out on a saucer. She got up from the chair slowly, Nelda gasping at the vision.
Was Marie on crystal meth?
Nelda watched enough TV to know what drugs did to people. Something was definitely not right.

Marie noticed her mother’s shock. “Yeah, I look like hell, don’t I?” She walked to the sink, holding onto chairs and the counter as she made her way slowly across the room.

Nelda finally came back to reality. This was her daughter! She’d make amends for neglecting her as a small child. There was obviously something very wrong with Marie. Nelda put her purse down on a kitchen chair and started taking her coat off. “Do you need water?” Nelda asked as Marie fumbled at the sink.

Once Marie had reached the sink she’d forgotten why she was there. It didn’t look to Nelda like she knew how to turn the water on. Nelda walked around the table to the sink and stood next to her daughter. “Can I help you?” she asked gently.
Oh God, no.

“I need something,” Marie said, confused, trying to figure out what the faucets were for.

Nelda was confounded. Did Pam know her sister was this bad off? Nelda opened cupboards until she found a glass. “How about some water?” Nelda filled the glass part way and held it for Marie, not sure if she had the strength to hold it up to her mouth.
What in God’s name has happened to my daughter?
She would call Pam as soon as she could. Gently putting an arm around Marie, Nelda prompted her to walk toward the couch. “Would you like to sit down?”