Read Family Dynamics (Pam of Babylon Book Five) for Free Online

could see he was disappointed, but he’d get over it. So when they got to her house, he unloaded her bags for her and put them inside the front door but didn’t come in. She’d trained him well. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for understanding,” she said. “And for going with me.” She didn’t mind traveling alone, but Dave acted as a buffer between her and her children, something she never thought she would need but now would be frightened without. They were both angry at the discovery that their father had given their mother AIDS. But Pam knew it was just an excuse they were making for what was the real issue: They knew all along that Jack was sleeping with Marie and couldn’t believe that Pam didn’t know. Lisa had suggested as much during the first Thanksgiving they spent without Jack.
    “You’re telling us you didn’t know?” Lisa had asked her mother, her voice rising with each sentence. “I find that hard to believe.” Eventually she calmed down, asking Pam to forgive her for her disrespect, but something had shifted. The children were cordial, even welcoming, when she went to California to see them, but the intimacy, love, and warmth they once had was not in evidence. Lisa had asked Pam to meet her in L.A. rather than coming to Oahu over Christmas. Neither child had been home in over a year, refusing to come when Marie died because it would be too difficult to leave school during finals. Then they made excuses not to come home during the holidays. Finally, Pam approached Brent about getting together, and he agreed that it would be OK if they were together on neutral ground. Sadly, feeling she wasn’t even welcome at her children’s homes, she rented a house near Brent’s in Pasadena.
    The first trip she took was shortly after Marie died. Lisa had met her mother at the airport and dropped the bomb: She was going to stay at Brent’s instead of with Pam. They’d both made excuses not to see her the day she’d arrived, telling her to rest up from her trip. Lisa was rude to her on the phone, and then Brent didn’t answer her calls and didn’t return them. After two days alone, Pam decided she wasn’t going to allow them to treat her with such apathy, and she called a family meeting.
    “I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on with you two, and since I came all the way from New York and you’re avoiding me, I might as well go home.” The children were surprised their mother had taken a stand; they were sure she would cave in to any of their demands to make restitution for wrongs they had imagined she committed.
    “Mom, I’m not ready to attend a big family gathering,” Lisa said.
    “You, Brent, and me are not a ‘big family gathering,’” Pam replied. “You’re both annoyed with me, but you’ll get over it. And I’m not willing to spend a week by myself in a rented house.” And then she said something she never, ever thought she would say: “Both of you live off money your father left, money he worked himself to death to make. If you can’t show some respect for me, I’m withdrawing my support. You can get student loans to finish school, or get a job, or do whatever students do who don’t have big trust funds. Anyway, I’ve had it with both of you. You decide what it’s going to be.” Although Brent was finished with undergrad, he wanted to go on and get a master’s degree.
    “I don’t think that’s fair!” he shouted. “If Dad were alive, he’d make sure I got what I needed for school.”
    Pam laughed out loud. “If your dad was alive,” she said, “we’d be divorced, and he’d be married to Sandra. So don’t tell me what your dad would do. I never told you this because it was none of your business, but the last time I saw your dad, he didn’t even say goodbye to me. He got up and left for the city without waking me up. And the reason he didn’t come home Friday night before the Memorial Day party was because he was spending the night