Tanya Michaels - A Mother's Homecoming

“I know.” She registered the taste of blood and realized she’d bitten her bottom lip. Hard. “I know I’m too late. I know I can’t … fix anything.” A fragment of the usual prayer tolled in her head like mournful bells. The serenity to accept what I cannot change. Today, there was no comfort in the phrase, only bleak finality.

She gripped the edge of the door, steeling herself. A stronger person—one whose inner core hadn’t been mindlessly shrieking ohGodohGod ever since she’d seen Nick’s face—would pull herself together and try to turn this disaster into an opportunity. If she couldn’t make amends for what she’d put him through, she could at least ease his mind, assure him she didn’t have any nefarious agenda. Grant me the courage. “Look. Nick.”

He flinched, no less affected than she’d been when he said her name.

“I’m not staying. I have to see my aunt and uncle today, but then I’ll be moving on.” That’s all she’d wanted for years, to be able to move forward, instead of uselessly spinning her wheels and looping in the same self-destructive cycle. She needed to let go of her past and build a new life with healthy habits and achievable, short-term goals.

Right now, her most pressing goal was to survive this conversation.

“I see.” Finally he broke eye contact, and Pam’s lungs remembered how to expand.

She took a much needed breath, assuming he would go now.

But instead he took a challenging half step toward her, his voice a blade. “So your plan is to run away. Again.”

WITH THE ELEMENT OF surprise on his side, Nick Shepard had believed he was prepared to see her—until she’d opened the door. Shards of the past cut into him like slivers into the tender spot of a foot, an excruciatingly sharp wound that doesn’t even start bleeding immediately, as if the skin is still trying to process what the hell just happened. Dozens of disjointed memories sliced at him, most involving Pamela Jo, some more recent—such as a conversation he’d had with his daughter about impulse control and making good choices.

Where had his impulse control been just now? What on earth had possessed him to blurt that jab about her running away? It was what he wanted, for her to get as far away from Mimosa as geographically possible and never return. But he’d made it sound almost as if … he were daring her to stay.

She looked as perplexed as he felt, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

Faith had her mother’s eyes, but that meant something different on any given day, the changeable hazel reflecting various amounts of gold, brown or green depending on her mood and what she wore.

For instance, Pamela Jo’s eyes were a particularly vivid green because of that damn T-shirt. He’d been battling throughout their conversation to somehow un- notice that she was braless beneath that flimsy material. She was almost too thin, but certain curves had not diminished with time. And what kind of woman answered the door with no pants? He stubbornly ignored the fantasies he used to harbor about this exact woman opening doors to him wearing even less.

That had been a different reality. He was a single father now, not a horny teenager.

“So are you angry that I’m here,” she asked cautiously, “or angry because I’m leaving?”

Both. Neither.

If someone had broached the subject of Pamela Jo two days ago, before he’d learned she was in town, he would have said his long dormant anger had faded away. She no longer meant anything to him; so long as he was with his daughter, everything had worked out for the best. The swell of fury he’d experienced when Pamela Jo had met his gaze had knocked him off balance.

He shoved a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want you here— don’t want you here—but it’s a small town. There’s a chance that …” It was more difficult than he could have imagined to say their daughter’s name, as if a superstitious part of him worried that by mentioning Faith, he was somehow putting her at risk. “People know you’re in Mimosa, and people gossip. It’s likely that Faith will find out you’re here, and I don’t know how she’ll react.”

Pamela Jo’s eyes were wide. “I wouldn’t have … I thought you … Damn it, why aren’t you in North Carolina?”

As if he owed her any explanations? Like hell. Still, the words tumbled out. “I moved here after the divorce. My wife betrayed me,” he said with deceptive matter-of-factness. “Story of my life.”

“Nick, I—”

He held up his hand. “Don’t you dare apologize.” There was no way that all they’d shared, and ultimately hadn’t shared, could be encapsulated in a trite I’m sorry.

Her chin lifted, that one action suddenly making her look like the lover he’d once known, instead of a pretty stranger with short hair and eyes too like his daughter’s. On closer inspection, he saw that there were shadowed crescents beneath Pamela Jo’s eyes, yet another detail he didn’t particularly want to see.

“My condolences on your mother’s passing,” he said brusquely. He didn’t care overly much about what Pamela Jo was going through, but he needed a return to civil conversation. To normalcy.

She hesitated only briefly before reverting to their previous topic, the one that made him the most uneasy. “You think my passing through will hurt Faith?”

“It might raise some questions, some conflicted feelings, but she and I will deal with them. I shouldn’t have brought that up.” He was Faith’s family, the one constant in her life—as she’d been in his since she was born—and he would find a way to give her whatever assurances she needed. Despite his resolve, however, he couldn’t help thinking about all their recent arguing. Was his daughter pulling away from him? I won’t let that happen.

But standing in front of Pamela Jo, who looked so much like their daughter and had once ripped his heart out by walking away from him, magnified his uneasiness.

Coming here had been a mistake. “Don’t worry about us. Faith and I will be fine,” he insisted. “I won’t bother you again. Conclude whatever business you have here, and have a nice life.”

With one final nod, he spun on his heels and walked toward the staircase. He regretted his earlier taunt more than ever. Because, despite his calm manner and deliberately slowed stride, it felt very much as if he were the one running away.

Nick’s retreat was almost as unexpected as his arrival. That’s it? Pam stared out into the empty hall, knowing she should be relieved but feeling strangely bemused. Considering what he must have gone through after she’d left him and their infant daughter without a word of warning, he was entitled to be angry, enraged even.

So it seemed almost … anticlimactic that he’d suddenly calmed down, told her to have a nice life and left. Granted, there’d been an unmistakably implied “and stay the hell away from us” at the end of his farewell, but that was still far gentler than she’d deserved. She shut the door, shaking her head at her irrational discontent. What, did you want him to scream at you?

Maybe. It might have been cathartic for him to get it off his chest, they might have achieved some measure of closure. She sank into a sitting position against the wall, too drained from their encounter to walk back to the bed. Instead of feeling they’d reached any resolution, now she worried about what he’d let slip before backpedaling. Would her being here, no matter how temporarily, have negative repercussions for Faith? That Pam hadn’t expected her daughter to be anywhere near Mimosa when she’d planned this trip didn’t stop a small kernel of guilt from forming.