First Snow
(continued)
By Wayne Scheer
Just as Pam prepared to leave the house, the shrill ring
of the telephone pierced the quiet like a scalpel cutting open a chest.
Frank, who had graduated from the morning newspaper to Newsweek, grumbled
while Pam answered. He watched his wife's expression change as, "Oh
hi, Linda" was followed by "What's wrong?"
Linda was their youngest daughter, married for six years. Frank was about to comment on how only a mother, upon hearing her daughter's voice, begins a conversation with, "What's wrong?" But something in Pam's expression made it clear that joking was no longer appropriate.
"Is the baby all right?" Frank asked.
Pam nodded her head, but remained focused on the telephone conversation. He could see his wife's nose turning red and her eyes filling up.
"Of course," she said. "Of course you can stay here . . . . We love you . . . . Of course you're not a burden."
She hung up and looked to her husband. Composing herself until all expression
drained from her face, she said, "Linda's leaving Art. Apparently,
they had a fight. She thinks he's cheating on her."
"Oh God!" Frank said. "Is she all right?"
"Yes . . . No. She was crying. It was hard to know."
Frank took his wife's hand. He felt it trembling. "What now? I heard you say she's coming here."
"She's leaving right away. Just packing some clothes and the baby's things. She should be here in five or six hours."
A thought flashed through Frank's mind, so selfish he didn't want to admit to it. He and Pam had retired just three months earlier, and they loved waking up late, walking around the house in their nightclothes or nude when the weather was warmer. Just the other day, Pam told him how much she adored the quiet, after raising three children and teaching high school for almost thirty years.
"How long does she plan to stay?" Frank asked. He heard the reticence in his voice.
Pam heard it as well. "Linda needs us. And little Sarah. I didn't
ask how long they'd stay."
"Of course not," Frank said a bit too quickly.
"Of course, they can
stay as long as they like. It's just that..."
"I know," Pam interrupted. "This isn't what we planned."
"No, it's not," Frank said. He thought of a crying baby waking in the middle of the night, diaper changes, and the constant attention a baby needed. Linda would work from the computer, his computer. Frank felt guilty remembering how unsettling it was when Linda, Art and Sarah stayed with them last August.
Pam was crying, "Poor Lin," she said between sobs.
Frank reached out to her. "We'll do what we have to, of course. It'll be good to spend more time with her and the baby. We've only seen Sarah once since she started taking her first steps."
Pam kissed her husband's cheek. "You're a good man. When I was on the phone, my first thought was 'I hope this doesn't interfere with the cruise next month." Frank felt Pam's body shake.
"I thought about how I'll have to share my precious computer with my daughter."
Pam managed a smile. "Are we terrible parents? How can we be thinking of ourselves at a time like this?"
"Shh, how can we not be thinking of ourselves at a time like this?" Frank wasn't sure what he meant, but the words seemed to relax Pam.
They both seemed lost in their private thoughts.
Frank recalled Pam's infidelity early in their marriage. He remembered how close they had come to breaking up when Pam confessed she had slept with a friend of theirs. Tears filled his eyes as if it happened recently. He recalled his anger, how close he came to hitting her.
"It'll never happen again," he remembered her saying to him. "I want you to know that."
"How can I be sure?"
"You'll have to trust me," she said.
Those words, like the feelings of betrayal and shame, would stay with him forever.
Frank kissed his wife and hugged her tight. He felt Pam hugging him back. They held each other, rocking back and forth.
"I think they still love each other," she said.
"I hope so." Frank looked at his wife. "I hope they can
get over this."
The telephone rang again, and Pam jumped to answer it on the first ring. "That's a good idea . . . .Yes . . . .Yes . . . . Don't even think of it . . . . We love you."
She placed the receiver back on the cradle. "It's snowing worse up there. Linda's decided not to drive today. She and Art are talking."
Frank closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled through his mouth, puffing out his cheeks. "Thank goodness for the first snow fall. Sometimes God knows what He's doing."
"Yes," Pam said. "Things have a way of working out for the best."
