far I got.”
Julia clucked her tongue. “You’ve been out there so much that we hardly see you. Why not take the afternoon off? I was going to run into town. We could make it a girls’ trip—hit the craft store and stop for high tea.”
Pam grinned. “High tea in Mimosa?” The local cafés sold more fried pickles than scones.
“You just have to know where to look. Come with me?”
What had Nick said earlier? You sound like you regret the missed opportunities with your mother. So maybe keep your eyes open for future opportunities with other people. “I’m in.”
Her aunt clapped her hands together. “Wonderful! Let me go put my face on.” That consisted of penciling in darker eyebrows and applying lipstick. Then she announced that she was ready.
Pam got into the passenger seat of her aunt’s car, grateful not to be driving. She lacked the mental energy.
“Are you all right, dear?” Julia asked. “I don’t mean to sound insulting, but, well, you’ve looked better.”
“I’ve felt better.” Pam studied her fingers on her lap, wondering where she should start. “You know that Nick came by your house once to see me? Faith, our …”
“I know who she is,” Julia said quietly.
But Pam was determined to get the word out, to acknowledge her own child, even if the person who needed that acknowledgement most wasn’t around to hear it. “Our daughter. My daughter. She wanted to meet me. We had what I thought was a very nice conversation over milk shakes one day, but it got more complicated after that. Nick asked me to come over today and talk to her. She’s been having some discipline problems.”
“Anything serious?” Julia asked, looking worried.
“Not yet. She’s a good kid, just confused. And ticked off. I guess not having a mother will do that to you.”
Julia mashed the brake harder than necessary at a stop sign and turned pointedly to her niece. “Some kids with mothers have it pretty rough, too, as I’m sure you recall.” She didn’t speak again until the car started rolling, her tone calmer and sounding more like herself. “Beating yourself up does neither you nor Faith any good.”
Pam stared out the window, watching Mimosa pass by, noticing all the tiny, paradoxical ways that the town had both changed and stayed the same. “I know you’re right, but there are times when it’s hard not to beat myself up. This afternoon was draining, but it was only a couple of hours in my life. Nick goes through that every day. I wish things had been different for him, I wish I’d told him no when he asked me to marry him. If I’d had any sense at all, instead of torpedoing his college plans, I would have begged you and Uncle Ed to consider adopting Faith.” She seemed to recall that her aunt and uncle had long ago tried to have children.
“We wanted to adopt you.” Julia’s words were so quiet that Pam thought she must have misheard them.
“What?”
Julia swallowed, keeping her gaze straight ahead, glued to the road. A rosy flush climbed her cheeks. “I’ve never been sure whether to tell you this. There’s a chance you’ll think I sound like a jealous, bitter shrew. But I think what scared me is that there’s an equal chance you’ll be mad at us for giving in and not trying harder.”
“Aunt Julia, you and Ed have been wonderful to me since I came back to Mimosa. Nothing you say is going to change how thankful I am for both of you.”
Sniffing, Julia turned onto a side road Pam didn’t recognize. “Ed and I tried to have children of our own. I got pregnant twice over the course of six years, and miscarried both times. And for her to …”
“Her, who? My mother?”
“I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. I don’t want to tarnish whatever good memories you might have of her.”
“All two of them?” Pam asked wryly. “I don’t harbor any illusions that Mae was a saint. There were some times over the years when we laughed together or that she told me I was beautiful or that she surprised me with a home-cooked feast, but those weren’t the norm. Whatever you have to say, go ahead and get it off your chest. Maybe we’ll both feel better afterward.”
“All right.” Julia took a shaky breath. “Your mother didn’t want you, at least not at first. She saw being pregnant as a burden. And I was incensed with rage that she would be