“I’m not asking that.I’m asking you to try to understand what Patricia was feeling.She was frightened and insecure and alone.She fell into something that promisedher relief, and when it delivered, she went back for more.She grew dependent on John emotionally, long before anything physical happened.In time, the emotional and the physical became interlocked.She needed one for the sake of the other.It was a package deal, sort of.”
Pam sensed a familiar modus operandi.“That sounds like John.He gives with one hand and takes with the other.”
“Now you got it.”
“But she didn’t have to sleep with him.”
“She probably wouldn’t have, if she’d been thinking clearly, but she wasn’t.She is now.And what she needs most is forgiveness.”He took a deep breath.“So.In answer to your question about whether to tell her what you know, I say that if you can find it in yourself to forgive her, it might go a long way toward helping her forgive herself.”
Pam regarded him sadly.“That sounds pretty and noble and all kinds of other things.”
He grinned.“You’re pretty and noble and all kinds of other things.You can do it.”
It took a while.The first time Pam saw Patricia, knowing what she knew, she felt strange.She brought coffee and sweet rolls—the light, raised kind Patricia liked, with cinnamon and icing, fresh from the doughnut shop—and they ate together.Outwardly, nothing had changed.Inwardly, the question was there.Between sips of coffee, Pam looked at Patricia, trying to imagine her making love with John.
Two attractive people, close in age, each lonely in hisway.Bob’s words echoed in her mind.She recited them in a silent litany, and kept it up long after she left.
The next time she visited, she brought Patricia a knitted shawl from Bonwit’s.It was shot with whispers of pink and green and seemed as delicate as Patricia herself.Pam also brought some pink nail polish to match the shawl and painted her mother’s fingernails.When she had finished and was standing back to assess her work, with Patricia darting her quick, self-conscious glances, she had a glimpse of the lovely woman who suffered so inside.
On the third visit, she brought a small cassette player and a tape of Tchaikovsky’sThe Nutcracker.More than once, when Pam was a child, Patricia had taken her to the ballet.The music brought back fond memories of a happier, simpler time.
Patricia must have felt it too, because after the tape had clicked off and several quiet minutes had passed, she asked with soft but intent curiosity, “Are you happy?”
“Happy?With my life?”
Patricia nodded.
Pam considered her answer carefully.“I‘ve been lucky.I love designing jewelry.It’s rewarding.”
“But are you happy?”
It was the first time Patricia had pushed.Pam wanted to think it was a good sign.She also wanted to answer honestly and hoped it was the right thing to do.“Yes and no.Some things are great, some aren’t.”
“Do you love Cutter?”
The question surprised Pam.Of all the times she’d mentioned Cutter, Patricia had never given any response.Apparently, though, she’d been listening.“I’ve always loved Cutter.”
Patricia betrayed nothing of her feelings as she considered that.“Is it an adult love?”
“Very.”
“Why aren’t you with him?”
Pam was slower in answering this time.She felt a spurt of anger at Patricia for having to ask, for not being around to know.She tempered the anger, drew in a breath, let it out.“John won’t have it,” she said.
Patricia’s face showed no emotion, but her voice was weaker.“It shouldn’t be John’s decision to make.”
“Tellhimthat,” Pam blurted out.A second later she wished she hadn’t.Patricia’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“I can’t,” she whispered.She kept looking at Pam, tears pooling in her eyes without falling.
Helplessness, desperation, sorrow—Pam saw them all.If the suddenness of their appearance stunned her, their intensity was even more gripping.In the past few years Patricia had been a passive entity, seeming almost dim-witted at times.Pam had known the emotions were there—Bob had told her—but she’d never seen evidence of them herself.Now she did.Emotions long buried had suddenly risen to the surface with the most inadvertent of provocations.
Looking at those emotions and the pain behind them, Pam felt a rise of fury.“It isn’t right, y’know.It isn’t right that you should be punishing yourself this way, while he goes merrily through life.”Without quite saying thewords, she had acknowledged that she knew about the affair.
Patricia’s response was a frantic shake of her head.“I deserve the punishment.”
“But when is it enough?When does it end?”
