Abomination (6 page)

“I know this isn’t what you’re used to,” Steve said, as if reading Jamie’s mind.  He pulled the car into a parking space in front of the office. “But it’s Thanksgiving weekend and you take what you can get.  I think we can survive for one night.”

“I’m not complaining,” Jamie said.  “It’s quaint.”

Steve snorted.  “Quaint.”  He nodded as he opened his door.  “Stay here with your mom while I get us checked in, okay?”

“Sure.”

His mother had been quiet since leaving the restaurant.  Jamie wanted to say something to her, but he knew that whatever he said would be trite, forced.  Talking for the sake of talking. 
Part of him wanted to comfort her with his words as best as possible and try to break the cloud that hung over her.  Part of him wanted to stay silent, allowing her to wallow in her private grieving.  He debated for several seconds, went back and forth, but the burden of making the decision was yanked from him when his mother spoke. “How are you doing back there, Jamie?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

Jamie nodded almost imperceptibly, a slight bow of the head.  “I’m doing okay.”

“I knew you would,” she returned, and for a moment he thought his mother was implying that he didn’t love Grandma Anna as much as she did, that he wouldn’t miss her as much, that he simply didn’t care.  He opened his mouth to amend his answer when his mother spoke again.  “You were always so strong, Jamie, so tough.  You got that from your father, you know.  You push your feelings down and throw up a wall to protect yourself.  So it won’t hurt as much when life throws things like this at you.”  She paused a moment, then added, “But it’s okay to be sad.  It’s okay to hurt.  It’s okay to show the world your tears.  It’s healthy.”

And Jamie suddenly understood what his mother was truly implying. 
Don’t repress everything.  Don’t grow into a man who only knows how to express himself with silence or a fist.  Don’t become your father. 

But that wasn’t the case.  He was saddened and shocked by his grandmother’s sudden passing, angry even, but his grief paled to what his mother was feeling: utter devastation.  He had lost a grandmother, a warm and wonderful woman
to be sure, but his mother had lost a mother, and that sudden emptiness cut much deeper.  He would recover more quickly.  He had cried last night.  And he was sure he would cry again.  But at the moment, he was just empty.  He had nothing to show.  And when he did want to express himself, he would do so alone.  Away from prying eyes.  That was just the way he was.  A private man.  The world didn’t need to see him grieve. 

Instead of trying to explain himself, Jamie simply said, “I won’t.  I promise.”

“That’s good.”

Steve soon returned to the car holding two envelopes which Jamie assumed held the key cards to their rooms.  While the motel looked like it hadn’t been updated since the eighties, they had at least done away with the primitive metal keys and updated to the more modern electronic door locks.

Steve swung the car out of the parking spot and drove around the rear of the building.  The lot was full and he took one of the few available spots left, four rows back from the building.  He popped the trunk and the three of them stepped out of the car and into the humid Florida afternoon.  Steve and Jamie walked around to the back of the car while Jamie’s mother stared blankly at the motel, a forlorn look creasing her beautiful features.

“We have two rooms,” Steve said.  He turned to Jamie.  “You’re on the third floor, room 319.  Your mom and I are on the first floor, room 103.”  He looked at his watch.  “It’s three-fifteen.  The food’s being delivered to
your grandfather at five-thirty.  Meet us at our room at five.”

“Got it,” Jamie said.  “You need help to your room with your luggage?”

Steve shook his head.  “I’ve got it.”  He began pulling the bags from the trunk.

Jamie watched his stepfather as he removed the minimal luggage they had brought with them and a sadness filled his heart, not for his grandmother or mother this time, but for the surrogate father who stood before him.  Steven Gorman was a wonderful man, kind and good natured, loving and supportive.  He was the best thing to ever come into his mother’s life.  And his own.  He had saved his mother from the brink of oblivion all those years ago.  He had rebuilt
of cohesive family unit from two shattered lives and a house of horrible memories.  And he had done so at great personal cost.  Although older than his mother by ten years, he had not been previously married, had never sired any children of his own.  And he never would with Leslie Whitman because she was sterile, her uterus removed during the same surgery that had freed Jamie from it.  Uterine cysts and the like.  As long as Steven Gorman remained married (and faithful) to Leslie Whitman, he would never know biological fatherhood.  His only hope of ever being called dad with any true affection would be from Jamie’s own lips.  And Jamie couldn’t bring himself to do that, to establish that link which only held nightmares for him, memories of pain. 
Dad
was a four letter word, an epithet to be spit out like a sour grape. 

It was all his stepfather ever wanted from him.  Unfortunately, it was something Jamie didn’t think he would ever be able to give.

What’s in a name?  What’s in a word? 

Nothing.

And everything.

Still, Steve
showed no resentment towards Jamie.  Just as he didn’t resent Jamie’s mother, his own wife, for not taking his last name when they married (Leslie had explained that doing so would have broken Anna’s heart, and he respected her decision).  He referred to Jamie as his son, not stepson, despite the lack of reciprocity, and he loved Jamie as if he were his own flesh and blood.  The only thing in the world Steve loved more than him was his mother, and Jamie couldn’t have built a more perfect husband for her.  Steve had helped her through the dark times after Brian Whitman had disappeared with understanding and strength and compassion, lifted her up when she fell, helped her to heal, held her hand as she learned to trust again.  Their love was something out of a fairy tale, and Jamie knew that his mother would never want for anything for as long as they both lived.  But that didn’t mean that every step was easy, that there was no conflict, that there wasn’t the occasional hump in the road that strained and tested that love.

Anna Whitman’s death had the potential to be a hump.  A big hump.

Jamie had seen his mother sad and upset over the years.  Life wasn’t life if it was all sunshine and smiles and laughter.  There were good times and there were bad times, but thankfully the good times had far outweighed the bad ones over the past decade.  So while he had seen his mother deal with the normal stresses of life over the years, she hadn’t yet experienced an emotional event of this magnitude since his father beat her that final time. 

Jamie knew his mother would come out
of this okay, and probably stronger for the adversity, but still, he worried about her.   Worried about the strain it could place on her relationship with Steve if she closed herself off too much for too long.

As Steve
pulled the last of the luggage from the Chevy, and before he could slam the trunk closed, Jamie sidled over to him.  He looked up at his stepfather and said, “This isn’t going to be easy for her, you know.”  It seemed silly, telling this to a therapist who knew the woman in question on a very intimate level, but he felt the need to voice his concerns anyway.

“I know.”  He exhaled deeply.  “She had a bad night last night.”  He paused, as if debating whether or not to expound on the issue, but added no further details.  “But she’ll get through it.  It’s going to take some time, but your mom’s a strong woman.  She’ll be okay in the end.”

Jamie nodded sagely.  His own thoughts exactly. “Take care of her, please.”

“You know I will,” Steve
returned, his voice somber.  “She’s like a wife to me.”  He offered a wan smile.

Jamie returned the smile, took his key card from Steve, and grabbed his bookbag and his single piece of checked luggage and started towards the stairs which would lead him to his room.

Chapter 6

The
motel room was standard motel fare: bland beige wallpaper adorned with a pair of cheap still-life prints, a twin bed with a patterned comforter that appeared to be stolen from the seventies, a nightstand with a single drawer, a ten dollar alarm clock, a phone, and a scarred, wooden two-drawer dresser with a nineteen inch television perched atop it.   A combination heater/air conditioner unit stretched beneath the room’s single large window, which was currently shrouded by a thick, rough looking curtain.   A small closet with an ironing board tucked in the back and a bathroom adorned with pink tiles completed the room. 

Jamie
placed his suitcase on the bed and removed the rolled-up suit, which he unrolled and hung in the closet.  There were a handful of creases in both the pants and the jacket; he considered ironing them out but decided that, having not used an iron in many years, he was more likely to damage the fabric than remove any wrinkles.  Besides, he knew the humidity tomorrow would quickly and more efficiently erase the creases in a matter of minutes.  No reason to waste his time and risk disaster.  The suit out, he unpacked nothing else at the moment, tossing the still-laden piece of luggage on the floor. 

He found the remote control to the television on the end table and turned
on the TV.  After consulting the channel listing next to the phone, he flipped to ESPN.   The Sports Center pundits were currently breaking down the following day’s NFL matchups.  Jamie wanted to watch, wanted to pour his full attention into the world of football and forget everything that happened in the past twenty four hours.  He wanted to, but there was work to be done. 

From his bookbag, Jamie pulled out a notebook and a pen.  He settled himself onto the stiff mattress and leaned his back against the headboard.  It was uncomfortable, but that was okay. He flipped the notebook open, shuffled through until he found a blank page, then clicked the pen’s head out.  He looked at the blank page, twirled the pen in his right hand, but did not bring the two together.  He knew that he had to write something, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.  He had spent the ride from McDonald’s to the motel thinking about what he wanted to say, about what sentiments he wanted to express.  He had composed his tribute in his mind, but now that he actually had to put his thoughts to paper, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.  He wanted to be doing anything but this. 

It was as if he were in dental school again.  There were many days he would spend the fifteen minute car ride from his apartment to the school and the subsequent three minute walk from the parking lot to the main entrance thinking about the denture teeth he had to set or the crown he had to wax up, going over the procedure in his mind step-by-step so when the moment came to actually
do it
and not just think about, he would be ready and eager to get the work done.  But more often than not, he would sit down at his lab bench, his supplies spread out before him, ready to work, but the enormity of the task combined with his disinterest in the work itself would overwhelm him. He would eventually put everything away, having accomplished nothing, choosing instead to do it the night before it was due when the pressure was on.  That’s how he felt at that moment:  Overwhelmed by the responsibility set before him.  Overwhelmed by the prospect of spending half an hour putting his thoughts to paper knowing that the end result would not resemble whet he had initially imaged.  Would not do his grandmother’s memory justice.

So he gave up before he really started, knowing that he could do it later that night.  Or the following morning. He gave up knowing that pressure to perform more often than not resulted in a more powerful, more honest, result.

Instead, still holding pen and paper, he allowed his mind to wander, and not surprisingly, it focused on the other source of emotional anguish in his life at the moment, one that he had pushed to the backburner so he could concentrate on the more immediate and profound event that was his grandmother’s death. 

The matter of Samantha Hendricks, the girl he thought he would marry someday.

Truth be told, he wasn’t terribly surprised by how the relationship had transformed since his graduation in June when he had moved back to northern Jersey, forcing a long distance relationship for at least a year.  He wasn’t surprised that she was wandering, looking for comfort and companionship closer to her bed.  When he pushed all emotion aside and looked at the situation with a cold logic based on past behavior, he wasn’t surprised to find another man peeling Samantha away from him.

After all, he had done the same thing three years ago, slowly seducing Samantha and finally stealing her away from her college boyfriend of three years. 

Jamie and Samantha had met the week before Jamie’s second year of dental school began.  She was a freshman, returning to the Philadelphia area where she grew up after spending four years at the University of Maryland.  The week before classes began was orientation week for the incoming class, and Jamie was one of eight sophomores asked by the administration to be a group leader.  The job was simple: take his ten charges on a tour of the school, give them the lowdown on the life of a first year dental student, and hang around during the orientation seminars to answer any questions afterwards.  He took the job for the same reason that the five other males did: to get a look at the fresh meat before the rest of the class did the following week.  And he thought he hit the jackpot when Samantha was assigned to his group.  He fell for her immediately, initially attracted by her perfect body, her platinum blond hair and her smoldering features that, according to a classmate, could “straighten out the most crooked queer”.