Free The Tao of Pam by Suzanne Jenkins

abandoning us for the entire afternoon?”
    “Look, I’ll explain when we get home. We can’t stay tonight with all of these people here. I’ll get the diaper bag, and let’s go.”
    Lisa wasn’t going that easily, though. “No, I don’t want to leave, Ed. You can tell me here. Now I’m getting frightened.”
    He made eye contact with her. “Trust me, Lisa, you will not want to deal with this here, in your mother’s house with your relatives in the next room. You have to trust me one more time.”
    Lisa grabbed her purse and took a cursory look around the room. There was nothing there that she didn’t have duplicates of at home. Ed left the room with the diaper bag, and they made a beeline for the mudroom, avoiding having to stop and chat with his parents, who were still awake, drinking wine with Pam’s sisters and their husbands on the veranda. They could hear laughter and see the flickering light from the gas fire pit as they dodged through the room.
    Pam locked the door behind them, wishing she could advise her daughter in some way. Evidently, Lisa wasn’t going to be able to stick her head into the sand. She would be forced to deal with her husband’s failures and fragilities.
    They buckled Megan into her car seat without trouble, slamming their doors and buckling their own seatbelts. Lisa was aware that Ed’s hands were shaking, his mouth was shaking, his legs were shaking. It was happening with enough force that the car was shaking. She looked at him, wanting to lash out, but not knowing anything except he’d failed to come home and to keep her informed. Not wanting to upset him further, she held her comments. Whatever happened would soon be revealed, and she could wait until they got home.
    He turned to look at her.
    “Keep your eyes on the road,” she said angrily.
    “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”
    “No. Not until we get home.”
    The usual ten-mile journey felt like it was twice that distance. Ed pulled the car into the garage, and Lisa got Megan out of the backseat without wasting a step. “Get her diaper bag.” Ed did as she asked. She waited for him to unlock the door, and it wasn’t until she was watching his shaking hands trying to get the key into the lock that she noticed he had black ink all over his fingers.
    “What’s going on? Why do you have ink all over your hands?” Did he have an accident with a pen? Then the words “finger-printed” drifted through her head. A flush of heat spread through her body. She didn’t say a word yet, wanting to get the baby into her crib before she attacked him.
    He looked down at his hands and then back to her, but she pushed by him to get to the nursery. She went up the stairs as quickly as she could and put the baby down without waking her. Going into the hall bathroom to wash her hands, she looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the face staring back at her. Although she hadn’t confronted it yet, she knew in her heart they were in trouble. She had a moment of clarity. She could deal with it as her mother had dealt with problems all of her life: by ignoring it, or facing it head on. Grabbing the towel, she dried off her hands and shut the light off. Their bedroom was dark; he must be down in the kitchen waiting for her. She held on to the handrail, her mind empty for just a moment, but her heart still hammered out a staccato beat.
    “Okay, what the heck happened? You were gone for six hours, and now I see that you have fingerprint ink all over your hands.”
    He’d tried to wash it off when she was upstairs, but it still showed, the ink having worked into the crevices of his skin.
    “Did your mom tell you anything? About my call to the house?”
    Lisa shook her head. “No, not a word. When did you call her? Why didn’t you call me?”
    “I was arrested, Lisa. I needed Dan to get to the police station. It’s true they’ll only give you one call. No more than one. Dan must have decided not to tell you. I don’t