Chapter Two: Personal Affairs
Over the next few weeks the reality of Pam's looming journey began to sink in. Favorable reports were coming from the princess and her staff, it sounded like the mission was going to be a go, and they would be able to leave a lot sooner than expected, maybe even the end of May. The initial giddiness of such a grand adventure was harder to feel now, more and more she found herself fretting over it. This was big, this was scary. She had plenty of vacation days coming to her at work and had decided to burn a few to have some time to think. Feeling hemmed in by her garden's cool confines, she decided to take a long walk to help clear her head. It was a bright, sunny morning, and that would be just the thing to help keep her worries at bay.
Soon she was climbing up a familiar West Virginia hillside, feeling the sunlight touching warmly on her back. She came to the hill's abrupt edge, marveling as always at the glass-sheened cliff left by whatever event had caused their journey through space-time, presumably slicing the strata on a molecular level. A Thuringian stream blocked by the new heights placed in its path had created a sizable lake below, cool waters lapping against the smooth walls of the transplanted hills.
Pam sat down near the edge with her back against a sycamore tree. She forced herself to relax, to go into what she thought of as "birdwatcher mode," a state of calm awareness, quietly paying attention only to the world around her, ignoring the incessant whispers of the inner. This odd place was where she felt most at home anymore, along this edge where two realities fused to make something new. She gazed contentedly at the lake and the comings and goings of its small inhabitants; birds, fish, frogs, insects. In a comfortable space, Pam allowed herself to drift inward, looking at herself dispassionately, as if examining some new species of life, not judging, just observing.
She had been changed by the Ring of Fire as much as sleepy old Grantville had been, the totally unexpected revitalization of a declining town. The experience of time travel had awakened something in her as well, she had seen it in other up-timers, too. Second chances. The old Pam, who lived in a gray zone of self pity in that other life and time, had metamorphosed into something different, something better, a being of energy and convictions. A small smile came to her lips as she realized that she liked herself better now, at least most of the time. Maybe this new Pam really was a person who could take on something as big as the wide world, do something as Quixotic as save a doomed species halfway across the globe.
She thought of the time she had passed by this spot on her way to save Gerbald, knowing she was heading into danger, but ignoring the fear, conquering it, finding the strength to fight and win against the evil men who threatened her friend. She clutched the solid weight of her grandmother's walking stick, her body remembering how she had used it to devastating effect on their attacker, used it to survive, to win, the seasoned oak wood channeling an inner strength she hadn't known she had. Despite her increasing unease at what lay before her, that power was still within her, the power to fight for what she held dear.
The mission to Mauritius would surely be dangerous. It would be frightening. It would also be uncomfortable. But most of all she knew it would be worthwhile. In Pam's mind's eye she saw herself, saw the sensitive girl she had been as a child, who had wept when reading the story of the dodo in those dreary back pages of the bird guides, that terrible roll-call of the victims of extinction. She felt that little girl somehow looking at her future self with her own steel-gray eyes, the message clear: "Change this."
Pam stood up, shaking her head to clear her reverie; she had seen enough. She took a big, deep breath of the fresh breeze coming across the lake and smiled.
"All right, you dodos, hang in there, I'm a-comin'!" she shouted merrily across the lake.
A noisy thought suddenly crashed into her mind: She had yet to tell her employers at the Research Institute of her plans, not to mention her family, starting with her father. The world spun a little too fast beneath her feet for a moment. Deep breaths, deep breaths!
****
Surprisingly, her father took it well. He had aged a bit since the Ring of Fire, but there was a sparkle in Walter Miller's eyes. Becoming the high school chemistry teacher had revitalized him. Being around kids could do that, in those cases when it doesn't age one faster. In Pam's experience, things always went better with other people's kids. Not to say her father hadn't done a good job of raising her. She had never wanted for anything, and even if he was not one for a lot of overt affection, she always knew she was loved. Most importantly, he had always been encouraging when it came to Pam's choices growing up.
This time, considering the dangers involved, Pam had expected, and maybe deep down, wanted him to be upset by the news, but he took it all in stride. He looked at her with eyes that closely resembled her own and told her "Pammie, I'm real proud of you. Always have been, but now more than ever. I like what you are doing with the school kids, I see it making a difference with them, and I like that you are taking a leadership role in environmental protection. I dabbled in it myself in my youth, and I'm glad to see I raised a daughter who is going to really do something to help this new old world. I know you can do it. When Pam Miller puts her mind to it, she can do anything!"
This unexpectedly stirring praise managed to make Pam cry, so her father held her and gently patted her on her head for a long, quiet time.
Unfortunately, it did not go so well with her mother, who wept for over an hour. Pam did her best to comfort her, then had to leave her for her father's tender care, deciding that was enough drama for one day. She went home to get a bit drunk with Gerbald in front of the TV set.
The next morning she went to see her daughter-in-law Crystal, who was bound to be today's designated crier. Pam was by no means surprised, and felt awful as a just-got-pregnant Crystal cried and cried as her mother-in-law looked on helplessly.
"Oh, Momma Pam, you just can't be gone for a whole year! What about the ba-ba-baby-y-y-y!" Her voice broke up into incoherent sobbing.
Pam grimaced, she had known Crystal was going to take it hard, but yeesh. So, she overrode her embarrassment at the outburst, and hugged Crystal tightly. Crystal Blocker had come through the Ring of Fire with only a single aunt for family, and was whole-heartedly invested in changing that. Now that she had married Pam's son Walt, and become Crystal Dormann, she had a mom again, and Pam, being very fond of the sweet, good-hearted girl, had encouraged the relationship, wondering what it would have been like to have had a daughter to balance her often stubborn and difficult only child. She buried a rueful grin that her grown boy Walt was Crystals' problem now instead of hers, and patted Crystal firmly on the back, then took her by the shoulders to very gently shake her out of her sorrow.
"Hey, hey, honey, listen! It's not as awful as you're making it out to be! It's just for a year, and that's a blink of the eye, trust me. Come on, what's a regular old year to a bunch of time travelers like us, huh? I'll be back before you know it."
"But you're going all the way to A-a-a-africa, it's so far, it will be so dangerous!" More tears poured from Crystal's bright green eyes down her pretty-as-a-penny, freckled face.
"It won't be that bad. Besides, Gerbald and Dore will be along, and you know they won't let anything bad happen to me, right?" Pam knew that Crystal regarded her new German "uncle and auntie" very highly. This served to calm her down a bit. "And, when we get back we'll all have a big birthday party for my new grandchild, I promise! I'm so proud of you, honey! You are the daughter I always wanted! Now, I need you to be strong for me. This is something I just gotta do!" They hugged again, and Crystal allowed as how she understood. Eventually Pam got her settled down enough to where she could leave her, still sniffly, but coming to grips with her mother-in-law's decision. As she left the house, Pam found Walt standing in the driveway, with a very dark look on his still young face.
Uh-oh, Pam thought, this isn't going to go well. Walt had listened silently to his mother explain about her dodo rescue mission. He had walked out without saying a word when Crystal's tears came. Pam's stomach clinched, no doubt her son was ready to have his say now. Here it comes . . .
"Way to go, Mom. Nice," he told her in well-practiced sarcastic tones. Pam was sure that he had been drinking some moonshine out in the garage.
"She'll be fine, Walt. I've got her calmed down. She's a strong girl." Pam stood up straight, meeting her son's eyes, so like her own.
"Yeah, right. Crystal lost everything coming through that fucking ring and now she's losing you, too, Momma Pam. Obviously, you don't give a shit." Walt glared at her, his flushed face full of disgust.
Pam took a deep breath. "I'm sorry you think that, Walt. You are wrong, of course. I care about Crystal and you, and your baby to be, very much. Even so, I am an adult and there are things I have to do— This is one of them. I'm sorry it doesn't fit into your plans for me."
"Oh yeah, sail halfway around the world to save some freaky looking bird that's too stupid to run away from hunters. And that is going to what? Somehow save the world from a new industrial revolution? Good fucking luck! What the hell does it matter anyway? This world is going to end up just as screwed up as the last one and there's nothing you can do about it."
"I'm very disappointed to hear you talk that way. I didn't think I'd raised such a negative person. I thought I'd taught you better than that."
"Yeah, like you were a ray of sunshine while I was growing up. What I remember is you were usually depressed, and only took a break from that to bitch at me about doing my homework. Now, there was a great waste of time, all that 'getting ready for college' is doing me a lot of good now, isn't it? They don't even have colleges back here in the dark ages. You made my life miserable for nothing!"
"Well, I am so sorry I wasn't some perfect Leave it to Beaver mom for you, Walt. God knows, your father wasn't exactly helping me any, nitpicking my every move. And actually they do have colleges here, not that you would know since you decided to make the Club 250 the extent of your down-time travels. Yeah, I wonder if Crystal knows about that? 'You're going to be home late from work again, Honey? Okay!' " That got under his skin, he had been starting to say something and stopped. Apparently what she had heard was true.
Pam continued. "Ya know, sometimes I don't love our new reality much either, but I've come to accept it. It's whatever you decide to make of it, and it most certainly is not the Dark Ages, which you would know if you had ever actually bothered to give one tiny shit about your education. As for wasting time, I can see now that is exactly what I was doing when I made you do your homework. Nothing in my power could possibly stop you from your chosen course of becoming an ignorant, grass-chewing redneck, destined to work the mines and die of black lung at age forty. Well, don't let me stop you now. You're a real hillbilly. I can see that. Go kick some cow pies for me. I've got better things to do."
"You self-righteous bitch. You've never loved anybody but yourself. It was always all about you."
Pam took a long look at her son and then in a lightning quick motion stepped up close to him while landing a swift, hard slap across his face. It was the first time she had ever applied a hand to him in his life.
"That's for thinking I don't love you, son." While Walt was stunned from the first blow, she slapped him again even harder. "And that's for not living up to your potential, for not even trying to. Crystal deserves better than what you have become. God, I hope you see it in time and get yourself right before it's too late." Pam held him in a long, piercing glare until he looked down at his shoes, his face red-hot with shame and pain, the fight all knocked out of him. Then she turned and walked away.
Well, that could have gone better. God's own truth is I should have done that a long time ago. She ignored the tears that streamed down her face as she marched back to her little pink house in the sunflowers. She was ready to go now.