I’m Pam Moore, Turner’s mom and Brad’s wife. I never really asked for either of those roles. My father got his old-fashioned traditions from his father, who got them from his father. That meant men ruled the world, and women had to ask for permission to succeed. That’s not how I felt about things.
My dad never wanted me. He wanted a boy to pass on the family business and carry on the bloodline – so old fashioned of him. So I had to make my own way and be successful on my own. Lord knows my mother had bent to being the dutiful housewife and mother my father’s way dictated. I did everything I could to stand against it.
When he told me I wouldn’t be inheriting the business until after I was married to a worthy man, I lost it. I had been captain of the swim team, a straight-A student, and everything else a parent could want in a top-performing child of any sex. Again, I put my foot down. I told him that if that were the case, I wouldn’t be getting married at all and he would either have to close the business or pass it to me as would be my right as the only child. He didn’t say a word, only huffed and stormed away.
My fragile mother came to plead me to change my mind. I wouldn’t. I had only just started college and wasn’t looking to get married anyway. Then my father burst in. He told my mother to get out, and she dutifully shuffled away in front of my dad’s glaring eyes. She was such a mouse of a woman. Just about as disgusting as my father’s old-fashioned ways.
Then the old man showed ever more of his contempt for women. “Pamela, I’ve decided.”
“Decided what, Father?” I said. I still had to play the subservient role now and again, but I always added some spice, as he called it. Then he dropped the bomb. “I will arrange a marriage for you.” I think my eyes popped out of my head and surely my jaw hit the floor. This was the most ancient thinking I had heard him spout in my life. “Arranged marriage? Ha! You won’t find a man good enough.” He rambled on and on about there being plenty of men good enough to take on this family and its business, and who would assure to give him grandchildren to carry on the traditions and family business.
“You most certainly will not! You can’t force me to marry anyone.” Okay, I was 19, I probably didn’t say “certainly,” but you know what I mean. He was not going to be running my life this way. Then, then he told me he had found some qualifying – qualifying! men to suit the role already. “And who might they be, Father?” He said he was still working on it, and there would be a testing period for each one. He wanted to know the boy was serious, that he wasn’t just in it for the money or control. My father never wanted love for me, just a weaker man he could force his ‘traditional’ values on, one that would keep me home barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen while the man ran our lives.
I was having none of that. I questioned him again about who they were. He said the first one was arriving soon. “Soon? Like, today?” I asked. He said yes with the straightest poker face, even a professional would have been jealous. He told me to make myself pretty and be downstairs in the living room in an hour. I decided to play along. I showered, dressed in my least favorite dress, slapped some makeup on, and prepared to be auctioned off like a pig.
Just as I got downstairs, the doorbell rang. I ignored it and went into the living room while the housekeeper answered the door. “Hello, Master Valentine,” I heard the housekeeper say. Jim? Seriously? My father was trying to set me up with him? I liked Jim and all, but he and Emily had been all over each other for the past ten years. How could he have even agreed? Whatever. Jim and I sat and had a late lunch and talked about Emily. He was going to propose soon. I asked why he was here and he said he heard his father talking about it and asked to be ‘considered’. It was his way of getting to me so he could tell me and show me the ring. It was beautiful. I knew she’d love it.
I could go on until I get to the prize I actually won, but that would take too long. So now you know why I am the way I am. If you don’t like it, oh well. Maybe you’ll learn more if you read the book coming out about my family’s life in just a couple months.
I know the author likes to interact with her fans on Facebook, so maybe you should go there and ask more if you really want to know.