Promise Me (2 page)

When I was a little girl, my mother told me that everyone has a secret. I suppose she was right. My name is Beth and this is the story of my secret. This is not where my story begins. Nor is this where it ends. This is, hopefully, where it is fulfilled.

It is Christmas Eve of 2008. The evening sky is flocked with wisps of snowflakes that meander indecisively from the sky like the floating seeds of cottonwoods. Our beautiful home in the canyon is aglow, lit in golden hues and decorated both inside and out for the season. It is cozy inside. There is a blazing flame in the living room fireplace beneath a dated family portrait, and a carved, wooden mantel crowded with our collection of German Steinbach Nutcrackers.

The smell of pine needles, scented candles and wassail fills the house along with the smells of Kevin's cooking. Kevin is my husband and on Christmas Eve it is
his
kitchen—a tradition begun seven Christmases ago that hopefully will never end.

The sweet, familiar peace of Christmas hymns provide a soundtrack to the evening. Everything is in place. Everything is perfect. It has to be. I've waited eighteen years for this night.
We are waiting to be joined by our evening's guests, our old friends Roxanne and Ray Coates, and our daughter Charlotte and her husband.

While Kevin finishes the last of his preparations, I'm upstairs in the master bathroom trying to compose myself, hoping that no one will notice that I've been crying.

Alone with my thoughts, I take down an old, cedar jewelry box from the top back shelf of my closet. I don't remember how long it's been since I've opened the box, but it is covered with dust. I set it on the bathroom counter and pull back its lid to expose the crushed red velvet interior and the single piece of jewelry inside—a delicate cameo pendant with the profile of an elegant woman carved into shell. The image is set in a gold bezel on a fine gold chain. I lift the necklace from the box. It's been many years since I've looked at it—many more since he gave it to me. There's a reason I don't wear the necklace. It holds so many feelings it would be like carrying an anvil around my neck. Already, just looking at it, I feel that weight as it opens a part of my mind I have kept closed: the evening in Capri when he kissed me and softly draped it around my neck. It was a different time, a different world, but the tears fall down my cheeks now just as they did then.

I fasten the necklace and look at myself in the mirror. I'm much older than I was the first time I wore it. It's hard to believe that eighteen years have passed.

For all those years I have carried a secret that I couldn't
share with anyone. No one would believe me if I told them. No one would understand. No one except the man I share my secret with. For eighteen years even he hasn't remembered. Tonight that may change. Tonight time has caught up to itself. I know this doesn't make sense to you now, but it will.

My story actually began in 1989. There are years of our lives that come and go and barely leave an imprint, but, for me, 1989 wasn't one of them. It was a hard year, and by hard I don't mean a day at the DMV, I mean
Siberian Winter hard
, one I barely survived and would never forget, as much as I wanted to.

It was the end of a decade and an era. It was a year of contrasts, of
Field of Dreams
and
Satanic Verses
. There were remarkable historic events that closed out the decade—the falling of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square massacre. There were a few notable passings as well: Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, and Irving Berlin died. My first husband, Marc, died as well, but that's all I'll say about that now. You'll understand why later.

I have loved three men in my life. I was married to Marc for seven years and I've been married to Kevin for twelve. But there was a man in between—a man I will always love—but a love that could never be. It was a little more than two months after Marc's death, on Christmas Day, that he came into my life and changed nearly every reality of my existence.
How he came into my life and where he went is not easy to explain, but I'll do my best.

I've heard it said that reality is nothing but a collective dream. My story may challenge what you believe about heaven and earth. Or not. The truth is, you probably won't believe my story. I don't blame you. In the last eighteen years I've had plenty of time to think this over and honestly, had I not experienced it myself, I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't believe it either.

No matter. Tonight the silence may end. Tonight someone may share the secret with me, and even if no one else will ever know or believe what I've lived through, it's enough that I don't have to carry this alone. Maybe. Tonight, in just a few hours, I'll know for sure.

There are days that live in infamy, for individuals as well as nations. February 12, 1989, was my personal equivalent of Pearl Harbor Day or September 11.

Beth Cardall's Diary

My life was never perfect, but up until February 12, it was pretty darn close. At least I thought it was. My husband Marc had been out of town for several weeks and had arrived home at around three in the morning. I heard him come into our room, undress and climb into bed. I rolled over, kissed him and put my arms around him. “I'm glad you're home.”

“Me too.”

I wasn't really cut out to be a salesman's wife. My idea of marriage is someone to share the weekdays with as well as the weekends. Most of all I hate sleeping alone. You would think that after five years I would have gotten used to it, but I hadn't. I never did.

Marc was still asleep when the radio-alarm went off three and a half hours later. I shut off the alarm, rolled over and held to his warm body for a few minutes, then kissed him on the neck and climbed out of bed. I got myself ready for the day, then woke our six-year-old daughter Charlotte, made her breakfast and drove her to school.

It was a routine I had grown accustomed to over the last six months, ever since Charlotte started the first grade and
I went back to work. With Marc on the road more often than not, I had become rather independent in my routine. I dropped Charlotte off at school, then went straight to my job at Prompt Cleaners—a dry cleaner about a mile and a half from our home in Holladay, Utah.

Marc made enough for us to live on, though not by much, and money was always tight. I worked to build us a financial cushion and for extras, as well as to get myself out of the house when Charlotte was at school. I'm not really a career gal, and I doubt working at a dry cleaner qualifies as such, but being cooped up in the house all day alone always made me a little crazy.

I had been at work a little over an hour and was in the back pressing suits when Roxanne came back to call me to the phone. She waved at me to get my attention. “Beth, it's for you. It's Charlotte's school.”

Roxanne—or Rox, as she liked to be called—was my best friend at work. Actually, she was my best friend anywhere. She was thirty-eight, ten years older than I, small, five feet one, pencil-skinny and looked a little like Pat Benatar—whom you wouldn't know if you didn't do the eighties. She was from a small southern Utah town called Hurricane (pronounced Hurr-i-cun by the locals), and she spoke with a Hurricane accent, a slight, excited drawl, and used terms of endearment like rappers use curse words and with nearly the same frequency.

She'd been married for eighteen years to Ray, a short, barrel-chested man who worked for the phone company and sometimes moonlighted at a guard shack in a condominium
development. She had one child, Jan, who was a blond, sixteen-year-old version of her mother. Jan was also Charlotte's and my favorite babysitter.

I love Roxanne. She's one of those people heaven too infrequently sends to earth—a joyful combination of lunacy and grace. She was my friend, sage, comic relief, confidante, Prozac and guardian angel all rolled up into one tight little frame. Everyone should have a friend like Roxanne.

“You heard me, darlin'?” she repeated. “Phone.”

“Got it,” I shouted over the hiss of the steam press. I hung up the jacket I was working on, then walked up front. “It's the school?”

Roxanne handed me the phone. “That's what the lady said.”

I pulled back my hair and put the receiver to my ear. “Hello, this is Beth.”

A young, female voice said, “Mrs. Cardall, this is Angela, I'm the school nurse at Hugo Reid Elementary. Your little Charlotte has been complaining of headaches and an upset stomach. She's here in my room lying down. I think she probably needs to come home.”

I was surprised, as Charlotte was feeling perfectly fine an hour earlier when I dropped her off. “Okay. Sure. I'm at work right now, but my husband's home. One of us will be there within a half hour. May I talk to Charlotte?”

“Of course.”

A moment later Charlotte's voice came softly from the phone. “Mommy?”

“Hi, sweetheart.”

“I don't feel good.”

“I'm sorry, honey. Daddy or I will come get you. We'll be there soon.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you too, Mommy. Bye.”

I hung up the phone. Roxanne looked over at me from the cash register. “Is everything okay?”