Promises to Keep
promises
to
keep
ANN TATLOCK
© 2011 by Ann Tatlock
Published by Bethany House Publishers
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287.
E-book edition created 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-1474-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC
To Mike and Kris Sullivan
Who have blessed me more than I can say
Contents
We hadn’t lived in the house on McDowell Street for even a week when we found a stranger on the porch, reading the morning paper. Wally saw her first, since it was his job to fetch the newspaper from the low-lying branches of the blue spruce, where the paper boy always tossed it. I was in the kitchen setting the table, and from there I could see Wally – tall and lanky and bare-chested in the summer heat – move down the hall toward the front door. He was grumbling about the rain as the soles of his feet slapped against the hardwood floor. He reached for the doorknob, then stopped abruptly. In the next moment he hollered back toward the kitchen, “Mom, there’s an old lady out on the porch.”
Mom was frying bacon at the stove. She jabbed at the sizzling pan with a spatula and hollered back, “What’s she want? Is she selling something?”
“I don’t think so,” Wally said. “She’s just sitting there reading the paper.”
“
Our
paper?”
“Well, yeah. I think it’s our paper.”
“What now?” Mom muttered as she moved the frying pan off the burner and untied her apron. When she turned around, I saw the flash of fear in her eyes. It was a look I was used to; it showed up on Mom’s face whenever she didn’t know what was coming next, which happened a lot in our old house in Minnesota. But not because of strangers.
Mom laid the apron over a chair, smoothed back her blond hair, and ran the palms of her hands over the wrinkles in her housedress. At the same time she tried to smooth the wrinkles in her brow enough to look confident. I followed her from the kitchen to the front door, where Wally stood so close to the window the tip of his nose touched the glass. “Can you believe it?” he said quietly. “She’s just sitting there like she owns the place or something.”
Mom raised one hand to her lips in quiet hesitation. Meanwhile, I slipped to the living room window and peered out from behind the curtain, finding myself only inches from our uninvited guest. At first glance she was one huge floral-print dress straining the straps of the folding lawn chair on the porch. Her legs were propped up on the railing, and her bulky black tie shoes dangled like dead weight over the lilac bush below. I couldn’t see much of her face, just a small slice of fleshy cheek and the bulbous end of a generous nose, a pair of gray-rimmed glasses and a mass of white hair knotted at the back of her head. She was reading the Sunday comics, and something must have tickled her because she laughed out loud.
That howl of glee sent enough of a jolt through Mom to get her going. She gently pulled Wally away from the door and swung it open. She pushed open the screen door and stepped outside. I saw the old woman’s head bob once, as though to acknowledge Mom’s presence.
“Can I help you?” Mom asked. Her voice was strained, the way it sounded when she was trying not to yell at one of us kids. She waited a few seconds. Then, a little more exasperated, she repeated, “Can I help you with something?”
The stranger folded the paper and settled it in her lap. “No, dear, I don’t think so.” The corner of her mouth turned up in a small smile. “But thank you just the same.”
Mom stiffened at that, and all her features seemed to move toward the center of her face. “Well,” she said, “may I ask what you’re doing on my porch?”
“Just sitting awhile,” the old woman said, as though she’d been found passing the time of day on a public bench. “Anyway,” she went on, “it’s not your porch. It’s mine.”
“Uh-oh,” Wally whispered in my direction. “She’s one of those crazies. You’d better go keep an eye on Valerie.”
But I didn’t want to go keep an eye on Valerie. I wanted to stay right where I was and watch Mom talk with the crazy lady.
Mom looked off toward the street like she was hoping someone would walk by and help her, but it was early Sunday morning and the streets were quiet, save for one lone soot-colored cat slinking along the sidewalk in the misty rain.
Finally Mom turned back to the stranger and said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, and if you don’t, I will call the police.”
The old lady pulled her feet off the railing, and I thought maybe she was going to stand up and leave, but she didn’t. Instead, she said quietly, “Well now, I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“You don’t give me any choice. You’re trespassing on private property.”
“I might say the same for you.”
Mom’s eyes widened. “What do you mean by that?”
“The law might say you own this house, but it’ll always be mine.”
“Mom,” Wally hollered though the screen, “you want me to call the cops?”
Mom latched her hands together at her waist and squeezed her fingers together. “Not yet, Wally. Just hold on.” To the woman, she said, “I want to give you the chance to leave peacefully.”
The old woman wasn’t looking at Mom anymore. Now she was looking out at the street, but I had the feeling she wasn’t seeing the street but something else altogether.
When she spoke, her voice was low and even. “My husband built this house for me in 1917. Built it with his own hands. And you see these two hands here?”
The woman held up her hands, large as any man’s. Mom nodded reluctantly.
“These hands helped him. I laid flooring, plastered tile, painted the rooms, hung wallpaper. We built this place together, Ross and I.”
A small muscle worked in Mom’s jaw. “I see.”
“I came here as a bride, twenty years old. Had my babies here. Lived here all my married life. Watched my husband die in our bedroom upstairs.”
“Oh, great,” Wally said, glancing at me. “Some old guy croaked upstairs.”
Though he said it loud enough for the woman to hear, she ignored him and kept on talking. “My heart is in every piece of wood and every nail. For that matter, so is my sweat. I believe they call that sweat equity. There’s so much of me in this house, you’ll never get it out. You might live here now, but this house – it’ll always belong to me.”
Mom was chewing her lower lip by now, and her eyes were small. Her knuckles had turned white because she was squeezing her hands together so hard. I knew exactly what she was thinking. I knew she was thinking about our old life in Minneapolis and how this place in Mills River, Illinois, was our new life, and she may have even been thinking of those words she said to me that first night after we moved in:
“We’re safe now, Roz. We don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
She had worked and planned for a long time, until finally, with the help of her father, Grandpa Lehman, she’d got us out of Minnesota and away from Daddy. And now, only days into our new life, some crazy woman showed up making trouble.