Promises to Keep (2 page)

“I lived here fifty years,” she went on. “Fifty years this place was mine until I slipped on some ice last January and broke my hip. I landed in the hospital, and while I was down and out, the boys saw their chance. Maybe not Lyle so much, but Johnny and Paul . . .”

She shook her head. “Those rascals saw their chance. I told Ross to leave the house to me alone and not divide it up four ways between me and the boys, because I knew what they’d do with it eventually. Soon as Ross died they started talking about selling the place, saying I shouldn’t be living here by myself. My falling on the ice seemed to prove their point, and from the hospital I was taken to – ”

Her sentence hung unfinished as she pulled herself up from the chair. The newspaper dropped from her lap to the porch. Both she and Mom stared out at the street as a Pontiac station wagon – brown with a white roof, wings reaching back toward the taillights – coasted up to the front of the house and parked. A short stocky man in a raincoat and fedora stepped out of the car and made his way up the sidewalk. “I thought I’d find you here, Mother,” he said, approaching the porch steps.

“What’d you expect, Johnny?” She drew herself up straighter and lifted her chin. “This is my home. Where else should I be?”

“This isn’t your home anymore,” he said, coming right up onto the porch. He looked at Mom and took off his wet hat in a gesture of respect. “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said. “I’m very sorry about this. I’ve come to take Mother back to the home.”

“The home?” Mom asked.

“St. Claire’s Home for the Aged.”

“I’m sorry, I – We’re new in town. I – ”

“I don’t belong in any nursing home,” the old woman yelled, taking a step backward. “My hip has healed, and I’m as strong as I’ve ever been.”

The man held out his hand. “Now, Mother – ”

“You defied me, Johnny Monroe. My last wish was to die in this house – ”

“Now, Mother, don’t make trouble. We did what we thought was best – ”

“And I aim to die in this house, whether you like it or not!”

“Oh, great,” Wally said again with another glance at me. I shivered.

The man turned back to Mom. “I’m very sorry,” he repeated. “I’ll see to it this doesn’t happen again. Come on, Mother. Let’s go without making a scene.”

“No one was making a scene until you came along,” the old woman said.

Mom stepped to the door and nodded toward me. “Roz, go get Valerie out of her crib. Take her to the kitchen and give her some cereal.”

For the first time I realized Valerie was crying and had probably been crying for several minutes. But I didn’t go to her. I couldn’t take my eyes off the old woman and her son. One moment they were exchanging heated words and the next he had his arm around her shoulder and she was allowing him to lead her toward the porch steps.

Mom, to my surprise, unlaced her fingers and laid one hand gently on the old woman’s arm. “Wait,” she said.

The two strangers stopped and looked at Mom expectantly. “I – ”

Mom shook her head. She looked flustered. “What’s your name?”

The old woman’s eyes seemed to travel all over Mom’s face, looking for a place to rest. Finally she said, “My name is Tillie Monroe.” She said it with dignity, as though the name itself commanded respect.

Mom nodded slightly. “Well, Mrs. Monroe, I-I’m very sorry. Really I am.”

For a moment no one spoke. The old woman’s lips trembled, but she didn’t have any words for Mom in response. Then Johnny Monroe lifted his hat once again, bid Mom a good day, and led Tillie Monroe down the steps.

Mom, Wally, and I watched as the two of them walked together in the drizzling rain toward the car.

Mom stepped into the house, shut the door, and locked it. She looked at Wally and then at me. For some reason Valerie had stopped crying, and the house was quiet. “Well,” Mom said, “it’s a shame, but I’m sure her children knew what they were doing when they put her in the home. I don’t think this will happen again. Let’s go eat breakfast. Roz, go get Val up and get her ready to eat.”

Wally looked out the window. “You still want the paper, Mom?” From where we stood, we could see that a gust of wind had picked it up and scattered it in wet clumps across the yard.

“I guess we can do without the paper today,” she said. “Never much good news anyway, is there?” She offered Wally a tiny smile and moved down the hall to the kitchen.

I lingered a moment and watched as the station wagon pulled away from the curb. The strange woman’s profile was framed in the passenger window, and for a moment I almost felt sorry for the old lady who was being hauled back to the home against her will. It seemed a sad way to finish up a life.

“Roz,” Mom called from the kitchen, “I’m waiting on you to get Valerie. Breakfast is ready.”

“Can you believe our luck?” Wally said as he ambled down the hallway, his fists thrust deep in the pockets of his shorts. “We move into the one house in town where some crazy old lady wants to come and die.”

“Never mind, Wally,” Mom said. “She’s gone now, and I’m sure the nursing home will take extra precautions so she doesn’t get out again.”

Extra precautions or no, I had a feeling we hadn’t seen the last of Tillie Monroe.

chapter
2

The next morning the sun shone brightly, and Mom was in a rare good mood, humming as she stirred the oatmeal. I put Valerie in her high chair and was tying a bib around her neck while Wally, still in his pajamas, stumbled to the refrigerator and took a long swig of milk straight from the bottle.

“I’ve asked you not to do that, Wally,” Mom said. “Now, go put some clothes on and run outside and get the paper.”

Without a word my brother went back upstairs and came down wearing shorts and a T-shirt. “Do you think she’s out there?” he called from the hall.

“Let’s hope not,” Mom said.

But a moment later Wally’s voice reached us from the front door. “Mom, you’re not going to believe it.”

He didn’t have to tell us; we knew from the tone of his voice. Mom moved down the hall, looked out at the porch, and sighed. Putting a hand on her hip, she opened the door and said to Tillie Monroe, “Well, as long as you’re here, you might as well come in and have a cup of coffee.”

Tillie stood up and nodded. “Now you’re talking.”

She didn’t need to be shown the way to the kitchen; she strode right to it, her great legs scissoring down the uncarpeted hall, Mom and Wally following behind. I saw her coming like a tank rolling into a surrendered city, and I put one hand on Valerie’s shoulder protectively. With her big black shoes pounding against the kitchen’s linoleum floor, she marched to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat her ample self down with a grunt.

She had the morning paper in one hand, which she dropped on the table, front page up. “Westmoreland is asking for a hundred thousand more troops,” she exclaimed. “Can you believe it? He says we’re winning the war in Vietnam, as though any sane person is going to believe that.”

I stared at her wide-eyed, uncertain who she was talking to but fairly certain it wasn’t me. In fact, she didn’t seem to notice I was there. Instead, she locked on to Wally with a grave stare. “How old are you, boy?” she asked.

Wally hesitated, and his eyes narrowed. Finally he muttered, “Seventeen.”

“There’s still time, then. You got any relatives in Canada?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Shame,” Tillie said, clicking her tongue. “They’ll call you up and ship you out – ”

“I’ll enlist before they ever call me up,” Wally interrupted. “I can’t wait to go.”

“Merciful heavens!” Tillie Monroe cried, slapping the newspaper with an open hand. “Are you out of your young mind? We had no business getting involved in this pathetic excuse for a war in the first place.”

Across the kitchen, Mom looked stricken. She had poured two cups of coffee from the percolator and was carrying them on saucers to the table. She placed one cup in front of our guest.

“Let’s not talk about the war right now,” she said as she sat. “Do you take sugar and cream, Mrs. Monroe?”

Tillie Monroe nodded and accepted the sugar bowl and creamer that Mom slid toward her. “Thank you kindly, Mrs. . . .” She looked at Mom and cocked her head. “I don’t guess we’ve properly introduced ourselves. You know my name, but you haven’t told me yours.”

Mom took a sip of coffee and settled the cup back in the saucer. I could tell from the look on her face she was sorry she’d invited the woman in. She watched as Tillie Monroe added three spoonfuls of sugar to her coffee and enough cream to fill her cup right up to the lip and then some. When she stirred the coffee, it splashed over into the saucer.

Mom shook her head, sighed quietly, then said, “I’m Janis Anthony, and these are my children – ”

“The boy’s named Wally, right?” Tillie Monroe interrupted, still making waves in the coffee cup.

“Why, yes – ”

“I heard you call him by that name yesterday.” She seemed then to finally realize I was in the room. By then I had dished up a bowl of oatmeal for Valerie and another one for myself. I’d taken the seat at the table on the other side of her, opposite Mom. Wally was eating his cereal standing up, leaning against the counter. In my peripheral vision I saw Tillie’s round face turn to me, and I suddenly felt myself caught in the crosshairs of some great machine gun. “And what’s your name, little girl?” she asked.

The spoon in my hand came to a dead stop two inches from my open mouth. A distinct dislike for this intruder snaked its way up from the soles of my feet and into every nook and cranny of my body. I resented being called a little girl. Valerie at two was a little girl. I was eleven. Already I was shedding my little girl appearance and was proud of that fact. Every night and every morning I brushed my long wheat-colored hair until it shone, and whenever Mom was out of the house, I snuck into her bathroom to experiment with her makeup. Back in Minnesota Eddie Arrington had told me I was pretty, and I’d dared to dream that maybe someday he and I would end up dating, but our move to Mills River had put a swift end to any thoughts of Eddie.

As my oatmeal-laden spoon descended in retreat toward the bowl and my eyes rolled left toward Tillie, the old woman was already attacking me with a barrage of questions. “Well?” she asked. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

“Tell her your name, honey,” Mom urged impatiently.

“My name,” I said slowly, “is Roz.”

“Ross?” she sputtered. “That was my husband’s name. Ross Monroe. What kind of name is that for a little girl?”

Wally choked on some oatmeal, trying not to laugh, and that made me even angrier. Speaking even more slowly, as though to someone stupid, I said, “It’s not Ross. It’s Rozzzz.” I drew out the
z
for so long I sounded like a bumblebee in flight. When I stopped buzzing, I added, “With a
z
. It’s short for Rosalind.”

She looked at me a moment, her blue eyes staring out from behind those gray horn-rimmed glasses. She seemed to be deep in thought. Then she asked, “You spell Rosalind with a
z
?”

“No.” I shook my head. “With an
s
.”

“Then why do you spell Roz with a
z
?”

An unmistakable sensation of heat moved up my neck and fanned out across my cheeks. In my mind I was picturing Tillie Monroe with oatmeal splashed across her floral print dress, and Mom must have somehow seen the image projected on my face, because she stood abruptly and said, “Can I pour you some more coffee, Mrs. Monroe?”

Mom’s question managed to pull the old woman’s attention away from me and on to more pressing issues. “Yes, please,” she said, lifting her cup to Mom. “And a bowl of oatmeal too, if you don’t mind. Heavy on the brown sugar, with a dab of butter and cream.”

Mom, with a barely concealed lift of her brows, moved away from the table to fill Tillie’s order. Tillie sat back in her chair and let off a sigh of satisfaction. She opened the napkin at her place and laid it across her lap, then looked around the room and asked, “So where’s the mister?”

Mom lurched stiffly at the question, as though she’d been slapped across the shoulder blades with a broom handle. Before she could answer, Wally spoke up. “There is no mister. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Now, Wally – ” Mom started.

Tillie interrupted with a wave of her hand. “Say no more,” she said. “The boy’s right. Whatever happened between you and the former man of the house is not my business.”

The room became quiet. Valerie had finished her oatmeal and was getting fidgety, so I took her out of the high chair and settled her in my lap. She leaned her head against my shoulder and stuck her thumb into her mouth. We were trying to break her of the habit, but I figured if it kept her quiet, she could go ahead and suck her thumb for now.

Mom came back to the table with the bowl of oatmeal and the second cup of coffee. Tillie nodded. She looked around the room again, taking in each of us one at a time. “Well, if anyone has to live in my house, it might as well be nice folks like you.”

Wally crossed his arms. “It’s not your house anymore.”

“Wally – ”

“Well, it isn’t, Mom. She can’t come barging in here like she owns the place, ordering you around and – ”

“Wally, please – ”

Tillie lifted a hand again, the conversational traffic cop. “Young man, I know how you feel – ”

“No you don’t – ”

“You think I’m some demented old lady who can’t accept the fact that her home has been sold.”

“Well, yeah – ”

“Sold right out from under her by her own sons – ”

“Now, Mrs. Monroe,” Mom broke in, “we had no idea. I mean, the house was vacant. It was on the market.”

“Of course it was. But against my wishes. I wanted to die in this house, and obviously, I’m not dead yet.”

“Nevertheless, Mrs. Monroe, the house
has
been sold. To me. I am the legal owner now.”

“But, you see, there’s only this one more thing I have to do. Only one. And it won’t be long now. I can promise you that.”

Tillie Monroe and Mom stared at each other for what seemed a long time. Tillie’s gaze was one of determined pleading; Mom’s, complete bewilderment. Finally Mom asked, “How can you say such a thing?”