Promises to Keep (20 page)
I turned my face away from Mom and shut my eyes.
“Roz, someday you’ll understand, and you’ll forgive me for leaving him.”
She kissed my cheek, rose from the bed, and left me to ponder what I was sure I would never understand.
Halloween night was cold but clear. In the early evening Mom bundled Valerie up, strapped a dime-store Cinderella mask over her face, and told Wally to keep an eye on her as she went around trick-or-treating. To everyone’s surprise Wally didn’t complain about taking a two-year-old up and down the streets of our neighborhood. My guess was that he wanted some of her candy at the end of the night. So did I, and I hoped she would share, as I wouldn’t be getting any of my own.
Wrapped in a blanket on the couch in the living room, I watched my brother and little sister walk hand in hand down our driveway toward the street. I sucked on a Popsicle to soothe my sore throat, but even more painful was the wedge of self-pity caught in my chest. If only I’d gotten my tonsils out after Halloween, I could have been the one trick-or-treating with Valerie.
They turned left at the sidewalk, and in another moment they were gone. I was just on the edge of crying over the unfairness of it all when I saw Mara turn up the walkway to our house. Mom met her at the door and let her in.
“Hi, Mara,” Mom said. “Where’s your costume and goody bag? Aren’t you out trick-or-treating?”
“Oh no, Mrs. Anthony. I’m not doing that this year. I’ve come over to be with Roz because I know she can’t go out.”
“How sweet of you. Come on in. She’s resting on the couch.”
When Mara stepped into the living room, her eyes shone, and she offered me a wide toothy smile. She looked like she had a secret she wanted to tell me before she burst.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said.
She shrugged and sat down beside me. “Why not?”
“Don’t you want to go out trick-or-treating?”
“Naw, not really.”
Mom, who’d followed Mara into the room, asked, “Can I get you something to drink, Mara? A soda or something?”
“No thanks, Mrs. Anthony. I’m fine.”
“All right – oh, there goes the doorbell. The ghosts and goblins are starting to make the rounds.” She gave a small laugh as she headed back to the door.
Mara drew her long legs up on the couch. By now I’d finished my Popsicle and laid the stick on a napkin on the coffee table. Pulling the blanket more tightly around me, I leaned toward her and said, “So what’s up? You look like you just won a million dollars or something.”
She glanced toward the hallway, then back at me. Quietly she said, “It’s Daddy.”
“Yeah? What about him?”
“On Sunday night’s show, he signed off with a different message.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. This time, instead of saying ‘Sweet dreams’ like he always does, he said ‘Good night, Beatrice. May all your dreams come true.’ ”
She gave me a long knowing look, as though I should understand what this change meant. “Well . . .” I began, uncertain how to go on.
“May all your dreams come true,” Mara repeated. “Don’t you get it?”
“Not really.”
She frowned at me then, like she was a teacher and I was a dimwitted student. “Think about it, Roz. What’s my biggest dream?”
“To be a writer?”
“I mean, besides that.”
“To meet your father.”
“Yup, that’s it!” She nodded, finally looking satisfied.
I was still confused. “So?”
“Well, don’t you get it, dummy? He wants to meet me too, and he’s telling me now’s the time.”
“He is?”
Mara nodded once more. “My mama promised me – ”
“Which mama?”
“My real mama.”
“Your sister?”
“Yeah, my sister Celia, my real mother.”
“All right.”
“She promised me one day I’d meet my daddy. She said the last thing they did was make a pledge about it. They promised each other I’d meet him when the time was right.”
“And you think now’s the time?”
“Yeah, I do. Celia always told me that when I was old enough, I could meet him. Next month I’ll be twelve. That’s old enough.”
“And you think he wants to meet you now? You think that’s what he was trying to tell you?”
“I’m sure of it.” Mara hugged her knees and looked dreamy. “I can feel it in my bones.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask Celia if she can arrange it.”
“What if she says no?”
“She won’t. I know she won’t.”
I leaned back against the couch cushions, trying to take it all in. I was happy for Mara, but at the same time the lump of self-pity in my chest grew larger. I envied Mara. We had only just made our Daddy Deal, and already fate seemed to be acting in her favor.
“When do you think you’ll see him?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Celia will have to make all the plans.”
“Will she go with you?”
“No, she can’t. Not with the new baby. And anyway – ” she paused, dropping her gaze to her knees – “she said she didn’t think she could ever see William Remmick again. Not because she’s mad at him but because . . . well, you know, sometimes it’s hard to forget.”
I thought about that for a moment. Then I asked, “Because she still loves him?”
Mara nodded silently.
“What about her husband?”
“She says she loves him too, but it’s not the same. So she can’t ever see my daddy again.”
I pressed my lips together and looked out the window at the darkening night. “I think that’s the saddest thing I ever heard,” I whispered.
“Me too.”
“Why can’t people just fall in love and be together?”
“I don’t know,” Mara said. “I hope I never know what it’s like.” She lifted a hand and held out her pinkie toward me. “Listen, Roz, promise me you’ll pray every day that I can see my daddy soon. Not just soon, but I mean, before the end of the year.”
I curled my pinkie around hers and squeezed. “I promise.”
The doorbell rang again, and trick-or-treaters came and went while Mara and I talked together on the couch. Tillie came and brought us root beer floats and asked after the Nightingales and Willie and Hester’s new little grandson – whom Tillie called Mara’s nephew, though he was really her half brother. Mara took the confusion of her family life in stride and was able to remember who was what without a hitch. Though I envied Mara because she might get to meet her daddy, I was glad that the woman I called Mom was in fact my mother and not my grandmother, who, incidentally, was already dead. At least the people in my life were who they said they were, and that made everything far more simple.
After a time Mara said quietly, “Have you heard anything else from
your
daddy?”
I shook my head. “Nothing since Hot Diggity Dog.”
“Does he know you had your tonsils out?”
“Yeah. He knows. I told him when I saw him at the café.”
“I thought maybe he’d send you a get-well card or something.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how he’d get it to me. I’ve been here at home ever since I got out of the hospital.”
“Oh yeah. I guess he can’t exactly show up at your house and give you a card.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “If he did that and Wally was home, Wally would kill him.”
“Really? Wally would kill him?”
“That’s what he said.”
“He hates your daddy that much?”
“Yeah. Well, like I told you before, he’s not Wally’s father. He’s Wally’s stepfather. I bet Wally hated him even before he married Mom. Most kids hate their stepparents, you know, just because they’re not their real parents.”
Mara stared at me while loudly slurping the last of the root beer at the bottom of her glass. Then she said, “Aunt Josie came over the other day to visit with Mama – ”
“Your grandma?”
She nodded. “And Aunt Josie started talking about some girl she works with and how she thinks the girl has found herself a sugar daddy.” She stopped and frowned at me.
I waited. Then I said, “So?”
“I didn’t know what she meant, so I asked her, and she said never mind, I wasn’t meant to hear what she’d said. Later I called my cousin Bernadette, because she knows everything, and when I asked her what a sugar daddy was, she said she couldn’t tell me because it was something ugly. I begged her to tell me, and she said all she was going to tell me was that it was something between old men and young girls, and if anyone ever wanted to be my sugar daddy, I should run.”
A shiver ran through me. Whispering, I asked, “What do you think it means?”
She looked away and drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know for sure, Roz, but I think a sugar daddy is someone who’s only going to hurt you in the end.”
She kept her gaze out the window, as though she didn’t want to look at me. I paused only a moment before blurting, “You’re talking about my daddy, aren’t you? You think something bad’s going to happen because of Daddy.”
“I’m not saying that, Roz.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Lips a taut line, she blinked several times. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “Just be careful.”
I shut my eyes and leaned my head against the couch with an exaggerated sigh. “I know, Mara, I know. You told me that already, remember?”
“Yeah, but – ”
“And then I met Daddy at the café, and everything was fine. Better than fine. Everything was good.”
“I know, but – ”
The doorbell rang again, interrupting Mara and ending our conversation. It was Willie Nightingale, here to pick her up. I peeked through half-closed lids when Mara said, “Hi, Daddy!”
“Time to get on home now, baby. School tomorrow.” The huge man fidgeted in the hallway like a lumbering bear, hat in hand.
“All right, Daddy. I’m coming.” She turned back to me, gave me her bright smile. “Bye, Roz.”
I lifted one hand in farewell, and then she was gone. Heavy with fatigue and sadness both, I drifted off to sleep. Sometime later I was only vaguely aware of Wally and Valerie coming home, and of Tillie carrying a tired and cranky Cinderella upstairs to bed. I slept some more, snuggled in the blanket, one cheek pressed against the floral pattern of the couch. Next I knew, Mom was tugging gently at my hand, saying, “Come on, honey. Off to bed. It’s getting late.”
I groaned and slowly unfolded myself from the cushions. Mom put an arm around me to guide me up the stairs. We were halfway up when the doorbell rang.
“Can you believe it?” Mom said with a small click of her tongue. “Almost ten o’clock and the ghosts are still making the rounds.”
“I’ll get it, Mom.” Wally’s voice drifted up to us from somewhere. The front door opened, a gust of cold air rushed in, then Wally’s voice again. “There’s no one . . . oh, wait a minute. Someone left a paper bag with Roz’s name on it.”
“For heaven’s sake . . .” Mom started, though her voice trailed off as Wally met us on the staircase and handed me the bag. I sat down on a step and opened it. My eyes widened at the treasure inside, every kind of candy imaginable, including at least a dozen Sugar Daddies and, on top of everything, a red silk rose.
“Who do you suppose left it?” Mom asked.
I looked up at her and lied. “Probably Mara. Who else?”
She didn’t look convinced, but I could hardly tell her our final visitor was a ghost from her past, who seemed to me at that moment like the very best daddy in the world.
Tillie sat alone in her room, laughing out loud and slapping the arm of her padded rocking chair with an open hand. I paused in her doorway and frowned at her. “Tillie?” I finally called.
She turned and, wiping tears from her eyes, said, “Oh, Roz, come on in. Have a seat. Butter mint?”
I moved across the room and took a mint from the candy dish. Then I pulled the desk chair over and sat down beside Tillie. “What’s so funny?” I asked. Popping the mint into my mouth, I savored its sweetness and the fact that I could swallow without pain. Ten days after surgery, I was back to normal.
Tillie laid a hand across her chest, taking a moment to catch her breath. “I was thinking about Valerie, what she said just now when I was putting her to bed.”
“Yeah? What’d she say?”
“Well, I’m teaching her to pray the ‘Our Father,’ but she hasn’t quite mastered it yet. Instead of saying ‘Our Father, who art in heaven,’ do you know what she said?”
I shook my head. I didn’t have a clue.
Tillie laughed again, a laugh so powerful I thought she might wake up not only Valerie but every other slumbering kid in the neighborhood too.
“She said – ” more wiping of tears and amused sighs – “she said, ‘Our Father, it’s hot in heaven’!”
Another shriek followed, and I tried to join her, but I could only summon up a chuckle. Valerie’s mistake didn’t seem all that hilarious to me. By now Tillie was waving one hand in front of her face like a fan, as though the heat from Valerie’s prayer were warming her.
“I told her, I said, ‘Valerie, honey, you’ve got the wrong place.’ ”
I reached for another butter mint, pressed it against my tongue, looked at Tillie in quiet admiration. I liked the way she was so easily entertained.
She took one more deep breath, sighed heavily, then smiled at me. In the next moment, though, the smile disappeared as her eyebrows met over the bridge of her nose. “Roz, you don’t know the Lord’s Prayer, do you?”
I shook my head and shrugged.
“No, I didn’t think you would, since your mother doesn’t take you to church. Pity.”
“What’s a pity, Tillie?” I mumbled around the mint.
“Why, that you don’t go to church, and you don’t know how to pray.”
“But I know how to pray.”
“You do?”
“Sure.” Every day I prayed the same prayer:
Dear God, please give Mara and me our daddies back.
I had promised Mara I’d do it, and I was trying to keep my promise.
“I’ve asked your mother to come to church with me and to bring you kids along, but she’ll have none of it.”
“But we used to go – ”
I stopped as a memory flashed across my mind. Mom, dressed for church, trying to get out the door; Dad, in a drunken rage at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, yelling, swearing, fists flying . . .