Promises to Keep (21 page)
I jumped up from the chair and walked to the window.
“What’s the matter, Roz?” Tillie asked.
“Nothing.” I pressed my forehead against the chilly glass, my breath forming a cloud on the windowpane. The night was dark and starless, as though a curtain had been drawn across the world.
“I can tell you this much, Roz,” Tillie said. “God answers prayer.”
I turned around. “Yeah?”
“I’ve been praying Lyle would come home, and I got my answer today.”
“Lyle?”
“My son. The one who lives in Bolivia.”
I had to think a moment. Then, “Oh yeah. I remember. He has malaria.”
“Not anymore, he doesn’t. He’s better now. But he’s decided to come on back to Illinois and look for work here, sometime after the first of the year. Oh, I know, it was a selfish prayer.” She paused a moment, rocking herself gently. “I should have been satisfied for him to stay in Bolivia if that’s where God wanted him. But I had to ask anyway, just to see if I could have a little more time with him. Of course, I didn’t tell Lyle I was praying for him to come home, but sure enough, he believes God’s calling him to return to the States. He doesn’t know why, but frankly, I don’t care why. I’m concerned with the what, and the what is: I’ll get to be near my son again. At least for a little while, before God calls
me
home. You know . . .” She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling and nodded. “I suspect he’ll be calling me soon. Any day now, maybe. Though I hope it’s after Lyle gets back.”
“But . . . you can’t go yet, Tillie.”
“I can’t?”
I shook my head. “Mom needs you.”
“Ah.” Tillie waved a hand. “Your mother will be all right. I won’t go until she’s taken care of.”
“What do you mean, taken care of ?”
“I don’t know. Only God knows that.”
“You think she’s going to marry Tom Barrows, don’t you?”
“Roz, honey, I don’t know what God has in store for your mother. I’m afraid I’m not privy to his plans.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be God’s decision anyway, it would be Mom’s, and I hope she doesn’t decide to marry him.”
“Well now, that’s not a very nice thing to hope for, if marrying Tom would make her happy.”
I crossed my arms and turned back to the window.
“Tillie?”
“Yes, child?”
“If I pray for something, like you did, will God give it to me?”
“I don’t know, Roz. He doesn’t always give us what we think we want. Can you tell me what it is you’re praying for?”
“No.” My word sounded angry and abrupt, so I added, “I can’t tell you, Tillie. Not yet.”
“Fair enough. Is it a good thing, whatever it is?”
I turned around again. “Oh yes. It’s a very good thing.”
She nodded, satisfied. “Then maybe God will say yes.”
“The way he said yes to Lyle coming back, right?”
“I suppose so. I – Oh, there goes the phone. I’d better get it.” She pushed herself up from the chair, straightened her skirt, and headed for the door. “Your mother is trying to take a bubble bath and have a few minutes of peace and quiet. Heaven knows she deserves some little luxuries, the way she stands on her feet all day. . . .”
Tillie was still muttering to herself as she disappeared into the hall to pick up the extension there.
The cold night air entered as though by osmosis through the windowpane, and I shivered. Turning to go, I saw the baseball bat that Tillie kept beside her bed, a memento of her son Paul’s athletic days. It looked strange and out of place in the midst of her lace curtains, her wedding quilt, her framed photographs, and all the rest of her frilly adornments, but since it was a family treasure of sorts, I decided it had as much right to be there as anything else.
I reached for it and grasped it with one hand while rubbing its long smooth neck with the other. I struck a batter’s pose, bat resting on my right shoulder, knees bent, elbows out. I waited for the pitch, my right foot nervously pawing the ground, a missile of imaginary spit firing off my tongue and sailing over my left shoulder. Here it comes, a curve ball, and yet no ordinary leather ball. Instead, a memory – my father’s angry face, angry words, angry fist – soaring through the air, coming at me with great speed.
Thwack!
And there it goes, soaring through the sky beyond the outfield, disappearing somewhere in the far reaches of the stadium. And it’s a home run, folks, a home run! Will you look at that! The organist up in the stands starts pounding the keys – da da da
dat
da
da
!
–
and the crowd goes wild.
But wait a minute, she’s up at bat again. She’s got her hawklike eyes on the pitcher, her primary opponent up there on the mound. He slaps the ball against his glove, draws back, leg up, releasing his ammunition at such a fierce rate it’s almost too much for the human eye to see. But
she
sees it. Oh yes,
she
sees the face of Tom Barrows hurling toward her like a great crashing meteor until . . .
Pow!
And it’s out of the ball park, folks! This is amazing, unbelievable! Tom Barrows is out of the ball park, out of the picture. He’ll never be seen again!
“What on earth are you doing, Roz?”
Tillie stood in the doorway, hands on hips.
I sheepishly lowered the bat and bit my lower lip. “Nothing.”
The look on her face told me she didn’t believe me, as though she herself had seen Tom Barrows cannonballing through the air and out of our lives.
“Well, it’s getting late,” she said. “Why don’t you go on to bed.”
I returned the bat to its place and slunk across the room. “All right, Tillie. Good night.”
“Good night, Roz. Sleep tight.”
I kept my head down so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. She stepped aside to let me out the door.
“Oh, and Roz?”
I turned around, slowly lifted my gaze. “Yeah?”
“Nice fly ball.”
I looked at her for a long while, trying unsuccessfully to read her expression. Finally I simply muttered, “Thanks,” and let it go at that.
The Russians were at it again. When the air raid siren went off right in the middle of her lecture on the Louisiana Purchase, Miss Fremont looked annoyed. Most of us pressed our hands over our ears. I could see Miss Fremont’s lips move, but I couldn’t hear a word she said. But that was all right; we all knew the drill by now: single file out to the hall, kneel down side by side, crown of head against the wall, hands locked securely over neck. What a way to die – all rolled up in a neat little package like a baby in the womb.
Once we were in position, the siren was cut and an eerie silence descended over the school, broken only by an occasional cough, stifled giggles, and the sporadic tapping of the teachers’ heels against the floor. And Mara’s whispered word in my ear, “Roz!”
I jumped and rolled my eyes toward her voice. “Mara! How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“How do you find me? You’re supposed to be with your own class.”
“But I have to tell you something. It’s important.”
“What?”
“I talked to Celia – ”
“Your sister?”
“Yeah. I mean no. My mama. Last night I called her and told her I wanted to meet my daddy, and you’ll never guess what she said.”
“What?”
“She said she’d try to arrange it.” She wiggled in excitement beside me.
“She did?”
“Yeah. She said maybe I could go up there for a day over Christmas vacation.”
“Up to Chicago?”
“Uh-huh. She said I could take the train, and maybe Daddy could meet me at the station.”
“Do you think he’ll do it?”
“I don’t know.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m really scared. I hope he says yes.”
“Well, he did say he wanted all your dreams to come true, right?”
“Yes. That’s – ”
“Shh! No talking.” Miss Fremont’s voice reached us from somewhere down the hall. Mara and I exchanged a glance. The person on the other side of me, Jackson Riley, nudged me with the full side of his body and whispered, “Shut up!”
He pushed me into Mara, who pushed me back his way. I slammed up against him, and he poked me in the ribs with an elbow.
“
You
shut up,” I said.
“You’re the one talking with that nigger girl.”
Now I was angry, and I started to say something I’d never said to anyone. “Jackson Riley, you can just go to – ”
“I said quiet!” Miss Fremont’s voice came crashing down from right above us. “Jackson Riley, Roz Anthony, do you want to end up in the principal’s office?”
Jackson spoke first, responding in a muffled but distinctly fawning voice, “No, Miss Fremont.”
From my own windpipe came a squeaky, “No, Miss Fremont.”
“Then settle down and not another peep out of either of you.”
My cheeks burned, and I clenched my jaw in frustration and embarrassment. I wasn’t used to being reprimanded in front of the entire sixth-grade class. In fact, I wasn’t used to being reprimanded at all. My first time to get in trouble at Mills River Elementary and my name had to be called out in tandem with that bully Jackson Riley. I felt as though I’d just been handcuffed to a common criminal.
If the Russians were going to drop the bomb, let it be now.
“Sorry, Roz,” Mara whispered.
I looked at her and gave one small nod, but I didn’t say anything.
The all clear came and the hall erupted into chatter as everyone unfolded themselves and stood. I glared at Jackson, then turned to Mara and said, “I’m sorry he called you a . . . you know.”
Mara shrugged. “It’s all right. I’m used to it.”
“It’s not all right – ”
“I’ve got to go.” She walked away beaming, the happy prospect of seeing her daddy greater than the pain of prejudice.
I watched her until she’d disappeared into the crowd. Then, eyes downcast, I fell into line with my own class as we snaked our way through the hall and back to our room.
It had been another practice drill; that was all. The Russians hadn’t yet decided to drop the big one on us. For now we were safe, and I realized that in spite of Miss Fremont’s reprimand and my brief humiliation, I was grateful to be alive. I wasn’t ready to die. Not only because I was just eleven years old, but more importantly, I didn’t know for sure where I would end up.
“Tillie, how do you know you’re going to heaven?”
“Well now, that all depends on who your father is.”
Tillie’s statement still sent shivers down my spine. I sure hoped Daddy would change like he said he would, because if Alan Anthony was my ticket to the afterlife, my prospects for reaching paradise looked pretty grim.
On the second Saturday in November, we celebrated Wally’s eighteenth birthday with a small family dinner at home. Mom told him he could throw a party and invite some friends from school, but he didn’t want to. He said parties were for kids and he wasn’t a kid anymore.
He would, though, he said, like to go to the roller rink with some of his friends after supper, if that was all right with Mom. I looked at him funny when he asked, but he didn’t flinch. Mom believed his story about roller skating and said of course he could go, so long as he was home by midnight.
Tillie cooked up a big pot of chili, Mom made a double chocolate cake, and Grandpa and Marie came over and joined us.
“So my grandson’s a man now,” said Gramps, slapping Wally on the back.
“Yup,” Wally said. “Looks that way.” He accepted Grandpa’s and Marie’s coats and hung them up in the hall closet.
“Have you put any thought into colleges, Wally?” Grandpa asked.
“Nope.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Now’s the time to be thinking about it. Education is the doorway to success, you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We have a number of fine schools right here in Illinois, my own alma mater, the University of Illinois, among them.”
Wally shrugged.
“And listen, son” – Grandpa lowered his voice a notch – “if it’s the price of tuition you’re worried about, I’m prepared to help.”
Marie looked stricken, as though she had just heard the clanging of a huge chunk of change falling out of their bank account. “And of course,” she added with a tremulous smile, “there are always scholarships.”
“Well, yes,” Gramps said, rocking up on his toes, “but we may not have to resort to that kind of thing. There’s so much paperwork involved – ”
“You’re just in time. Dinner’s ready,” Mom sang out, greeting Grandpa with a kiss on his cheek. She untied her apron and smoothed her skirt. “Everyone please be seated at the dining room table. Dad, we’ll talk about colleges later, all right? Tonight’s a night to celebrate.”
It wasn’t much of a celebration, as celebrations go. Wally was pensive and sullen. Marie was her usual self, a perfectly coifed model of propriety and as cold as the winter night. Mom seemed quietly troubled herself, maybe because her firstborn had grown up, and though he seemed largely directionless, he would no doubt be leaving home soon. Tillie and Grandpa were oblivious as they rattled on about newspaper headlines: NASA’s Apollo 4 that had just been shot into orbit, the Soviet Union’s Vostok missile that Brezhnev was threatening to shoot in our direction, the coast-to-coast protests against the seemingly endless war in Vietnam.
Only when they mentioned the war did Wally look up from his chili long enough to ask, “Do you think it’ll last awhile?”
“What’s that, Wally?” Grandpa said.
“The war. Do you think it’ll last awhile?”
“It’s lasted far too long already,” Tillie interjected.
“But,” Grandpa said, “it’s going to take some time before we can untangle ourselves from the mess we’ve made over there.”
Wally looked from Grandpa to Tillie and back. “So, you mean the war’s not going to be over by the end of this year or anything, right?”
Grandpa shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Nor by the end of next year, nor maybe the year after that, unless McNamara outright refuses Westmoreland’s repeated demands for more troops.”