Promises to Keep (9 page)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Wally said. He was just like Jekyll and Hyde, and you were never sure which one would show up.
I sometimes wondered if Dr. Jekyll drank a potion to become the evil Mr. Hyde, wasn’t there a potion we could give Daddy to make him always be the
good
Daddy? The kind and gentle Daddy? The Daddy who kissed me and gave me candy and said he loved me?
I tucked the ten dollars among my treasures and lowered the lid of the music box. I turned off the light and stepped to the window that overlooked the front yard.
What a strange, strange night it was. Wally was out back smoking pot, Mom was in the kitchen flirting with a circle of admirers, and Tillie – merciful heavens! Tillie was with the crowd on the front lawn, dancing the Virginia reel with Grandpa! I could see them by the light of the streetlamp, the music from the three-piece band drifting up to me through the open windows. I gazed in curiosity at the sea of bobbing heads, clapping hands, dark figures milling about. Laughter hovered above it all, a cap on the night of Tillie’s welcome home party.
I was just about to go down and join everyone when I glimpsed a figure standing on the rim of the streetlamp’s circle of light. Leaning my palms against the windowsill, I peered harder and drew in a sharp breath. In another moment I was stumbling down the stairs and out the front door, pushing my way through the crowd and sweeping past the musicians still merrily sending up notes into the night. But by the time I reached the street, the man wearing what looked like a fishing hat was gone.
With a high-pitched wailing of brakes, the school bus rolled to a stop at the corner of McDowell and Edgewood. The driver shifted into neutral, then moved his large hairy hand from the gearshift to the shiny silver knob that swung open the double doors. Seated right behind him, I had spent the trip from school alternately staring at the creases in the back of his neck and at that hardworking hand. I had no desire to see or be seen by the other kids on the bus. Not yet. It would take me a while to work up the courage to try to make new friends.
As soon as the doors opened, its two metal halves folding up like rubber-edged wings, I hurried down the steps and onto the sidewalk. Other kids got off, but I didn’t pay them any attention. Instead, I clutched my books to my chest and moved hurriedly past the houses on McDowell Street until I reached ours, the now familiar white clapboard in the middle of the block.
The front door was unlocked, and I let myself in. The house was quiet. Mom was at work, and Wally was on his way to his job at Jewel, but I thought Tillie would be there to greet me.
I moved to the kitchen, dropped my books on the table, and looked around. “Tillie?”
No answer.
I peered out the window into the backyard. She wasn’t hanging up laundry, carrying out the trash, or pushing the reel mower over the lawn – all of which I’d seen her do in recent days.
“Tillie?” I called again. Again, no answer.
I walked back down the hall and up the stairs to her room. And there she was, in her ancient padded rocking chair, some sheets of folded stationery on her lap.
Knocking on the open door, I said loudly, “Tillie?”
She jumped a foot and put a hand to her chest. The pages on her lap took flight and tumbled to the floor. She looked at me with startled eyes. “Merciful heavens, Roz!” she cried. “You just about scared the living daylights out of me.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know you were asleep.”
“Well.” She leaned over and gathered the papers from the floor. “I guess I dozed off. What time is it?”
“I don’t know. A little after three-thirty, I guess. I just got home from school.”
“School! Oh, Roz, I meant to meet you when you got home, have a little snack ready. But I put Valerie down for her nap and came in here to read this letter from Lyle, and then I guess I just dozed off, like I said.”
“That’s okay, Tillie. I don’t need a snack. Can I come in?”
“Well, sure, honey. Come on in and pull up that chair from the desk. We can visit for a while, if you’d like.”
Though she’d lived with us for several weeks now, I hadn’t yet looked around Tillie’s room. At first it had been Valerie’s room, but Mom moved Val into the master bedroom with her so Tillie could have her own place. The room was now furnished with items John Monroe and his wife had taken for their guest bedroom at the time they sold Tillie’s house. When Tillie left the nursing home, she demanded everything back, including the huge brass bed she and her husband had shared for their entire married life. The bed, the chest of drawers, the desk and rocking chair, numerous paintings and framed photographs all came back, with Johnny complaining that if he’d known it was only going to come back he’d have left it all here in the first place. Her few items at the nursing home – a small end table, her wedding quilt, and other odds and ends – were also packed up and restored to their proper place on McDowell Street.
Everything in her room was old and quaint and frilly, like the lace curtains in the windows and the antimacassars on the arms of the rocking chair. Before we moved in, Gramps had furnished the house for us with contemporary furniture, so stepping into Tillie’s room was like stepping back in time. I placed the desk chair across from Tillie and sat down while my eyes wandered around the room, taking it all in.
“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to a framed portrait on the wall.
“Why, that’s Ross and me, shortly after we married.”
“That’s
you
, Tillie?”
She snorted out a small laugh. “Don’t act so surprised, child. I was young once too, you know.”
I
was
surprised, and she
had
been young once, and thin, and even pretty, with dark hair cascading past her ears in stylish waves, skin smooth and firm and wrapped snugly over cheekbone and jaw and down her long white neck. The photograph was black and white so it didn’t capture the blue of her eyes, but it wasn’t hard to imagine it, that blue, and the pink of her cheeks and the red of those lips that turned up in a small, close-lipped smile. The man beside her was handsome in a rugged way, with a cleft chin like Cary Grant’s and dark hair combed straight back from his face. His eyes were dark and piercing, his smile sincere and filled with white marblelike teeth; he looked as though he sat on the edge of laughter, not because something was funny but simply because life was good.
“Ross went off to the First World War shortly after that picture was taken,” Tillie said. “Thank God he came home again.”
As though she didn’t want to talk about the war, she waved toward a carnival glass dish on the table beside her. She lifted the lid and nodded toward the cream-colored candies inside. “Butter mint?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. I chose one of the mints and popped it into my mouth.
“How was the first day of school?”
I shrugged. “It was all right.”
“Did you make any new friends?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, friendships take time. I’m sure there are some nice little girls in your class.”
I shrugged again and didn’t say anything. Tillie took a mint for herself and placed the lid back on the dish. It settled into place with a small clinking sound.
Pocketing my mint in one cheek for a moment, I said, “Why do you have a baseball bat by your bed?”
“What? Oh, that. It belonged to Paul, my middle son. He was quite a good ball player. We thought at one time he might go professional.”
“But he didn’t?”
“No. He decided against it.”
“So what does he do?”
“He went into real estate. He’s made a good living for himself and his family.”
“Well, how come he didn’t come to your welcome home party?”
“He doesn’t live in Mills River anymore. He moved to Florida years ago. Only Johnny lives here now, he and his wife, Elaine. My youngest son, Lyle, doesn’t live here either.” As she said that, she folded up the sheets of stationery in her lap and stuffed them into an envelope.
“Where’s he live?”
“Bolivia.”
“Bolivia?”
“That’s right.”
“Where’s that?”
Tillie’s right eyebrow shot up. “Don’t you know?”
“If I knew I wouldn’t ask you.”
“Well, you’ve got a point. It’s in South America.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“He teaches at a mission school. He teaches the children of missionaries.”
“What for?”
“Well, they need to be educated too.”
“I know, but I mean, what about his own children? Why would he want them to grow up down there?”
“He doesn’t have any children. Doesn’t have a wife either. He’s never been married.”
“Never?”
Tillie shook her head as she lifted the letter to her heart. “And now he’s got another bout of malaria.”
My eyes widened. “Is he going to die?”
“Oh no. But I hate to think of him sick like that, so far from home.” She looked at me, gave a small apologetic laugh. “I guess I’ll always be his mother.”
“I’m sorry he’s so far away.”
“Me too. Another mint?”
She lifted the lid. I took one.
“Tillie?”
“Yes, Roz?”
“You got any grandchildren?”
“I’ve got two, a boy and a girl. They’re Paul’s children. They live in Florida, so I rarely see them. Pity,” she said. Her eyes moved to the window, and she rocked a little bit, as though to soothe herself.
“Doesn’t Johnny have kids?”
“No. They wanted children, but it turned out Elaine couldn’t have any. I tried to talk them into adopting, but Elaine said it wouldn’t be the same, having a child not really your own. I told her she’d love the child just the same, but . . .” Her words trailed off as she shook her head.
“Well,” I said around the candy in my mouth, “at least you’ve got two grandkids.”
“Yes, and I’m thankful for that.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. Tillie rocked quietly. I gazed at the candy dish, wishing for another piece.
Finally Tillie said, “I suppose one more won’t spoil your supper.”
She lifted the lid and offered me yet another butter mint.
“These are good,” I said.
“They’re my favorite.” Tillie nodded. “I got this dish as a wedding gift, and it’s been filled with butter mints ever since. Fifty years of butter mints.”
“Did your husband like them too?”
“Oh my, yes. He’d eat a fistful at a time.” She smiled at the memory.
“Tillie?”
“Yes, Roz?”
“How long ago did he die?”
Tillie took a deep breath, let it out. “A little more than a year ago.”
“You miss him?”
“More than I can say.”
I don’t know why, but her confession made me think of Daddy sitting on the front steps crying. I looked at Tillie. Her eyes were moist. “I’m sorry, Tillie,” I said.
She nodded slightly, tried to smile. “You always know you’re going to lose your loved ones in the end, but even so, you’re never prepared for it. Not really.”
The last bit of butter mint melted between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I swallowed, savoring the taste. I didn’t know what to say to Tillie; I’d never lost anyone other than my grandmother, who’d died when I was six.
Instead of finding something comforting to say, I asked, “He died in this house, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.” She nodded toward the wall. “Right there in the master bedroom. It was unexpected. He slipped away peacefully in his sleep.”
I looked over my shoulder at Tillie’s bed, splendid with its shiny brass frame and colorful wedding quilt. He must have died in that bed. “Tillie, do you believe in ghosts?”
“Goodness no. I believe in heaven.”
I turned back to look at her. She was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, which she stuffed back into her skirt pocket. I decided to get off the subject of her husband. I’d been wanting to talk with her about something else anyway.
“Tillie?”
“Yes?”
I pursed my lips. Finally I said, “Do you know anyone in Mills River who wears a fishing hat?”
“A fishing hat?”
“Yeah.”
She frowned in thought. “Not that I can think of. Why do you ask?”
I wanted to give her an answer. I wanted to tell her I thought I’d seen Daddy twice, but I couldn’t do it. If I let the words out of my mouth, I didn’t know what kind of harm they would do, especially to Mom. Surely, I decided, I was seeing things. Or maybe there were plenty of men in Mills River who wore fishing hats like Daddy’s. Why not? Daddy wasn’t the only man in the world who liked to fish.
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “Forget it. It’s nothing.”
“You look worried,” she said. “If something’s bothering you, you can always tell me.”
Valerie woke up from her nap then and began to cry. I was glad for the interruption.
“Well, there she blows,” Tillie said. “Best get her up and start supper.”
Tillie rose from the rocking chair and headed for the door. I followed, popping another butter mint into my mouth and momentarily swallowing my fears about Daddy.
Late on a Saturday morning in mid-September, Tillie sent me into town to deliver some aspirin to Mom. She rolled a couple of tablets in a napkin, stuffed it into my shorts pocket, and sent me off with instructions to go straight to the store and not get sidetracked. As I walked the streets between our house and Marie’s Apparel, I felt immensely important. Mom had a headache, and I was the one who was going to stop it. I was the chosen one, the
only
one who could accomplish a dangerous mission like this. The secret formula, the reliever of pain, had been entrusted to me, and I would brave anything to get it into the hands of my suffering mother: snow, sleet, hail, lightning, hordes of thieves, packs of wolves . . .
A car honked just as I was about to cross Grand Avenue, bringing me back to the serenity of downtown Mills River. I felt my shoulders hunch and my face turn red. The only dangerous thing about this town was my own imagination. If I was killed on the way to the store, it would be because I wasn’t paying attention.