Promises to Keep (26 page)

“Jesus, Callie. Stop. You’re talking as if you’re going to die. Will you just
stop
?”

“No, Reece. I hope I’m not going to die. God knows I’m nowhere near ready to die, but do I feel as if I’m going to die? Yes. A lot of the time I do. And I cannot leave my children if I don’t think that you are going to be there for them, and I need to see it now.

“Hopefully, I will be fine but whatever happens, while I am not around, you need to be, and you need to promise me.” She puts her hands on either side of Reece’s face and brings him inches from her own. “Do you understand, Reece? I love you so much. I have never loved a man like I love you, and I know you are capable of it. I know you can do it, and you have to promise me.”

There are tears running down Reece’s face now. She pulls him down, his head on her chest, and they cry together.

“It’s going to be fine,” she whispers, after a while. “I’m just looking at the worst-case scenario, okay? I’m playing devil’s advocate, but right now, while I’m in the hospital, you need to be there. My mom is there which is great, but they need you.”

“Okay,” he says, into her chest. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I’ll do it.” He lifts his head up, his eyes red and swollen.

“You have to promise.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“What do you promise? You have to actually say it.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I promise to put the children on the bus every morning, and to be home for dinner at six o’clock every night.”

“I promise to put the children on the bus and to be home for dinner at six o’clock.”

“Every night.”

“What?”

“Say it again, on the bus
every day
, and home for dinner
every night
.”

And he does, his voice hoarse and cracking.

“You can do this, honey,” she whispers. “I think I’ll be home by the weekend at the latest, so it’s just a few days, but even if it takes a bit longer, you can do this. You are the best dad in the world. You’re fun, and loving, and kind, and patient. They love being with you more than anything. They just need you to be around a little more.”

“Callie?” he whispers back, after a long silence. “Do you really think you’re going to die?”

“Yes,” she says. “But not right now. I’d like to think I have another fifty years or so.” She smiles and he raises his head and kisses her.

 

 

R
eece pours himself some coffee and pokes his head around the door of the TV room. Eliza and Jack are both sitting quietly on the sofa, watching some Disney Channel show. They have eaten cereal and Dad’s specialty: scrambled eggs, cheese and ketchup. The plates are in the dishwasher, Elizabeth has been fed and let out, and all is quiet.

What on earth is Callie complaining about, he wonders, thinking of all the times he phones at breakfast time and there is screaming in the background, the children are fighting and Callie snaps that she’ll have to speak to him once they’re on the bus.

This is easy.

He sits at the kitchen table and flicks idly through the local paper, then glances up at the microwave: 7.47.

Oh SHIT. Doesn’t the bus come at seven-fifty?

“Eliza?” He runs into the TV room. “What time does the bus come again?”

She shrugs, eyes glued to the screen.

“Seven-fifty,” Jack says, and Reece runs over and turns the TV off.

“Three minutes, guys.” His panic is becoming evident. “Shoes and coats on.”

“But I haven’t brushed my teeth,” Jack says.

“Why not? I thought you brushed your teeth when you woke up?”

“He never brushes his teeth,” Eliza says. “He always tells Mom he has but he hasn’t.”

“Quick!” Reece’s anxiety is rising. “Get your shoes on. Don’t worry about your teeth. We’ll do double brushing later, okay?”

“No!” Jack says in horror. “I
have
to brush my teeth.”

“Jack, please.” Reece is exasperated. “We’ll just do it later.”

“No!” Jack starts to wail.

“Oh God. Okay. Fine. Brush your teeth. But quickly.”

Please be late, he thinks. Please, bus driver, whoever you are, be held up.

He flings the coats on and opens the front door.

“Eliza? Where are you going?”

“To get my homework.”

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. You look in the bedroom, I’ll look in the kitchen.”

Ten seconds later he finds the homework in the kitchen. “Eliza?” he yells up the stairs. Nothing. “Eliza? I have your homework. Let’s go!” Nothing.

Reece starts up the stairs. “Eliza?” He is now yelling at full volume.

“Coming!” she shouts back.

They race out of the door, to see the bus disappearing down the street.

“Shit,” he mutters. Now he’ll have to drive them, and it will take an extra twenty minutes, and he still has to make that conference call in twenty minutes. Oh God.

“In my car,” he orders, and they both cheer, for being driven in by a parent is their most favorite thing of all.

 

“Mommy always puts my homework in my backpack at night,” Eliza mutters.

“Well, good for Mommy.” Reece bites his tongue. “But Mommy isn’t here and I’m doing my best.”

“Daddy?” she says suddenly. “If Mommy dies and you die, will we be orphans?”

Jack starts to cry.

“Oh Eliza!” Reece shakes his head, thinking: why ask that now? “Don’t worry, Jack, no one’s going to die. And Eliza, first, Mommy isn’t going to die, and I’m not going to die either, so there’s no point even talking about it.” He pauses, unsure of whether he should be saying this, knowing that he should be more honest, but now, on the way to school, is not the time to have this conversation.

“But if you both did, then we’d be orphans?”

Reece sighs. “Technically, but that’s never going to happen, okay? It’s just not going to happen.”

“It happened to the children in
Lemony Snicket
,” Eliza says knowingly, looking out of the window, while Jack’s sobs continue to escalate.

“Jack, honey, there’s nothing to cry about. Mommy is sick, and they’re going to give her medicine and then she’s going to get better. Remember when you had your tonsils out?”

In the backseat, Jack nods.

“And it really, really hurt for a lot of days, but you kept taking your medicine and then you got completely better?”

Jack nods again, the sobs subsiding.

“That’s what it’s like with Mommy. It’s really hurting right now, but when she takes her medicine it stops hurting, and soon it’s going to get better.”

“I thought it was cancer,” Eliza says suddenly.

“No, sweetie. It isn’t cancer.”

“Julia says her mom told her that Mommy’s cancer is back.”

“Julia is wrong.” Reece wonders if he ought to speak to the school. “Mommy doesn’t have cancer anymore. This is something else.”

“What is it, then?”

“I’ll find out from the doctor.” For now, he has run out of answers, and unlike when Callie is truly exasperated and cannot answer any more of their questions, he cannot simply direct them to “ask your father.”

They pull up outside the school and as they unbuckle Eliza says, “What’s for snack, Daddy?”

“
Snack?”
Reece’s heart sinks. “What snack?”

“Snack! You have to pack us a snack every day. In a brown bag. With our name on it and a big heart, like Mommy does.”

Oh shit. Why couldn’t someone have told him? Honor, who had clearly been up all night, judging from the empty mugs in the kitchen sink, has been snoring away in the damned guest room this morning and he’s supposed to figure this all out by himself.

“I’ll bring the snack back,” he says slowly. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know.”

“Okay. So can I have the pink wafer cookies, please?”

“Sure. Are they in the pantry?”

“No. You have to buy them. And some marshmallows.”

Jack’s face lights up. “Yeah! Marshmallows.”

“Marshmallows for snack? Mommy gives you marshmallows for snack? Are you sure?”

“Every day,” Eliza says solemnly. “All the kids get marshmallows for snack. Bring them back, okay?”

“Okay, sweetie.” Reece sighs.

“And Dad?” Jack kisses him good-bye. “Did you put the note about my playdate with Jasper in my folder?”

“What playdate with Jasper?”

“I’m going to Jasper’s house after school today and his mom is picking us up and you have to send in a note.”

“Can I just email?” Reece says, not really thinking Jack will know the answer, but this all suddenly seems very complicated.

“Yes,” says Jack confidently. “You can email. I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, buddy,” Reece says, and with an unexpected surge of relief, and love, he watches his children bundle into school.

 

Today has been surprisingly peaceful. The house is quiet, Reece was only a few minutes late for the conference call, and he has been able to successfully manage his work from home.

Honor has gone to the hospital to sit with Callie, but not before making him a grilled tuna melt for lunch. He could kind of get used to this.

At three-twenty he stands up and stretches, then grabs his coat to go and meet the bus.

“Reece!” April, their neighbor from up the street, presses the switch to open the window of her Porsche Cayenne. “I didn’t expect to see you here. How’s Callie?”

“She’s good,” he says, for what else do you say?

“Really? Honor seems to be very worried. Do they know what it is yet?”

Wow. How much do they know? He had forgotten how much women talk. “Not yet,” he says. “But the next round of results should be in tomorrow and I hope they’ll tell us something.”

“It’s so awful,” April says. “Especially after the . . . well, a few years ago. But I hear it’s not cancer, which must be a huge relief, right?”

“Huge,” Reece agrees.

“So, Jack has tae kwon do tomorrow with Will. Callie and I carpool but I’m really happy to take them.”

“Oh.” Reece has no idea what the children do after school. He makes a mental note to actually read the kids’ schedule that is stuck to the front of the fridge. “Thank you. That would be great.”

“He can stay for dinner too, if he wants. Nothing fancy. Pizza.” She shrugs in resignation.

“I . . . Thank you. Another time would be great, but I’m taking the kids to have dinner with their mom, in the hospital. It’s kind of a nightly thing.”

“Of course. I totally understand. That’s so nice. Listen, do you need anything? Anything at all? Maybe food? I cook every day for my family and it would be no problem to drop some food in . . .” She looks up at him expectantly.

Reece stands and looks at her, not sure what she is talking about, and then he remembers, from last time, that this is what people do when you are sick: they cook for you. But how do you say yes? Last time, when Callie was having chemo, she was still seeing everyone, she was dealing with everything. He never had to field offers of food, and he’d feel oddly helpless and vulnerable if he said yes, even though it might be really nice to have her cook for him.

Honor had been doing the cooking, but now she is tending to spend her days in the hospital with Callie and picking up food from the market to bring in for the kids, because she says she doesn’t have the time.

Reece has been getting home so late, up until today, that he usually grabs a slice of pizza on the way home, or a bowl of soup at the diner next to his office. Often, if Lila has been to the house to watch the kids, she will have brought something delicious, but to have a neighbor he barely knows cook for him? That’s just weird. Nice, but weird.

“That’s so kind of you,” he says. “But my mother-in-law is staying with us, so it’s really not necessary.”

 

The next morning, when he leaves to take the children to the bus, he finds two aluminum trays, one lasagne, one chicken and spinach, on his doorstep, still warm. No note.

Grateful, he takes them inside, and puts them in the fridge.

M
ason thought he had seen enough British films, read enough books by British authors, knew enough about the culture to know what to expect, but he is finding it is almost entirely different from his expectations.

Not that he expected all Londoners to be charming chimney sweeps with bad cockney accents à la Dick Van Dyke, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite the melting pot it is, nor had he expected people to be quite so brusque—good Lord, there were times when he felt as though he were still in New York.

There are things he is finding he
loves
. He is fascinated by the design, the architecture, the sophistication. He walks the streets, just as he does in New York, but in London he looks up every few feet, amazed at the sheer brilliance of the architecture.

And the food! What an unexpected pleasure to find that the food in London equals, and often, in fact, surpasses that in New York. He wanders around the markets, delighting at the fresh produce; it is far smaller than anything he is used to seeing in New York, but the taste! The flavor! Never has he enjoyed biting into a juicy tomato as he has here.