Promises to Keep (25 page)
I nodded, my hair rubbing static against his shirt.
“You don’t mean she’s . . . seeing him?” As he spoke, his left hand – the one that had been resting on the table – began to work, opening, closing into a fist, opening again.
I immediately began to second-guess myself; maybe I should have lied. “Kind of, I guess.”
“What do you mean, you guess?”
“I mean, they’ve gone to the movies a couple of times.”
Daddy was quiet for several long minutes. I looked up and saw that he was looking intently at the profile of Mom’s suitor, as though trying to memorize the man in detail. By now Tom Barrows had removed his suit jacket and was sitting there in a white dress shirt, the edge of a dark tie peeking out from beneath his collar. He held a coffee cup in one hand and a folded newspaper in the other.
“What’s his name?” Daddy asked.
“Tom Barrows.”
“What’s he do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, for a living. What’s he do?”
I tried to remember. “I’m not sure. Tillie says he works for the county or something.”
Another pause. Then, “Who’s Tillie?”
Now I was really sorry. I never meant to tell him about Tillie. If he knew an old lady was living with us, he’d never want to come back. As I looked up at Daddy, our faces were only inches apart. I hadn’t been this close to him for a long time. “Oh,” I lied, “she’s just someone who comes and helps Mom with Valerie.”
“You mean like a nanny?”
“Yeah. Because, well, Mom has to work now, you know. So she can’t be home all the time, even though she wishes she could.”
Daddy looked back at Tom Barrows, then down at me. Something about his eyes had changed, though I couldn’t say what.
When he didn’t speak I said, “Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“What if he sees me?”
“He won’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” He took a deep breath.
“Well, what if he stays here for a long time? I’ve got to go meet Mom pretty soon. If I don’t show up, she’ll go looking for me at the library.”
Daddy’s eyes narrowed, and his lips formed a small tense line. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.”
I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t say anything.
“But, honey?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to have to be even more careful. You and your mom, you’re not strangers in town anymore. People are starting to know you. I think, to play it safe, it might be a while before I can see you again.”
“How long, Daddy?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you’re coming back to us someday, and things are going to be better, right?”
He tried to smile. “You already asked me that, Roz. I wish you’d quit asking and just believe me.”
A small ache rose up in my heart and sent shivers down my spine. Daddy must have felt it, because he held me a little tighter.
“Daddy,” I pleaded quietly, “tell me what it’s going to be like when we’re all together again.”
I wanted to hear visions of happy Christmas mornings and birthday parties and family vacations. I wanted to hear Daddy tell me that we’d all sit down together to eat supper at night, with him and Wally both there with us, and we’d all get along and talk and laugh, and afterward Mom would wash the dishes while Daddy helped me with homework and Valerie played with a puppy that Daddy had brought home for us. I wanted to know that he’d bring Mom flowers for no special reason, and he’d tell her she looked beautiful, and she
would
look beautiful because she wouldn’t cry all the time anymore, and she’d never again have to cover the bruises on her cheeks with makeup or the black eyes with dark glasses. There would be none of that, none of that at all, because Daddy would be different, he’d be good, a real Daddy, one who loved us and took care of us and wanted the very best in life for us.
But when Daddy finally spoke, he said, “It’s going to be good, Roz.” That was all, and I had to do my dreaming without him.
I sat on the edge of Valerie’s bed, listening to her say her prayers with Tillie. “Our Fadder, it’s hot in heaven . . .”
I bit my lower lip so as not to laugh. Tillie didn’t miss a beat but quietly recited the prayer along with her, then pulled the covers up tight around her chin and kissed her cheek. “Good night, little one,” she said.
“Night, Tillie. I love you.”
“I love you too. Sweet dreams.”
Tillie turned off the light on the bedside table, and a small nightlight took over, holding back the dark. I slipped off the bed and kissed my sister good-night. Her cheek was soft and smelled sweet and clean from her bubble bath.
“Night, Roz,” she said sleepily.
“Good night, Valerie. See you in the morning.”
Tillie and I treaded lightly out of the room and down the stairs. In the kitchen Tillie tied her apron back on and set about slicing apples for a pie she was making. I sat down at the table, resting my chin in the cup of my hands.
“What time did Mom say she’d be home?” I asked.
“She didn’t,” Tillie said, cutting an apple into halves. “It’ll be late, since she and Tom have gone to Chicago to see the show. All she said was don’t wait up.”
I sniffed at the thought of her going all the way to Chicago with Tom Barrows on a Friday night. “How come she has to spend so much time with him?” I complained. “I wish she’d just stay home with us.”
Tillie paused in her cutting and shook her head. “I don’t have a good answer for you, Roz. Between you, me, and the lamppost, I don’t think she ought to be seeing anyone.”
“You don’t? That’s not what you said before. You said we should all just want her to be happy.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “Frankly, though, I thought she and Tom might go out once, maybe twice, and that would be it. They don’t really seem like a good match to me.”
I raised my eyebrows, startled and happy to hear her say so. “They don’t seem like a good match to me either, Tillie.”
“So I thought the whole thing would just kind of peter out on its own,” she went on. “I sure never thought Tom would be coming around here so much. What I think your mother really needs is a chance to heal and get over your father. That’s going to take some time, and I don’t believe the real healing will begin until after the divorce is final. Heaven only knows when that will be, since they haven’t even filed all the paperwork yet.”
“The divorce?” I echoed. That was the first time I’d heard the word used in relation to Mom and Daddy.
“Well, sure. There’s got to be a divorce, you know. That’s what happens when husbands and wives end a marriage. But your grandfather has only just found your mother a lawyer. They’re just getting started. Eventually they’ll serve your father with the papers, and then there will be a lot of legal stuff to figure out. It might take some time before your mother’s free to marry again.”
“What does it mean that he’ll get served with some papers?”
“Just that there are papers about the divorce that both your parents will have to sign to make it final.”
“What if Daddy doesn’t sign them?”
“He will. He may not want to at first, but he will eventually.”
Not if they don’t find him,
I thought.
“Tillie?”
“Yes, Roz?” Tillie stirred sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl with a wooden spoon.
“We had another air raid drill in school today.”
“Oh?” She added cornstarch and salt to the sugar mix, then sprinkled all of it over the apple slices. She may have thought I was changing the subject, but I wasn’t.
“Every time we have an air raid drill, I think about what it would be like if the Russians dropped a bomb on us and killed us all.”
“Merciful heavens!” Tillie said, turning to look at me sharply. “You shouldn’t be worrying about something like that. I’ve half a mind to go to the school board and tell them to stop those silly drills. No one’s going to drop any bombs on us.”
“They aren’t? Because we sure are practicing a lot for something that’s not going to happen.”
“Tell me, Roz, who’s the principal out at your school now?”
“Mr. Waldrop.”
“Wayne Waldrop?”
I gave a small shrug. “I think so.”
“That figures,” Tillie said with a satisfied nod. “That Wayne, he always did like the sound of a good siren. Fire truck sirens, police sirens, ambulance sirens. I bet you have a lot of fire drills at your school too, huh?”
“Yeah. It seems like it. Then we have to put our coats on and go stand outside in the cold.”
Another nod. “Pay no attention to the drills, then. Wayne Wal-drop was in the same grade as Lyle. I didn’t know him so much, but I knew his mother well. Poor thing, she told me how Wayne was always getting into trouble for pulling the fire alarm at school. And he’d go down to the fire station too and ask the men if he could ride in the trucks with them and work the siren next time they had a call. Now that he can sound the alarm legitimately, it seems he’s having a little bit too much fun with it.”
“But even Wally’s school – or the school he used to go to – they have air raid drills and fire drills too.”
“Sure, you’ve got to have some. That’s the law. But you don’t have to worry about the Russians dropping the bomb. No one’s going to be stupid enough to push the button that turns the Cold War into an all-out nuclear war. So you can just forget about that, Roz.”
Tillie poured the apple mixture into the pie pan, where the bottom crust waited. She added dabs of butter, draped the upper crust over the top, and cut slices in the dough to let the steam out while it baked. She popped the pie into the oven, took off her apron, and sat down at the table across from me.
“Listen, Roz, I know you’re not little like Valerie, but you’re still just a child. You should be thinking about good things, dreaming about the future. Remember what I told you about the moments, about how so many of them are lost?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Life goes by so fast, Roz, and when you come to the end, you don’t remember even half of it. You wonder where it’s all gone. If I were your age, if I could start all over again, I’d spend far more time looking for what’s good rather than dwelling on the bad. But then – ” she sighed and leaned back in the chair – “I’m pretty much in the homestretch at this point. I guess that’s why I cherish the good moments so much. Between now and heaven there aren’t going to be too many more of them.”
I leaned forward over the table and looked intently at Tillie. “But see, I’m afraid I’m not going to heaven like you are because . . . well, what if Mom gets the divorce and Daddy never comes home?”
Tillie looked puzzled. “What does the divorce have to do with you going to heaven?”
“Well, remember, when I was having my tonsils out, you said it all depends on who your father is, and – ”
But my last words were interrupted by Valerie crying out from a bad dream, calling for Mom, who wasn’t yet home, so Tillie had to go and comfort her and rock her back to sleep. I took my question about heaven to bed with me and forgot to bring it up again with Tillie in the morning.
Sometime in mid-December, Grandpa came over with a fragrant Douglas fir and a box of ornaments; Wally sent a small package postmarked Fort Dix, New Jersey; boxes started showing up from friends in Minnesota; and Tom Barrows gifted us by no longer coming around.
I was too busy to notice at first, with schoolwork, Christmas gifts, and Daddy’s absence heavy on my mind. Not until Christmas was only five days away did I realize I hadn’t seen Tom Barrows in more than a week. Mom hadn’t spoken with him on the phone either. He simply wasn’t there anymore, and I wondered why he had disappeared.
To get an answer I sidestepped Mom and went straight to Tillie. I found her in her room one afternoon, hemming a pair of pants for Valerie, who was napping on Tillie’s bed beneath the wedding quilt. I pulled the desk chair close to Tillie and sat down.
Helping myself to the butter mints, I asked, “So what happened to Tom Barrows?”
She paused in her sewing and raised her brows. “What do you mean, what happened to him?”
“He hasn’t come around lately, and I haven’t seen Mom talking to him on the phone.”
“Uh-huh. So your mother hasn’t told you anything?”
I shook my head while savoring the mint. I liked the way it melted against the roof of my mouth.
“Well, Roz,” Tillie said. She looked around the room and lowered her voice even though Mom was at work. “Apparently they decided to stop seeing so much of each other.”
“They did!” I exclaimed, nearly jumping out of my seat. Tillie put a finger to her lips and nodded toward Valerie. Whispering now, I asked, “How come? Did you tell her to stop seeing him?”
“Me? Oh dear, no. I had my opinion about the whole thing, of course, but no, I didn’t say a word.”
“Then what happened?”
She looked pensive a moment as she pulled at a knot in her thread. “I’m not really sure. It’s one of those complicated grownup things, I guess.”
“But whose decision was it?”
“It was mutual, from what I understand. Though apparently Tom felt threatened.”
“Threatened?”
“That’s what your mother said.”
“By what?”
“I don’t know. Whatever men feel threatened by when they get involved in a relationship. Financial responsibilities, a lack of freedom, sudden fatherhood. It could be any number of things.”
Sudden fatherhood? Suddenly the loss of two weeks’ allowance seemed a paltry sum. Maybe dropping Valerie into Tom Barrows’ lap
did
do the trick!
“Are they going to see each other at all anymore?” I asked.
“I couldn’t tell you that. But whether they do or don’t, it’s up to them, and it’s not our business.”
I thought of Mom then, down at Marie’s Apparel, going about the business of selling hats and gloves. Was she smiling at the customers and did that smile cover a broken heart, or was she secretly as relieved as I was to be rid of Tom Barrows?
“Tillie? Is Mom all right? I mean, is she sad or anything?”
Tillie lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “She doesn’t seem sad to me. Your mother’s a smart woman, Roz. I think she finally decided some things are more important than security.”
