Promises to Keep (33 page)

“Merciful heavens,” Tillie said as she placed the soda on my bedside table. “Thelma’s really outdone herself this time. I wonder if any of the other kids are sick. Maybe I should call Mara’s mother and see – ”

“No, don’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Mara brought her lunch today. She didn’t eat the meatloaf.” I moaned again. “Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up.”

“All right then, not another word. You just rest and try to sip that soda. The bubbles might calm your stomach a little.”

I nodded agreeably and shut my eyes. Tillie left the room; I heard her heavy footfalls going down the stairs. When she was gone, I sat up and drank some of the soda. My eyes wandered the room, looking for a way to entertain myself till Mom got home. I settled for reading a book.

The time passed slowly, but I finally heard Mom’s car in the driveway, her key in the back door. Then, after a moment, during which time I’m sure Tillie was telling her about my case of food poisoning, Mom came upstairs and found me moaning in the bed, covers up to my nose, plastic bowl on the floor beside me.

“Tillie tells me you’re sick.” Her voice was sympathetic. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled down the covers so she could see my face.

I nodded. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Tillie says it was the lunch at school?”

“Yeah.”

“Shall I call the doctor?”

“No. I don’t think so. I’ll be all right. But, Mom?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Don’t leave me with Mrs. Kinshaw tonight. I don’t want a baby-sitter when I don’t feel good.”

Mom thought a moment. Then she nodded in agreement. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll stay here with you. I can always visit Lyle later. He’s probably not up for much company tonight anyway.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Sure, honey.” She kissed my forehead and stood. “I’ll be back to check on you shortly.”

I watched her leave, then let out my breath in a sigh of relief.

Tillie left me a bowl of the chicken soup, which I said I felt well enough to try to eat. I would rather have had the lasagna that Mom and Valerie were having, but it would have given me away. I ate the soup slowly, like someone unsure of whether or not it would stay down. When I finished I was still hungry, but I didn’t dare ask for anything more.

After supper I spent the evening reading and sucking on Sugar Daddies that Daddy had given me for Valentine’s Day. I ate four of them, one after the other, as I waited and wondered what was happening at the boardinghouse. After I ate them, I folded up the wrappers and stuffed them into my jewelry box, along with the rest of my wrapper collection.

It was close to nine o’clock when Tillie came home.

“Lyle’s doing great,” she told Mom. “Almost good as new.”

“Thank God.”

“Yes indeed,” Tillie said. She smiled at me as I walked into the kitchen to join them. She took off her coat, kicked off her snowy boots, and wiggled into the slippers waiting for her by the door.

“When will he go back to work?” Mom asked. She was at the stove pouring Tillie a cup of coffee. She poured a little more into her own cup before joining Tillie at the table. I listened to them talk as I fixed myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“Midweek,” Tillie said. “Probably Wednesday.” She sipped the coffee, seemed to savor the warmth.

Mom nodded. “I’m glad he’s doing so well. And did you get to meet Mr. Knutson?”

I drew in a sharp breath and stood motionless while waiting for Tillie’s answer.

“Briefly,” Tillie said. “He’s a shy fellow, that one, and a man of few words. He looked like a hound dog when I shook his hand and thanked him for what he did for Lyle. He said he was happy to help out, and then he excused himself and was gone. But Charlotte, now, she thinks the world of him. She said he’s always helping around the house . . . anyone needs anything, Nelson Knutson’s the first one there to lend a hand. She said she wished she had more boarders like him. Unfortunately for Charlotte, though, he’s given notice. Moving out at the end of the month.”

“Oh? Where’s he going?”

“Michigan, I guess. That’s where he’s from, according to Charlotte. All he told her was he’s going back home.”

Mom nodded. “I was thinking we could have him and Lyle over for dinner sometime, but maybe it’s too late for that.”

Tillie shrugged and took another long sip of coffee. “At any rate, he knows we’re grateful to him, and that’s what matters.”

“Yes. And if he has family in Michigan, they undoubtedly will be glad to have him home.”

I folded together the two halves of my sandwich and let out another sigh of relief. Daddy, aka Nelson Knutson, had proved himself. Lyle Monroe liked him. Miss Charlotte did too. They said he was a good man. He was always helping, always lending a hand and doing good deeds. He’d taken Lyle to the hospital and stayed with him so he wouldn’t be alone. Tillie was pleased. Mom was pleased.

I was no doubt more pleased than anyone.

Taking a huge bite of my sandwich, I stepped to the kitchen table. Tillie looked at me and asked, “How’s our little patient here at home?”

“All better,” I said, the words muffled by peanut butter.

“I see you got your appetite back.”

I nodded. “Yup.”

I left Mom and Tillie to their coffee and carried my sandwich to my room. Once there, I pulled the letter to Uncle Joe out of my desk, ripped it into several pieces, and tossing them like confetti, I threw them into the trash.

chapter
45

Mara and I called a truce when I told her what Miss Charlotte had said about Daddy. “Well,” she relented, “if he really does go around helping people, then maybe he
has
changed.”

“I’m sure of it, Mara.” I gave her a vigorous nod as I dug into my banana split. We were sitting at the counter of the drugstore’s soda fountain on Saturday afternoon. In spite of the frigid temperature outside, we’d decided to meet for ice cream. “I mean, everyone who knows Daddy likes him. And you know, Miss Charlotte doesn’t allow for any drinking at the boardinghouse. If Daddy were drinking, she’d kick him out faster than you can say Jiminy Cricket. So he must be going to AA like he said.”

Mara looked pensive as she spooned out a scoop of her butterscotch sundae. After a moment she said, “I’m sorry I made you mad the other day, Roz. It’s just . . . I don’t want to see you get hurt or anything. You’re my best friend ever, you know?”

I smiled. “You’re my best friend too. So let’s just forget about being mad, all right?”

“All right.” She nodded.

“After Daddy comes home you can meet him, and then you’ll see. I bet he’ll do all sorts of fun stuff with us, like take us to the movies and the county fair and . . . Hey, maybe he’ll even take us up to Chicago, and we can meet up with
your
dad. Wouldn’t that be something, the two of us together with our dads?”

I expected Mara to be excited, but instead she looked uneasy. “That
would
be something,” she said.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you think your dad would want to get together with us?”

Mara shrugged. “I really don’t know. It’d have to be in secret . . . you know, so his wife doesn’t find out. It’d be kind of complicated.”

I chewed my lip a moment. “Well, I’m just dreaming. What’s that poem by that guy you like? The one about holding on to dreams?”

“Uh-huh. You mean Langston Hughes.” She looked thoughtful as she paused to lick some butterscotch off the stem of her spoon. “Yeah, he said if you let your dreams die, life becomes a broken-winged bird that can’t fly.”

“Yup, that’s the one.”

Mara nodded slowly, then looked straight at me. “You know, Roz, I’ve been thinking about that.”

“What about it?”

“Well, maybe it depends on the dream, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes it may be the dream that keeps you from flying, if it’s the wrong dream to have.”

Several long seconds passed before I said, “Sometimes I don’t get you, Mara. I don’t get what you mean.”

“Never mind, Roz,” she said, lifting her shoulders in a tiny shrug. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“I think you think too much.”

We laughed a little at that, and Mara said, “Yeah, maybe we could spend a day in Chicago with our dads. That would be something.”

“It sure would,” I agreed. “Hey, when Mom comes to pick me up, do you want to come over for a while?”

Mara nodded. “Sure.”

“You can call your mom from our house and tell her we’ll bring you home later.”

“All right.”

“Or maybe you could spend the night. No, I know, maybe you could just live with us!” I said with a laugh. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Yeah,” she said excitedly. After a moment, though, she added, “But I’d miss my mom and dad.”

“Oh. Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“So I guess I’ll just go on living with them.”

I nodded. We smiled at each other and went on eating our ice cream.

Even though Daddy was married, Miss Fremont still allowed him to come into the classroom to leave notes in my desk. I found one there on Thursday morning, February 22, exactly one week before leap year day.
Can you meet me at the café after school today?
he asked.

I could and I would. At the end of the day, I took the school bus to the public library, then walked from there to Hot Diggity Dog. The trek was no easy task, since I was headed into the wind. Nearly frozen by the time I arrived, I didn’t bother to take off my coat when I slid into the booth.

“Cold enough for you?” Daddy asked with a laugh.

I was too cold to answer; I only nodded. Daddy hollered for Darlene to bring me some hot chocolate, which warmed my hands first and finally, slowly, my insides.

“Well, kid,” Daddy said at length, “just one more week and we’ll be together.”

He held out a hand across the table, and I took it. In spite of the rough calluses crossing his palm, his hand felt warm and safe to me.

“I can’t wait, Daddy.”

“Me either, honey.”

“Things are going to be good this time.”

“You know it, kid. And look. . . .” With his free hand he dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small hinged box. “Look here at what I got for your mother.”

He pulled his hand from my grip so he could open the box. The lid flipped up on the hinge, like a pried-open oyster shell. Instead of a pearl, though, there was ring inside with a large red stone, surrounded by smaller stones that looked like diamonds. I felt my eyes grow wide in amazement.

“It’s beautiful, Daddy!” I said.

He nodded. A certain pride settled over his face. “Your mother has always wanted a ruby. That’s what this is.”

“A ruby? Wow. It’s the prettiest ring I ever saw. Can I try it on?”

“Sure, honey. It’ll be too big for you, but go ahead.”

I pulled the ring from the box and slipped it on. Daddy was right; it was too big, but I held it in place by squeezing my fingers together. Turning it this way and that, I watched how the stones dazzled even in the dim overhead light. “Wow, Daddy,” I said again. “Mom’s going to love it.”

“I think she will,” he agreed.

“Is she supposed to wear it in place of her wedding ring?” I asked, “because she doesn’t wear her wedding ring anymore.”

Daddy looked pained at that. “Do you know what she did with her ring? Did she sell it?”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know. I don’t think she sold it. Maybe she just put it in her jewelry box.”

“Well, if it’s gone, I’ll buy her another one.” He tried to smile, but it was lopsided and brief. “This one isn’t a wedding ring. It’s more of a . . . I don’t know . . . a promise ring, maybe. It’s a token of my promise to make a new life for us.”

I looked from Daddy to the ring and back again. “It sure is pretty, Daddy. You picked out the best ring ever.”

“I’m glad you like it, honey. That means a lot to me. Maybe that means your mom will like it too.”

“Oh, I know she will. You don’t have to worry about that. She’ll think it’s the prettiest ring she ever set eyes on.”

Before I even knew she was there, Darlene was standing over me exclaiming, “Goodness sakes, honey! Where’d you get that ring? It’s just beautiful.”