The Promise (23 page)

He didn’t say none of that. Instead, he did as I asked, not saying a word more, and I did the same. I cooked and tidied the house, all the while studying the clock on the fireplace mantle, wanting the hands to turn fast so that it’d hurry up and get to Sunday afternoon, ending this. Instead, it was like the clock was broke, the second hand taking deep, long breaths before deciding to lurch forward. All week I could hardly bear the idea of telling Andre I was leaving. I just knew he’d cry and that I would too. The idea of not seeing him every morning and feeling his arms around my neck put an even bigger hole in my heart. Without knowing why I did it, I fussed at him and told him he was in my way. I saw the puzzlement in his eyes; I saw how I stepped hard on his feelings. But I couldn’t stop it. My misery turned me into a sharp-tongued woman.

Mrs Williams, on the other hand, was like a thorny weed that surprised the world when it sprouted a soft-petal flower. She was finally climbing down from her mountain top and seeing Oscar for the fine man he was. For the life of me, I didn’t know how it happened, but as soon as Oscar and the boys came in for breakfast on Tuesday morning, her still in bed, I knew things were different. Oscar looked plenty worn out like he hadn’t done much sleeping, but his eyes shined, his gladness showing. Later, Mrs Williams drifted out to the table long after the men had had their breakfast, the dishes washed and me at the ironing board. She took up playing the piano, the music saying things about the doings between a man and a woman that shouldn’t be aired. The thing that simmered between them had finally bubbled up, taking them both. If it hadn’t been for Andre, I would have walked out the door right then.

And Oscar thought it had to do with wages. That was a hurt I’d be a long time forgetting. I played them words of his over and over as I did my chores, that clock on the mantle tormenting me. I thought the day would never end. The air was heavy with a wet heat, the kind that made my skin itch. It didn’t help none that the surf made a pounding sound with pauses in between, like the beat of a drum for a funeral march. Bernadette had told me about these marches. Processions, she called them. The Negroes over in Louisiana did such things. Someone beat on a drum real slow with all the mourners following behind the wagon that carried the coffin.

‘For pity’s sake,’ I’d told her. ‘A drum? That don’t hardly seem fitting, not to me it don’t.’

‘Ah, Nan,’ she said, them dark eyes of hers all cloudy from remembering her childhood. ‘It isn’t like that. That drum reaches right here.’ Bernadette put her hand on her chest and thumped on it slow. ‘It untangles the knots and helps people cry,’ she said.

Maybe for people in Louisiana, but this was Texas and the sound of the surf rubbed my nerves. The wind did, too. It came from the mainland, blowing through the house. Andre’s clothes that hung on pegs fell on the floor, the lid on the stove’s chimney clinked up and down, and the fireplace hooted, the wind coming down it. I dropped a cooking spoon two times and when I poured a glass of milk for Andre after his nap, I misjudged and slopped some of it over the side. It took me for ever to get supper cooked even though it wasn’t nothing more than beans and rice, boiled shrimp, bread, and a vanilla cake. It came as a relief when Frank T. and Wiley finally came clunking up the veranda steps. Friday was nearly over. I took off my apron and hung it up. Come Sunday, I’d be taking my apron home with me. Come Monday, somebody else would be doing the laundry, and that I had to admit, I wasn’t overly sorry about.

‘How do?’ I heard Frank T. say to Mrs Williams. She was sitting on the front veranda with one of her books. A novel, she’d called it like I’d asked. The wind wasn’t all that much out front since it still came from the back and the house blocked it. Andre was with her, playing with his building blocks on the floor. I heard Wiley say, ‘Howdy, ma’am.’

She said her niceties, like only she could, saying how it was a pleasure to see them and how very kind it was of them to bring the ice, the newspapers, and the box of groceries. I stayed in the kitchen and tied my bonnet. I didn’t care to watch them two make fools of themselves, gawking at Mrs Williams. She had taken to loosening her corset some and instead of that spoiling her figure, it improved it, giving her a softness and making her bosom fuller somehow.

‘Tide’s running high,’ Frank T. said now. He was dawdling, just to stretch out the time to be with her. ‘Thought we was going to have to take the ridge road but we got through.’

‘Oh my,’ Mrs Williams said.

‘Can we go to the beach and look?’ Andre said.

‘Wiley,’ I called out from the kitchen. ‘You dripping all over everything?’

He came in with the ice, ducking his head like he figured I’d light into him but I didn’t say a word. All I wanted was to get on home. I gave the kitchen one last look to make sure I hadn’t left anything undone. I hadn’t. I went outside and right then and there, I nearly stopped breathing.

The gulf was nothing but a mass of high-rising swells, pushing forward like there was a giant rippling sea snake just below the top, the kind of monster Daddy used to tell us about when me and the boys was little and had misbehaved. But these swells were real, like nothing I’d seen before. This past July, we’d had us a bad storm. The water had been all churned up, the waves curled up as tall as a grown man, and the tide came close to the foot of the sand hills. I hadn’t liked that, not one little bit. But these here were swells, not waves. They made the gulf look raised up like it was higher than the land.

‘A big blow’s out there,’ Wiley said. He was on the veranda now.

‘Good Lord,’ I said.

He didn’t say nothing. He was fixed on them swells out there, his eyes all squinted up. I said, ‘You sure?’

‘Yep.’

‘But the wind,’ I said. ‘It’s coming from the other way. From the mainland. And these here clouds, they’re as white as can be. There ain’t the first sign of rain.’

‘It’ll change.’

‘But—’

‘It’ll change.’

My lungs squeezed up.

‘Are you talking about a tornado?’ Mrs Williams said. She had gone straight as a ruler. Andre was on his feet now with his head back, looking directly up at Wiley.

‘No, ma’am,’ Wiley said. ‘Don’t much get ’em here. We ain’t like the Panhandle.’ He tried to look at her, but I could tell she made him nervous. He had taken to tugging on one end of his mustache. ‘A big blow’s in the gulf,’ he said. ‘A hurricane.’

‘Good heavens.’

Frank T. said, ‘Wiley’s got a feel for weather, always has, him being born in the middle of the ’75 storm. He’s got an eye for clouds and waves, knows their meaning. He can sniff the air and tell what’s going to happen. Wiley knew it first thing this morning.’

‘Nobody told me,’ I said.

‘That’s ’cause you’re scared of storms.’

There was no call for Frank T. to say that, not in front of Mrs Williams. He said, ‘By the time we left the city, folks were talking, saying how the warning flags were up at the weather station.’

‘Warning flags?’ Mrs Williams said.

‘For the ships. Rough seas and all.’

‘Does Oscar know?’ she said. She was on her feet now, her hand to her bosom like her heart was leaping. ‘Mr Ogden,’ she said. She was talking to Wiley. ‘Did you tell him?’

‘Andre,’ I said. ‘You go on now and play in the yard.’ He didn’t need to hear none of this.

‘But, Miss Nan—’

‘You heard her, bud,’ Frank T. said. ‘Go on.’

Andre muttered something but shuffled off, us all watching as he went down the steps, one at a time. Close to the bottom, he threw his arms back and jumped. The dogs that had been under the house took up with him as he meandered toward the barn. Likely he could still hear us when Mrs Williams said to Wiley, ‘Mr Ogden. Does Oscar know?’

She was scared, anybody could tell that, her blue eyes were all wide. She was impatient too. Her hands balled up like it took everything she had to keep from shaking the words out of Wiley. But talking had changed for Wiley when the cow kicked out some of his teeth. He’d become a man that picked his words, trying to stay clear of the ones that made him lisp extra bad.

Frank T. stepped in for Wiley. ‘Yep, we surely did,’ he said. ‘Told Oscar how it’ll be here tomorrow night, maybe after dark. That gives us plenty of time. We’ll get the milk delivered tomorrow long before the wind starts up. Ain’t a thing to worry about. Especially up here on this ridge.’

‘Everyone refers to this ridge, but I don’t see it,’ Mrs Williams said. ‘It all feels flat and low to me.’

‘Begging your pardon, Mrs Williams, but it’s here all right. Might be a gradual slope, might not leave you winded to climb but it’s the highest point on the island. Eight feet up. So don’t you worry none. This ain’t the first big blow to come our way, I can tell you that. We’re old hands at this, us being from here. We know what to do, these things being mostly rain and a hard wind.’

Doubt spread over Mrs Williams’ face. ‘That’s all?’ she said. ‘Rain and wind?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Frank T. said. ‘That’s about the size of it.’

I could hardly believe my ears. Frank T. was flat-out lying. He was near as bad as Oscar, sheltering this woman. Big blows could take off roofs. People like us that didn’t live on the ridge might get a flood, waist deep and with a current so strong it could knock down a grown man. We didn’t call them big blows for nothing. But could be she needed sheltering, her not being from here. A scared-silly woman didn’t do nobody no favors, and right now the doubt and fear on Mrs Williams’ face had eased up some. She’d fastened her gaze on the barn like she was thinking of Oscar and how he made everything all right.

‘Tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘Over a day’s notice. Unlike a tornado.’ She was talking to Frank T. now. ‘Those, I can tell you, are frightening. They appear from nowhere.’

‘You all get them up there in Ohio?’

‘We can. Particularly in the spring. During the summer months we have electrical storms. They can be quite violent. Windows vibrate from the impact of thunder, and when I was a child, a lightning strike split our neighbors’ tree in half and burned down part of their carriage house. I don’t care for storms but in Ohio, well, one can expect them during the warm months.’

Frank T.’s face knotted up like he was trying to sort through her fast-talking Yankee words. Wiley stepped over Andre’s blocks and went to the west side of the veranda. There, he looked toward the bayou that was a mile behind the house.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Frank T. finally said. ‘If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s summer storms.’

‘You two fixing to lallygag all day?’ I said to my brothers. This talk about bad weather was working on my nerves but that wasn’t the only thing. I was going home, and I’d sent Andre off before telling him goodbye. I wanted to tell him I was sorry I’d been peevish with him. More than anything, I wanted to put my arms around him and hold him.

‘Wagon’s hitched, ain’t it?’ Frank T. said. ‘We’re waiting on you.’

‘Then why’s this box of groceries still sitting out here instead of sitting in the house?’

He picked up the box and took it inside. Two more days, that was all I had left. Come Sunday, I’d walk down these steps knowing I wouldn’t be back. I could hardly picture it, didn’t want to. But maybe this storm would make it easier. If it came in tomorrow night, by Sunday morning there’d be nothing to it but the mess it’d left behind. There might be fences to mend, and roofs to fix. If there were leaks, there’d be floors to mop. Could be it’d turn everyone so busy, maybe even Mrs Williams, that Sunday would be over before I knew it. Not that I wanted a storm, I didn’t. But if there was to be one, it’d take my mind off of the hurt in my chest.

‘Mrs Williams,’ I said, nodding my goodbye.

‘Miss Ogden,’ she said. And then I went on down the steps. Two more days. And a storm to help me get through them.

Us Ogdens weren’t ones to talk while eating; we didn’t do like Oscar did. Most usually we just ate, me and the boys on one side of the table and Mama and Daddy on the other. Talking came later when the men were on the veranda with their pipes, and me and Mama washed the dishes. But tonight, with Wiley’s storm fixed in our minds, Mama couldn’t hold back. She saw everything that needed doing to get ready. There were the hog and piglets to think about, and there were the hens in the chicken coop. ‘Need to be ready to move them,’ Mama said. ‘If the water comes up. Don’t relish the idea of keeping them on the veranda but if that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’ll do.’ She directed this to Daddy. She wanted to live on the ridge but Daddy said no, he had to be close to his dock and fishing boat. We were two hundred feet from the bayou, and for him, that was too far.

Mama said, ‘Have to bring in all them trays of seedlings from under the house, and I don’t even want to think what the wind’ll do to my garden.’

‘Yep,’ Daddy said. ‘Fishing won’t be worth a dang for a day or two after the storm is over, not even in the bay.’

‘We’ll get by,’ Mama said, putting aside her laments. ‘Always have.’

That was true. We were island people, all of us, but Daddy was born and bred here. Mama’s roots went way back, her grandparents on both sides being island people. Daddy’s people got here when he was five. Andre’s age.

I scooted my food around the plate. My throat was tight and not only because of the storm. I hadn’t told Mama and Daddy about my intention to make a change, and here it was, Friday. All week it worked at me. I wanted to say, ‘Come Monday, I won’t be working for Oscar.’ But every time I tried, the words stuck, me knowing it’d kick up a fuss. If there was one thing I didn’t like, it was a fuss.

At the table, Daddy ran his chunk of bread through the grease that pooled around his beans, and beside me, Frank T. worked on his flounder. Wiley poured himself some milk from the pitcher and downed it in one long gulp. And there was Mama directly across, her eyes boring into me. She had put her worries to the side and was speculating, I could tell, her just now noticing my puny appetite.

I took a bite of flounder. The carrying of a secret was a burdensome thing. Daddy said something about letting out the line on his boat and checking the knot. Frank T. said he might ride up the island a ways, just to let folks know about the weather. I felt Mama looking at me, seeing clear through. I dabbed at my mouth with my napkin like I was Mrs Williams. All this table talk, it was throwing me. ‘I’m making a change,’ I blurted out. ‘Come Monday.’