Promises to Keep (37 page)

“Sure. Hey, Lila?”

“Yes?” She turns around, halfway to the cutlery drawer.

“I just want to say thank you. For everything you’re doing, for being the friend you are. You’re amazing.”

“Thank you,” she says. Tears well up in her eyes and Reece walks over to give her a hug.

But in the end, it is Reece who can’t let go.

 

By seven o’clock, there are ten people in the kitchen. Immediate family, including Lila, and four friends of Callie’s who have arrived with various casseroles and bunches of flowers.

Now that word has got around that it is serious, people keep dropping in unexpectedly. At first, Reece thought they were coming to see Callie, that they would disappear when he told them, as nicely as he could, that she wasn’t up to seeing visitors. Still they keep coming, sitting around the island in the kitchen, drinking tea, or, in the late afternoon, wine.

Finally, he has realized that friends keep coming to be with the family. Friends who are as scared, and sad and lost, as everyone else, and who need to have a connection, if not with Callie, then with the next best thing, for there is a tremendous comfort in all of them being together.

It is usually at five o’clock, when everyone is home, winding down, gathering around the island in the kitchen, that the callers start to arrive. It is not until late in the evening that the house is finally quiet. And when everyone has left and Reece goes upstairs to be with Callie, the only hum is that of the boiler, and a steady stream of sadness.

 

“Is it working?” Callie asked Mark the other day, halfway through the radiation sessions. “Can you tell? Because I feel horrible, and I’m starting to forget things. My brain is turning to mush. I’m losing words.”

“That’s normal,” Mark assured her. “It’s still too early to tell if the radiation is helping the neurological symptoms. We need to finish the course and then we’ll do the scans and see where we are.”

“And if it hasn’t worked?” she insisted.

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.

But there are other things happening that do not bode well. She is growing weaker and weaker—she needs help to raise herself to a sitting position in bed, she cannot walk, and two days ago she had “an accident.”

Now, she is in adult diapers, which her mother lovingly changes, cleaning her up and washing her gently in the bed.

Everyone is scared.

 

Eliza and Jack seem to be coping—to them it seems as though there is a big party every night, and everyone is making an enormous fuss of them. But Honor has seen Jack punch his pillow, in the quiet of his room, when he thinks no one is watching, a burst of anger that he doesn’t want to express anywhere other than in private.

The psychologist, who is now visiting them at home, has said this is normal, and that it is also normal that he is not showing his sadness—at six, he is really too young to understand.

Eliza, though, becomes clingy and upset as the evening wears on. She creeps into her parents’ bedroom at night and crawls quietly onto the bed, tucking herself into her mother. This is a child who has never spent a night in her parents’ bed in her life, whose parents believed their bed was sacred; but circumstances are different now, and Callie will wake slightly and snuggle into her daughter, stroking her hair until Eliza falls back to sleep.

 

Honor is exhausted. She does not look in the mirror anymore, unless she absolutely has to. Her entire face looks as if it has been pulled down, and she wakes up each morning honestly not knowing how she is going to get through the day, but knowing that she has to. For the sake of Callie, and the kids, and Reece, she has no other choice.

The first time Callie had an accident, she was mortified. Honor tried to reassure her that she didn’t mind in the slightest.

“Darling, I first cleaned you up forty-three years ago. It may have been a while, but I haven’t forgotten how to do it.”

Reece has been giving Callie her showers—wheeling her into the bathroom and gently washing her—and Honor was shocked when she stripped off Callie’s nightdress and saw how she is truly nothing more than skin and bone. Her hip bones are protruding painfully, her thighs now concave. Honor closed her eyes for a second, willing the tears away as she sponged down her daughter, then put her in the wheelchair while she changed the sheets, calmly and quickly, chattering away about the kids, telling Callie funny stories about Jack.

She was cheerful and gracious, and when she left the bedroom she gave her daughter a kiss, then walked calmly down the corridor with a bundle of sheets that needed washing in her arms, before sinking down outside the laundry room in tears.

Walter found her there. He stood quietly as Honor sobbed, then crouched down, creakily, for he is not as young as he used to be, to awkwardly pat her back. Honor leaned her head on his arm as her body heaved, and after a few minutes he rested his forehead on top of her head, breathing in the smell of her hair, and closing his eyes as the weight of grief descended.

They stayed there for a very long time.

 

Now, tonight, Honor sits on the sofa closest to the fire, a bowl of soup, which is all she can manage, her appetite having gone, on the table in front of her. The Christmas tree is up, the lights are sparkling and gifts are underneath, but there is nothing festive this year in the Perry household, although everyone tries, when the children are around.

The fire is dying down. Walter has taken it upon himself to build a roaring fire every night—it’s what Callie always does, all winter, and even though she is no longer able to come downstairs, it is important to Walter to keep this going.

Callie would always light a fire as soon as she got up, so the children came downstairs before school to a cozy room, and could start their day with hot chocolate and muffins in front of the fire. And when they returned the fire would again be blazing.

Now Honor stares blankly into the fire, looking up only when she hears a noise.

Walter is standing in the doorway, a cup of tea in his hand.

“I thought you might like some tea,” he says.

“Oh Walter. Thank you. That’s so . . . kind.” He places the tea on the table next to her, and thinks about how much they have both changed.

They should never have been married; she knew that then, and knows it now. But it was because they were so young, and so different—and those differences were so startling back then—that for her there was no way out of feeling trapped.

And now? Walter is still a kind man, as he always was. She has thought, often, these past couple of weeks, of the good things in their marriage. The way he always took care of her. The way he is taking care of her now.

She has thought, often, of how much she must have hurt him. That his hatred for her wasn’t in fact
hatred
, but deep resentment and upset. That he couldn’t express his pain any other way than to remove himself entirely from her life.

“Come sit,” she says, patting the sofa next to her. Walter isn’t sure, but eventually he sits down as Honor takes the tea and sips it.

“This is perfect. Just the way I like it.”

“A drop of milk and half a sugar?”

“Yes. Exactly. You remember.”

“I do.”

“Do you forgive me, Walter?” she says quietly, after a few seconds.

He looks at her, startled.

“I know how you have hated me all these years, and I want to say, now, that I am sorry. I truly did not know what else to do.”

“I didn’t hate you,” Walter says slowly. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s all . . . water under the bridge.”

“Don’t you think we ought to talk about it?” Honor asks.

Walter shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I think we ought not to talk about it. The past is the past, and it doesn’t matter. We were both young, and different. We made whatever choices we made based on who we were then. I was . . . cloistered, I think. I didn’t really know anything about
anything
, and you were so . . . so full of fire. I wanted some of that. I wanted to escape this staid, dull existence, the life I was expected to lead, and you were the most exciting woman I had ever met.”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about it,” Honor says.

“We’re not.” Walter holds her gaze. “All that matters now is Callie, and being here for her.” He blinks and turns toward the fire, and Honor watches him, surprised that his eyes look watery. Walter is not a man who has ever been comfortable showing emotion in front of others.

As she watches, Walter makes a noise, halfway between a grunt and a gasp, and, stunned, she realizes that he is crying. He is finally breaking down, and she reaches over and takes him in her arms.

S
teffi is doing the morning rounds, first to Mary’s store, to drop off soups, muffins and cookies, then to Amy’s with food for the week.

Yesterday she baked gingerbread men, with holes in the top and red velvet ribbons, for children to hang from a tree. “If anyone wants,” she said to Mary, as she dropped them off, “I can ice their children’s names on them.”

“Lovely idea!” Mary said enthusiastically. “Why don’t we make a sign? Oh Steffi, I am so happy you moved here. People have started coming in telling me they made the journey especially because they heard we had the best food around.”

Steffi’s eyes grow wide with joy. “Seriously? People said that?”

“Yes. Three people came in yesterday, and the local paper called. They left a message saying they wanted to write an article about the food here!”

“I couldn’t be happier that it’s working out.”

“What am I going to do when you leave?”

“Leave?” Steffi laughs. “I’m completely in love with it here. Why would I leave?”

“But I heard Mason was back. I thought he was moving in again.”

“
What?
” Steffi stops still, in shock. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mary says, capitulating. “Probably nothing.”

“No, tell me. He emailed me just the other day and he didn’t say anything about this. Are you sure it’s him? What do you mean, he’s back?”

“Mick said he’d run into him down at the inn, and he said he was here for a while.”

“But why would he come back and not tell me?” Steffi feels a clutch of fear around her heart. Maybe he has come back to ask her to leave. Oh God. She has to find him now.

“Is he staying at the inn?”

Mary nods, worried that she has somehow rocked the boat, said something she shouldn’t have said.

“I’m going to go and find him,” Steffi says. “Sorry, Mary. I’ve got to go.” And she flies out, climbs into the old station wagon and drives down to the inn.

 

“Hi,” she says to the man sitting behind the old mahogany desk in the reception area. “I’m looking for Mason Gregory. Is he staying here?”

“Steffi?” She hears her name called from the library, and Mason, who has been sitting in a wing chair by the fire, stands up.

“Mason? What are you
doing
here?” Nerves prevent her from being pleased to see him.

“Well, that’s a fine greeting,” he says, his smile now turning into a frown.

“I’m sorry.” She sighs. “I just . . . why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to Sleepy Hollow?”

“I hadn’t planned it,” he says. “It was a last-minute decision.”

“But . . . why are you here?” she blurts out. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Leave?” He looks confused before bursting into laughter. “Oh God, no! I’m not here to kick you out. Is that what you thought?”

Sheepishly, she dips her head.

“Oh Steffi. I am so sorry. Let’s start again. Steffi! Lovely to see you!”

“Mason!” she says. “What a gorgeous surprise!” And he kisses her, European style, on each cheek.

“So really,” she says, taking a step back, “what
are
you doing here?”

“It’s a long story,” he says. “And not a particularly good one.”

“Uh-oh. Sounds ominous. The job?”

“I’d have to start at the beginning and it would take a while.”

“Why don’t you come with me? I’m off to Amy Van Peterson’s to drop off food. You can tell me all about it on the way.”

“Deal,” he says, following her out to the car.

 

“So what happened?” Steffi turns her head as they bounce along a dirt road on the way to Amy’s. “Job didn’t work out?”

“No, the job’s fine. Marriage, on the other hand? Not so good.”

“What!” Steffi pulls the car to a stop and turns to him. “Your
marriage
? What are you talking about?”

“We separated.”

“
What?”
she blusters, truly shocked.

“Okay. That’s not strictly true. Olivia left me.”

There is a silence as Steffi gapes at him. “What do you mean, she left you?”