Promises to Keep (16 page)
I couldn’t wait for Wednesday night. I wanted to see what Mara would do when the show came on again.
At nine o’clock I turned out the light. I heard the radio click on in the dark.
“Will it bother you?” she asked.
“No. It’s all right. It won’t keep me awake.”
“Good night, then, Roz.”
“Good night, Mara.”
I didn’t close my eyes. I pinched my earlobes against sleep as I listened to the low rumbling of Professor Remmick’s voice. I heard Mara alternately sigh and softly laugh. After my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out the shape of her in the other bed. Her hand rested on the radio by her ear, and by the end of the half hour the little box was pressed against her cheek.
Then, as on Sunday night, the closing tune began to play, and this man named William Remmick signed off, saying, “That’s it for tonight, folks. We’ll see you again on Sunday, when my colleague Dr. Margaret Jamison will join us to talk about what’s new in the
New York Times
Book Review. Until then, this is William Remmick saying good-night and thank you for joining us. And good night to you, Beatrice. Sweet dreams.”
And then, as on Sunday night, Mara whispered, “Good night, Daddy. I love you.”
The radio clicked off. Mara placed it on the table between the beds, sighed, and rolled over. But this time I wasn’t going to let it go.
I sat up and turned on the light. Mara, blinking, looked at me over her shoulder. For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then finally she said, “I thought you were asleep.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Well, I wasn’t.”
She sat up and nodded. Her face was placid; her lips hinted at a smile. “Roz?”
I hesitated. My heart was pounding. She was scaring me, and I was ready to run, if need be. “Yeah?” I said.
“I want to read you something.”
“Um, okay.”
She had placed the radio on top of a paperback book. She reached for that book now, and when she opened it I saw it was the book of poetry she’d brought along,
Greatest American Poems of the Twentieth Century.
She found her page, glanced up at me, and began to read. “ ‘Cross,’ ” she said, “ ‘by Langston Hughes.’ ” She looked at me again, uneasily now, and took a deep breath. In a quiet, almost faltering voice, she read, “ ‘My old man’s a white old man, and my old mother’s black.’ ” She stopped, shifted nervously, then sat up straighter and crossed her legs. She went on then, and though her voice went up in volume I didn’t hear what she was saying. The first words of the poem were stuck in spin cycle in my head. A white old man? A black old mother? What was Mara trying to tell me? When she stopped once more she paused for so long I thought she was finished.
“Mara?” I said.
She didn’t look at me, but raised one index finger to tell me to wait. She went on to read about the old man dying in a nice big house while the woman died in a shack, and finally, her voice dropping to a whisper, she concluded, “ ‘I wonder where I’m gonna die, being neither white nor black.’ ”
With that, she closed the book, pressed her lips together, and raised her eyes to mine. Those two dark eyes were filled with something I couldn’t quite understand. Sadness? Shame? Longing?
I thought of the couple who had dropped Mara off at our house, the man and the woman in worn old coats, sadly outdated hats and shoes – and yet, on top of everything, a cloak of quiet dignity. Was she trying to tell me that this couple, Willie and Hester Nightingale, were not her father and mother after all but some sort of adoptive parents?
“Mara?” I asked quietly, drawing my knees up to my chest in a kind of protective stance.
“Roz, I want to tell you something no one else knows. At least, not many people.”
Why? I wanted to ask. Why me? I hugged my knees more tightly.
As though in answer to my unasked question, she said, “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“And I can trust you, right?”
I nodded.
She beckoned me over to her bed with a crook of her finger. Hesitantly, I unlocked my arms and willed my legs to carry me the short distance between the beds. When I arrived, claiming a spot on the quilt, she reached beneath the neck of her nightgown and pulled out the locket she always wore. Fingers trembling, she opened it and held it up for me to see.
Inside were two oval photographs, each one smaller than a dime. I leaned forward to get a better look. On the right side was a beautiful young Negro woman, hardly older than a teenager and looking hauntingly like Mara. The other was a white man, slightly older, fair-haired, serious and unsmiling, his eyes intelligent. Mara didn’t say anything, as though the pictures themselves told the whole story. I gazed at them, waiting. Finally I looked to Mara in search of an answer.
“My mama and daddy,” she whispered.
I gasped.
She nodded. She pinched the locket, and I heard it clasp. She tucked it back under her nightgown, where it rested against her heart.
“You mean, the Nightingales aren’t your real parents?” I asked.
She shook her head. “They’re my grandparents.”
“Then who are . . .” I pointed to her chest, where the locket lay hidden.
“My mama’s the one in Detroit who just had the baby, the one Mama and Daddy are visiting.”
I was confused. “You mean your sister?”
“No. I have to tell people she’s my sister, but she’s not. She’s my real mother. She had me when she was eighteen.”
“Why didn’t she keep you?”
“She couldn’t marry my daddy.”
“And he’s . . .” Again, I pointed toward the locket.
She nodded, laying her hand over her chest. “He’s the professor,” she said. “William Remmick.”
My eyes widened, and I knew my mouth hung open foolishly, but I couldn’t help it. “The man on the radio really
is
your father?”
She nodded again, silently.
“But how do you know that?”
“My mama” – she tapped at her chest – “she told me. She gave me these pictures.”
“But . . . but . . .” I was having trouble gathering my thoughts. “He calls you Beatrice. On the radio he says good-night to Beatrice.”
“That’s right. That’s my real name.”
“It is?”
“He told my mother, if I was a girl, to name me Beatrice after a character in one of Shakespeare’s plays. He said Beatrice was strong and independent and intelligent, and that’s what he wanted me to be. So he calls me Beatrice, but Mama gave me the middle name Mara, and that’s what everyone calls me.”
“But, how come? Why doesn’t she just call you Beatrice too?”
“She thought Mara fit better. It’s from the Bible, from the story of Ruth and Naomi. In the Old Testament, in Hebrew, Mara means bitter.”
“But,” I said, cocking my head, “you’re not bitter.”
“No, it’s mama. She’s the one who’s bitter.”
I thought a moment. “Because she couldn’t marry your daddy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Because he’s white and she’s black?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But it wasn’t against the law, was it?”
“No. By that time it wasn’t against the law. But his family didn’t want it, and neither did mine. My grandma and grandpa threw a fit. They said they’d never allow their daughter to marry a white man.”
“They did?” I thought of how Tillie said the Nightingales had worked with her on civil rights in Mills River. “What do your grandparents have against white people?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Mara said. “Or not much, anyway. I mean, they let me stay with you when I asked them if I could, didn’t they?”
“Well, sure. But so?”
“But marrying a white person, that’s another thing. They didn’t want their daughter marrying William Remmick. They said it was a sure recipe for disaster. You can’t have whites and Negroes getting married and not expect them to have troubles every day for the rest of their lives. And the kids . . .” Mara looked away and shook her head. “The kids aren’t white, and they aren’t Negro. Neither one. They don’t belong anywhere at all. That’s why my grandparents want me to pass for a full Negro. Anyway, I’d never pass for a full white, would I?”
She looked at me, waiting for an answer. I shook my head slowly. I watched as she laid her hand slowly over the hidden locket again.
“Your mom and daddy,” I said, “did they love each other?”
To my surprise Mara’s eyes glazed over. But her face turned stern; she seemed determined not to cry. “I believe they still do. At least a little bit, anyway.”
“But your mom – she’s married to someone else?”
Mara nodded. “To Raymond Greer. He’s all right, I guess. They have three kids together.”
“And your dad?”
“He’s married too. He has two boys and a girl. But I only know that because he’s mentioned them on the radio show.”
“All those kids – they’re your half brothers and sisters.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know them?”
“I know Mama’s girls, but I haven’t met the new little boy, Jeremiah. The one just born.”
“You don’t know your dad’s children?”
“I don’t know my dad, Roz. I never met him.” Tears pooled in her eyes again. She brushed them away. “But someday I will. Someday, I’m going to meet him.”
“You think he wants to meet you?”
“I know he does, Roz. I believe he’s waiting for that day too.”
“Well, why doesn’t he come see you now? What’s he waiting for?”
“It’s not that easy. He can’t just come here and claim me. He’s got a wife and kids and an important job at a big-shot school. Not to mention that he’s got a radio show and most of Chicago knows him.”
I didn’t know what to say.
After a moment Mara said wistfully, “I’m going to become a writer and a professor, just like him. I’m going to make him proud of me.”
“Maybe he’s already proud of you, Mara.”
She didn’t respond to that. She looked away, as though studying the shadows played out across the ceiling. “If he’ll see me, the first thing I’ll do is promise to never tell anyone. I’ll swear to never tell anyone that I’m his daughter, just so long as I can see him sometimes. You know, talk to him . . . about poetry and things.”
I understood the look in her eyes only too well. Mara wanted her father, wanted his companionship and his approval. And his love.
“Mara?”
“Yeah, Roz?” Those rich dark eyes flittered down from the ceiling and settled on my face.
“I have something I want to tell you too.”
“All right.”
“It’s about my daddy.”
Just then the door to my bedroom opened, and Mom stuck her head in. “What are you girls doing up?” she asked. “It’s after ten. You were supposed to be asleep an hour ago.”
“Oh, sorry, Mom,” I said. “We were just talking.”
“Well, it’ll have to wait. Tomorrow’s a school day. Turn out that light and go to sleep.”
I hopped off Mara’s bed and turned out the light. Sliding under the covers in my own bed, I said, “Good night, Mom.”
“Good night, girls.”
The door closed and Mom’s footsteps moved down the hall. I waited another minute before whispering, “You got to promise not to tell anyone.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die. As long as you don’t tell anyone about my daddy.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I repeated. Under the covers, I ran an index finger across my chest in an
X
. For a swift second I remembered Daddy’s warning. But I pushed it aside. Mara could be trusted. And besides, if I didn’t tell someone, I thought I might explode. I took a deep breath and said, “You remember when we went to the library, right?”
“Sure, I remember.”
“Well, when we were there . . .”
Late into the night our whispers reached across the room, tying us together in a way that only the fatherless daughters of the world would understand.
That night Mara and I made a deal. We swore we would pray for each other every day, asking God to give us our daddies back. We would pray faithfully until God answered, even if it took the rest of our lives. To seal the pact, which we decided to call our Daddy Deal, we stretched our arms across the gap between the beds and clasped pinkies, swearing aloud in unison, “I promise.”
On Saturday night, the night before her grandparents were to pick her up, Mara met the greatest threat to the fulfillment of my dreams: Tom Barrows. He had been coming around regularly, taking Mom out to one place or another for the evening, and on those days he didn’t come by, he made a general nuisance of himself by calling or sometimes even sending flowers. It was pretty clear to all of us what he wanted. Although he’d known Mom only a matter of weeks, he was determined to win her heart, dull and homely as he was, and make her his wife.
“Does your mom really like this guy?” Mara asked.
We were in the living room waiting for Tom Barrows to show up. Mom was upstairs getting dressed for the evening, but she’d had to work late at the store and was running behind. She asked Mara and me to greet Mr. Barrows when he arrived, ask him if he’d like something to drink, and generally keep him entertained while she finished getting ready. She didn’t realize the mistake she’d made in asking us to do that. Neither did I, at first.
I shook my head in answer to Mara’s question. “I don’t think so. I mean, how could anyone like a guy like that?”
“Then why does she go out with him?”
“Well . . .” I paused a moment as I considered how to explain what I didn’t understand myself. “I heard Mom and Tillie talking not too long ago.”
“Yeah?”
“Tillie asked Mom if she thought she could ever love Tom Barrows.”
“She did? She asked her straight out, just like that?”
“Yeah, she did.”
“So what’d your mom say?”
Even as I thought about it, my brows came together in a frown. “She said she was too old for all that now.”
“Too old for love?”
“I guess so. But Tillie said that was nonsense. She said Mom didn’t know how young she still was.”
“So what’d your mom say to that?”
“She said she didn’t need love. She needed stability.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know.” I was sure it had something to do with Daddy, or with what Daddy hadn’t been, but I couldn’t put it into words. “Tillie told Mom stability was a good thing, but that she shouldn’t accept stability without love. And Mom said . . .” I swallowed hard. It hurt to think of what Mom had said.
