Promises to Keep (7 page)

“Merciful heavens,” Tillie said quietly. “I’m sorry, Janis. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t. How could you?”

“I . . . then . . . I . . .”

For the first time since she had come to live with us, Tillie was tongue-tied. I lay there enjoying it. I didn’t think she ought to be saying bad things about Wally when he wasn’t around to defend himself.

Mom, though, jumped to Tillie’s rescue. “I remarried and had Roz and Valerie. Wally still carries his father’s name; he’s still a Sanderson. Alan didn’t adopt him.”

“Alan. So that’s the man you ran away from.”

I expected Mom’s response to be angry, but she merely sounded resigned.

“Yes. That’s why we’re here,” she said. “In your house,” she added with a small laugh. Two weeks with Tillie and that’s how Mom talked to her now, as though the house were still Tillie’s, as though Gramps hadn’t made the down payment fair and square, and as though Mom wasn’t on her feet eight hours a day selling hats and gloves to pay the mortgage. I didn’t know whether Mom was humoring Tillie or whether she decided that ownership
was
in fact a matter of the sweat, years, and love a person poured into a house. If the latter was true and could hold up in court, this house would be Tillie’s long after she was dead.

“I’m sure you had good reason to leave,” Tillie said.

“Our lives depended on it.”

Another long silence followed Mom’s statement. I lay there thinking about what she’d just said and wondering if it was true. There were days with Daddy when we’d been afraid, but there were other days, good days, when we hadn’t been afraid at all, but happy. Just the previous afternoon I’d begun to collect them, to make a keepsake bouquet of the memories, and hadn’t even finished by the time I fell asleep. How could Mom say we had to leave Daddy because our lives depended on it?

“You did the right thing, Janis,” Tillie said.

“Yes.”

I imagined Mom nodding as her fingers worked the needle and thread.

“I suppose he drank?” Tillie asked.

“Oh yes.” Mom sighed. “But it was more than that. It was like he was two people, and one of those people was crazy. One of them was dangerous. At first, it wasn’t that way. The first couple of years were actually rather happy. But later . . .”

Mom’s words drifted off, as though to leave the unspeakable unspoken.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Tillie said, stitching up the frayed edges of the conversation. “A good woman like you deserves better than that. I know it took courage to leave the way you did. I’m glad you found the courage.”

The chains holding the swing began to creak. Mom must have started swinging gently, pushing herself with the balls of her feet. “I wish I’d found the courage sooner,” she said, her voice heavy with remorse. “I often ask myself why I stayed so long, for so many years. If I’d left sooner, it would have been far better for the children. Wally especially, I think.”

“And for you too, no doubt,” Tillie added. “But you know the old saying, it’s never too late to turn around when you’re headed down the wrong path.”

“Hmm, yes. I suppose you’re right. So I’ve turned around, and we’re making a new life now. Maybe that’s all that matters.”

“Oh yes, that’s all that matters. And you can stay right here in this house for as long as you like. I promise you’ll be safe here.”

“Thank you, Tillie.”

“My pleasure, dear.”

The porch swing went on creaking. Beyond the porch, from the direction of the blue spruce, came a tangle of birdsong, fitting background accompaniment to Tillie’s promise of security.

“It
is
nice,” Mom said, “not to be worried all the time, not to have to wonder who will come home, the good Alan or the bad Alan. No more lying awake nights in fear, no more terrible fights, no more riding in the car and wondering . . .”

There was a pause, followed by muffled sobs as Mom wept quietly. Then Tillie’s voice drifted through the air in hushed and gentle tones. “Say no more, dear. It’s all behind you now.”

Just as Tillie instructed, Mom didn’t say anything more, but I remembered. I remembered those times of riding in Daddy’s car, the thought of which still made my mother cry. It had happened fairly often, especially toward the end, this wild game of Daddy’s. His unpredictable desire to play came out of nowhere, and he didn’t even have to be drinking.

The last time it happened, only a couple of months earlier, we were driving home late at night. We were on the long stretch of two-lane highway between the shores of Lake Minnetonka and our home in Minneapolis. The landscape offered little for miles, other than the dark-shrouded trees on either side of the road and the bright stars overhead. Our headlights cleared a path through the otherwise pitch-darkness of that little-traveled route.

Daddy was driving, of course, while Mom held Valerie on her lap in the front seat. Wally and I sat behind them on the vinyl bench seat of Dad’s 1963 Chevy Impala. All was quiet save for the whirling of the tires over the asphalt. Exhausted from a long day in the sun, Wally and I laid our heads back against the seat and began to doze.

That’s when it always started, when we were right there on the edge of sleep. It started with a slight acceleration, almost imperceptible at first, but growing greater until, jerked awake, I saw the trees whiz by at an impossible rate.

“Alan, please . . .” Mom said as she clutched Valerie tighter. “Please . . .”

Daddy’s face was lighted up like he had front-row seats at a Minnesota Twins game. “Come on, Janis, it’s fun. This road just begs for a game of chicken. Everybody ready? Anybody screams, I’m heading straight for the next tree.”

I watched in horror as the needle on the speedometer climbed higher. I bit my lower lip to keep from crying out.

“This isn’t funny, Alan,” Mom said. “Please don’t do this.”

Wally sat up straight in the seat, his spine a ramrod, his hands curled into fists. “Stop it, Alan,” he said, his jaw tight, teeth clenched.

“What’s the matter, Wally? Chicken? Buck-buck, buck-buck!”

The needle climbed. Daddy laughed. He laughed so hard he cried.

“Alan.” Mom was trying hard but failing to keep the panic out of her voice. “Alan, you’re going to kill us. Please slow down.”

“I promise not to run off the road unless somebody screams. Anyone screams, well . . .” He tugged at the wheel enough to send the car swerving onto the shoulder of the road. We bumped over the gravel for a few terrifying moments until Daddy pulled the car back into the lane.

By now, Valerie was awake and whimpering. Mom held a hand near Valerie’s mouth, ready to stifle her cries. I had a firm two-handed hold on the armrest of the door, bracing myself for impact. Mom was at least secured by a lap belt but, without seat belts in the back, Wally and I were on our own. I imagined the car careening off the road and rolling over, Wally and I tossed about inside like a couple of rag dolls in a dryer.

I trembled. The Chevy trembled. I lifted fearful eyes to Wally. The muscles on the side of his face rippled, and his fists were on the back of the driver’s seat, just behind Daddy’s neck. “Slow down or I’ll kill you, Alan,” Wally said. “I swear I will.”

Daddy laughed. “Yeah? And who’s going to grab the wheel when I’m dead?”

Mom looked at Daddy, and I could see the tears running down her face. “These are your children, Alan,” she pleaded. “Please don’t hurt them.”

At long last Daddy decelerated, letting the car slow down to the posted speed. He chuckled, shook his head, called us names I can’t repeat. He took off his fisherman’s hat, used the palm of one hand to wipe his eyes, tossed the hat back on the crown of his head.

And then he went on driving homeward through another dark Minnesota night.

And now, because I’d overheard Mom and Tillie’s conversation, I had one more weed to try to uproot as I waded through that field of memories.

chapter
7

Tillie and I were in the kitchen making spaghetti for supper when the doorbell rang and someone hollered through the screen door, “Mother!”

“That you, Johnny?”

“Can I come in?”

“Door’s open.”

Tillie stopped stirring the tomato sauce, wiped her hands on her apron, and smiled at her son as he walked into the kitchen. “Stay for supper, Johnny?”

John Monroe’s round face was crimson; he was waving a newspaper in the air. “I didn’t come for supper, Mother.”

He glanced at me and nodded politely as he loosened his tie. The day was warm, and his full-length sleeves were rolled up past his elbows.

“What’s the matter now, son?” Tillie turned to the sink and started filling a large pot with water.

“Have you seen today’s paper?”

“Haven’t had time to read it. What’s Johnson gone and done now?”

“President Johnson has nothing to do with this, Mother. The question is, what have
you
gone and done now?”

“Oh dear, don’t tell me I’ve landed on the obituary page again. You remember how your father nearly died that time he opened the paper and there was my picture among the deceased. My
picture
, no less.”

“No, Mother, no. It’s not that. It’s
this
.” He pointed to a block of print surrounded by a black border on the bottom of the front page. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Tillie lifted the pot of water to the stove and turned on the burner. She glanced at the paper in her son’s hand and nodded briefly. “Oh yes, that’s my advertisement. Winston said he’d run it for me sometime this week. I had no idea he’d run it on the front page! Now, isn’t that something?”

“You’ve run an ad in the paper telling everyone you’ve come back home?”

Tillie nodded. “Smart, huh? It was Roz’s idea, actually. That way I don’t have to keep repeating myself; you know, explaining why I’m here and not at St. Claire’s. Now the whole town knows in one fell swoop.”

Johnny Monroe turned his wide and by now nearly maniacal eyes toward me. My breath caught in my throat, and I felt the color drain from my face as I took a step backward. I started to shake my head, to deny any part in this strange affair, but by the time I opened my mouth to speak, Johnny Monroe had already turned back to his mother.

“And you’ve invited the whole town to your welcome home party?”

“What?” Tillie was breaking up vermicelli noodles to be dropped into the water once it boiled. “What welcome home party?”

“It says here you’re having a welcome home party, potluck, everyone invited. And it says it’s today, Friday, September first, at six o’clock.”

“Merciful heavens!” Tillie whirled around and grabbed the paper from Johnny’s hand. She glanced up at the clock, then back down at the paper. “I never said anything to Winston about a welcome home party. Six o’clock? That’s an hour from now!”

“So you’re not throwing a party?”

“No. Well, yes, I guess I am. That Winston Newberry! What came over him, putting in something like that?”

“Mother!” The word exploded from Johnny Monroe’s lips. Spittle flew everywhere. “Don’t you know? He always said he’d get you back.”

Tillie looked up from the paper. “Get me back? For what?”

“For the birthmark, Mother. The birthmark you showed the whole town.”

“Oh, nonsense, Johnny. I didn’t show the whole town.”

“Well, practically the whole town. Everyone and anyone who came through the church nursery saw the Eiffel Tower in red pigment on Winston Newberry’s backside, thanks to you. Not only that, they kept on talking about it for years to come. He always said he’d get you back for that. This is only the latest – ”

“Nonsense,” Tillie said again. “I never heard him say any such thing.”

“Listen, Mother, I went to school with him. I should know. How do you think you’ve ended up in the obits so many times?”

“Well, if that doesn’t beat all.” Tillie put a finger to her chin and frowned in thought. “We’d best get moving, then.”

“And just what do you plan to do?”

“Have the party, of course. Don’t just stand there with your mouth hanging open, Johnny. Go home and bring back all the folding tables and chairs you have. We’re going to need them. Roz, once the water boils, throw the noodles in and keep an eye on the pot while I vacuum the house.” She took her apron off and threw it on the counter. She moved to the front hall and hollered up the stairs, “Wally! Wal-
ly
!”

“What?”

“Come down here, will you? I’m sending you out for party supplies.”

“For
what
?”

“Party supplies.”

Wally’s footsteps came thumping down the stairs. “Who’s having a party?”

“We are.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“What the – ”

“Now, Wally, I’ve asked you not to use that kind of language in my house.”

“But what – ”

“Here’s the car keys – ”

“I can take the car?”

“You’ll have to. I’ll make a list of what we need. You can pick it up at Jewel, and then on your way home stop by Marie’s and pick up your mother. I’m going to need her help.”

Esther Kinshaw from next door was the first one to arrive with a hamburger and hominy casserole in hand. She was followed by our neighbors on the other side, our neighbors across the street, neighbors we had met only in passing, neighbors we had never met at all, Fred the butcher, Hazel the cashier, Leonard the postman, and Winston Newberry, the editor and instigator of the whole affair. While everyone else came with a contribution of food for the potluck, Editor Newberry came with a camera slung around his neck and a tape recorder in hand. He was determined to get a story for the Sunday edition, he said, “and I’m going to handle this one myself.”