Silent Pledge

by Hannah Alexander

  Lukas smiled and shook his head, then stepped from the window. No need to take half that man’s paycheck for a couple of Steri-Strips, and Tex could tell him that. Tex could tell him a lot of things. If he’d had a tetanus shot in the past five years, he was off the hook.

  Mercy read the results of the chest X-rays and blood tests that had been run on Crystal Hollis this morning. “They look much improved from Sunday,” she told Odira. “She’s getting good oxygen, almost back to normal.”

  “All right!” Odira slapped her knees and chuckled, then got choked and started coughing.

  Mercy studied the older woman’s plump, lined face as it reddened, then gradually returned to a normal color. Odira and Crystal would be here another day, at least. She couldn’t release them yet. The nurses had made sure that Odira was taking her new medication, and they had proof that it was working, but Mercy wanted to retain control of them for a few more hours.

  Odira had been a patient at Richmond Clinic for the past thirty years—she’d been one of Mercy’s father’s favorites, in spite of her occasional tendency toward noncompliance. She had willingly transferred her allegiance to a brand-new physician when Mercy joined the practice immediately out of her residency. She had always encouraged her, always shown gratitude. Mercy adored her and wanted her healthy.

  With a gentle tap on Crystal’s shoulder, Mercy indicated for the child to lean forward. “Okay, honey, you know the routine. Breathe for me.”

  Crystal obeyed. Her breathing sounded good. Mercy leaned back and studied the little girl’s pale face and blue eyes. Crystal stared back, unblinking.

  “I’m concerned about something,” Mercy said, still holding Crystal’s gaze. “Saturday night you were pretty sick. You got sick last fall, too, after you’d been in school a couple of weeks. I know it’s impossible to always stay away from the other kids when they’re sick, but, Crystal, have you been taking all your medicines every day when you’re supposed to take them?”

  For a moment the child’s gaze broke from Mercy’s. She looked down at her hands, folded together across her stomach.

  Mercy touched her shoulder. “Crystal? It’s important that you tell me.”

  Crystal shook her head, then looked back up at Mercy. “No, Dr. Mercy.”

  “How often do you miss taking them?”

  Crystal shrugged. “Sometimes I just wait until school’s out, and then I take them before I go home. Sometimes I leave ’em in my desk.”

  Mercy glanced at Odira. “Her teacher is aware of her physical problems, isn’t she?”

  “Sure is, Dr. Mercy.” Odira turned her suddenly sober attention on her great-granddaughter. “Honey, don’t you know you’ve gotta take that stuff? If you don’t, you’ll get sick again.”

  Crystal looked down at her folded hands. “Sometimes the teacher forgets to remind me. It’s hard to think of it every time, and she gets busy. Sometimes I take it when I’m alone at recess. The other kids say things….”

  “They make fun of you?” Mercy prompted.

  Crystal nodded. “They call me ‘druggie.”

  “And just what does your teacher say about that?” Odira demanded.

  “She doesn’t hear them.”

  And of course Crystal would never tattle.

  “Well, then, you just make sure you don’t hear them, either!” Odira’s voice carried at least to the center of the hospital corridor. “When they try to make fun of you, just remember their sickness is in their minds and spirits, not their bodies. You’ve got pills and that hand-cleaner stuff Dr. Mercy gave you, and I want you to use it. I want you to stay well.” Her voice cracked, and she fell silent.

  Crystal looked up. “I’m sorry, Gramma. I’ll try harder. Don’t cry, okay? I’ll be good, I promise.”

  Clarence concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. At one mile per hour, the pace wasn’t that difficult on Ivy’s treadmill, but he knew what was coming. Anytime now, she would turn from that computer and watch him for a moment, then tell him to pick the pace up. No matter how fast he was already going, she wanted him to speed up. So he always started slow.

  The woman would make Hercules feel like a wimp.

  “Clarence, how did you like those oatmeal cookies I baked yesterday?” she called over her shoulder from her position at the computer in the corner of the great room.

  He huffed impatiently. Not only did she want him to exercise, but she also wanted him to talk while he did it. “What oatmeal cookies?”

  “The ones you sneaked out of the freezer while I was gone yesterday afternoon. Don’t tell me you didn’t eat them, because I counted them before I left.”

  “Those were oatmeal cookies?” Gross. He thought they were leftover meatballs from the soy and turkey loaf she’d forced down him the other night.

  She turned in her swivel chair and looked at him. “They’d have been better if you’d waited for them to thaw.”

  He grimaced. Ivy considered herself a gourmet health food expert, and he was her guinea pig. She would eventually kill him. “They could’ve used a little more sweetener.” Maybe a few nuts, some chocolate chips, some butter and spices and eggs…

  “I’ll experiment some more.” She turned back around to her computer screen. “Listen to this column I’m working on for the Knolls Review.”

  “What kind of column?”

  “Weight loss. Harvey’s moved to New Jersey, and we have a new editor. Murray is everything Harvey wasn’t. I don’t know how the paper has survived all these years without him.”

  “So why does he want you to write a column about fat? You’ve never been fat.”

  “I’ve helped you take it off, haven’t I? He heard about the weight you’ve lost these past few months, and he asked me to do a weekly column on healthy cooking and weight management. You’re my human experiment.” She turned again to look at him. “Do you realize you’ve lost about a hundred pounds since spring? Just think of all the people who struggle with obesity out there who will now have a hero to turn to, an example of inspiration—”

  Clarence snorted. “Me? A hero?”

  She turned back to the computer. “Be quiet and listen to this—‘Fatsos Unite! Get out on those sidewalks and—’”

  “Wait a minute! Whad’ya mean, ‘Fatsos Unite’?” Clarence growled.

  “It’s the title.”

  “It’s insulting.” She was calling him a hero? Just for letting her starve him nearly to death all these months?

  “Fine, I’ll change the title. How about, ‘Beware the Enemy’?”

  “Sounds like you’re getting ready to give them some horror story.”

  “Oh, just listen. ‘Get out on those sidewalks and roadsides and sweat off those chocolate-covered cherries and pumpkin pies and fried chicken from three years ago. Excess body weight is your enemy. Every time you take a bite of something that contains enough fat to smother an elephant, think of it as an alien monster invading your—’”

  “Yuck! Do you have to make the article sound so gross? If a little kid read your article, they’d think I had some UFO lurking inside me, ready to jump out and grab them.”

  She issued a heartfelt sigh. “Fine, I’ll scrap it and start from scratch. What I’m hoping to do is reveal the dangers of excess weight, convince obese citizens of Knolls that they can’t continue to kill themselves, then use you as an example to prove that it can be done.”

  Clarence thought about that for a moment. “So you think I’m a hero?”

  She turned back toward her workstation. “Don’t get a big head, but everyone in Knolls who reads the paper will learn how to do it themselves. And just wait until they taste my recipe for low-fat cinnamon rolls. And there’ll be more next week.”

  “Cinnamon rolls? Isn’t that like giving an alcoholic a drink of ‘low-alcohol’ booze?”

  “No, because nobody needs alcohol to survive. We all need food. No reason what we eat shouldn’t taste good.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “If you’ve got enou
gh energy to argue with me like that, you’re not going fast enough. What’s your speed?”

  Automatically, without arguing, he bumped the control a notch and hid his smile. He was learning how to bluff Ivy. “I read in your Bible the other day that bodily exercise profiteth little.”

  She stopped typing and turned around again, her dark eyes questioning. “You must have read my King James version. The NIV translates that into ‘physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things.” A smile crept across her face. “You’ve been reading my Bible?”

  “Some.” He was getting out of breath.

  “You must have read quite a bit to get to that part.”

  Great, here came the can of worms. Now Ivy would start nagging him about going to church with her. After giving it more thought, he realized he should have never said anything. He could imagine walking into a crowd of holier-than-thou sourpusses who would try hard not to stare at him but couldn’t help themselves, who would whisper to each other about what a horrible sinner he was because he didn’t have control of his physical appetites. No, church was not a place for him. He was all for God, but church was the last place he wanted to be.

  “Would you like a copy of your own?” Ivy asked.

  “Of what, your article in the paper?”

  “The Bible.”

  “Nah, yours is fine. I’ve just been readin’ the parts about food and exercise. You know, you’ve got that place in the back pages that lists all kinds of subjects, then tells you where to find it.” He paused and caught his breath. “I thought I’d find some passages that would make you stop ridin’ me so hard.”

  She sighed and switched off the computer. “I can’t get any work done with you jabbering at me. I’ll be in the library if you need me, but I don’t want to hear that machine slow down.”

  Chapter Eleven

  As soon as Ivy left the room, Clarence turned the speed down on the treadmill. The woman was a slave driver. How would she like it if she was forced to carry all this weight? Since she would be at the other end of the house for a while, he might be able to get away with this. He grabbed the stabilizing bar in front of him and settled in for a nice leisurely walk. Too bad there wasn’t a television in this part of the room. Watching a sitcom would ease the monotony. Ivy was not a fan of television, and she only had one in her whole house.

  If Clarence had the kind of money Ivy did, he’d have a big screen in the kitchen, a big screen in the bedroom and maybe even a little one in the bathroom.

  “Hi, Clarence.”

  The sound of the voice startled him so badly he almost walked off the treadmill. His grip tightened on the handle of the machine, and he looked over to find Tedi coming through the door of the great room from the kitchen. She lugged a big notebook under her arm, and she was wearing her new wire-framed glasses, which made her look too serious for a kid. She walked through the exercise area toward the computer on Ivy’s desk.

  “Hey there, kiddo. No school today?”

  She plopped down into the office chair and set the notebook beside the computer, then turned around in the swivel chair to look at him. “Nope. I’ve got homework, and Grandma said for me to check on you and make sure you were going fast enough. What’s your speed?” She swiveled a complete revolution with the chair.

  Clarence glowered in the general direction of the library. “Mile an hour.”

  She caught herself with her hands on the edge of the desk and swung the other way, her long dark brown hair bouncing back and forth when she changed directions. “Grandma says you have to go at least one point five now for the exercise to do you any good.” She stopped and looked at Clarence with solemn dark brown eyes. “I’m supposed to tell her if you don’t do it.”

  “Hey! I thought you were the one pal I had left,” he protested. Tedi, with her tender, mischievous heart, could usually be depended on to sneak him a snack when Ivy told him he couldn’t eat. She always brought something healthy, like fruit or a slice of bread, but it was more than Ivy would give him when she thought he’d overeaten for the day.

  Tedi whirled around in the chair three times without stopping. “Sorry, Grandma said if you don’t keep exercising, you could gain back the weight you’ve lost.” She stopped and looked at him again. “It’s for your own good, Clarence.”

  He hit the control up three notches. “Can’t get away with anything around here anymore,” he muttered.

  Tedi grinned. “Grandma never lets me get away with anything. Why should she let you?”

  “Well, did anybody ever tell you that you’re a lot like your mother and your grandma?”

  “Yes,” she said proudly.

  “Thought so.” He glanced down at the treadmill control as Tedi spun in the chair again. “You’re going to unscrew that thing and go flying off in a minute.”

  Tedi stopped long enough to switch on the computer, then turned back to Clarence. “Do you have any other brothers and sisters besides Darlene?”

  “Nope, she’s all I’ve got.”

  Tedi’s gaze grew somber. “Did your parents die?”

  “No, they live somewhere else. What kind of homework do you have?” Sometimes this kid had a knack for bringing up subjects he didn’t like to talk about. Unfortunately, she could usually tell when he was trying to change the subject.

  “A report about the fire for school. Where do your parents live?”

  “About a hundred miles away. Ever heard of Poplar Bluff? That’s where they live.” He and Darlene hadn’t been back since they’d escaped that life over twenty years ago. Mom and Dad had been in touch with them, of course, especially back when Clarence and Darlene were both earning enough of an income to buy their own small homes.

  He was starting to get out of breath. He was going to slow this baby down, but he couldn’t be obvious. “Now why don’t you tell me about your report.”

  As Tedi finally took the hint and turned to face the computer screen, Clarence reached over and nudged the control the littlest bit so the slow-down wouldn’t be noticeable.

  Tedi pressed a few keys on the computer, then turned back to him. “Why don’t your parents ever come to see you and Darlene? I’ve never met them.”

  “Because they don’t know where we are now, and we won’t tell them, because they’re not nice people.” They were like the cartoon characters who got dollar signs in their eyes when they thought they could take advantage of someone with money—someone like Ivy. They’d taken advantage of government aid so long they didn’t know how to do anything else. The last time they were in contact, they’d “borrowed” three thousand dollars from Darlene and never repaid it.

  Sometimes Clarence worried that he was becoming like them, in spite of all he and Darlene had gone through to pull themselves out of that lifestyle. After three months, they still lived with Ivy in this beautiful house, all expenses paid. Being dependent bothered him a lot. He’d tried to talk to Ivy about their living arrangement a couple of times, but she wouldn’t listen. She just told him to think of his sister and keep losing weight. That was the most responsible thing he could do right now. He knew, deep down, she was right. He had to concentrate on getting healthy so he wouldn’t lose ground. He still had old habits he needed to break.

  “Are you still mad at them?” Tedi asked, spinning again with the chair. She was starting to make Clarence motion sick.

  “No, I just don’t like them.”

  “But aren’t you supposed to forgive them?”

  “What, and let them get their hooks in us again? I don’t think so.”

  “My dad almost killed me.”

  “I know. Have you totally forgiven him?”

  She sat still for a moment, the expression in her eyes camouflaged by the glint of light against her glasses. “I don’t know.” Her voice barely rose above the sound of the treadmill motor.

  “You see him a lot, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but never alone. Mom’s always there.”

  “I thought you
liked your dad.”

  “I do.” She leaned back in the chair and watched Clarence for a moment, then pushed the chair around in another revolution, this time slower. “He’s fun to be around when he tries.”

  “But you don’t know if you’ve forgiven him yet?”

  “I don’t know…maybe. Sometimes I worry he’ll lose his temper again, the way he used to.” She opened her notebook and picked up her ink pen.

  Clarence nonchalantly touched the control again. Just a little slower. Not much. He was getting out of breath, even at the easier pace. And he was sweating like a glass of iced tea in an Ozark heat wave. Most people could go twice as fast and two or three times as far on this machine without a problem. When Clarence first started working out, he couldn’t even go a quarter of a mile. He was proud of himself now when he could get in a mile a day. Ivy went four and took less time.

  “How fast are you going, Clarence?” Tedi asked into the silence.

  He refocused on her to find her watching him, arms crossed, with the same look of challenge on her face that he’d often seen on Ivy and Mercy. He scowled. “One point one.”

  “If you don’t turn the speed back up, I’m supposed to tell Grandma.”

  Tedi would make a great bossy doc someday, just like her mother. “If Ivy thinks a mile an hour is too slow, let her carry an extra two hundred pounds around the house for an hour. Do you think you could carry your friend Abby around on your shoulders for a mile?”

  “No. I might be able to drag her. She sat down on my stomach one day when I was lying down, and I couldn’t breathe.”

  “Then you know how hard it is for me to walk a whole mile on this thing. Your grandma doesn’t understand because she’s never been overweight.”

  Tedi thought about that a moment, then got up and came across the room. At first Clarence thought she was going to go tell her grandma on him. Instead, she perched on the exercise bike.