Promise Bound

by Anne Greenwood Brown

  I closed my eyes and pushed all curiosity out of my head so I could focus on the task ahead. Look forward, I told myself. Not back.

  The hostess led us to a tiny table in the center of the darkened room. The walls were painted a deep purple. At least I thought they were, it was too dark to really know. The only glimmer of light came from the votive candles on the tables and the tiny white Christmas lights that hung in looping lines around the perimeter of the ceiling. Our table was uneven and rocked when I leaned my elbows on it.

  “So,” Chelsea said.

  “So,” I said.

  A waitress wearing a poncho, a sombrero, and a just-kill-me-now expression stopped at our table with two glasses of water. I guzzled mine without taking a breath.

  “Thirsty much?” Chelsea asked.

  “Do you know what you want?” the waitress asked. Chelsea raised her eyebrows to suggest I go first.

  “Why don’t you order for us,” I said. “You’re buying.”

  “Two pops,” she said to the waitress. “Coke okay?” she asked me. I nodded and swiped my finger through the votive candle’s flame. “We’ll have one burrito special. Two forks.”

  The waitress flicked her pen against her order pad, then walked off.

  “I hope you don’t mind sharing,” Chelsea said.

  I shook my head. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Now, I know you’re not from around here, but the traditional exchange for the burrito special is one life story.”

  I grunted at her.

  “Spill it. What’s so special about McIntyre’s uncles having children born in the sixties?” She picked up a chip and bit down hard with her front teeth. The chip snapped in half.

  I stared at her, my mind buzzing as I tried to think up an explanation.

  “What?” she asked, chomping down on two more chips. “You can’t expect me not to ask. What’s with all the weird questions, eh?”

  I passed my finger through the candle flame a couple more times, trying to come up with a semi-reasonable answer.

  She pressed on. “Do the sixties have something to do with the drowning stories you were researching the other day?”

  I knew it was a mistake to accept her help.

  “Come on. Tell me why you care if that guy’s uncles had kids.”

  I searched the restaurant for some lie-composing material. It wasn’t like I could explain that the kid I had asked about was me. She’d write me off as a nut job, and until I got my window fixed I needed a driver. My gaze landed on a Day of the Dead diorama mounted on the wall. A pair of male and female skeletons dressed in wedding clothes, the male complete with top hat, danced around a red crepe-paper fire. Inspiration hit.

  “There’s something wrong with me,” I said.

  She smiled a little. “I figured that out for myself, thank you very much.”

  “It’s not a joke. I’m … I’m dying.”

  Chelsea’s hand drifted to her mouth, and her eyebrows rose toward her hairline.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just that two months ago I was diagnosed with a rare blood disease. My best chance is a bone marrow transplant, and the doctors say I’ll have the most luck at finding a match with a close relative. Trouble is, my biological parents died when I was young, and I was adopted.”

  “Oh my God,” Chelsea said.

  “I’m trying to find my biological grandparents,” I said, my foot bouncing uncontrollably under the table. I hoped Chelsea didn’t notice the vibration in her water glass.

  “It was a closed adoption, so I don’t even know their names. But I’m hoping, if I find them, that they’ll be able to help me … even though they really don’t know me from Adam. I know the chances of this going well are pretty slim,” I said, and swallowed hard. Chelsea interpreted it as desperation and leaned across the table toward me. “I guess that’s what made me hesitant to talk to that guy,” I continued. “You asked me about that. I mean … what do you say? How do you make that kind of introduction?”

  Chelsea sat back—hard—against the wooden chair. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have pushed you so hard if I’d known.”

  “Why should you be sorry?”

  She gave me a funny look, then her mood swung like a pendulum from sadness to … anger? Confusion? Ridicule? I couldn’t place it. She said, “You tell me you’re sick. I’m sorry to hear that. So sue me.”

  The waitress placed a white oblong plate in front of us. Whatever was on it was unrecognizable. Large. Yellow. Gloppy. Why do humans hide their food under so much sludge? Chelsea dug in, and long strands of what appeared to be cheese led from the plate to her mouth. I picked at the shreds of lettuce around the edge of the plate.

  Chelsea took another bite and pulled the fork slowly between her lips. “Are you going to have any?”

  I poked at the lifeless mound with a fork. “What is it again?”

  “Seriously? It’s a burrito.”

  “I guess I’m not that hungry.” I scowled at the plate and pushed it closer to her. “One of the side effects of my disease: poor appetite.”

  She leaned across the table again. “So what do you have to go on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Clues. Documents.”

  The trouble with lies was that the more complicated they got, the more likely they were to unravel. I knew this. So what happened next was inexcusable. I said, “The only clue I’ve got is an old photograph of my biological mom as a little girl on a sailboat. I’m not even positive her parents were from Thunder Bay, but the boat had a Canadian flag and the name of the boat started with a K or an R. The year nineteen sixty-seven is written on the back of the photo.”

  She nodded and swallowed another bite. “Let me see it.”

  “See what?”

  “The photo,” she said, wiping her hands on a napkin and reaching across the table.

  “I don’t have it.”

  Her hand froze in midair. “You’re kidding, right?”

  I kept my expression blank.

  Chelsea withdrew her hand and clicked her tongue in disgust. She folded her arms over her chest. “You mean to tell me the only clue you have to finding your family—and finding a cure—isn’t in your wallet?”

  I shrugged. “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “You are seriously the weirdest guy I’ve ever met.” She tossed her hands up. “Shoot, most people would have posted it on Facebook, made an appeal for bone marrow on YouTube. Instead, you’re running around a strange town, digging around in a freakin’ library, and you didn’t bring the only clue you have with you? Doesn’t that sound a little unprepared? Are you sure you really want to do this?”

  I looked away. I didn’t want her to know that she’d nailed it. I didn’t want to do this, but I’d bound myself to a promise and now I had to see it through. I couldn’t even begin to get Lily back if I didn’t at least try.

  I flinched—startled by that bit of hope left clinging to my heart. It distracted me from the job of making my lie more convincing.

  “There was a fire,” I said.

  “A fire?”

  “I mean a flood.” Damn it. “My basement flooded and the photo got ruined with a bunch of other things in storage. It took weeks to get all the boxes out of there. The cardboard was all soggy, kept ripping open …” I swallowed hard. “I had to do it all because my—”

  “Exactly where are you from?” Chelsea asked.

  Her interrogation was getting tiresome. My skin felt tight across my cheekbones, and my muscles uncomfortably dry. My bottom lip was split with hairline fissures. I didn’t have the time, the patience, or the interest in discussing my past with this girl.

  I leaned across the table toward her, watching as her brown eyes melted like chocolate—so dark the pupils nearly disappeared. I looked through those expanding dark windows and pushed guilt into her mind and a little bit of embarrassment, too. She’d asked enough questions for one night.

  Chelsea’s cheeks flashed pink and sh
e said, “Hey, forget about all those homeless cracks earlier, eh?” She reached forward tentatively and her fingers rested gently on top of my hand. It was an unusual color that hummed between her fingers and sifted across the back of my hand. I’d never seen anything like it before: light blue that faded to gray, then surged blue again.

  “I really am sorry,” she said.

  Ugh. Pity. That’s what that strange blue color was. I’d seen humans’ excitement, joy, optimism, adventure, worry, fear … but never, in all my years, pity. I didn’t like how that made me feel: small and powerless.

  I was not to be pitied.

  Behind me, the door opened and a cool rush of air blew into the room. It pushed a shiver up my spine and over my shoulders. I hunched my back to the cold and, without meaning to, leaned farther across the table toward Chelsea.

  Two pairs of feet hit the terra-cotta tile in the entryway. Chelsea’s eyes opened wide. “Kiss me!” she whispered, blue giving way to a surprised shade of flashing orange.

  “What?” I growled.

  “Kiss me! Quick! My ex just walked in with his new girlfriend.”

  Before I could respond, she grabbed me behind the neck and yanked me close. The table edge cut into my ribs. She kissed me hard. The salt on her lips burned through a crack in mine.

  The new arrivals approached our table. Chelsea pulled back and smiled while I sat in stunned silence.

  “Hey, Chels.” Her tall, thick-necked ex loomed over me. He was wearing a Lakehead Thunderwolves hockey jersey. I suddenly remembered I was wearing his clothes. He gestured to the girl with him that she should go find a seat.

  “Marc Parnell,” he said, introducing himself. “I used to hook up with Chelsea.”

  “Shut up, douche bag,” Chelsea said, her cheeks coloring.

  “Nice talk, babe.”

  “Why don’t you get back to your puck bunny?”

  “Just stopped over to say hey,” he said. “Y’know, jealousy is not your best look.”

  I cleared my throat and stood up. The guy was tall, but I overtook him by a couple of inches. I said, “I suspect you’re barely a memory these days.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chelsea smile up at me.

  “I’ve done my best to make sure of that,” I said. “If you know what I mean.” Then I winked like Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club.

  Marc set his jaw. “Doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t be interested in your sloppy sec—”

  But he didn’t have the chance to finish the repulsive sentence because, without thinking, I pulled my arm back and let my fist fly.

  It connected solidly with his mouth. Blood spurted onto his shirt (the one I was wearing), then ran down his chin onto his clean white jersey. It was the first time I’d ever attacked anyone on land. It made me feel … strange and … off-balance.

  “Oh my God, Marc!” shrieked the girl he came in with. “Seriously? Again?”

  Marc lunged at me, but I stepped back quickly, and he fell forward, onto the floor. He grabbed me by the ankle. I lost my footing and staggered against another couple’s table, spilling their margaritas into the woman’s lap.

  The man yelled, “Hey! Watch it!”

  Chelsea jumped up and grabbed me by the elbow. She dragged me out of the restaurant while the sombrero-clad waitress ran out of the kitchen behind us, yelling about the bill.

  “Run!” Chelsea said through tears of laughter. So we ran. Fast.

  We jumped in her car, and she peeled out of the parking lot, racing through a couple of lights. She glanced in the rearview mirror and asked, “Is he following us?”

  I looked over my shoulder, but I had no idea what the guy’s car looked like. “Quick, make a left here,” I said.

  Chelsea cranked the wheel and several cars blasted their horns, but no one followed. At first.

  By the time we got to the end of the block, a blue car made the corner. Chelsea pulled into an alleyway, and then we bounced—hard—over railroad tracks. She turned left at a warehouse and then back onto the main drag. She hadn’t been modest when she’d said she knew the city well.

  After several minutes, Chelsea pulled the car between two buildings and threw the gear in park. Then, without a word to me, she clambered out of the car.

  I followed as she took off up a steep hill behind the buildings and ran up over the crest. The streets were narrow here, and poorly lit. We ran several blocks and collapsed, laughing, under a grove of trees.

  “Oh, hell yeah,” she said, panting. “Now … even I don’t … know where we are. You better hope Marc doesn’t either, or you’re toast.”

  “I doubt that.”

  She flashed a toothy grin. “What you did back there. That was … unexpected. Weird. But strangely chivalrous.”

  “That guy’s a jerk,” I said. “You’re better off without him.”

  “I know,” she said. She took a few seconds to catch her breath; then she pulled a tissue out of her pocket and tried to wipe Marc’s blood off my shirt. She let her hand not-so-subtly glance against my thigh.

  Her touch seared me with the pain of loss and emptiness. I didn’t want to be here. As nice as she was.

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” she said, her tone defensive.

  “That’s a lie. Everyone wants something.”

  She kept wiping at my shirt, and her silence confirmed my suspicion.

  After a few seconds she said, “Let’s just say I have a soft spot for the terminally ill.”

  “I’m sure there’s a hospital you can volunteer at.” I removed her hand from my chest and tossed it back in her lap. Deep within my chest, the empty pit of loneliness yawned, openmouthed and jowly.

  “And you’re not so hard on the eyes,” she added, grinning.

  Here we go. I rolled my eyes, but my heart was black.

  “Oh, come on. I was only trying to make you smile.”

  The air between us hummed with Chelsea’s warmth. The open space between her lips was lemon yellow, like an exit door cracking daylight into a dark movie theater. Her happiness was my way out of the pain. And I wanted it. So help me God, I wanted it.

  I slipped my hand behind her neck, and she kissed me—softer than the surprise attack in the restaurant.

  I didn’t think of Lily. Or more like, I didn’t let myself think of Lily. No one could ever replace the fullness that Lily had once given me. But I was going to have to swim soon, and given that I would never make another absorption—never again take someone completely—kissing Chelsea was the closest life raft I could find. Whatever tiny bit of happiness I could steal from her now … Well, she was as good a temporary fix as any.

  Who could blame me for jumping at that chance?

  25

  LILY

  Ever since Pavati had denied Sophie’s request to be changed, Sophie had been giving me the stink-eye silent treatment. She was good at it. Unfaltering. Not even Mom could convince her that it had gone on long enough—though she had no idea what had set it in motion. Maybe if Mom had known how miserably I’d failed with Pavati, she’d be mad at me, too. I’d deserve that, I thought bleakly.

  In an effort to stage a treaty in the war of silence, Mom had sent us both down to the Blue Moon Café to make peace over a “hot drink” and maybe a “cream-filled something or other.” I couldn’t deny something hot would be nice. In the three days since Calder had left, I’d been unnaturally cold. I shivered in my bedsheets at night, and while everyone else was breaking out their summer wardrobes, I was still in sweaters. Today I had a purple crocheted scarf wrapped three times around my neck, and I still felt chilled underneath all my layers. It was as if I were shrinking, constricting like ice, day by day becoming a smaller, harder version of myself.

  As for how Sophie was feeling, well, I didn’t have to be able to read emotions to know. She didn’t like being with me any more than I liked being with me.

  “Come on,” I said, dragging h
er roughly through the café door.

  She dropped noisily into one of the bright yellow chairs as I went to order.

  When I came back with her hot chocolate, she frowned at it.

  “Aren’t you going to drink it?” I asked, maybe a little too loud.

  She kept her eyes on the cup and folded her arms over her chest in a sign of defiance. But she was too dramatic in her movements and accidentally knocked the cup over.

  I jumped up, but Sophie didn’t move. She just stared at the table and let the hot chocolate run dark and creamy across the table and onto the checkerboard floor.

  I glanced at the shaggy-haired barista for a little help, but he avoided eye contact. “Oh, come on!” I exclaimed.

  Mrs. Boyd poked her head out of her office. “What spilled? Oh! Lily. You’ve made quite a mess of things.”

  If only she knew.

  To Sophie, Mrs. Boyd said, “That’s okay, love. Just a little spill. Your sister will take care of it.” Then she closed her office door.

  Sophie made a hmph sound, the meaning of which was not lost on me. I growled at her low under my breath.

  If only I could take care of everything. Put Calder’s past back together, bring him home, save Danny from Pavati, pacify Pavati’s concerns for Adrian, cure Mom, unify the family … There was a lot on my plate. I might as well add “bring about world peace.” It wouldn’t have made my list any more impossible.

  I found the table-washing bucket in its usual spot behind the counter and sank my hand into the soapy water. I breathed deeply, feeling the flash of calm the warm water delivered, then extracted the terry cloth rag.

  The tall boy behind the counter barely acknowledged me and bent over nonexistent work. It irritated me to no end. It was his job to clean up this mess. Not mine.

  “What the hell is your problem?” I demanded.

  He looked up, eyebrows raised. “Me?” he asked.

  “Yeah, you. Why am I the one cleaning up the mess?”

  “Uh … because you made it?” he suggested. Oh my gosh. He was a supreme idiot.

  “Lily,” Sophie said, her patronizing tone telling me to settle down.