Promise Bound

by Anne Greenwood Brown

  She takes one look at me and leads me to a back room with a cot, around the corner from a kitchen stove that radiates heat throughout the room. Now free of the crowds, my head stops pounding. The woman gets a cold towel and lays it on my chest. It’s wet, and my body instantly relaxes.

  She calls a doctor, but it’s too late. I am already delivering a baby girl.

  Maris.

  Later that evening, while the woman sleeps off her martinis, I wrap the child in the clean sheets from my cot, slip out the back door, and catch a cab to the college. The driver happily leaves without his fare, and I find an open window on the ground floor of the science building.

  I climb three flights and at the top I inhale. Following the father’s scent, I trail the wall to the third door. PROFESSOR JOHN BISHOP is stenciled on the door.

  I leave the baby with a note.

  SEPTEMBER 3, 1966

  I would never say what I was really thinking, but humans always strike me as a little odd with their many limbs, all gangly and hanging. Even when I don their strange vestiges, I avoid my reflection. So why Tom Hancock has accentuated his legs with black-and-red-striped pants, I cannot begin to comprehend. Worse, he has taken to wearing a pair of shoes he calls winklepickers, which sit neatly beside him now. His bare feet dig into the sand, which is cold with the changing seasons. I like his T-shirt, though: Jefferson Airplane. The waves thrum against the sand as he strums a guitar he calls Gibson.

  Tom turns the knob on his transistor radio and picks up the Mamas and the Papas. They’re dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.…

  His long hair hangs in his eyes. He has grown out his sideburns. He says, “Tell me I’m not like the others,” while he clumsily picks out some chords.

  It is probably not a good idea, but I tell him the truth. “You are not like the others. You know that.” I hear the veracity of my words in the tumbling cadence of my voice and hope he does, too.

  “Do I?” he asks. He taps a pack of cigarettes absentmindedly against his thigh.

  “I will be back in the spring. I promise.”

  He grins broadly. He knows a mermaid can never break her promise. “That’s what I needed to hear. I knew it all along,” he says, though I know that is not true. I have shared too much of my life with him. He knows too much. I am not made for love.

  “You will take care of him,” I say, touching our three-month-old son, Jason, who lies on a pile of blankets beside me. He is the most beautiful of all my children, and that is saying something. Never before have I stayed with a father this long, stayed with my baby this long. “And when I return, you and Jason will both join me.”

  Tom pulls back with a questioning look and blows a long stream of gray smoke from between his lips. “We haven’t talked about that before.”

  “Come to the water,” I say. “I will change you. Then we can be a family—as complete a family as this lake has ever known. That is something I’ve never offered the others, Tom. Now do you see how much I care?”

  “Change can be good,” he says, fidgeting with the radio, looking for a new station. The signal screeches like dolphins in the Gulf. “Maybe someday …”

  “Someday has come early,” I say, teasing him with a finger drawn down his spine.

  He chuckles. “Yes, I’ve always suspected you were the real November witch.” He rolls over on top of me, brushing the tumble of hair from my face. “Just a beautiful storm, coming when some innocent man least expects it.”

  “Do not joke,” I say.

  “Okay, but it’s still not time.”

  “It is,” I say. “It’s time for my family to be together.”

  MAY 2, 1967

  Tom Hancock has left the front door unlocked. From the hallway, I can hear his bedsprings groan as he turns over. A woman’s sigh. I feel the urge to wring her sleeping neck, but can do nothing here on land. Instead, I climb the narrow staircase, touching the pictures on the wall. At the top, I trail the dark corridor to the nursery and step inside, inhaling the sweet baby smell. Vanilla and lavender.

  “What are you doing, Nadia?” Tom asks from behind me, his voice dangerous but calm. He is beautiful. Even more beautiful than I remembered. I want to protest the woman sleeping in his bed. He should be with me. But I am afraid and so I feign control and say, “Jason is a year old. He’s walking.”

  “I won’t let you take him.”

  “Watch me,” I say too loud, while he glares down at me.

  “Quiet. Diana is sleeping.”

  Tom closes the nursery door and turns on a small lamp, flooding the blue room with light. His warm hand covers my shoulder. “Find someone else, Nadia. Start another family. Leave Jason with me.”

  “He belongs with me,” I say.

  “Over my dead body.”

  My heart sinks with his betrayal as he slams me against the wall. I grit my teeth as the chain around my neck snaps and snakes its way over my shoulder and hits the floor.

  “This isn’t over, Tom. You made me a promise.”

  “Some promises were meant to be broken,” he says.

  I straighten my shoulders and say, “I want my family to be together.”

  Tom’s face transforms into an expression I cannot read: Grief? Worry? Hope? If it’s hope, it leaves an unmistakable glow. Tom reaches down and takes Namid’s pendant from the floor.

  JUNE 28, 1967

  Almost two months later and the seeds of my hope have been scorched by Tom’s silence. I scramble every suicidal thought I have, but as young as Maris is, she’s amazingly intuitive. She swims far behind me, lurking behind the rocks, watching me with worried eyes.

  She follows me into deeper water, watches my dark descent. The waves above us rage into whitecaps. A sailboat passes, hurrying back to port. The wind changes tack, and the shadow of a boom swings overhead. There is a scream and a splash.

  I see my son, Jason, plummeting through the water. He is as graceful as a poem. But he does not transform.

  His pale arms and legs pull at the water. He makes no progress. Air bubbles rush out of him like a rabble of silver butterflies. He is sinking. His eyes close. The vibration of his heart trembles in the water. The cold slows it steadily, until there are too-long gaps between each beat.

  It is not Jason. It is someone else’s son. And it is almost too late.

  Maris calls to me in the water. “No,” she says. “We don’t need him.” Her cries capture Pavati’s and Tallulah’s interest, and they are quick to come see.

  Maris is too young to hide her thoughts from me. She thinks I save the boy because I am dissatisfied with her. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I am too preoccupied with saving the little life to correct her.

  Tallulah, I see, loves him already. With a burst of light, the boy is silver-tailed. Just like her.

  JUNE 28, 1973

  Pavati and Maris have gone off to hunt. I am watching Calder and Tallulah chasing each other, darting through the wake of a Boston Whaler, careful not to catch the attention of the man and woman who sit somberly at the wheel, neither of whom look left or right, least of all behind. As far as I can tell they do not speak to each other.

  Suddenly, the man cuts the engine and the boat stops as if it’s hit a stone. The water lunges and tosses the boat before settling to a calm.

  I call Calder and Tallulah back to me, and Tallulah hides behind my arm. A seagull lands on the waves, and we look up to see an arm reaching over the side of the boat. It lays a strange object on the water. There are a few beats of silence before the boat pulls away.

  Calder swims up after the strange floating thing. He returns with a circle of flowers, woven together on a wire frame. It is all roses and ivy with a satin banner that says OUR BOY.

  Calder is careless and the banner floats away. He bows to Tallulah and places the floral wreath on her head like a crown.

  She laughs, saying, “Now I am the queen and you are my king, and someday you and I will lead this family.”

  “And we’ll make M
aris eat wormroot for breakfast,” Calder says.

  “You two be nice to your sister,” I say.

  Laughing, Calder chases Tallulah to the bottom, and my heart aches for the one this wreath was meant for. And for my poor boy, as well.

  APRIL 1, 1978

  Five years later, Tom Hancock returns to the lakeshore. If I had passed him on a street, I might not have recognized him, but his scent is immediately recognizable in the water.

  I hesitate, searching to see if the mousy woman is with him. But Tom is alone. I consider ignoring him. Then I consider killing him. Then I sense him leave the water, and I am lured closer by the fear of losing him again.

  The lights are on in the old homestead. I wonder how I hadn’t noticed. He sits at the end of the dock, and I peer at him from the dark shadows of the willow tree. Gone are the striped pants of the 1960s. His hair is cut short.

  He drops his legs in the lake, then pulls them back. He is fishing, I realize. Fishing for me. I do not reward him that first night.

  For two more nights I watch him. He sighs and searches the stars. When he looks back at the water, he is startled to find me within inches, staring up at him from the waves that slosh against the dock. I put one hand on the splintered boards and pull myself up, water dripping from my hair, my nose, my chin. He scrambles backward like a crab.

  I don’t say anything, but stare at him through burning eyes.

  When he offers me no apology, I flip and dart away.

  Two days pass. I watch as Tom continues his vigil on the dock. Now and then he calls to me, “Nadia!” and his voice tugs at my heart.

  When I emerge the second time, his face washes over with sky-blue relief.

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  He exhales. “I needed to reassure myself that I hadn’t imagined you. I needed to know that you were real. The other night … was that you? I convinced myself it was a dream.”

  I have no answer for this. Isn’t our son proof enough that I am real? And why should he be the one reassured? Where is Jason?

  “You are alone?” I ask, my eyes glancing to the nursery’s dormer window.

  “Jason is dead,” he tells me. “I thought you should know. You deserved to know.”

  “Liar!” I cry, though the possibility that Tom is telling me the truth churns through my body, erupting in a white light that blinds me.

  The burst of energy shoots from my body across the water. It slices through the willow tree, severing a branch and continuing through the trunk and down to the ground. The tree groans, then splinters. The long willow branch crashes onto the water and a shower of small green leaves fills the air.

  Tom jumps to his feet and watches the trunk heave, its pulp burned black. When he looks back at me, his eyes are sad, but his aura doesn’t quite match his expression. They are close, but his emotions are more confusing than convincing. A part of me, the very core of me, says that Jason is still alive. But I don’t trust myself anymore. I cannot ignore the fact that Jason has never come home to me. I can’t believe there is anything so strong that it could keep him away this long.

  AUGUST 20, 1983

  Another five years, and I still cannot be consoled. Grief and doubt have overtaken me, and I refuse to seek their cure. Maris implores me to hunt with her. The water is warmer than usual and it has drawn more swimmers from the sand.

  I curl up in a sea cave, lay my head against its smooth sides, and refuse to come out.

  Maris has swum with me for thirty-four summers, her small body matured only to a human prepubescent. She begs me to come out of the cave. She hears Tom Hancock in my memories. She tells me he lies. She tells me she can see the lie on his face. That Jason is still alive. But I cannot trust Maris. Or I am too far gone to care.

  “Please!” Maris pulls at my arm, her hands sliding down its length before reaching my fingers and letting go. “I’m begging you. I don’t want to be in charge. Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

  “It is your family now. Do what is right. Keep them together. Take care of Calder. You know how much he looks up to you, and I know how much you care about him.”

  A wave of horror washes over her. “You wouldn’t tell him.”

  “Don’t tell him the thing he most needs to hear?” I ask, managing a weak smile.

  “He won’t pay attention to me if he thinks I’m weak.”

  I lift my head, though it is as heavy as a stone. “Love doesn’t make you weak, darling. You’re stronger than you think. I’m counting on that. I know you won’t let me down.”

  “I don’t know how to do this.”

  “Listen to me. This is important. If your brother is alive—as you believe—he may still choose to come home. Something has held him from us. Be vigilant. Watch for him. If something keeps him from us, free him from the problem.”

  Maris squirms and scowls at the water. “What is he to me?” Her black tail glints in the sunlight that streams through the mouth of the cave. “This is all his fault.”

  “No. This is my fault.” I’m tired now. I manage to find just a little more voice. “Jason is your family, and family is the most important thing. Do what you need to do. Promise me you will.”

  Maris fights the words, but ultimately we close our eyes together, and I hear her say, “I promise.”

  31

  CALDER

  Just after daybreak, I returned to where I’d stashed my clothes, under the scrub bush. From there I hitched a ride to the library, where my car had gathered several parking tickets. I assumed it was Chelsea who’d been kind enough to write F.U. in the grime and dirt on the driver’s-side door.

  I got in, plugged in my phone. It lit up with a text from Lily.

  I’m sure u don’t want to hear from me. If you’ve moved on I can’t blame you. Idk maybe u don’t even have this phone anymore. But if u do … does Mick Elroy mean anything to you? I think it’s important

  No, I thought. This search is over. I’m done. I did everything I could. Besides, no Mick Elroys had showed up as registered owners of R or K boats.

  If it weren’t Sunday morning maybe I could have gone back to the library and checked, but it was closed until tomorrow and I wasn’t going to stick around that long. Except that—

  Damn it. My compulsion to fulfill the promise clamped around my heart like a vice. It froze my feet at their spot. Apparently the search wasn’t as over as I’d hoped.

  Chelsea had programmed her number into my phone and, unwillingly, I dialed it.

  “Screw you,” she said.

  “Good morning, Chelsea. Is that the way you greet everyone who calls so early?”

  “Why aren’t you dead?” she asked, and I could tell this time it was honest curiosity and not a sarcastic retort.

  “Not my time, I guess. Listen, what do you know about the name Mick Elroy? Does that mean anything?”

  “I’m not talking to you.”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Just knock your phone on the wall then. Once for yes. Twice for no.”

  There was an overly dramatic pause and then a dull thud on the other end.

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “There aren’t enough ways of knocking that.”

  “Okay, so how ’bout in relation to the people we talked to yesterday?”

  Silence.

  “Chelsea, come on. Please. I need to look something up. The library’s closed.”

  More silence.

  “You still there?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m still here. Fine. Come on over. You can use my laptop.”

  It took me a while to find Chelsea’s house again. They all looked the same on her street. Ultimately, I recognized the white window boxes and the chemical smell of plastic flowers. I pulled to the curb. Chelsea met me at the door in her pajamas and led me inside without any greeting or questions about what I’d been doing for the past three days, or even about our parting scene. She looked seriously pissed, though. This was going to have to be quick.

  �
�I might have some new information,” I said.

  “Yeah, so you said.” She opened her computer without looking at me and said, “What do you want to search?”

  “Plug in ‘Thunder Bay’ and ‘Mick Elroy.’ ” Then, on a hunch, I suggested adding the name of ponytail man’s boat, Rhapsody in Blue.

  Chelsea typed in the name, but she did it like a surname—McElroy—and my heart gave a weird kind of lurch. Three articles popped up. Chelsea clicked on the first one:

  FATHER, SON LOST IN LAKE SUPERIOR

  Thurs. June 29, 1967

  By RICHARD OLIVER, Staff Writer—Ontario dive teams joined the efforts of Wisconsin Fire & Rescue, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard yesterday to locate the body of Liam McElroy (Thunder Bay) and his three-year-old son, Patrick. McElroy and his wife, Margaret, were returning from a two-week excursion of the Apostle Islands on Mrs. McElroy’s brothers’ boat, Rhapsody in Blue, when their son fell overboard. McElroy was also lost when he dove in the lake after his son.

  “It ends there,” Chelsea said. “Is this what you were looking for?”

  I couldn’t find my voice. My head was a whirl of fragmented images: a red box of raisins, the sensation of falling, the sounds of a splash and screams. A boat. A maple leaf flag. A dark-haired woman. I was stunned and panicked to the point of speechlessness.

  Chelsea rolled her eyes and exited out of the article, clicking on the second article, which was about a charitable fund being set up for the sole survivor of the McElroy family.

  She exited and clicked on the third. It was a section of a newspaper announcing engagements and weddings. The post referred to “Margaret (Molly) McElroy, formerly of Thunder Bay.” Seemed she had remarried. The name of the groom seared the synapses of my brain.