Tilda's Promise

by Jean P. Moore

  “Hi, Darren, come in. Everything okay?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Darren said, stepping inside, “but I have some business to take care of, and I was wondering if Lizzie could call you in case she needs anything. She’s okay to stay home alone for a little while. I’d like to let her know you’ll be around, just in case. She’s getting a ride home from school and should be here in a little while.”

  Lizzie was Amanda and Darren’s fourteen-year-old daughter and a friend of Tilly’s. “Of course, Darren, and tell her she can come over any time when she gets home. She doesn’t have to stay alone.” Tilda motioned him to sit down on the sofa in the living room.

  Darren sat but seemed anxious, on the edge of the seat, his elbows on his knees. He lowered his head. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked again, increasingly aware that things were not. Darren bore a strong resemblance to a young Jeff Bridges and was generally unflappable in a quiet, unassuming way. She saw him every morning climb into his truck, and most days he was home by five, though sometimes he came home late, seemingly doing whatever it took to bring the job in on time and within budget. “That’s why he’s a successful contractor. You can count on him. That’s his reputation,” Harold often said of Darren after one of their many “over-the-fence” conversations. Harold and Tilda hadn’t been close with the Esmonds, but Harold and Darren seemed to like one another, and Harold respected him. Today as Darren sat in Tilda’s living room, staring at the floor, shoulders rounded, hands now rubbing his jeans, it was clear something was up.

  “It’s Amanda. She’s gone.”

  “Gone?” asked Tilda. “What do you mean? Where?”

  “Well,” answered Darren, meeting Tilda’s gaze before turning away. “That’s a hard question to answer. She left a note—just for me. I know she didn’t want Lizzie to find it.”

  Tilda thought this was the preamble to a more revealing explanation, but Darren paused, as though he didn’t know what to say next.

  “It’s personal, Mrs. Carr . . . Tilda.” The Mrs. Carr was the tip-off. Although they’d been neighbors since Lizzie was a baby, Tilda was still Mrs. Carr to him. No wonder he was having trouble talking to her about something “personal.” Tilda could surmise what was going on, and that would have to be enough. Darren was not giving anything more away. If Harold had been there, she would have left the two of them to talk, but, without Harold, it was up to her.

  “Of course, Darren. Do what you need to do, and take your time. If it gets late, I’ll have Lizzie come for dinner, or, better yet, I’ll take her out for a bite. Don’t worry.”

  Darren got up and put out his hand. “Thanks, Tilda. I’ll try not to be too long,” he said, heading for the door.

  Before he left, Tilda lightly put her hand on his arm. “Darren, these things, they take a while sometimes to work themselves out. Try not to worry.”

  Darren looked at Tilda before gently moving his arm away from her. “It’s not that simple, but thanks.” As he walked outside, he turned and said, “Look, I’m sorry I can’t talk about it, but I appreciate your help. Oh, and Lizzie has my cell phone number if you need me.”

  Tilda busied herself watering the begonias on the back porch, passing time until she would call Lizzie and invite her over. Now that Mark had put the storms up, the begonias would be comfortable during the cold months ahead. After adjusting the fluorescent light over the top of her euphorbias, she dug her finger into the soil to be sure she hadn’t overwatered. Thinking about her conversation with Darren, she remembered the last time she had spoken with Amanda. It was just after the mall episode with Tilly, in fact. Amanda waved Tilda down as she was backing out of the driveway the following Monday morning. Rushing over, she wrapped one arm around her body, keeping her light robe in place, and with her free hand motioned for Tilda to lower her window.

  She seemed a little frantic and rushed for time, Tilda recalled now, as she waited for the window to open. She’d brushed her unruly auburn hair back away from her face and asked if Tilda had a five-dollar bill she could borrow. “It has to be a five, exactly,” she explained. “It’s for Lizzie. They have a field trip today and they need not only the exact amount, but only one bill. Of course she just told me today.”

  “Of course,” answered Tilda, rummaging through her bag. “Where are they going?”

  Amanda looked puzzled. “Um, I guess I don’t know. We’re so rushed. She only told me about the money, and now she might miss the bus.”

  Taking her cue, Tilda quickly passed the money through the window. Amanda grabbed it with a barely audible thankyou and turned toward her house. “I’ll pay you back later.” But she hadn’t paid it back yet, Tilda suddenly remembered.

  The incident of the five-dollar bill was very typical of other Amanda moments, so she hadn’t thought much of it. She was always in a rush, it seemed to Tilda, never giving herself enough time to make it through the day without just narrowly getting by. It was behavior that Tilda found hard to understand, having spent her working years in the classroom, where promptness and planning were necessities. But there was something else about Amanda. Her haphazard life seemed emblematic of her dissatisfaction in general.

  Unlike Laura, Amanda didn’t hover over Lizzie. In fact, just the opposite. She seemed not to know what was going on in her daughter’s life. There was always the rush out the door in the mornings to make it to school on time and the last-minute dash to the store for supplies for whatever school project Amanda didn’t know was due. Darren always seemed in the background of whatever chaos was going on around him. Tilda never made much of any of this, observing from the safe distance of next-door-neighbor behavior, polite but not involved.

  But now, after her conversation with Darren, she began putting pieces together in a different pattern. There was the time Tilda was leaving the house and saw Amada carrying an easel and several shopping bags. She stopped just long enough to set her things down inside the front door and to walk over to Tilda to catch up for a minute as they sometimes did. Waving an arm toward the house, Amanda said she was finally getting back into her painting, something she had set aside years ago when Lizzie was born and they had left the city to move into the “burbs,” as she called their neighborhood in Connecticut. She had said it so wistfully that Tilda had imagined her pining over her lost life as an artist in the making.

  “What kind of painting?” Tilda had asked.

  “Oh, oils. Abstract expressionism. The stuff that is out of style today, it seems, unless you’re Jasper Johns or someone else famous. I did drip painting. Are you familiar with that type of art?”

  Tilda thought immediately of Jackson Pollock’s huge canvases and the impressiveness of his technique although she was never quite sure what to make of it. But she had fallen under the spell of Autumn Rhythm when she saw it at an exhibit in the city years ago.

  “Yes, I know his work,” she answered. “It’s intriguing, isn’t it? Where did you study, Amanda?” A not-quite-innocent question, she knew, designed to find out if Amanda had a serious background or if she just splattered paint around on canvas.

  “The Art Students League for a while. I had a studio not far from there. Well, several of us did. We shared. It was a great time.”

  Now Tilda set the watering can down on the shelf next to the begonias and wondered if Amanda’s disappearance was in any way related to her desire to reclaim her art. At first Tilda thought maybe it was another man, but now she thought this seemed more likely—that Amanda’s disappearance surely had to do with her need to find a room of her own, to pursue a long-dormant dream.

  It wasn’t unusual for women in their forties to begin questioning their decisions, wondering if they had closed doors prematurely. In Tilda’s day the prospect had been raised repeatedly in popular culture. Then it was about women needing to “find themselves.” Tilda was part of the conversation, certainly with Bev after seeing movies like An Unmarried Woman and Kramer vs. Kramer, great m
ovies, they both thought, but Tilda never needed to find herself. She was content with her life, with Harold and Laura, her teaching job. She was a feminist, but she never felt the need to leave home, to escape as apparently Amanda had done.

  Tilda looked at her watch and decided it was time to check in on Lizzie.

  At first Lizzie was reluctant to leave whatever it was she doing at home to come over, and Tilda could understand that. At fourteen, she was probably still a little thrilled that she was old enough to be left at home alone, if only for a little while. Certainly that was true of Tilly. But as the evening wore on, Darren still wasn’t home, so Tilda called again, luring her with the promise of homemade mac and cheese and chocolate chip cookies. This was the meal Tilly usually wanted when she came over for dinner. Tilda would slip in a little serving of green beans and salad to add some nutritional color to the steady diet of white and brown food most kids Tilly’s age seemed to crave.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, happily eating a second serving of macaroni, Lizzie bore little resemblance to Tilda’s granddaughter. Lizzie wore distinctly un-skinny jeans, apparently oblivious to the latest in teen fashion. She wore baggy green cords and a bulky white sweater that Tilda, no expert on such matters, was nevertheless pretty certain she hadn’t seen since the ’80s. Lizzie’s long brown hair hung loosely over her shoulders, one side pulled back with a bobby pin so she could eat without getting hair in her mouth. Tilda was sure she was not on the A-list at school, but there was something charming about her. She seemed completely at ease.

  “I’m surprised Dad hasn’t called in a while,” she said, reaching for a cookie.

  Tilda poured her a glass of milk and said, “Well, I’m sure he’ll be here soon. We could play Scrabble if you’d like, when you’ve finished eating.”

  “Sure. I may be here longer than you think, Mrs. Carr. I think Mom has taken off.”

  Tilda nearly spilled the milk before putting it on the table in front of Lizzie. She pulled out a chair, the dragging noise on the wood amplified as her senses perked up.

  “Taken off? Lizzie, what do you mean?” She sat down across from her.

  Lizzie lifted her napkin and wiped her mouth slowly. “Well, I guess it’s okay to say, but Mom was acting kind of funny this morning at breakfast, and then she gave me an extra hug when she dropped me off at school, like it was a special good-bye.”

  Tilda wasn’t sure if she was more amazed by Lizzie’s calm retelling of her mother’s “taking off” or by what she was actually saying. “But where would she have gone? She wouldn’t just leave you and your father.”

  “Honestly, I’m not too worried. Mom is, well, you have to know her. She’s not like other mothers. She likes to follow her bliss. That’s what she says everyone should do. But the funny thing is, I guess she hasn’t really followed hers, until now, I mean.”

  Tilda, suddenly aware that her mouth had dropped open, closed it so suddenly she heard a little snap. Torn between wanting to learn more and taking Lizzie in her arms, she realized that the girl was not in need of comforting.

  “It’s her art. She tries to paint, but there’s always something stopping her. She blames it on all the stuff she has to do, but I think she’s afraid she can’t anymore—I mean, artistically—like maybe she’s lost her vision or something. So I think maybe she had to go to figure this out. It might be scary for her, too, you know?”

  Tilda leaned back in her chair, scratching the back of her head. “Well, no, Lizzie, I don’t think I do know what you mean. But if your mother has purposely left you and your father, aren’t you . . . doesn’t that bother you?”

  Lizzie moved her mouth from side to side, her eyes on the plate in front of her, and thought about this for a minute before looking up at Tilda. “No, not really. I mean, I hope she finds what she’s looking for, but I think she’s doing what she thinks she needs to do. And besides, I know she loves us, Dad and me, and I know she’ll come home when she’s ready.”

  Tilda was up from her chair now, leaning over to hug Lizzie before she knew what she was doing. Lizzie was undaunted. She allowed herself to be embraced and then gave Tilda a little pat on the back.

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Carr, really. It’s Dad I’m more worried about.”

  Chapter Four

  CLOSER YET I APPROACH YOU

  “You’ve got to love her,” Tilda said to Bev on the phone the next day, after the mac-and-cheese dinner with Lizzie. “She’s like this wise old soul in a fourteen-year-old body. There I was, worried about her being completely in the dark about Amanda, and yet there she was with her finger right on the pulse of what was going on with her mother, and completely accepting, by the way. The only person she’s worried about? Her dad. And why? Well, apparently, he isn’t as together as his teenage daughter. It’s a riot,” she concluded, and then added, “If it weren’t so sad, really.”

  “Yes, it is sad,” Bev said. “She’s still a child, after all, no matter how together she may appear, and that’s not right. But men disappear all the time, and while it’s terrible and all, when a woman does it, it’s considered far worse. ‘How can she abandon her child like that?’ Isn’t it just as bad when a man takes off? Anyway, she’s not the first woman who left home to find herself. Remember Kramer vs. Kramer?”

  “Yes, of course I do, but we don’t know for sure that’s what’s happened. Probably, though.”

  “And no doubt there’s a man involved. What is she, early, midforties? You know . . . the flame that’s about to go out is the flame that burns brightest, premenopause and all that. It’s all hormonal, anyway.”

  “Oh, God, Bev, you’re so cynical.”

  “I’m not cynical. I’ve lived through it, and so have you. But ultimately, these are the problems of the privileged. No one is starving or wondering where they will sleep tonight. No one is sick or dying without insurance.”

  “Well, yes, but . . . well, you’re right.” Tilda realized she would get nowhere trying to convince Bev this wasn’t about class struggle, the prism through which Bev saw most things. While Tilda and Harold were having a grand time in the ’60s, Bev was out marching, licking envelopes, and passing out flyers on street corners about the pressing issues of the day. Whether it was the war in Vietnam, the war on poverty, racial inequality, women’s rights, anti-nukes, or world peace, Bev was there, inexhaustibly there.

  For a few years she had been happily married to Dave, Harold’s old college buddy, until “radical feminism” (Dave’s label for their problems) came between them. Dave wanted a family and a “normal” life. Bev, raven-haired and sleek, had stopped shaving her legs and had begun wearing long, shapeless dresses with clunky sandals. Her abandonment of feminine cultural norms—emblematic of how politicized his previously chic wife had become—was all he could see.

  Dave grew depressed. They divorced. When he remarried within a year, Bev never looked back, and though she never remarried, she did have her flings. Bev and Tilda remained friends through it all, and Tilda admired Bev, knowing she could never match her friend’s resolve and commitment. And yet, she never wanted more than what she had, her life with Harold.

  Now with back problems, exacerbated by weight and arthritis, Bev limited her volunteerism to phone calls. Recently she’d been trying to secure microloans for women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  “Besides,” continued Bev, “why are you becoming so involved? I mean, it’s better than having you moping around, no offense, but this is out of character for you.”

  “Thanks for your compassion,” Tilda replied, unfazed by her friend’s directness. Their bluntness—and sarcasm—back and forth with one another was one of the most cherished features of their relationship, a habit of long-standing. “Maybe it’s because of Lizzie. She really got to me. And Darren, good grief. He’s so lost. I agree with Lizzie; I’d be worried about him, too.”

  “Hmm. When’s the last time you talked to Tilly, or Laura?”

  “I haven’t talked to Tilly since the mall,
over two weeks ago now. I think she’s ignoring me. Well, she’s more than ignoring me. She’s pretty much shutting me out, but I haven’t said anything yet—to her or to Laura.”

  Tilda paused and looked out the window toward her rose bushes, now bare.

  “I have to admit, it bothers me. But I have to give her some time, probably. Whatever is bothering her, she’s holding it against me for prying, I guess. But Laura? I talk to her almost every day, although not that much about Tilly.”

  Bev was silent.

  “Why are you asking me about my conversations with Tilly and Laura?” Tilda asked. “Do you think I’m sublimating with another family because my own has disowned me for being so insensitive to my only granddaughter’s serious issues?”

  Tilda was reaching for some dry humor, but the squeezing in her chest told her she hadn’t hit her mark. Just talking about Tilly let her know how much she missed her.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but you may have a point, except for the insensitive part. You were being a grandmother—a loving, concerned one at that.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And anyway, I’m not overly involved with Darren and Lizzie. I just had Lizzie over for dinner, that’s all. And Darren called this morning thanking me for yesterday. He didn’t get back last night until after ten. He didn’t say, but I don’t think he found out anything about Amanda’s whereabouts.”

  “Okay, enough about your neighbors,” Bev interrupted. “Listen, have you heard anything about the new movie at the Quad on the women’s movement? I saw a review yesterday in the Times. It looks pretty interesting. I can’t believe Gloria Steinem is eighty. Should we go? What do you think?”

  Tilda’s first impulse was to say no, her reflex reaction to anything that took her astray from home. She hadn’t thought herself ready for fun with friends, but then maybe going into the city with Bev wasn’t such a bad idea. She and Bev hadn’t had a day together in a long time.