Tilda's Promise

by Jean P. Moore

  “I just dropped her off. She told me to drop her off, and I did.” Laura’s sobs were beginning to mount. “I didn’t wait. I always wait, but yesterday I had left a cake in the oven, and I guess I was in a hurry to get home,” she said before giving in to her tears. “She must’ve waited till I was gone and then went . . . wherever she was going.”

  She took a tissue from her pocket. “When she still wasn’t home by dark, we called the police. They came right over and took all the information we had, which wasn’t much, but they said they had to wait till morning to do a missing persons bulletin. Mark spent the night combing the neighborhood and driving the streets wherever he thought she could be. I kept calling her and texting, but nothing, no response. I called her friends, including Andrea again, after Kelly had talked to her again, too. Finally Kelly said she knew Andrea was telling the truth and didn’t know where Tilly was. She politely said it was fruitless to keep calling. That’s the word she used, ‘fruitless,’ but today the police talked to her again—and to all Tilly’s friends. They were here to be sure we hadn’t left anything out. They wanted to know if Tilly had been depressed lately.” Laura rounded her shoulders, covered her face with her hands, and leaned into Tilda, who immediately wrapped her in her arms.

  Tilda swallowed hard, hoping to keep the knot in her chest from rising. She cleared her throat and said, “So now she’s officially missing. That’s good, Laura. Now they will do a full search. A full investigation. That’s good.” She wanted to comfort her daughter, but at the same time, she felt her anxiety response begin. Not now. Breathe, Tilda, Breathe.

  “Yes, but so far the police have nothing to go on. None of her friends know anything, or else no one’s talking. I don’t know which.”

  Tilda felt a tumble in her stomach, a small adrenaline kick. “Do you know exactly who the police have talked to?”

  “Yes. We gave them the list. It’s here on the table by the phone.” Laura reached for it and handed it to Tilda, who looked over the names.

  Laura shook her head. “I told the police something must be terribly wrong. She seemed fine. She wouldn’t do this. The police said they don’t think anything has happened to her. They think she’s run away. At least that will be the story for at least forty-eight hours, until tomorrow.”

  Laura, as though in shock, kept saying, “She seemed fine. Hasn’t she been fine? No more incidents since the, you know, those scratches on her arm.” Tilda, handing the list back to Laura, answered that yes, she had seemed fine. Tilda, for a reason she could not yet articulate, felt the panic begin to subside. She suddenly did not think any harm had come to her granddaughter, but things obviously were not fine.

  “She may seem fine to us, Laura, but the truth is that Tilly has been hiding in plain sight for a while. Maybe she just needs some time—away from us right now.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Laura. “Do you know what’s happened to her?”

  “No, I don’t, but I believe she’s okay. We’ll find her. Don’t worry.” Tilda wasn’t sure herself if she fully believed what she was saying. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she did know her first duty at that moment was to her daughter.

  Laura searched her mother’s face looking for more, for answers Tilda could not give her. Tilda hadn’t seen that look since Laura was ten.

  She’ll be okay, right, Mommy? she had asked through her tears after her dog had been hit by a car. Jules, the sweet Yorkie, had been Laura’s love since the day she and Harold had brought her home from the Humane Society after she had been abandoned.

  Laura had seen the accident and had run to the maimed dog. Tilda, hearing screeching brakes, saw what was happening from the living room window. She saw that it was Jules who had been hit and not Laura, thank God. And then, instead of running immediately to her daughter, she ran to the closet to grab a sheet, wishing only that she had been able to get it there sooner. By the time she reached her, Laura was screaming, putting her hand into the red mass of fur, flesh, and bone exposed on Jules’s side. Tilda tried to remove her hand but in the end had to pry her away in order to put the sheet over Jules’s wound, where it immediately turned a deep red. Tilda stroked Jules’s head. “There, there, baby, just be still. Everything is okay,” she said as Jules’s panting began to subside. Laura, seeing this, began to pet her dog, too, telling her how much she loved her and that soon they would be playing again, as soon as she got better. Right, Mommy? she asked, looking up at Tilda. That same look, the one she had now.

  But of course Jules was not okay, and Laura took it hard, comforted only by the funeral in the backyard under the large oak tree that Laura liked to climb. After they had placed Jules’s ashes in the small grave, Harold said a prayer. “May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us. May the one who creates harmony bring peace to us—and to dear Jules—to which we say, amen,” and Tilda and Laura repeated, “Amen.”

  “I think God will forgive that I’ve taken liberties with the Kaddish for a dog, don’t you, Tilda?” he had said to her that night after they had put Laura to bed.

  Tilda spent the next few hours assuring Laura that Tilly would be home soon. “It will be all right, I promise,” she had said. Laura had wanted Tilda to stay, but she said she needed to get home to unpack and to get some rest if she could. She let Mark call her a cab but would not hear of him leaving the house. “Your place is here, Mark,” she told him emphatically when he tried to object. She assured Laura she would be back early in the morning. “Don’t worry,” she said as she left Laura and Mark standing in the doorway, clutching each other as though they might drown if they let go. After the driver had put her luggage in the trunk, Tilda looked through the rear window to see them still standing there as the cab pulled away. She wanted to stay, to help in any way she could, but that was the very reason she had to leave.

  As soon as she got home, even though it was late, she called Darren. He was happy to hear her voice and eager to share his news: “Amanda came here for Christmas, Tilda. And it was a good visit. It was just like you said. It was good for Lizzie.”

  Tilda took in this news with some puzzlement. She had forgotten all about her advice to Darren in the excitement of the Cuba trip. She was surprised that Amanda had been with Darren and Lizzie for Christmas, but in a way it fit in with the hunch she was about to act on. Surely the police had talked to Lizzie, but if they did, Darren was unaware of it—as well as of the fact that Tilly was missing.

  “She and I didn’t get into anything about what’s going on with her, but that was okay, a truce, or a day without war, just like you said. I don’t know what comes next, but . . .”

  If her call hadn’t been for a completely different reason, Tilda would have pursued Darren’s thoughts on the problem of Amanda, but she had more urgent matters to attend to. She apologized for interrupting but the matter at hand, Tilly’s absence, made Darren immediately empathetic.

  In the middle of his reaction, expressing his shock and concern, she interrupted him again.

  “I’m sorry, Darren, but can I speak to Lizzie? Just to see if she knows anything, if she can remember any little detail that may help.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Darren as he called for Lizzie.

  As soon as Lizzie got on the phone, Tilda was firm. “Did you talk to the police, Lizzie?” she asked straight away. Lizzie was silent, but Tilda heard her catch her breath.

  “It’s okay, Lizzie. Please let me know.”

  She didn’t answer. Then Tilda thought she heard a door close. In a near whisper, Lizzie said, “Just for a second, I talked to them, when Dad wasn’t here. But . . . I didn’t tell them anything. I mean, I didn’t have anything to . . .”

  “Stop, Lizzie. You don’t have to give up any confidences, or anything. In fact, please don’t. Just say you’ll let me know if you find out anything at all that you can tell me. But just do this one thing. Please tell her to call her mother. That’s all she has to do, just call.”

  Lizzie sa
id, “I’m not sure what to say—or to do.”

  “It will be okay, Lizzie. Just do as I asked, okay?”

  Lizzie agreed, and they hung up.

  Tilda felt as though she were walking on a high wire. Afraid to look down, she decided to keep going. She did not take any of this lightly. She realized she was taking a risk—assuming Lizzie knew where Tilly was, keeping Mark and Laura in the dark, possibly even interfering with a police investigation—but she kept going. One step at a time, until this is over. Then she settled down for a sleepless night.

  The next morning, New Year’s Eve, the phone by the bed rang.

  “She called, Mom, she called,” Laura, breathless with excitement and relief, said when Tilda picked up. “She’s okay. She’s clearly okay, but she wouldn’t tell me where she is. She just said that I should tell the police that she was okay, that she’s staying with a friend. I don’t know what to think,” Laura continued. “I asked her when she was coming home. And why she was doing this.”

  “What did she say?” asked Tilda, her beating heart pounding in her head.

  “She said she knew school was starting next week, but that she didn’t know when she was coming home. But I’m relieved. She’s okay, thank God. I can’t tell you how worried I was that something dreadful had happened. I don’t know how you could’ve been so sure, but then so were the police. Apparently this happens a lot. Kids run away, mostly just temporarily for one reason or another. This has to be temporary. But she sounded so distant. I know she’s okay, but I’m scared. Why would she do this?”

  Tilda said she didn’t know, but then she tried to bring Laura around again to the good news. “Try not to worry, Laura. I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”

  “But now I’m frantic about who she’s with. Not any of her friends that I know. I told her I would tell the police she’s okay, but I really can’t because who are these people? They may not be friends at all, just people who have lured her somehow. Now I’m beside myself again, just thinking about it.”

  “Of course you are. Yes, you have to tell the police about this,” Tilda said, her stomach churning. “Laura, if you don’t mind, now that we know Tilly is okay, I think I’ll wait to come over.”

  “I don’t know she’s okay,” she snapped. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “It will be all right, I promise, and I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said as she hung up the phone.

  Tilda, who was still in bed, put her hands to her head and took a deep breath. Morning light was just coming through the corners of the night shades. She knew she had to move quickly, but she had learned by experience that she could avoid annoying her stiff morning muscles simply by moving methodically. The indignities of growing older, she thought, repeating to herself a comment she and Harold had often made to each other, laughing and taking comfort in growing old together. Now she was left having to be grateful that she was still here, alone. Not grateful she was dealing with her fears and uncertainties without him.

  Sitting on the side of the bed for a moment before getting up, she knew what she had to do today: get to Brooklyn, where she was sure she would find Tilly in the throes of being young, trying to discover who she was. This was her hunch, which explained why she had needed to talk to Lizzie and why her pending trip was more important than being with Laura, who was beside herself with worry.

  But it would all come to this one day, with Tilda, sitting on the side of the bed not moving too quickly, about to launch herself back to where her family had begun, only now—skipping a generation—on a mission to retrieve her granddaughter. She was about to launch herself completely out of her quiet life of semi-solitude, creaking bones and all. She knew Tilly was in her own kind of pain, even as she was creating pain for others. The indignities of the young. She was being philosophical, but in truth she had her sights on Amanda.

  Although she hadn’t talked to Lizzie beyond last night’s call, Tilda was certain she was putting the pieces together accurately. The image in her head she kept coming back to was on Thanksgiving when she had seen Tilly and Lizzie talking together in the kitchen. Thick as thieves. What had Lizzie been telling her?

  Chapter Nine

  TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD

  Ur gram called. May know where u r. Call ur mom.

  Harper wondered how her grandma knew to call Lizzie. The text didn’t really explain anything, so Harper called Lizzie, who told her in a whisper that she couldn’t talk. “My dad might be listening. So look, your grandma might know you’re with my mom. I don’t know how, I didn’t tell, but she knew to call me. Why, I don’t know. She said you have to call your mom. I guess ’cause she’s worried, but your gram isn’t telling anyone what she knows, I’m pretty sure. She was real secretive.”

  “But how could she know where I am?” asked Harper.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she just figured it out. She’s intuitive.”

  “I guess.”

  Harper promised she’d call her mom and put her phone on the nightstand. She decided not to call right away. She wanted to think about it. Maybe her mom was sleeping—and she probably wasn’t sleeping much. This thought made Harper’s nose tingle the way it always did before she cried. She wiggled her nose to make it stop and lay down on the squeaky cot and stared at the ceiling of the small office space that Amanda had made into a bedroom for her. I’ll wait till morning to call, she thought, and then she drifted back to sleep.

  But at two in the morning, she looked at her phone, on sleep mode, and saw that her mom was still texting her. She deleted what would have been like the two hundredth text she had received and determined to call at six. I know she’ll be up and making coffee by then. She went limp thinking of her kitchen at home with her mom in it. She could smell the deep-roast coffee brewing, reminding her of the taste, both sweet and bitter until she put in sugar and cream, lots of cream. Her mom let her drink coffee. A lot of moms didn’t. Her mom was strict, but she could be cool, too, thought Harper. She turned over and buried her head in the musty pillow.

  At six, still in bed, she called. Her mom was hysterical, crying and laughing, making a sound in her throat like a cat, not a purr exactly. She was too upset for that, but it was close. It was nice, happy.

  “I know I’m making you worry, Mom, and I’m sorry. But I promise I’m okay. I’m with friends.”

  “But who? The police have talked to your friends. Who are you with, Tilly?”

  “You don’t know them. I promise they’re good.”

  “No, no, no. Tell me where you are.”

  Her mother was crying into the phone when Harper started crying, too.

  “Mom, just, please, please, try not to worry. Try to understand. I’m really, really okay. I just have some things to work out.”

  “What do you have to work out?” her mother asked, pleaded to know. “You can tell me anything. Your dad and me. You know that, don’t you?”

  Harper didn’t answer. Tell you anything? No, I don’t think I can tell you anything. You don’t even get that I’m Harper now. But she didn’t say that. She didn’t know when she would be able to tell them, didn’t think she could bear their looks of disappointment. Their perfect Tilly, now Harper? No, she couldn’t imagine it.

  Instead she asked her mother if she had called the police and told her to tell them she was okay.

  “When are you coming home?” her mother asked.

  Harper said she didn’t know and hung up.

  She thought about getting out of bed, but she suddenly felt too heavy to move, so she lay there, staring at the ceiling. It was covered with white plastic stars someone had glued up there once. Maybe they were fluorescent, but they didn’t glow in the dark anymore—or if they did, Harper hadn’t noticed. The thought of someone on a ladder gluing stars to the ceiling made her sad, and tears streamed from the corners of her eyes and rolled down the sides of her face into her hair. She didn’t brush them away, though. She just let them roll while she continued to look at the stars.

&
nbsp; Outside the small window in this attic space she heard a few stray winter birds calling to one another. She thought back to how she had come to be here, in Amanda’s new home. Lizzie told her at Thanksgiving that she knew where her mother was and made Tilly promise not to tell. She had promised. But she kept thinking about Amanda and how she was making a new life for herself. She wanted that, to start over—as someone else maybe. She called Lizzie, who said it would be okay, and here she was. It was all so strange, she could hardly believe it.

  She thought about her grandmother and about what she knew and wondered how she knew.

  I told her I wanted to be Harper. She was supposed to help me tell Mom and Dad, but she didn’t—because she got so upset by the cuts. They wouldn’t listen anyway. They don’t listen to anything I try to tell them. Just make good grades and dance and say nice things and always, always be good. Well, I’m tired of being good. And even Grandma, at the mall, when I got so mad, all she did was freak about the cuts.

  Maybe I’ll just stay here.

  One summer afternoon when she was ten and visiting her grandparents, she went out in the backyard to be alone, as she often did. She climbed her favorite tree, going higher than she had ever gone before. The tree, a large oak, was heavy with midsummer leaves. She leaned forward on a high sturdy branch until she was hugging it with her arms and legs and shimmied as far out as she could to see better her yard and house below, when suddenly she realized how high she had come. She didn’t know how she could get back to the ground below without falling. So she stayed awhile longer, but she still didn’t think she could make it safely down from her little perch. She thought about just staying there. That wasn’t as scary as the thought of climbing down.