The Promised World: A Novel

by Lisa Tucker

  “He’s out trading his car for a truck. He likes to haul things. Usual man stuff.”

  As Patrick had never hauled anything in his life, he couldn’t comment on this. He wished the topic of Kyle hadn’t come up because it flustered him. He’d always liked Ashley and found her to be reasonable enough. Truth be told, he’d thought she had her hands full with Lila’s brother. He’d even felt sorry for her, living with a moody man like Billy.

  Despite his discomfort, he slowly started presenting his case for why his wife should be allowed to visit the kids. He mentioned Lila’s long-standing relationship with them and all the holidays and birthdays the kids had spent with their aunt. He emphasized that, though the children’s father had clearly been unstable, their aunt would always be an important connection to their father’s memory. She might even be crucial to their healing—a fact about the “grieving process” he’d found the night before on the internet.

  He said a lot of other things and Ashley patiently listened to it all. She had a nice face; he’d always thought that. She looked like a warm, tolerant person. She was wearing a light blue sweater, faded jeans, and house slippers; her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore tiny gold earrings. The very picture of a friendly suburban mom. Naturally, he thought he was getting through to her. Why wouldn’t he be? He was only asking for what was right.

  When he was finished, Ashley folded her hands. “Do you know what Billy did to that boy?”

  “No, but Lila didn’t have anything to do with—”

  “It wasn’t just hitting him or the things a pervert would do. That would be bad, but William could have gotten over that someday.”

  Patrick was trying to comprehend how she could sound so casual about child abuse, when she continued, “No, this was way worse. He could have gotten William killed.”

  He let her describe in great detail the risks Billy had taken with their son. He wanted to know the facts in Billy’s police file, but after he’d heard it all, his first response was relief. What he’d been imagining was so much worse, actually: something along the lines of what Ashley had called “things a pervert would do.” At the very least, he thought Billy had done something that had caused physical harm to William, as opposed to being only so dangerous it could have harmed the child. But “only so dangerous” didn’t make sense and Patrick knew it. Billy was a parent; he’d had an absolute responsibility to keep his child safe. Ashley was right to take this to the police and he told her so, though of course he would never admit that to Lila.

  It hadn’t occurred to him yet to wonder why Billy had done all this. But Ashley had her own theory: Billy was crazy. And not only Billy, but his sister, too. “I know she’s your wife and you don’t want to think anything bad about her, but there’s a lot you don’t know. A lot I didn’t know, either. A lot I still don’t.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “No need for me to find out now, but you’d better, if you don’t want Lila flipping out like Billy did.”

  He was nervous, but he said, “Lila is fine. She just wants to see your kids, which is perfectly normal. They’re all she has left of her family.

  Ashley stood up and went to the kitchen counter. She reached inside a jar that said Tea and pulled out a small envelope. When she sat back down, she said, “This is a sympathy card I got the day after the funeral. Who do you think it’s from?”

  “No idea.” He hated rhetorical questions. What was the point of asking him when he couldn’t possibly know?

  “It’s from Billy and Lila’s mother.” He started to object, but she said, “Hold on, I know what you’re thinking. Their mother is dead. I thought that, too. That’s what he always told me.”

  He felt really angry then, though he tried to keep his voice steady and reasonable. “You said a lot of ‘nuts’ have been calling.” He pointed at the envelope in her hand. “That must have been from some lunatic, too.” When she didn’t say anything, he added, “If the mother was still alive, don’t you think she would have come to the funeral?”

  “Billy’s mother said she wanted to come.”

  He snapped, “I wish you wouldn’t call her that.”

  “She said she wanted to meet me and her grandkids, but she couldn’t come because she was afraid.”

  “Of course she was. Afraid of being discovered.” He hoped he wasn’t smirking. “Because Lila would know immediately that she was a fraud.”

  “No,” Ashley said slowly. “Afraid of Lila.” She handed him the envelope. “Here, see for yourself.”

  He pulled the card from the envelope. The woman called herself Barbara, which was Lila’s mother’s name. She got that part right, but so what? It wouldn’t have been hard, given all the newspaper stories. She went on for a paragraph about how sorry she was for Ashley and the children before she threw in the claim that she was afraid of Lila. Which, to Patrick’s mind, was exactly what he’d been saying. She was afraid of Lila denouncing her as a fake.

  He was oddly calmer now that he’d seen it. It was ridiculous, and he told Ashley so.

  “I thought that myself at first. So you know what I did? I wrote to the old gal. She had a return address in New Jersey, and I sat down and wrote and asked her for proof.”

  Ashley reached under a bowl of fruit and there was another envelope. This time she didn’t hesitate before handing it to Patrick. Inside the envelope was a photograph. There was no mistaking that the two children were at least related to Lila: the girl looked like Pearl when she was younger and the boy looked uncannily like Billy. The only thing that surprised him was how much shorter the girl was than the boy, but he knew that wasn’t meaningful because even though Lila had grown up to be taller than her brother, she could certainly have been smaller as a kid. On the back of the photo, someone had written: Billy and Lila, summer 1981.

  “Maybe she found this.” His hand was shaking a little. He dropped the photo on the table and crossed his arms. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

  Ashley sounded kind, even a little sorry for him. “It sucks being lied to by the person you thought you were closer to than anybody in the whole world, doesn’t it? I know how you feel.”

  Patrick didn’t respond, though he was sure Ashley didn’t know how he felt, because Ashley’s mother was still alive.

  Over the last twelve years, he’d tried so hard not to think about his mother’s death. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to him and the only way to deal with it was to force himself not to go there. Even when he was stuck on the phone, listening to his father’s memories and regrets, he always made sure he was in front of his computer, too, so he could read the news or science blogs or something, anything to distract himself.

  He could feel his jaw tightening. He’d never realized until this moment how much it had always meant to him to know that he and Lila had this bond. She rarely spoke of her mother, either, but he’d always assumed this was because she, too, was trying to avoid feeling this devastating loss.

  Lila’s mother could not be alive. It was that simple. It was as unbelievable to him as anyone being afraid of his gentle, soft-spoken wife.

  He placed his hands flat on the table. “Are you telling me you won’t let your kids see their aunt because some nut claims to be scared of her?”

  Ashley looked out the window behind him. “I don’t know what happened to Billy and Lila when they were kids. Something did, though; I’ve known that for years. My husband became crazier and crazier as William got older.” She shook her head. “Hell, maybe you’re lucky you and Lila don’t have any kids.”

  “Thanks,” he said, without attempting to hide his sarcasm.

  “She’s got some problems, that wife of yours. That’s what I told the lawyer. Anybody who would lie about their mom being dead to their own husband—that’s somebody troubled.” She lowered her voice. “All I know is that my kids aren’t going to suffer another minute from the Cole curse.”

  Patrick laughed. “ ‘The Cole curse’? Come on, you sound like a superstit
ious idi—”

  He stopped himself, but too late. She turned her back to him, but he could hear how angry she was. “Want to guess where I got that from? The genius himself told me that a hundred times. Too bad he’s not here so you could call him an idiot.”

  Though Patrick apologized, it didn’t matter. She told him to get out of her house. He rushed to his car, furious with himself for losing his temper and ruining whatever chance he’d had to save this. Except it couldn’t have been saved anyway, he felt sure of that now. Ashley was never going to let Lila see those kids as long as she believed Lila was not only “cursed,” but a liar.

  Driving down the turnpike, he tried to think about the lecture he was giving, the problem he was trying to solve, the finals he needed to prepare, but nothing worked. He was back in St. Louis again, a twenty-five-year-old man listening to his mother cry from a pain no amount of morphine could help. He was back there, watching her die so slowly and horribly that he sometimes wondered if he’d ever be able to think about what either of them had been like before.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She fell in love with him because he wrote her a poem. How lame is that? This was before she knew that, for Billy, pretty words came as easy as finding salt in the ocean. “That boy can talk,” her mother said. And then, because her mom had already been divorced twice and distrusted men: “Watch that you don’t get hit in the eye when he’s slinging all that bullshit.”

  Ashley had never gone to college, but she was twenty-nine and no dummy. She knew the difference between BS and the kind of things Billy Cole talked to her about. His dream to be a writer wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky drunk talk, either, because he was never drunk and he had a briefcase full of stuff he’d already written. And he wasn’t using that stuff to get laid. He wouldn’t even show it to her; he said real writers never show their work until it’s finished. She was kind of relieved he felt that way, because what if he wanted her to read it and then talk about what it meant? She’d always sucked at those “deeper meaning” questions in high school.

  No doubt, she had a weakness for unavailable guys, especially if they had sad puppy dog eyes like Billy Cole did. But where was the harm in hanging out with him? She knew he wasn’t the type to hit a woman, and he didn’t even raise hell on the weekends, like most of the guys she knew did. And it was only going to be for a little while, until he left for California or Oregon or wherever he decided to go next. Ashley’s mom called him a drifter, like that was a bad thing, but Ashley herself thought it would be so cool to travel the country like that. The farthest away she’d ever been was El Paso, for her cousin Karen’s wedding.

  Did she ever hope Billy would ask her to leave town with him? No, because she wasn’t a fool and only fools hope for things that will never happen in a million years. That he’d stayed as long as he had was good enough for her, and more than she’d expected. Yeah, he’d given her something she hadn’t planned on, but she could deal with that after he was gone. She wasn’t ready to be a mother and he sure as hell wasn’t ready to be a father. He didn’t have the money she’d need for the clinic, so why tell him about it?

  And then he wrote her that damn poem and she fell in love with Billy Cole. How he figured out she was pregnant, she wasn’t sure, but all those pretty words about the pretty baby she was carrying and the pretty family they would have—well, it seemed like one of those fantasies all little girls love, like Cinderella and the slipper. The guys she knew would have run if they guessed she was knocked up, but not Billy. Her mom said it was only because he was too young to get what he was in for with a kid.

  Ashley took a lot of shit about Billy’s age from her friends and family. She told Trish if she heard one more joke about robbing the cradle she was going to scream. Trish was the only one who thought it was romantic that Ashley was marrying Billy Cole, and it wasn’t much comfort. Trish had always been kind of simple.

  Still, Trish was her sister and Ashley loved her without question, the way you do with your family. This was why she thought she understood how Billy felt about his sister. Billy and Lila were twins, yeah, but how different could it be? Oh boy, was she ever stupid about that! From the moment Princess Lila blew into town, Billy rarely left her side and the two of them were always whispering in the corner of the bar where Ashley was still working, trying to make enough money for the baby. She was already five and a half months pregnant and her feet hurt from standing all night, but she tried not to bitch. At least Billy was keeping his promise to get married, finally.

  They’d waited three months so Lila could finish college. Billy told Ashley he was afraid it would put too much stress on his sister if she had to come to the wedding before the end of the semester, and she might even get sick.

  “Does she get sick a lot?” Ashley said, wondering why Billy had mentioned this. It seemed a weird thing to worry about with a girl Lila’s age.

  The question seemed to annoy Billy. “No,” he said, frowning, “and I intend to keep it that way. Lila’s going to graduate school to be a professor. It’s what she’s always wanted and I don’t want anything to interrupt her plans.”

  Ashley’s mom was the one who’d named Billy’s sister Princess Lila, because she thought Lila acted like she was better than everybody else. Ashley told her mom she was being too hard on the girl, but secretly she worried her mom was right. Lila had a way of looking at Ashley like she was to blame for all this, like Ashley had tricked Billy into marrying her like one of those white-trash women on Jerry Springer. It wasn’t until after they’d been married for a few months that Billy admitted he had told Lila something like that. Of course, this turned into a fight, the first of hundreds they would have over the years.

  They were still living in Ashley’s apartment, which was small to begin with and now seemed tiny with Billy always there and Ashley eight months along and big as a truck. The bed took up three quarters of the only room; the kitchen was against the back wall, just a half-refrigerator, a rusted-out sink, a hot plate, and one cabinet where the small amount of dishes Ashley had were crammed together: blackened pots under glasses, spoons and forks on top of chipped plates. The bathroom didn’t even have a shower, just a peeling tub with a hose she’d connected to the faucet so she could wash her hair. Otherwise, all they had were a small TV sitting on an old dresser, and a corner desk next to the window that faced the mountains, with a stack of Billy’s books arranged on the windowsill. He’d put up three pictures on the opposite wall: one of Lila, one of an old guy with a beard (it was somebody Ashley had never heard of; Billy said the guy had written one of his favorite books), and a colorful painting of triangles, circles, and zigzag lines. Over by the bed, Ashley had baby pictures of her nephews and a photo of her whole family at last year’s picnic—normal pictures, not like the one Billy had of his sister, which was downright strange.

  She was all by herself in some kind of spooky forest. Her blond hair was shorter then, curled around her face, which was weirdly pale, and her eyes looked big as an owl’s. Her face was heart-shaped, but not soft, and her lips were locked together as firmly as if she’d decided not to talk for the rest of her life. Or maybe like she was holding back a scream? Ashley felt sure that something had scared the shit out of Lila that day, but when she’d suggested that to Billy, he’d said it was “ludicrous.” One of his favorite words, as Ashley was discovering. It always made her lose track of what she was trying to say.

  Ashley stared at that picture while Billy explained why he’d lied to Lila about the reason for their marriage. “She’s never had a real boyfriend, Ash.” Billy was still sitting at his desk. “She wouldn’t understand about all this.”

  “So you told her it was all a trick?”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “Did you even tell her you loved me?”

  “I told her I didn’t care whether I loved you or not, which was true. That I would have married you anyway because of the baby.”

  This was so much worse than him say
ing she’d tricked him into marrying her; she was stunned. She swallowed hard and stared at his back bent over his desk. His pen was moving again, like that was the end of their little chat.

  She grabbed the first thing she could reach—her jean jacket—and threw it at him.

  He turned around, rubbing his neck where the snap had hit him. “What?”

  “You wrote me that fucking poem!”

  “And?”

  “You went on and on about how much you loved me and the baby.”

  “I said our life together would be great.” He looked into her eyes. “I still believe that.”

  “You said a hell of a lot more than that, Jack.” She went to her nightstand and yanked open the top drawer so hard the picture of her family fell forward with a clunk. “I’ve got it right here.”

  As angry as she was, she couldn’t help unfolding the sheet of notebook paper gently. It was the best night of her life, wasn’t it? The night Billy waited for her outside the bar and insisted on going to the rundown hotel where he was staying, rather than her place. There were hundreds of stars out that night, and she felt happy riding along in that junker Oldsmobile of his, holding his hand. When they got inside the room, she noticed that he’d lit a few candles, picked some hyssop from the side of the road and arranged it in the plastic coffeepot—nothing fancy compared to what other women bragged about getting from their men, but it touched her. The truth was no guy had ever done anything remotely romantic for Ashley. She told herself this was because they could tell she was too tough to want this kind of crap, but deep down, she knew that none of those guys had ever loved her. They were attracted by her breasts and her ass; they liked her easy way in bed, but they didn’t really care. But Billy was different, she knew that when he reached into the pocket of his faded jeans and handed her the poem. Billy saw her soft side. He knew she longed to have a family of her own. He thought their baby would be pretty. He actually wanted to marry her.