Promises to Keep

by Ann Tatlock

  “You do know,” she continued with a glance at Mom, “you’ll be working five days a week, including every other Saturday.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that,” Mom said.

  “So you’ve made arrangements for . . .” She nodded toward me and Valerie, as though she didn’t care to say our names.

  “Not yet, no.”

  “But of course you can’t bring them to the store.”

  “No, of course not. Until school starts, Wally can look after the girls while I’m at work.”

  “And after school starts? What will you do about Valerie then?”

  “Well . . .” Mom looked at Gramps and back at Marie. “I don’t know yet. There’s been so much to think about.”

  “You’ll have to hire a sitter of some sort.”

  “Yes.” Mom didn’t look up from her half-eaten piece of cake.

  “I’m sure there must be plenty of women out there willing to watch one more child, along with their own.”

  Mom nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll find someone.”

  I don’t remember how long we stayed at Grandpa’s house that afternoon. It seemed like an impossibly long time. Eventually Valerie and I left the dining room and tried to entertain ourselves by searching for four-leaf clovers in the backyard and playing catch with a tennis ball we found in the garden.

  At long last Mom called us inside and said we were going home. Valerie climbed into the wagon, curled up, and closed her eyes. Mom looked straight ahead and didn’t speak while we walked. I could tell by the way she kept lifting a hand to her face that she was crying. She cried a lot in those days, always silently. She tried not to let any of us know.

  “I can pull the wagon if you want, Mom,” I offered.

  “Thanks, honey,” she said, “but I’m all right. I’m trying to decide what I should make for supper. I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer.”

  “We can just have a bowl of cereal or something. I’m really not hungry,” I lied.

  “Don’t be silly, Roz,” she said. “A bowl of cereal is hardly enough for supper.”

  The hand went up to her face again and touched her cheek. She wiped her fingers on her skirt quickly, as though she were smoothing a wrinkle or brushing away a bug. I wondered how many tears had been caught in the fabric of her clothes over the years.

  “Mom,” I said, “you know, I can take care of Valerie. I mean, while you’re at work. I don’t have to go to school. It’s more important that I help you with Val.”

  Mom laughed lightly at that. “Nice try, Roz, but you’re going to school. We’ll both be in trouble with the law if you don’t.”

  “But, Mom – ”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find someone to take care of her.”

  “But who, Mom? We don’t know anyone around here yet.”

  “Maybe I’ll put an ad in the paper. I don’t know.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I’ve got three weeks to worry about that. Right now I’ve got other things to think about.”

  Yeah, and I knew what she was thinking. Or at least I imagined I did. If she were still married to Dr. Frank Sanderson, everything would be different. Everything would be good. Valerie and I wouldn’t be here, because she would never have married Alan Anthony, but that would be all right. She and Frank Sanderson and Wally would be together as a family, and they would be happy.

  I thought about that a lot. And I figured if I thought about it, Mom probably did too. Maybe she even thought about it more than I did.

  We turned down McDowell Street, and I saw our house, the two-story white clapboard with the black shutters sitting squarely in the middle of the block. It was already becoming familiar, and I was thinking of it as home. With four large rooms downstairs and four bedrooms upstairs, we had far more space than we’d had in our track house in the suburbs of Minneapolis. I forgot about Frank Sanderson as I found myself enjoying the walk to our new home.

  When we stepped up to the porch, Wally met us at the door looking sheepish. He pursed his lips and nodded toward the kitchen, from which the unmistakable aroma of fried chicken reached us. Stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his shorts, he explained, “She showed up again, so I let her in.”

  We knew who he was talking about, though we hadn’t seen her in five days and hadn’t expected to see her again.

  Mom, carrying Valerie, frowned and blinked a couple of times before heading down the hall. I followed close behind, wanting to see what was about to happen.

  Tillie, wearing Mom’s apron, was at the stove pounding away at a large pot of potatoes with the wooden-handled masher. On another burner a skillet sizzled with the browned and crispy pieces of chicken that Mom had forgotten to thaw. Tillie must have been there for a while.

  Her face was wet with perspiration, and her gray bun was frayed, wispy strands of hair flying every which way each time she hammered the potatoes. When she finally noticed we were there, she smiled at us, and her blue eyes sparkled behind her glasses. She stopped pounding, pushed a strand of matted hair off her forehead with the back of her hand, and said, “There you are. Come on in and wash your hands. Supper’s almost ready.”

  I looked at Mom and she looked at me, and that was how Tillie Monroe came to live with us that summer of 1967.

  chapter

  4

  Mills River, Illinois, was a small town stuck in time. The streets and cross streets of well-kept houses and downtown storefronts refused to budge beyond 1950. While the rest of the country had rolled headlong into the turmoil of the sixties – fiery race riots, violent war protests, the nightmare of psychedelic drug use – Mills River remained a stronghold of postwar civility and quiet prosperity.

  Somehow Gramps had landed in just the right place after Grandma died, and eventually Mom followed. Gramps had needed a new life of sorts; Mom needed simply to be free to live. A life of constant fear, she said, was as close as you could get to being dead while still breathing. She was tired of the walking-dead kind of existence.

  At eleven years of age I didn’t quite understand. Oh yes, Daddy had his faults. That much I knew. Sometimes he drank too much, and the alcohol seemed to ignite some deep well of anger inside him. He could be violent; oh yes, I knew that too. I’d seen it all – seen the fists, heard the curses, saw the aftermath of his fury in the bruises on Mom’s face. And whenever that happened, I was afraid. But I tried to shut it all out as simply as I shut my eyes, pretending that if I couldn’t see it, it wasn’t there. Because Daddy had a good side too, and there were times when he was all smiles and fun and laughter and even love. He said he loved us, and I believed him.

  I was thinking about Daddy that summer morning when Tillie and I were walking to Jewel Food Store, with Tillie pulling Valerie behind us in the wagon. Not yet used to the stranger beside me, I was startled when she asked, “Do you miss him?”

  I looked up at her sharply. “Who?”

  “Your father,” she said. “Weren’t you thinking about your father?”

  “How did you know?”

  She lifted her broad shoulders in a shrug. “I just figured.”

  I looked straight ahead again, down the treelined street that led into the center of town. I didn’t know how to answer. Finally I simply said no. Which was a lie, because I did miss him; or rather, I missed the good part of him.

  Tillie shook her head. “Pity, three children growing up without their father.”

  I felt my fingers curl into fists. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “No,” she agreed. “I don’t. Still, it’s a pity.”

  I didn’t want to talk about my father, not with her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about him or even should be thinking about him, since Mom had said we were leaving the past behind and making a fresh start.

  In truth, though, I was haunted by Daddy’s tears on the day we left Minnesota. Mom didn’t say a word while she carried our few suitcases to the car, Daddy dancing around her like a man on fire.

  “At least,” Da
ddy said, his hands outstretched, “at least tell me where you’re taking my kids.”

  He looked at me then, his eyes wild, sweat pouring down his face. Our eyes locked, and I couldn’t stop my own tears. I wanted to cry out, Daddy! Tell Mom you’ll change. Just promise you’ll stop drinking, and maybe Mom will stay!

  But I didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t do any good. Mom had made up her mind, and we were going.

  We all piled into the car. Mom buckled Valerie into the front seat beside her and turned the key in the ignition. Daddy banged on the roof of the car with one fist and then, as though surrendered, he stumbled blindly up the walkway to the porch and dropped down to the steps. He buried his face in his hands, and his shoulders heaved as he wept.

  “Look at him now, the old fool,” Wally muttered. “He’s finally getting what he deserves.”

  At least we should have left when Daddy wasn’t home, I thought. If we had to leave, we should have left without this wrenching away, without this scene of separation that left Daddy broken and crying on the steps.

  Mom must have been worried that Daddy would try to keep us from going, because she’d asked Uncle Joe to be there when we left. Uncle Joe was Daddy’s brother, and he was the only one on Daddy’s side of the family who understood why Mom was leaving. Just as Mom started the car, Uncle Joe leaned in the open window and wished her luck. “My only regret,” he said, “is that I didn’t help you do this a long time ago.”

  “Well, Joe,” Mom said, “I appreciate what you’ve done for me over the years.”

  “It was never enough.”

  “It was more than most.”

  Uncle Joe looked up at Daddy, his face a billboard of contempt. “I’m finished too,” he said. “I’m washing my hands of him. If I never hear from Alan again, it’ll be too soon.”

  He bent down and kissed Mom on the cheek, said good-bye to us kids, and stepped away from the car. When Mom put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb, I saw her glance in the rearview mirror and smile, a small victorious smile. But even then I didn’t understand.

  Years would pass before I understood this to be Mom’s first and final act of defiance in her marriage to Alan Anthony. She didn’t want to slip away unseen, like a coward. She wanted Daddy to watch us go. And she wanted to watch him crumble. She knew that at nine o’clock in the morning he wouldn’t yet be drunk, so he wouldn’t have the fuel required to fire up his anger. Not his violent I-swear-I’m-going-to-kill-you anger, anyway. She knew he’d be little more than a pathetic spectacle on the morning she finally summoned the courage to leave and to take us with her. She didn’t want to miss that, her moment of triumph after thirteen years of misery.

  After that one glance in the mirror, Mom didn’t look back again. But I did. This would be the last time I’d ever see my father, so I kept on watching until I couldn’t see him anymore. The image of him weeping on the steps was branded on my brain, sizzling red hot and smoking until, at length, these few weeks later, it had begun to solidify into a scar.

  Tillie and I finally reached Grand Avenue, the wagon bumping over the cracks of the sidewalk behind us. When we came to Marie’s Apparel, I stopped and looked in the window, cupping my face with my hands. I hoped to catch a glimpse of Mom, who’d been working there almost a week now, selling handbags and handkerchiefs to the ladies of Mills River.

  “Mommy?” Valerie asked.

  “She’s in there somewhere,” I said, “but I can’t see her.”

  Tillie went on pulling the wagon but called back over her shoulder, “Did you need to ask her something, Roz?”

  “No. I just thought I’d wave if I saw her.”

  Tillie shook her head, clicked her tongue. “Pity, such a sweet young lady as your mother having to work. Women should be able to stay home and take care of their children.”

  I hurried to catch up with her. “You know, you don’t have to pity us, Tillie.”

  “I know I don’t,” she said, “but I do.”

  “Well, how come?”

  “Because you don’t have a man to take care of you.”

  “We don’t need a man to take care of us. Anyway, we have Wally. He’s working.”

  “Wally’s a boy.”

  “He’s almost eighteen.”

  “He’s still a boy. He has a long way to go before he’s a man.”

  “Why do we need a man? Women can do anything men can do.”

  “You sound like you’ve been reading Betty Friedan.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “She’s one of those women’s libbers – ” Tillie stopped herself and chuckled. “Never mind. Still, you know, this isn’t how it was meant to be. Men leaving their families, women having to work while raising their children alone. Something crazy’s happening to our country, and I don’t like it.”

  “Daddy didn’t leave us, you know. Mom left him.”

  Tillie seemed to think about that a moment. Then she said, “Well, either which way, I think it’s a tragedy when men and women don’t stay together. But then, I don’t know what happened between your mother and father, and it’s none of my business, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “But someday you’ll tell me about it. When you’re ready.”

  “What makes you think I’ll ever tell you about it?”

  “Because that’s what family does, confide in each other.”

  “We’re not family.”

  “No, not yet.”

  “We’ll never be related.”

  “It isn’t blood that makes you family, Roz.”

  “Maybe not. But living in the same house doesn’t make you family either.”

  Tillie shrugged and said, as though it were pertinent, “Well, someday your mother will marry someone else.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because she’s young and pretty, and I can’t imagine her living the rest of her life alone.”

  It had never occurred to me that Mom might remarry. I didn’t like the thought. We already had one stranger living in our house; I didn’t want another, especially a man.

  At the intersection of Grand Avenue and Third Street we turned right on Third and walked one more block to Jewel Food Store. By the time we reached the front doors, I was tired and hot and ready for the cool of the air-conditioned aisles. We hadn’t brought the car, not because Tillie didn’t drive, because she did, but because she wanted to help Mom save on gas money. In fact, Mom had told her to take the car. “Someone your age shouldn’t be walking in this heat,” Mom said.

  “I may be full of years,” Tillie countered, “but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost my gumption.”

  I wasn’t full of years myself, but I found the heat exhausting. “Can we rest inside a minute, Tillie?” I asked.

  “Plenty of time for that when we get home,” she said.

  She parked the wagon by the door and helped Valerie out.

  “We can’t just leave the wagon here, can we?” I moved to catch up with Tillie, who was already marching into the store, Valerie in tow.

  “This is Mills River,” she said. “No one’s going to steal it.” She grabbed a shopping cart and lifted Valerie into the child’s seat in front. Before she had gone more than a few feet, she raised a hand toward one of the silver-haired cashiers. “Good morning, Hazel.”

  “Why, Tillie,” the woman said, slapping her thigh, “I’d heard you got out.”

  “Merciful heavens, honey, you make it sound like I’ve been in jail.”

  “Knowing you, Tillie, that’s exactly what it was.”

  Tillie rubbed her fleshy chin. “You’ve got a point there, Hazel. Five months cooped up in that place, it’s a wonder I didn’t lose my mind. But I’m out now, and I’m back in my own home, where I intend to die when the time is right.”

  “Good for you. You know I’ve always admired your spunk.”

  “Yes, well, I’m just doing what I’ve got to do. By the way, I’ve got houseguests now, and here are two of
them, Rosalind and Valerie.” Tillie waved a hand, first toward me and then toward Valerie in the cart. “I’m taking care of them while their mother works, poor thing.”

  Hazel beamed at me. “Well now, how do you do?”

  I raised my hand in a small gesture of greeting even as my eyes became angry slits. I wanted to explain that Tillie was our houseguest and not the other way around, and that my mother was not a poor thing for having to work, which I figured Hazel would understand, since she herself was there behind the cash register, but I was a child and Hazel was an adult, so I kept quiet.

  “Listen, Tillie, when you check out, come on through my line. I’ve got some extra coupons you can use,” Hazel said.

  “Appreciate it, honey. We’re just picking up a few things, so I’ll be back around in a minute.”

  From there, we headed toward the meat department at the back of the store. “Fred!” Tillie hollered.

  A thick-waisted man in a bloody apron paused with his knife poised over a slab of beef. “Ah, Mrs. Monroe! You’re back with us!” When he smiled, his great jowls quivered and his mustache curled over his front teeth. “I knew that place couldn’t hold you. I told everyone, I said, ‘That Tillie Monroe, she doesn’t belong in the old folks home.’ ” He waved his butcher knife in the air for emphasis.

  “You were right, Fred. I was a fish out of water there. I couldn’t breathe.”

  Fred nodded knowingly. “Some people, okay, they go to the old folks home and they make their peace with it, and maybe they’re even happy there, but not you. No sir. Not Tillie Monroe. I told everyone, I said, ‘That Mrs. Monroe, she’ll never be old. Never.’ ”

  “I’m glad you see it that way, Fred. If only my sons did.”

  “That Johnny!” The butcher knife sliced the air in one quick motion. “I said to him, ‘Johnny, how could you do that to your own mother?’ ”