Promises to Keep

by Ann Tatlock

  As Mara spoke, I tried to picture her sitting in the car with her father, the two of them stiff and formal, the tall white professor fidgeting behind the wheel, the little dark-skinned girl sitting prim in the passenger seat. I imagined her hair pulled back and tied with ribbons, her winter coat buttoned up to her chin, her patent leather shoes polished to a shine. Her gloved hands would be in her lap, her laced fingers kneading each other nervously.

  “He was smoking the cigarette,” Mara went on, “and blowing the smoke out a little crack in the window, and he didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he finally just said, ‘You know, Beatrice, sometimes things just don’t work out the way we hope they will.’ He sounded real sad when he said it, and I thought maybe he was talking about our getting together, like maybe he hoped it would somehow be different or I would be different or something. But then he said, ‘I want you to know up front that if it’d been up to me, I’d have married your mother. I didn’t want to let either of you go.’ And I said, ‘Maybe you should have just married her then and kept us both,’ and he looked even sadder and said, ‘Sometimes things get too complicated, more complicated than you can imagine.’ I told him I didn’t see why it was so complicated to just go ahead and marry the person you love, and he said maybe I would understand when I was older.”

  I was listening intently, my elbows on my knees, my chin in my hands. When she paused to take a breath, I said, “Grown-ups are always saying things like that, just so they don’t have to explain.”

  Mara lifted her shoulders. She was still fingering the locket around her neck. “Yeah, well, all I know is he couldn’t keep me and Mama because he’s white and we’re Negroes. I started thinking about it, and I started getting mad.”

  “But I thought you told me your family didn’t want your mama to marry him either.”

  She nodded slowly and her eyes narrowed. “That’s right,” she said. “It’s like black and white don’t mix. But that’s what I am, black and white both. So what does that say about me? I’m mixed!”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.

  After a moment she went on. “We’d been driving for a little while when I asked him, ‘What should I call you?’ because I didn’t want to just jump in and start calling him Daddy, even though that’s what I wanted to call him. And he said, like he was doing me a favor, ‘Well, you can call me Bill, of course.’ And I said, ‘Call you Bill?’ And he looked at me funny and said, ‘Well sure. You don’t want to call me Professor Remmick, do you?’ and I said, ‘No, I was hoping I could call you Daddy.’ And then he looked real sad again, and he said, ‘Bea, you have parents. They brought you to the train station,’ and I said, ‘They aren’t my parents, they’re my grandparents, and you know it,’ and he said, ‘Bea, listen to me, they’re the ones raising you, so they’re your mom and dad.’

  “So then I just looked straight ahead for a long time, and he knew I was mad, because he lit up another cigarette and his fingers were trembling a little. Finally I said, ‘You’re sorry I came, aren’t you?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m not. I’ve wanted to meet you since the day you were born. I’ve been waiting a long time for today.’ And I said, ‘Then how come you don’t want to be my daddy?’ ”

  She took a deep breath then and let it out slowly. She looked up at me and tried to smile, though her eyes glazed over as she fought back tears. She swallowed hard and jutted out her chin a little bit. “When I said that, he pulled the car right over to the side of the road, and he turned to me and said, ‘Listen to me, Beatrice. I’m your birth father and I’m not denying that. You’re here today because I wanted to meet you and you wanted to meet me. I’ll always want to know what’s going on in your life, and I will find a way to always know how you are and what’s happening to you, but, Bea, that’s not a daddy. I have three kids who call me Daddy, and I’m there for them and I take care of them and I scold them when they need it and I tell them every day I love them, but I can’t do that for you. I wish I could. You’ve got to believe me when I say I wish I could. But I can’t. And it’s never going to happen. I’m really sorry, but that’s just the way it is.’

  “He sounded real mean when he said it, but the funny thing was, he was almost crying. I mean, his eyes were red and watery. But he didn’t want to look like he was crying, so he started up the car and we pulled into the road again.

  “I said, ‘Do you think you could ever love me like you do your other kids?’ and he said, ‘Bea, I’ve always loved you. I want you to believe that.’ I thought about it a little while and then I said, ‘I guess I do, because you say good-night to me at the end of your show, and you don’t say good-night to your other kids.’ He said, ‘No, that’s just for you, because it’s all I can give you. It’s not enough, but it’s all I have. And when the show goes off the air someday, I’ll find another way to let you know I’m thinking about you.’

  “I looked at him and I said, ‘When you say good-night to me on the radio, who do your wife and kids think you’re talking to?’ He kind of smiled at that and said, ‘To them, you’re my Mrs. Calabash.’ ‘Your Mrs. What?’ I asked. He told me about Jimmy Durante and how whenever he signed off on his radio program, he said ‘Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are,’ even though there probably wasn’t any real Mrs. Calabash out there listening. So I thought, well, that figures, because to his family I’m not real, and I don’t even exist.

  “By that time we were almost to where we were going, and I was still thinking about what I should call him, and I said, ‘I just don’t think I can call you Bill.’ He looked at me kind of funny, and he was smiling and he said, ‘Well, how about you call me what your mother used to call me?’ I asked him what that was, and he said, ‘When she was mad at me, she’d call me knucklehead. Unless she was really mad at me. Then she’d call me the worst mistake she ever made.’ When he said that, I couldn’t help it, I started laughing and then he started laughing, and we were both laughing, and after that, it was like everything was all right.”

  She said those last words with a kind of wonder. Mara looked toward the window with wistful eyes, as though she were seeing the previous day play itself out all over again. In the next moment the corners of her mouth hinted at a smile.

  I myself felt as though I’d been left at a cliffhanger, and I was leaning forward on the bed, waiting for the next installment of the story. When Mara didn’t go on, I insisted, “So then what happened?”

  My words drew her back, and for a moment she looked annoyed. But then she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Then we ate lunch and talked about books and stuff.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Oh, and we gave each other Christmas gifts.”

  “Did he like the book?”

  She nodded. “He said he’d always cherish it.”

  “So what did he give you?”

  “This.” She leaned back and dug around in the pocket of her jeans. She pulled out something silver and shiny and handed it to me across the gap between the beds. It was a charm bracelet bearing a single charm, round as a full moon and engraved on one side in an elegant script: Sweet dreams, Beatrice.

  “It’s real pretty,” I said.

  “Yeah.” She smiled sadly.

  “So are you ever going to see him again?”

  “I think so. Someday. But probably not for a long time.”

  I studied the charm for a moment. “I’m sorry, Mara.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “About . . . William Remmick, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mara nodded. “I’m writing it all down,” she said.

  “Like a book or something?”

  “No.” Her brow furrowed in thought. “I don’t know why, but it’s a play. That’s how it came to me.”

  “A play?”

  “Yeah. I wrote the first act on the train ride home. Because Daddy – William Remmick – said that’s what a real poet doe
s. She takes her sadness and turns it into something beautiful. He said almost all good literature springs from sorrow.”

  “It does?”

  “Yeah. That’s what he said, and I think he’s right. He said if I’m serious about being a writer, that’s what I need to learn to do.”

  I didn’t understand, but then, I wasn’t a writer. “Can I read the play when you’re done?”

  “Maybe someday.” She took a long deep breath, and changed the subject. “Have you heard anything from your dad?” she asked quietly.

  I shook my head no. “The waitress at the café said he’s in Chicago.”

  “What for?”

  “Work, I guess.”

  “Well, since he’s up there, maybe he’ll buy you a Christmas present from Marshall Field or someplace like that. They have much better stores there than they do here in Mills River.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I handed Mara the bracelet. “Hey, guess what.”

  “What?”

  “Mom’s not seeing Tom Barrows anymore. Or not so much, anyway.”

  For the first time that day, her face opened up in a genuine smile. “Yeah? What happened?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I guess – ”

  As I was speaking the doorbell rang, and in another moment Tillie called up the stairs, “Roz, is Mara up there with you?”

  “Yeah,” I called back. “She’s up here.”

  “Well, tell her that her father’s here looking for her.”

  I looked at Mara. “Your father’s here.”

  “I heard.” She giggled. “I’m not deaf.”

  “Do you have to go already?”

  “Yeah. Daddy promised we’d go pick out our Christmas tree this morning.”

  “You don’t have your tree yet?”

  “No.” Mara jumped from the bed and hollered toward the door, “Coming, Daddy!”

  She stopped and turned, giving me the oddest look. Then she shrugged, smiled, called again, “I’ll be right there, Daddy!”

  I watched her fly down the stairs and into the arms of the big dark teddy bear of a man waiting for her by the front door.

  “Come on, baby,” he said. “There’s a tree out there with your name on it, and we’ve got to go find it before it ends up in the wrong house.”

  Mara turned back to me, smiled, and waved. Then she took her daddy’s hand and disappeared out the door.

  chapter

  36

  Christmas came and went, followed by New Year’s Eve, which passed with little fanfare. One day simply slipped into the next, and suddenly it was 1968, the year my brother would go off to war and the year my daddy would come home.

  The atmosphere in the house was sullen as we slid into January. I often found Mom staring absently out the frosty windows, as though she were waiting for something that was likely never to come. She resembled Tillie in one of her spells, but instead of looking backward in time like Tillie did, I supposed Mom’s mind was reluctantly reaching forward, wondering what would happen in the upcoming months, wondering whether Wally would die in the war the way his father had, his blood spilled out on foreign soil, in a place he was never meant to be. I imagined she saw all the barren days ahead – no son, no husband, her daughters grown and gone, leaving her to grow old and lonely in the house on McDowell Street.

  Once, Tillie put her hand on Mom’s shoulder and said, “He’ll come home, dear. Try not to worry.”

  “Wally?”

  “Yes. I feel sure of it.”

  “How can you be sure? We can’t be sure of anything, can we?”

  “Oh yes,” Tillie countered, “there’s much we can be sure of. Not everything, of course. But some things, yes.”

  What? I wanted to ask. What can we be sure of ? But I was an eavesdropper and not a participant in the conversation, so I didn’t ask.

  Mom began to weep quietly. “It’s the waiting, Tillie. It’s the waiting to find out where he’s going to end up, and once he’s there, it’ll be the waiting to find out whether he’ll be coming back. It’s all the waiting that I can’t stand – the waiting and the not knowing.”

  “I understand, Janis,” Tillie assured her. “I had three of my own go off to war, you know. Ross first, and later two of the boys. Different wars, of course. Only Lyle was spared, because he was too young.”

  “How did you bear it?” Mom asked, the anguish in her voice as intense and bitter as the cold outside.

  “I had to put them in the hands of the Lord, dear. I had to determine to accept his will, whether I liked it or not.”

  Mom shook her head slowly. “I don’t have faith like that, Tillie. You know I don’t. I’m not even sure God is there. If he is, I don’t believe he has anything to do with what happens to us here.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Janis. He has everything to do with what happens to us here.”

  “Then . . . then . . .” Mom dried her eyes with one hand, lifted her chin. “Then he must be very cruel.”

  “Oh no, my dear,” Tillie said gently. “His is the only real kindness in a cruel world. Without him, we would have no hope at all.”

  Mom turned from the window and looked at Tillie. “But, you see, I’m not sure I have any hope. If Wally dies . . . if Wally dies . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, and she had no words for what she would do if Wally died. It was a threat she didn’t yet know how to carry out.

  “I will pray for Wally to come home,” Tillie said, “just as I prayed for my own boys.”

  Mom nodded, but her face said Tillie’s prayers were, to her, little more than idle words.

  There must have been something to Tillie’s prayers, though, because not only did her husband and sons come home from war, but Lyle Monroe came home from Bolivia. She’d been praying he’d wrap up his missionary work there and come on back to Mills River, and sure enough, the second weekend in January, Johnny Monroe pulled up to our house in his Pontiac station wagon, his brother Lyle in the passenger seat beside him.

  Tillie didn’t even bother to put on a coat but stepped out into the furious cold in her blue cotton housedress. She stood at the edge of the porch, her hefty arms flung open wide and tears of joy streaming down her face.

  “Welcome home, Lyle,” she hollered as the car doors opened. Johnny exited the driver’s side while a tall man in a dark overcoat emerged from the other. The tall man moved swiftly up the walkway and into Tillie’s arms. With a joyful shout he lifted Tillie off her feet, her heavy shoes dangling several inches off the porch, her laughter ringing clear in the open air.

  When he put her down, Tillie cupped the man’s face with her hands and said, “Let me look at you, son. How are you? Are you all right?”

  The man nodded and laughed. His breath came out in little puffs of cloud. “I’m fine, Mother. Just fine. Jiminy, but it’s good to be home.”

  “Come on in out of the cold, both of you boys,” Tillie said, and in another moment they were in the front hallway, where Tillie, about to burst wide open with excitement and pride, introduced Mom and me to her son Lyle Monroe. A few more minutes and we were seated at the kitchen table drinking steaming cups of coffee and hot chocolate while Lyle talked about his journey back from Bolivia.

  He was a friendly, cheerful man, with a dry wit and a quick laugh that sank into your bones like something warm and comforting. He must have taken after his father in appearance, because he didn’t look at all like Tillie or Johnny. Where their faces were round, his was narrow; where they were short and plump, he was tall and lean. He had thick unruly hair and brown leathery skin that had no doubt been darkened by the South American sun. But the eyes . . . now those were his mother’s. Blue and bright and flashing with a gaiety and a certain gentleness that I didn’t often see.

  About thirty minutes into the conversation, Lyle took Valerie onto his lap, where she settled easily. He patted her head and sighed. “Yes, sir, it’s good to be here. That’s not to say I didn’t love Bolivia, because I did, loved every minute of my
years there, but once I made up my mind to leave, I was ready to do it. I actually felt homesick for the first time ever, so I knew I’d made the right decision to come back. I’m not completely sure what God has planned for me here, but I’m ready to find out.” He sighed again and looked around the room. “You know, there were days when I was sick with malaria that I thought I’d never see this old house again. It sure is good to be home.”

  Mom’s eyes widened in alarm. If Wally were there, I knew he’d be jumping in right about then to make sure everyone understood this house belonged to Janis Anthony, and that while we had made room for one Monroe, we were hardly going to make room for another.

  But Wally wasn’t there, and Tillie was pouring Lyle yet another cup of coffee, and Lyle and Johnny were talking about the improvements Johnny had made to the house before he sold it, and I figured if Mom wasn’t going to say something then I’d better go ahead and do it. Because if Lyle Monroe planned on moving in like his mother had, there wouldn’t be any room left at all for Daddy when he finally decided it was time to come back home.

  “You don’t plan to live here again, do you?” I blurted.

  Lyle and Johnny fell silent, both looking as though I’d asked a question in a dead language. Lyle tapped one finger on the table and finally said, “You mean, live in this house?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Because we really don’t have room for you here.”

  A smile spread across his face slowly, like molasses oozing over pancakes, and when the smile had reached as far as it could go, Lyle Monroe burst out laughing. “Of course I’m not going to live in this house with you,” he said. He glanced at Mom, then looked back at me. “Why, that wouldn’t even be proper. No, right now my bed is the couch in Johnny’s living room, but I plan to move into Miss Charlotte’s place temporarily, until I can find something more permanent.”