Promises to Keep

by Chaffin, Char

  She dashed tears from her cheeks. “Travis is engaged to Annie Turner. They have a child together. Yes, they do,” she affirmed, as her mother exclaimed in distress. “If he marries anyone, it will be the mother of his child. Now, I’m telling you to let it go. Or else the relationship I have with both of you will be severely damaged.” Without another word, she whirled and sped to the wide double doors, one of which was partially open. It swung shut behind her.

  Janice turned, shock still apparent on her face, and queried shakily, “Ruth?”

  Chapter 27

  “Are you sure you don’t mind me going? I can put it off.” Travis stood in the kitchen doorway and watched as Annie fed Hank his cereal and bananas. In a feisty mood, his son alternately took his meal like a sweet angel, and then grabbed cereal off his rubber-coated spoon and flung it about. Consequently, bits of oatmeal clung to her tee shirt, her hair, and even her nose, which she wiped at with a sigh.

  She put the dish and spoon down and turned to offer him a reassuring, if harried, smile. “Go ahead. He’ll settle down and take his nap soon. If you don’t take care of this now, it’ll be too easy to procrastinate, and you can’t afford to delay it.”

  Travis nodded and slung the backpack over his shoulder. He would spend the day in New Haven and clear out as much as he could from the apartment he’d once lived in. If he had time and Yale’s business office was open, he’d request copies of all his transcripts. Sooner or later he’d have to transfer to another college. He refused to feel bitter.

  He could load a lot into the trunk of his Beemer. Might as well take advantage of having it, since he expected his mother to pull the keys out from under him any day now.

  He stepped into the kitchen and, avoiding his son’s sticky, outthrust hands, pressed a kiss to Hank’s forehead. When he turned to kiss Annie, what started out as warm and innocent turned deep and sensuous in a hurry, and he scooped her into his arms. They kissed endlessly, while Hank babbled to himself and played with the oatmeal on his fingers.

  Breathless, leaning his forehead against hers, Travis groaned, “You know I love staying here, but it’s sure hard finding time to be alone with you. I wish you’d come with me.” He whispered seductively, “We could use the bed in the apartment.” She shivered against his lips as they trailed over her neck.

  They’d only gotten one opportunity to be together since he moved in, their lovemaking hurried and a bit shy and hesitant. Two years had passed since the last time they’d made love, the result being Hank’s birth. But the rest of the family was absent one afternoon, by design or coincidence, they’d never be sure. So they’d tiptoed into Travis’s room, after Hank went down for his nap. They’d left the doors open in case he awoke, and they took advantage of what time they could snatch.

  Travis’s hands trembled as he undressed Annie, and her fingers hadn’t been much steadier. For the first time in his life, he’d worn a condom. He’d worried about the right size, the right texture, and how resilient the latex rings truly were. He’d rolled it on without tearing it, and he must have gotten the correct size because it stayed in place. Then all of his worry faded away once he pressed Annie beneath his overheated body in the lumpy old bed. Those two years of abstinence melted away as if they were nothing.

  Now, the need for her always present, he tried to persuade her. “Annie? Why don’t you pack a few things for Hank? We could make a day of it, just the three of us.”

  She uttered a regretful moan of her own. “I can’t. Not with everything going on around here.” Sissy awoke early that morning with cramps, which became contractions as soon as her water broke while she sat at the kitchen table. Since she was almost three weeks early, Mark fell apart. Mary calmed him down, gathered everyone up, including an overnight bag for Sissy, and got them to the hospital. Susan went along for moral support and Henry even spent ten minutes at the hospital, before he had to rush off to work.

  “It’s anyone’s guess how long Sissy will be in labor,” she added. “Probably all day and evening at the very least. Mama said she wasn’t dilated very much, and that was just an hour ago. Hank’s being a little monkey-devil, too. It’s best if we stay home.”

  Annie stood on the porch and watched Travis drive off, smiling to think how his silver convertible seemed to suit him, with its understated class. Her husband-to-be could dress as casually as the next person, but he was first and foremost pure class. He’d been born into it.

  She still recalled how, when they were kids, he could fish all day in a white shirt and never get a speck of worm grime or fish slime on him. And how her clothes and face would be smeared with nasty pond stuff within ten minutes of baiting her pole.

  Her grin widened at the memory, then faded as the sounds of one very rambunctious little boy sent her through the front door and hurrying into the kitchen. It sounded as if Hank had gotten hold of his dish and spoon and was having a great time banging them together, if the noisy din she heard was anything to go by.

  She came to a halt inside the kitchen door, coughing back her own helpless laughter at the sight that met her eyes. Hank pounded and giggled, his leftover oatmeal flung on the table, finger-painted on his tee shirt and ground into his hair. Surely there hadn’t been that much cereal left on his tray. Then she remembered. Travis distracted her just enough that she’d set the bowl on the tray, instead of out of reach on the table.

  She sighed as she rolled up her sleeves and grasped the highchair tray. The release mechanism refused to budge. All the kids had used the old highchair, and the tray glides required a lot of effort. Most of the time it was easier to just pull Hank straight out of the seat without taking off the tray, but he was growing fast, and his sturdy body now made it difficult to get him out of the seat without removing the tray.

  So she tugged at it while Hank, delighted with having his mama and her long hair so close and within reach, grabbed her braid with oatmeal-sticky hands, and yanked, hard.

  “Ouch. Hank, stop that.” She tried to pull away, but his grip on her hair was too strong. He pulled again, bringing tears to her eyes. She let go of the tray and reached for his hands, just as the rusted mechanism gave way and the tray swung to the side. Highchairs this old also didn’t have seat buckles, and Hank slid right out of it, his fingers still twined in her hair. She grabbed his arms in a tight grip and pulled him up—but not before he whacked his forehead hard on the dangling metal tray. He burst into loud tears.

  “Shh, shh, it’s okay, poor sweetheart. It’s okay.” She cuddled him close and stood on shaky legs. Still hungry, Hank needed a morning nap, but a sore head would only put him in a worse mood. She kissed the rapidly forming bump on his damp forehead and knew she couldn’t lay him down, not just yet. A tiny cut right in the center of the bump oozed a bit of blood, and she felt like crying herself when she saw the way his fragile skin tore from hitting his head so hard. Hank had such delicate skin, but he’d never once gotten any kind of serious owie. It had to hurt like the very dickens, but he’d heal rapidly. Babies were so resilient.

  Still, she had to keep him awake, which would make him even more miserable. She’d calm him down, and then they’d both take a warm bath.

  Annie paced around the sunlight-dappled kitchen with Hank sobbing in her arms, and sang to him softly, the soothing tones barely audible above his babyish distress.

  Louise Morgan sat in the car and looked at the dilapidated house. She hated coming to this side of town. She’d grown up only four streets away, in an old three-bedroom shack made of inferior wood siding with a leaking tarpaper roof. Five children in the same sad dump, locked in day after day and year after year with their drunken mother and indifferent father. She suppressed a shudder at the unwelcome memory.

  Living in small, smelly rooms and going to bed hungry every night taught her that some people should never be parents. The day the county welfare office sent two social workers to arrest her parents for neglect was the best day of her life.

  Clarence and Sarah Morgan had taken
her in, given her their name, and a new life on their dairy farm outside Thompkin. Louise owed them everything she now had. And whenever she came to the shoddy side of any town within the county seat, she thought of them. Thanked God for them. Because if things had been different for her, she’d still be in that stinking, rotten old house, or perhaps one just like it. In her adoptive parents’ name, she was relentless in her determination to save these neglected and abused children.

  Like the one suspected of being the victim of abuse, in the house she now watched. Such neglect and abuse would have to be proven in a court of law. But a reliable source told her the young, unwed mother who lived there hadn’t a clue how to care for her baby. Louise heard of neglect, the careless lifestyle the mother led, and the child’s maternal grandparents not much better as suitable guardians. Usually, she required concrete proof of this level of neglect and abuse. But the source of her information was as reliable as they came: the child’s paternal grandmother, who also happened to be a scion of the community.

  She knew nothing of the family who currently had possession of the child in question, but Ruth Quincy was a generous and kind patron of Thompkin. Louise owed it to her to go in and see for herself if abuse was present.

  And if she found a frightened, bruised child in that house, there would be hell to pay.

  She stepped from the car, smoothed down the skirt of her dark green suit. Slipping the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she walked up to the porch.

  Then she froze in place at the sounds coming from within, the sobs of a child and an older, but still youthful voice, urging the child to be quiet. The baby only sobbed louder, and Louise could feel her insides clench in sympathy and outrage. She knew just how that little boy felt. How many times had she sobbed and cried either from hunger or from the stinging slaps her mother could dole out with sly and quicksilver accuracy no matter how drunk she might be?

  She straightened her shoulders and rang the rusted bell several times. As the child shrieked louder, the door opened to reveal a narrow, dim foyer. The girl who stood there didn’t look old enough to be in high school, much less the mother of a child. Shadows bloomed beneath her red-rimmed eyes, and matted hair hung to her waist. She wore baggy clothes smeared with food. And perched on her hip, a baby in a soiled cloth diaper and a stained tee shirt rubbed at his wet eyes and sniffled pitifully. Had this girl thrown food at her own baby? It was in the tangled black curls on his head and on his bare legs and arms.

  His arms. Louise looked at the baby-pure skin, pale and fragile, and noted with mounting fury the bruises on each arm. Finger shaped bruises. And she spotted the bump, already dark and puffy, on his forehead. There was a small cut in the center of it that seeped blood. A fist, wearing a ring, would make a knot and cause a cut such as that.

  The girl had a ring on her finger. An expensive ring, from the looks of it. With a stone large enough to do the kind of damage she saw on the poor child’s head.

  Louise’s fury grew.

  Holding onto her composure as best as she could, she faced the thin young woman. “I’m from the county Child Welfare office. I’m here to talk to you about your relationship with your son.” She watched with some satisfaction as the girl’s already pale cheeks blanched even further. Louise waited until shock overtook the girl’s narrow face. “Our office has received reports of an abusive relationship involving this minor child.” She nodded in the direction of the fretful baby, and the girl actually swayed where she stood as if her body could no longer support her legs.

  Louise suppressed a savage smile. This one’s for you, Mom and Dad. The thought stayed firmly in her head as she pushed her way past the trembling girl.

  As he exited off the expressway, Travis whistled to himself. He’d severed a pathological tie, and it was a better feeling than he thought it would be. Packing up his belongings had been therapeutic. He’d been able to go into his place and think of it as a temporary stop in the road for him. Even the loss of Yale hadn’t caused too much of a hurtful ping for him.

  He’d boxed some of the more trendy and costly articles of clothing his mother purchased and then pushed on him. He’d take it to the closest Salvation Army. Someone who shopped there might want cashmere jackets and sweaters, silk shirts. But he knew those things didn’t fit his way of life anymore. Maybe they never had.

  Now he was almost home. Another five miles and he’d be in Thompkin. Soon he’d walk through the door on Spring Street. Maybe Sissy’s baby would have been born by now and Annie would be at the hospital. Travis thought about just going straight over there, but decided against it. If Sissy delivered and Annie was gone, then someone would be home with Hank. Travis just wanted to be home, too.

  In all the years he’d known them, the Turner house represented home like no other place. He’d walk in the door and smell fresh flowers cut from the backyard garden, the lemon oil Mary used to wipe down the banister and the woodwork. There would always be something delicious cooking on the stove and the fragrance would mix with the other, familiar smells and wrap around him like a security blanket.

  Thirteen, sixteen, nineteen; at any age it was always the same. He’d return from the Academy, and the welcome he got was warm and caring and good. Soon he’d legally belong to them. He couldn’t wait. Even the subpoena his mother conjured up, meant to intimidate and threaten, couldn’t break his good mood. They’d deal with her in court, and they’d do it as a family.

  He turned onto Spring Street and looked toward the house. Only Annie’s car was there. Sissy was probably still in labor. He winced in sympathy at the thought of it. He pulled into the driveway, grabbed his duffel bag, and strode up the steps to the door. The cramped foyer was dim, so he snapped on a light. And paused in surprise at the sight of Annie, sitting on the stairway, slumped over with her head in her hands.

  Travis dropped his bag and rushed to her side. He touched her bent head worriedly. “What is it? Sissy? Is she all right? Has she had the baby yet?”

  Annie raised a face ravaged with tears, cheeks splotchy, her eyes swollen and red. She uttered a wordless cry and reached for him. He sat on the step and pulled her into his arms. “Annie? Come on. Talk to me.” He stroked her tangled hair.

  Her entire body trembled against him. “He’s gone. I tried to c-call you. You had your ph-phone off.”

  “I turn it off when I’m driving. I must have forgotten to turn it back—wait, who’s gone? What’s going on?” He eased her away until he could see her face.

  She whispered raggedly, “Hank. A woman from the welfare office came and t-took him. About an hour ago. She said I was a b-bad mother, she’d heard I a-abused Hank. She wouldn’t let me explain anything. She yanked him right out of my arms! He was screaming for me, Travis. Screaming.” Fresh tears poured from her bruised eyes.

  Travis fell back against the staircase, dumbfounded. Hank, taken? Right out of their home? How in hell could something like this happen? Why would it happen?

  “Annie, sweetheart, calm down and tell me everything.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath. “Hank bumped his head on the highchair tray, and he was crying when she came to the door. She thought I’d h-hit him. My baby, how could anyone think I’d hit my baby? She said I s-shook him and hit him. Asked me if I were on drugs. Drugs, Travis! Then she drove away, and I could hear Hank crying all the way down the street!”

  “Why didn’t you call your mother or Susan?”

  She rubbed at her wet face with a hand still dotted with oatmeal. “I tried to call you. I didn’t think about anyone else. Then I guess I just sat here and cried myself sick. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who’d say such awful things about me.”

  It didn’t take much thinking for Travis to come up with a surefire answer as to who would have done this: his mother. Who the hell else commanded such power and pull around here? Her final words to them all, just a few days ago, hinted at her attorneys contacting them. Other than the hastily delivered subpoena, they’d heard nothing fur
ther from her.

  He’d bet anything if the family attorneys knew about what she’d done, they’d have tried to talk her out of it. No, she must have pulled strings directly with county Child Services. Travis was certain she had some high-ranking pals there, too.

  This was a nightmare.

  He slipped an arm around Annie’s shoulders and gently urged her to her feet. He led her into the living room and sat her on the sofa. Taking a handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans, he wiped her eyes, then held it under her nose. She dutifully blew into the soft linen, and rested her head wearily against his shoulder. Travis rubbed his cheek on her silky hair, trying to soothe her.

  His mother wouldn’t get away with this.

  Two years of controlling the Quincy Legacy had made her just powerful and arrogant enough to think she could do whatever she pleased, to feel confident enough to demand support from the movers and shakers around the county. God only knew what level of authority she’d appealed to. For all he knew, she’d gone straight to the governor, who incidentally was his honorary godfather.

  He urged Annie to recline on the sofa. “I’ll be right back.” In the foyer, he dug the phone book from the small telephone table near the kitchen door. He found the number for the hospital and called them first. As soon as he explained things to Mary, he’d call Aunt Nan in Roanoke.

  The phone clicked in his ear twice before Mary’s soft voice came on. “Hello? Annie, is that you?”

  Annie came into the foyer and huddled into his side as he managed, “It’s Travis. Mar—” He swallowed, painfully. “Mom, we’ve got trouble.”