The Pledge

by Chandra Sparks Taylor

  That was ruined when Bree came over and whispered. “Courtland, your daddy’s outside, and he still has his police uniform on.”

  I groaned. The last thing I needed was for my father to come in the house, which wouldn’t surprise me. Once, I had gone to a party, and instead of Momma and Daddy waiting in the car for me to come outside, Momma had come in with rollers in her hair and house slippers on her feet.

  I said goodbye to my dance partner, pretending not to hear him when he asked for my phone number, then I grabbed my purse from Bree, who had gone to get it from a spare room, then I brushed past Allen without a word.

  Daddy was outside writing a ticket for Jonathan’s parents because they were serving alcohol to minors, then he got on his loudspeaker and announced the party was over. Kids were whispering and pointing at me as I got in Daddy’s car, and I slid down in the seat, trying to make myself as small as possible. I knew I would never live down the fact that my daddy had just ruined the best party of the year.

  In less than twenty-four hours I had dumped my boyfriend and messed up any chances I had of getting invited to more parties. Could things get any worse?

  eight

  Monday morning I was getting into my momma’s car so she could drop me off at school when Allen pulled up. I tried to pretend I didn’t see him, but he honked his horn.

  “I thought you said Allen couldn’t take you to school today,” Momma said.

  I didn’t know if I was madder at her for calling me on my lie or at Allen for making me out to be a liar.

  As he got out of the car I rolled my eyes, and Momma saw me.

  “Courtland, are you still mad at that boy?” Before I could respond, she continued. “Whatever he did, get over it. Obviously he’s sorry.” She nodded, and I looked out the window to see Allen going to the trunk of his car, where he removed a huge balloon bouquet. There must have been at least a dozen balloons with different messages like “I’m Sorry” and “I Love You” on them.

  Although I wanted to be mad, I felt my heart melting a little.

  “Good morning, Mrs. M.,” he said before turning to me. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  He held out the balloons, and I got out of the car so I could take them. “Thanks,” I said. I headed toward the house so I could put the balloons in my room, and after asking Momma if it was all right, Allen followed me into the house.

  “You deserve it. I’m sorry about the other day. It won’t happen again.”

  “You said that the last time,” I said, after making sure Momma wasn’t nearby. She got out of her SUV and put my stuff in Allen’s car, then she drove off, which she rarely did.

  “Where’s your father?”

  I shrugged. “At work, I guess,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I headed upstairs to put the balloons in my room.

  “What are you doing up here?” I asked. “I told you to wait downstairs.”

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he whispered, walking over to me. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  I just gave him a short laugh. “That sounds real familiar,” I said. “Didn’t you say that before? Matter of fact, this whole little scenario feels like I’m experiencing déjà vu.” I pointed to the teddy bear with the heart that read “I Love You” that was sitting on my bed. “Remember that?” I didn’t wait for him to respond. “If I recall, you made the same promise about not hurting me after you gave me that bear. I can’t believe I was so stupid.” I went over and picked up the bear, then grabbed the balloons. “You know what? Take your stuff and go. I told you I never wanted to see you again. I know you got my text.”

  Allen looked stunned, like he didn’t know what to say. Finally he just nodded. “I didn’t think you were serious about breaking up. You can keep all that stuff,” he said. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have put my hands on you.” He walked over and placed a kiss on my cheek, not too far from my mouth.

  “There’s no excuse for what I did to you. I really am sorry, Courtland.”

  He turned and walked away without another word, and I felt my heart breaking. I kept telling myself that I was doing the right thing, but part of me wondered if I would ever love someone the way I did Allen.

  The next few days were miserable. No matter what I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about Allen, and I couldn’t walk down the hall without seeing him. There always seemed to be some girl up under him, but the minute he would see me, he would push whoever it was away and try and talk to me. I really wanted to say something to him, but I didn’t. I had to stay strong and not break down when I saw him.

  I was combing my hair on Thursday morning, getting ready for school, and I decided I needed a change. I had been thinking about getting it cut for a while, and since my hair appointment was the next day, I decided to go through with it.

  The next day at the salon, my stylist, Leticia, got real excited when I told her I was going to cut my hair. I hadn’t bothered to ask Momma, even though I was spending her money. I figured what I did with my hair was my business. Leticia talked me into getting highlights, too.

  When I got out of the chair a few hours later, I felt incredible. Leticia had cut about two inches, which was cool because I could still wear a ponytail if I needed to, and she had added these golden-brown highlights. She had flipped the ends up with a flat-iron, and my hair felt like silk.

  I paid her, gave her a hug and promised her I’d be back in a couple of weeks. Momma had let me drive to the salon, and when I got home, she looked at me. I thought she was going to have something to say, but she surprised me when she smiled. “You look really good, Courtland. That style looks great on you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I looked around. “Where’s Cory?”

  “She’s in her room,” she said. She put down a cloth she was using to dust. “Allen called.”

  My heart sped up, but I tried to act unaffected. “What did he want?” I asked, hoping I sounded bored.

  “He told me what happened.” I looked at her and frowned, knowing that Allen hadn’t told her what I thought he had. “Are you sure you don’t want to get back together with him? He really cares for you.”

  I thought about telling Momma the real reasons about why Allen and I weren’t together anymore, but based on her relationship with Daddy, she wouldn’t understand. Instead of answering her question, I asked one of my own. “Why didn’t you and Daddy ever get married?”

  For a second I thought she wasn’t going to answer. She picked up the cloth and started dusting, then she said quietly, “He didn’t want to. He said the fact that we were living together showed he was committed.”

  “What about you? What did you want?” I asked, sitting on the couch.

  She looked at me and gave me a sad smile. “I wanted to get married,” she admitted, rubbing the gold band she wore on her ring finger. I had overheard Aunt Dani telling someone once that Momma had bought it herself right before I was born. “As far as the law is concerned, now your daddy and I are married. When I was your age, I always dreamed about someone coming along and sweeping me off my feet.” She gave a soft laugh. “I always called it the moment of impact.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.

  “Just some silly term I made up. It always used to fascinate me how you can go along living your life and then one day you meet someone who in one moment just changes it forever.”

  “Moment of impact,” I mused aloud. I really liked the term, but for me it had a different meaning. I didn’t tell Momma because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but it seemed to me her moment of impact with Daddy wasn’t a good thing.

  “Do you love Daddy?” I asked.

  “Why would you ask me something so silly?” she said, suddenly taking an interest in dusting again.

  “I just wanted to know.”

  She finally stopped dusting the chair legs and looked at me. “You wonder whether I do?”

  I shook my head. “No, I think you love him, but I just don’t know
if he loves you.”

  “Your father loves me,” she said so quickly that I wondered if she was really trying to convince herself.

  “Then why does he treat you the way he does? You guys never spend any time together, and whenever he’s around, the whole mood changes around here. If you ask me, he doesn’t respect women. He doesn’t even like me and Cory and we’re his own kids. It’s not our fault we’re not boys.”

  Momma looked up at me in surprise. “Your daddy loves you girls,” she said.

  “No, he doesn’t.” I felt my eyes filling with tears, but I refused to let them fall.

  “Baby, why would you think something like that?”

  “He doesn’t spend any time with us,” I said, and before I could stop it, a tear fell. “He doesn’t even know what’s going on in our lives. Why does he hate me, Momma?”

  I started crying, and Momma came and pulled me close. “Baby, your daddy doesn’t hate you.”

  I didn’t even bother to respond as Momma led me to the sofa.

  “Your daddy’s sick,” she said softly.

  I looked up in shock, mad at myself for caring so much. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, expecting her to say he had cancer.

  “He’s an alcoholic.”

  “What?” I whispered, shaking my head. “But I hardly ever see him drink—I mean, I smell it on his breath sometimes…” I shrugged, not knowing what else to say.

  Momma gave a soft laugh. “He’s normally out drinking when he’s late coming home. There’ve been plenty of nights when I’ve had to go get him and drive him home.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Is that why he acts the way he does? If he knows it makes him act that way, why doesn’t he just stop?”

  Momma nodded. “He wasn’t always that way,” she said. “Your father was a good man. He was a good father when you girls were younger. I believe he still is a good man. I think the stress from his job just started getting to him. This disease has just taken its hold on him. I keep praying that one day he’s going to want to stop.”

  “But—” I opened my mouth to speak, then changed my mind.

  “Talk to me, baby.”

  “I just don’t understand why he would even start drinking if he knew this could happen.”

  “That’s the thing with alcohol. You don’t know who it will affect. Do you think your father woke up one day and said he wanted to be an alcoholic?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I think that’s why I never started drinking. Growing up, a lot of people I knew tried to get me to drink, but something always stopped me. Part of me always knew that the road to being an alcoholic starts with one drink.”

  I nodded, never having thought of it that way.

  “So why do you continue to stay with Daddy?”

  “Because I remember how he was before he started drinking. Your father is a good man. The stress of the job just gets to him sometimes. Having that woman die during that robbery really affected him. He hasn’t forgiven himself.”

  “So why does he take his anger out on us? It’s not our fault. Besides, that was years ago. Why doesn’t he just get over it?”

  Momma gave this sad smile. “It’s not always that easy, baby.”

  I sighed in frustration. “I still don’t get why you put up with him.”

  She shrugged. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,” she said. “Isn’t that what 1 Corinthians 13 tells us? I have to believe that. I continue to pray to God that your daddy will be delivered from his need to drink and bring me back the man I fell in love with.”

  “But why do you have to stick around and wait for that to happen?” I asked.

  She grew quiet. “So are you going to make up with Allen?” she asked. I knew she was trying to change the subject, so I played along.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “What did he do that you won’t even consider it? I know you care for him.”

  I was just about to tell her the truth when Daddy walked in.

  He didn’t even bother to say hello before he started in on me. “What did you do to your hair, and what’s that mess in it?”

  I tried to remember what Momma had said about him being sick, but he was already annoying me. I touched my hair. It took me a second to remember I had cut and highlighted it. Before I could respond, Momma said, “Corwin, leave that girl alone. She looks cute. All the kids are doing it these days.” I watched as she patted her head and realized she was starting to look older, like she had a lot on her mind. “Maybe I should go and get mine cut and colored.”

  “It’ll take more than some scissors and some dye to help you,” Daddy said, laughing. Momma looked like she wanted to cry. I felt so sorry for her.

  “I think you should go for it, Momma,” I said, trying to cheer her up. “Maybe you can go out and scoop you up a young man who will appreciate you.” I couldn’t resist adding that extra dig aimed toward Daddy.

  She smiled her thanks and played along. “Girl, I don’t need a young man. The next man I get, he’s going to be able to pay my bills.”

  Daddy had been headed toward the kitchen, but he whirled around. “What are you trying to say, Donna?” he asked.

  She waved her hand at him, but I could tell she was anxious. “Corwin, please. Courtland and I were just playing.”

  Daddy looked like he wanted to say something, but he continued to the kitchen instead.

  Momma gave me a nervous smile, and I really wanted to ask her why she was with someone she was scared of, but I knew it wasn’t a good time, and I didn’t think she would tell me, anyway.

  Instead I headed upstairs. My cell phone started beeping just as I entered my room, and I saw it was a text from Allen.

  I started to delete it like I had done with all the others he’d sent the past few days, but curiosity won out. It read:

  I LUV U AND I MISS U.

  I thought about my conversation with Momma, about love bearing all things and believing all things, and I realized she was right. If she could believe that God would one day change Daddy, then I had to believe the same for Allen. I decided the reason that God had put me in Allen’s life was to help change him into the man that God wanted him to be.

  I picked up my phone and texted back. I LUV U AND I MISS U 2. CALL ME.

  Allen came over that night, and he seemed a little surprised when he saw my new do. I don’t think he really liked it, but since he was trying to get on my good side, he played it off.

  We headed to Jim n’ Nick’s, a local barbecue place in Homewood, and Allen apologized the whole way, telling me how much he had missed me and that he was glad I was finally talking to him again. I was just starting to believe him when I spotted another hickey on his neck.

  Allen saw me staring and tried to cover it up on the sly, but I busted him.

  “What is that?” I asked, putting down a rib and pointing at his neck.

  “What?” he asked, probably stalling for time.

  “That,” I said, putting my finger directly on the hickey.

  He had this goofy expression on his face, then he finally looked at me. “Okay, I have a confession to make,” he said.

  I sat there waiting on him to finish. “I was missing you so much while we were apart that after you left Jonathan’s party, I went to my boy’s house and this girl was all over me. I was upset about what had happened with you, so she asked if I wanted to talk and I said yeah. The next thing I knew, we were kissing.”

  “That looks like it was more than kissing,” I said with an attitude.

  He took a deep breath. “You’re right, baby. I slept with her.”

  My mouth fell open as he rushed to explain. “Really I didn’t cheat on you. We were broken up,” he said.

  I was so hurt, I didn’t have words, and although I told myself not to, I started to cry right there at the table. Allen looked like he didn’t know what to do. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

 
; “I was just missing you so much. I wasn’t even planning on going to the party, but then Jonathan called. I’m sorry,” he lamely finished.

  “That was the night we broke up,” I said. “You sure didn’t waste any time.”

  “Baby, I promise you she didn’t mean anything to me. You know how these groupies are always hanging around. Besides, it’s not like you’re giving it up.” Allen kept on talking, but I drowned him out, ignoring my hurt as I thought about my promise to myself to love him the way it says in 1 Corinthians 13, just like Momma did with Daddy.

  When he was finally done talking, I reached over and grabbed his hand and squeezed. “It’s okay. I forgive you,” I said.

  He looked at me in surprise, and I laughed. “You do?” he said.

  I nodded and picked up my rib. “You’re right. We were broken up, even if it was only for a few hours.” I looked him in the eye. “But we’re back together now, and it better not happen again.”

  He came around to my side of our booth, slid in and kissed me. “Courtland Murphy, you are an amazing woman,” he said. “I love you, and I can’t wait to make you my wife.”

  “I love you, too,” I said, and meant it with all my heart.

  I had just changed into sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt for practice one day a few weeks before we got out for Christmas break when Allen texted me and told me to meet him in the gym.

  I glanced at the clock and realized practice was about to begin, but I figured I would chance it.

  “Hey, baby,” I said when I spotted him sitting alone in the bleachers. I looked around, trying to figure out why the gym was so empty.

  “Coach canceled practice today,” he said as though he was reading my thoughts.

  I sat down beside him, knowing it had to be something serious for Coach Patterson to do that.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Allen said softly.

  “Okay,” I said, taking his hand. “Whatever it is, you know I’ve got your back.”

  He took a deep breath. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth about that night at Jonathan’s party.”