The Promise Between Us

by White, Barbara Claypole

  “You have to see a therapist,” she said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Not even if it’s preventing you from helping our daughter? Healing’s painful, but it gets you to the other side. Jake was smart to tell you to use the word I can’t use right now. That was facing your monster. Now you have to take the next step and consult a professional. You have panic attacks, sleep issues . . . and some of what you’re describing is catastrophizing. Cal, you’re talking about anxiety.”

  “If you’re about to suggest I have OCD, too, I can assure you I don’t.”

  “Anxiety takes many forms—many. And trauma does weird things to the brain. Did you know dads and grandparents also get postpartum OCD? Anxiety’s a strange beast.”

  They were back on flat ground, heading toward the parking lot.

  “Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life, and we both know some battles are solitary,” Katie said. “But marriage is worth fighting for, and it’s not too late for you and Lilah. Tell her. And together, you can do whatever it takes to help Maisie.”

  Cal wrenched off his baseball cap and clawed at his hair. “But Lilah won’t see me! What can I do if she won’t see me?”

  A pair of squirrels played tag under a sign that warned of poison ivy. One stopped and barked like a pissed-off parrot, its tail flicking rapidly.

  “Our meeting was Jake’s idea, wasn’t it?”

  “Partially,” he said. “He suggested I tell you about the coach.”

  “And yet you confessed more. Why did you tell me you’d come to Asheville? Delaney didn’t know that. I would never have found out.”

  “I owed you the truth, Katelyn. You might never believe anything I ever tell you again, but believe this: I loved you once. And you and I will be forever linked through Maisie.”

  Years ago, she had waved him inside her private hell, with devastating results; today, he welcomed her into his, and it was her turn to take action. To dictate a new chain of events. She called up an image of Rosie the Riveter and held it in her mind.

  “Jake was right about talking with Lilah, but it should be me. Alone. I won’t tell her anything we’ve discussed today, but I can explain we’ve reached an understanding and agree that Maisie must see a therapist. And that for Maisie’s sake, you need to move back home.”

  His face lit up with excitement, but it wasn’t for her.

  “We need to start making healthier decisions for our child. Not decisions that come from fear.”

  “Thank you,” he said, placing his hands on her upper arms.

  As he leaned in to kiss her cheek, she closed her eyes. He smelled of sweat and coffee and the life she had lost. Happiness is a husband’s kiss.

  Traffic began to drown out the harmonies of the forest. Only the chatter of cicadas continued. When she opened her eyes, Cal had started walking again, past another sign.

  “Trail detour,” it read. “Please allow the old trail to return back to nature.”

  Cal took the new path, but Katie hesitated. She pictured her books in boxes and her wedding dress full of moth holes, and despite everything, she wanted it back. All of it. And that was one truth she could never escape.

  I never stopped loving either of you. I just learned to move on alone.

  A text came through from Ben. When you’re ready, I’m waiting for you by the truck.

  Be there soon, she typed and hit “Send.”

  After pocketing her phone, Katie took the old path because someone had to walk it. Someone had to keep the imprint alive.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  KATIE

  Sitting cross-legged on her bed with a nest of soft white pillows behind her, Katie sipped peppermint tea and watched the red-throated male hummingbird hover at the window feeder and zip off. To the outside world it might be Sunday, when life moved to a different beat, but for her it was the beginning of a new stretch of identical days that would start at seven and end at eleven.

  Unmoored hours could cast her adrift in anxiety, but the new week had gifted Katie two resolutions: cut the dependency cord with Ben, and regain her daily structure. The last decade had proved that she functioned best on a carefully orchestrated seven-day schedule of regular meals—protein, protein!—set periods of work both in the studio and in her apartment, and good sleep hygiene with no screen time after ten o’clock and a solid eight hours a night.

  Restarting that schedule after a lapse often seemed as impossible as running a marathon through knee-deep mud, but it was no different from surviving a meds shift. The trick was to trust that eventually whichever doctor happened to be dishing out her drugs would hit on the right combination at the right dose. Of course, she hadn’t been on meds—other than the odd Klonopin from her stockpile—in the last two years. That also needed to change.

  So far so good, and yet still she had to wrestle the instinct to crawl between her cotton sheets and the layers of pain. Not her pain—an unpleasant colleague she’d grown used to—but her daughter’s. She didn’t have to be in the same room, the same house, the same city to know how Maisie was feeling: the cold knowledge that you hadn’t been enough to stop your parent from leaving, the sharp fear that the fault had been yours. The torture of a mind spiraling smaller and smaller, shrinking into a pinprick of no return.

  Keeping her eyes away from Maisie’s baby photo, Katie put her mug down on the nightstand, next to the coiled chain she no longer wore, and opened her laptop. The screen jumped back to life as her phone announced a text from Cal.

  Have you seen Lilah yet?

  No.

  Will you go today?

  Later. I have to work first.

  Katie put down her phone, took a few minutes to practice some rhythmic belly breathing, and reread the finished fourth-grade writing prompt on her screen.

  Imagine you were playing outside and you found a magic rock. When you picked up the rock, it opened and you found something inside. Write a story about . . .

  Her eyes skimmed down to the items she’d written underneath: the reminder to focus on what happened after the rock opened; the importance of making sure the story had a beginning, a middle, and an end; the necessity of using correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. If she found a magic rock, what would hers contain? The answer was easy: a wish for one whole day with Maisie. Even less than a day. Half a day? Four hours? One hour?

  How would Maisie have tackled the assignment when she was in the fourth grade? Chewing on the skin around her finger, Katie pictured her daughter working on a story. Did Maisie have a desk? What kind of desk?

  An old image took a swing. She saw herself pick up Maisie and throw her down a burning staircase.

  A thought is just a thought; it has no power. And I can still help Maisie. I can make a difference in her life.

  Another message popped up from Cal. Thank you, and sorry. Freaking out again.

  Practice some belly breathing. Put one hand on your abdomen, one on your chest, and take a deep breath. Your abdomen should move, your chest shouldn’t. Pause, exhale slowly, feel your abdomen go back down. Do it for fifteen minutes.

  Okay.

  “Oh, Cal,” she said to her empty apartment.

  Was he so desperate that he was taking advice from a woman he preferred to think of as dead? A woman who was pushing him to consider therapy when she couldn’t afford her own? And what about Lilah? Did she have any idea that she’d married into the poster family for anxiety? And ping, the last thread of focus snapped.

  What was Maisie doing right now? Was she eating enough, sleeping enough? Was Lilah keeping her busy? What if Lilah was merely handing out reassurance? What if Maisie’s OCD was feeding on it? What if Maisie sank into a dark place where no one could reach her? After all, like mother, like daughter, right?

  “No,” Katie said out loud. She dug her hands into her hair. “No.”

  Hand shaking, she closed her Word doc, opened Mail, typed a new message, dragged the file over, and hit “Send.” As her emai
l shot through cyberspace, her phone honked with an emergency alert. An Amber Alert? Had she hit a child, killed a child, and not realized? What if she had? What if she’d left the scene of a crime? Yesterday there’d been a definite bump when she was coming back from the studio. Were the cops heading her way? Had they found the body? Bloody images played. She watched them, let them roll like movie credits.

  “You’re not real,” she said and reached for the car keys.

  Katie slowed down for her exit.

  Hope I didn’t hit anyone on the freeway. Did I hit someone? One, two, three, four. Should I go back and check? I think I need to go back and check. One, two, three, four. Why am I doing this? I’m the worst mother. No, I’m not even a mother. One, two, three, four. Did I hit that green Subaru that was stopped on the hard shoulder? Maybe I did. I should go back and check. Go back and check. Is my heart racing? My heart’s racing. Am I having a heart attack? Oh, God, I’m having a heart attack.

  No, no, it’s just the anxiety. Remember the breath, Katie, focus on the breath. I’m fine. I’m fine.

  Humming along to Mumford & Sons, Katie narrowed her thoughts to one purpose: following the streets that led back to her old home. I’ve got this.

  That strip mall was new. So was the Starbucks. How come she hadn’t noticed on her mad dash to rescue Maisie from the playground? And the storage facility was now an apartment complex. Her old neighborhood had grown into an unknown landscape.

  She flicked on the turn signal and pulled into Dogwood Drive. Her mouth was dry. No moisture. Why hadn’t she brought a bottle of water? Was she getting sick? She could be getting sick. Maybe she shouldn’t go near Lilah, a pregnant woman, in case she passed on germs, and Lilah got sick, and—

  I control fire; I am strong. This is just the voice.

  Katie turned from one residential street to the next, passing cookie-cutter homes built to similar blueprints. Fourteen years ago, had this land of SUVs, basketball hoops, and uninspired foundation plantings really spoken of her dreams? Home was such an odd concept. The studio was the closest she came to a home, although Ben had started neglecting his work to shadow her. And the moment she left, the texts started. The less she replied, the more he texted. Accountability was exhausting.

  The truck bounced over the speed bump at the top of the street, and the house came into view. Something else she hadn’t noticed before—the siding needed repainting. The trim too. Lilah’s Honda Civic blocked the driveway.

  Katie pulled up to the curb by the mailbox covered in the clematis she’d planted. Now huge, it was covered with a healthy mass of white floral starbursts. Thriving on neglect.

  Her old mailbox; her old landscaping; her old house. And inside, her daughter.

  I should turn around and go home before I make things worse. What if I go inside and accidentally push Lilah? I could hurt the baby.

  The truck idled. Katie killed the engine and slowed her breath. Hands shaking, she grabbed her messenger bag off the passenger seat, slung it over her head, and climbed out. A rabbit hopped across the neighbor’s lawn, where some kid had abandoned a brightly colored tricycle. An older couple used to live next door. Good people. What were their names? She walked toward the house, her feet keeping rhythm with the babble of her thoughts.

  Halfway up the front steps, she grabbed the rail. Should she ring the bell or knock? Would Lilah look through the peephole before opening the door? Was she trespassing? The voice told her she was trespassing.

  The door opened. “Hello,” Lilah said.

  “How did you know I was—”

  “Saw your truck pull up.” Lilah stepped onto the porch and eased the front door closed behind her.

  Katie took two more steps so she was level with Lilah. Two steps, two wives, one daughter. Lilah was taller, by a good six inches, and—Katie glanced down—that was in bare feet. Tattooed calligraphy wound around one ankle. A strange thought: Had it hurt?

  Katie raised her eyes. “You knew it was me and opened the door anyway?”

  “I asked Maisie to run upstairs and find a cardigan in my closet. Only it’s not there, so it could take a while. You realize that she doesn’t want to see you or Callum?”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s been better.”

  “Here.” Katie opened her bag and handed Lilah the book she’d bought the day before.

  “When a Family Member Has OCD,” Lilah read. “Thanks.” She tucked the book under her arm and then folded her hands together as if waiting to take communion.

  Below the porch rail, Katie’s former sun garden contained deer-chewed perennials and Japanese stiltgrass. The hardwood mulch she used to special order and spread every February had been replaced by sunbaked clay.

  “Was there anything else?” Lilah said.

  “An apology,” Katie said quickly. “For causing you both pain. You and Maisie. My mom was a drunk with angry outbursts, and—”

  “You mentioned this before.”

  “Right. But the point is that I was the adult of the house at twelve. Which means I understand everything Maisie’s going through. Not only the anxiety, but also the sense of abandonment. I guess what I’m trying to do is offer help.”

  Lilah said nothing, and Katie swallowed.

  “So there’s that. I mean, I’m willing to help. If you need me to. Or not.”

  Lilah’s pale eyes stared without blinking.

  “And weird as it sounds, I’m here on Cal’s behalf. To ask you to let him come home, for Maisie’s sake. Actually, he wanted me to beg.”

  A UPS truck clattered up the road and stopped several houses down.

  “You’ve seen my husband?” Lilah said.

  Katie nodded. “He told me his side of our story, and we decided to let it go. The past. And we agreed we’re both committed to making sure Maisie sees a child psychologist, one who’s an expert in treating OCD. I gave Cal a list a while ago.”

  “And Callum”—Lilah did a strange little thing with her lips—“he met with you more than once?” Her eyebrows went up. “The two of you were alone?”

  “We met twice. The first time was in my apartment, but it was short and intensely uncomfortable. He warned me to stay away from you and Maisie. The second time he dragged me on a hike because he needed exercise. He looked emotionally hungover, and he’d given up on personal hygiene. To be honest, he smelled a tad ripe. He was not out to impress.”

  Lilah turned her head to the right and back again. “And were you out to impress him?”

  “No. Neither Cal nor I have any interest in renewing our marriage, but we did need to reach an understanding of what happened. I think we’ve achieved that.” Katie rubbed her neck and felt the loss of the chain that held her wedding ring. “Our moment is long gone, but it’s obvious to me how much he loves you. Let him come home.”

  “Jake’s behind this, isn’t he?”

  “More or less.”

  “I can’t lie. I want to hate you,” Lilah said.

  “Join the club. You never find peace with giving up your child, even if you know you did the right thing. I set the bar pretty low for being a good mother, but you’ve outstripped me already. Kicking us all out was impressive.”

  Lilah put a hand on the small of her back and pushed her belly forward. “I’m so mad at him right now.”

  “I can imagine. The irony is that I’m not. Not anymore.”

  “Maisie worries about me dying,” Lilah said. “All the time. It’s a little freaky.”

  “I had similar fears at her age. My mom had self-destructive tendencies, including being a cutter. She didn’t know, but I saw her do it once. That’s the thing about irrational fear, it comes from a seed of fact: an offhand comment, a news story, something you glimpsed. But OCD takes that seed and blows it up into Armageddon. Given what Maisie thought had happened to me, it makes sense that her voice would sow similar doubts about you. And in some weird, twisted way, it’s a compliment. Her fear comes from a place of mattering. If she didn’t l
ove you, the voice wouldn’t latch on.”

  “What fun,” Lilah said, the corner of her mouth hinting at a smile.

  “Sorry. There’s no way to make OCD pretty. It’s total and absolute shit, twenty-four seven.”

  “Thanks,” Lilah said, “for the book, the apology, and the honesty.”

  Katie turned to leave, then stopped. Next door a basketball bounced on concrete. With a thud, it hit the backboard of a basketball hoop. “Will you call Cal so he’ll stop bugging me?”

  “I guess.”

  “I should go before—”

  “Evil Stepmom,” a voice said as the front door flew open. “I can’t find your cardig—”

  Katie’s breath sped up; a spike of pain jabbed under her ribs.

  “Maisie,” Lilah said, her voice even. “Your—”

  “Katie. You don’t have to call me anything else.”

  Maisie crossed her arms and pouted. “Why are you here?”

  “I brought your mom a book to help her, and I came to plead your father’s case.”

  “You’ve seen my dad?” Maisie said.

  “He’s desperate to see you and your mom. Please let him come home, Maisie. It’s not his fault what happened. He loves you so much, as do I. Always have, always will. And I promise you this: I’ll never change my phone number or leave the area. If you ever decide you want to see me again, you’ll know where I am. The choice will always be yours. But you have to talk with your father.”

  “Why should I trust anything you tell me? You wanted me to think you were dead.”

  “No, Maisie. I wanted you to have a better mom. And now”—she looked at Lilah—“you do.”

  The UPS truck drove by and honked, and the driver waved at Lilah; she waved back.

  “Katie, why don’t you come in so we’re not having this conversation on the street?”

  “It’s up to Maisie,” Katie said. “Can I, Maisie? Can I come in?”