The Promise Between Us

by White, Barbara Claypole

  I can’t do this anymore; I can’t.

  A knock on her window. She sat up and rolled it down. Rain dripped from the edge of his jaw and flattened his hair against his skull. Resting his arms on the lowered window, he leaned into the cab. Instinctively she looked for the scar left by fifty stitches—the reminder of sitting up with him all night, trying to rediscover her belief in prayer. At one point, drugged and loopy, eyes closed, he had mumbled something about love. She never called him on it. Why now, as rain came in through the open window to soak her jeans, did she wish that she had?

  “Maybe between us we can push back the voice,” Ben said. He watched her, his mouth slightly open, his eyes half-closed. He blinked, and the rain kept coming.

  He’s in pain and it’s my fault. I’m playing with his feelings. Messing with him because I’m a terrible person. He’s too good for me.

  She shook her head.

  “Katie, please. I know you’re in a bad place. Come back inside before we both catch pneumonia.”

  “You have company. I don’t want to intrude, and I have to go see Maisie.”

  “Do you need us to drive you?”

  Us. “I’m not an invalid,” she snapped. Imagine that—the voice had been right; she was a shit person. And no, she didn’t care. A negative became a positive, anger brought strength, and he should return to his girlfriend.

  “I’m not suggesting you are,” Ben said. “I’m merely offering to help.”

  “Yeah, well, last time a man offered to help it didn’t work out so well.” She began to roll up the window. Stupid thing was stuck. She gave it a jolt.

  He took a step back. “You know where I am, if you want to talk.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” What she meant was no.

  Katie inched forward, unable to make out shapes through the sheets of rain. Pressing the brake slowly—No hydroplaning, no hydroplaning—she glanced in her rearview mirror. There was nothing behind her except for the deluge flowing down her rear window. To drive in these conditions had nothing to do with fighting OCD and everything to do with reckless behavior.

  She would wait in the parking lot until the rain eased up. And then she would drive to her old house and give Maisie the WhatNot. And as she drove, she would focus on reading the traffic so she didn’t accidentally run anyone over.

  Sometimes you had to listen to fear.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  JAKE

  Anger reverberating worse than the bass in his car stereo, Jake glanced up the stairs to the recently slammed door. Was a shot of tequila at noon on a Saturday bad form? He’d been the walking, talking definition of delinquency, which meant he could defuse any hissy fit in the making. And yet, right before his eyes, Maisie had acted like he’d maced her with demon kid hallucinogenic.

  Could be he was to blame. After all, he’d made Maisie the center of his world for the last eight years. Could be she was jealous of all the attention her baby brother was getting. Who knew, but he had to get a handle on the situation, fast.

  Jake turned and gave himself a prime view of the bloodstain. Even though he’d dragged the coffee table over the top, that thing lit up brighter than Venus on a clear night. He needed air, activity, something to do other than babysit a tantrum or stare at dried blood. An expanse of free time was never welcome. A shrink could charge a fortune to trace that back to the formative years he’d been labeled a slack-ass by teachers and his aunt. But every day, he got further behind on editing the movies from the last of the summer camps. Would that mean postponing the VIP screening—the post-camp highlight? Disappointing kids was a shitty option however you justified it, especially when they’d been excited little rascals about reuniting for their red carpet moment. Hell, he loved that part, too.

  Well, he would work his ass off when Maisie went back to school next week. Callum had made two good decisions recently: Maisie was going to see a child psychologist, and she’d skipped enough school. Amen and hallelujah.

  September sunlight blazed through the panels of glass in the foyer, calling his name. With one final glance up the stairs, Jake opened the front door and stepped from the bubble of overeffective central air into warm sunlight. In deference to Maisie, who liked to be cold, he was keeping the AC lower than he should. Callum would go apeshit when the electric bill arrived.

  Jake stretched and surveyed the yard. A storm had moved through earlier, making the grass too wet to cut. And the deer had eaten what remained of the once-thriving garden, except for the clematis and Katelyn’s chocolate vine, which had grown over the porch railing and up into the gutter. He could definitely spend an hour taming that into submission. Yes, ma’am, yard work might be just the ticket.

  A truck appeared at the top of the road, driving slowly over the speed bumps. Thank God he didn’t live in a subdivision with speed bumps. A fine idea for little kids, but it screamed PC neighborhood. Everything was so falsely jolly around here: basketball hoops came in two heights—full-size and child-friendly—all the minivans had stick-figure decals on the back windows, and every other house hung banners of cardinals or dogwood blooms. He never did figure out why Callum and Katelyn had chosen to live in a community that organized meet ’n’ greet block parties. Had they both been that desperate to belong?

  The truck slowed as it negotiated the next speed bump. Imagine that. Think of the devil and there she was. Katelyn—Katie—pulled into the driveway like an old lady in need of a stronger glasses prescription.

  Jake crossed his arms and braced his legs. She wasn’t getting past him. Last thing Maisie needed was a misplaced mama fussing in her face. And man, could that woman fuss. If she texted him one more time . . .

  Katie climbed out of her beaten-up old truck, then reached in to retrieve a metal orb with more than a few identity issues. A half-melted lip ran around the middle, and whereas one side was smooth, the other was studded with bits of iron. Interesting color: rusty on the outside, bright red on the inside. Sci-fi helmet meets medieval weapon, if he had to guess.

  “I’m not here to intrude. I thought this”—she held out the thing—“might console Maisie for missing opening night at CAM. She commented on it when you guys visited the studio.”

  “That is ridiculously weird and strangely beautiful.” Truly, it was. “Like a planet that can’t decide whether to smile or eat itself. Or some weapon that belongs in the future and the past. What is it?”

  “A mistake?” Katie shrugged. “I’m calling it a WhatNot. How’s the baby?”

  “Holding his own.”

  “Lilah?”

  “Getting her strength back.”

  “And Maisie?” Katie raised her eyebrows.

  A car revved out of the driveway opposite. Jake imagined he was sitting across from another actor, responding back and forth through a repeated phrase: You look like you don’t trust me right now. The point of the exercise was to figure out what was happening in the moment, to access genuine emotion, to stop thinking about what to say and respond freely and spontaneously. Good acting, he’d been taught, came from an authentic reaction to your partner’s behavior. Katie was offering concern. Maybe even a dollop of compassion.

  Jake unfolded his arms. “She’s being a pain in the ass. Callum wants me to take her to the hospital, and she won’t go.”

  Katie settled the WhatNot on her hip. “Did you ask her why?”

  “I tried, and she ran up to her room and slammed the door.” He nodded in the general direction of Maisie’s bedroom. “I half expect her to be up there decapitating Beanie Babies. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing in my opinion.”

  “You don’t like Beanie Babies?”

  “I favored G.I. Joe. Your ex-husband went soft on me.”

  Katie watched him, and for one god-awful moment, he saw Delaney.

  “Hospitals can be overwhelming,” Katie said. “The noise, the fear, the smells. The knowledge that inside, people are sick and dying. Lots for an anxious person to absorb.”

  “But hospitals are also full of
people healing.”

  “The OCD brain doesn’t work that way. We run straight to the worst-case scenario. Going to the hospital might not be something Maisie can handle right now.”

  Jake threaded his thumbs through his belt loops. “You mean this could be OCD?”

  Katie nodded. “And she might not be able to articulate it. Maisie’s ten years old and unable to understand her brain.”

  “So she hasn’t been abducted by demons?”

  “I can probably figure out if anxiety’s responsible. If it is, I can give her some tools that might help both of you.”

  “You’d be willing to help me?” he said.

  “Why do you have such a hard time believing that I’m capable of a selfless act?”

  “Poor little orphan boy raised by vicious aunt? Not a whole lot of trust where I come from.” He gave Katie the grin that seemed to charm the pants off everyone but her. True to form, she didn’t even crack a smile.

  Katie put a hand on the white railing that ran up the side of the steps. “Let me talk to her.”

  He stepped backward to block her way. “Could you make it worse?”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  A female cardinal flitted in and out of Katie’s chocolate vine as Jake pretended to consider his options. All zero of them.

  “Fine, but I want to listen. And stop staring at me that way. This isn’t about keeping an eye on you. If you must know, I’m hoping to learn from a pro.” He smiled. “So don’t disappoint me, Katie Mack.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  KATIE

  Driving to Raleigh to meet the docents had not been the ultimate exposure. Could not begin to compare to retracing her steps through the memory imprint of the night she ran: tearing down these stairs with Ringo; the suffocating conviction that she was insane; the fire in her mind screaming, Run, Katie, run; the nausea, the urgency, the fight for each breath; the heat in the bedroom; the cold that Cal had allowed into the hall.

  With her line of sight fixed on Maisie’s bedroom, and sweating despite the ferocious air-conditioning, Katie passed her stained glass window. Jake followed, stalking her like prey. Stalking her like the voice.

  Why did I run away? Why didn’t I stay and fight? If I’d stayed, that bedroom on the right would still be mine. I made a terrible mistake I can never fix. Why am I even trying?

  I control fire; I am strong. For Maisie, I am strong.

  As she knocked on Maisie’s door, Katie’s mind saw the red metal crib, the Winnie-the-Pooh lamp, the mural of the cow jumping over the moon. The Winnie-the-Pooh lamp. Always the Winnie-the-Pooh lamp.

  When Maisie didn’t respond, Katie knocked more forcefully.

  “Please respect my privacy, Uncle J.”

  “It’s Katie, honey. I’ve brought you a gift.” She glanced at Jake. With one hand resting on the wall, he loomed over her. For once he wasn’t wearing aftershave.

  The door opened slowly, and Maisie’s tearstained face appeared. It would be so easy to wrap her in a maternal hug. But Katie had given up that right nine years ago. Jake moved silently into place beside her.

  “Can we come in?” Katie held out the WhatNot.

  “Ohhh,” Maisie said, and her big hazel eyes grew even bigger. “For me? Really?”

  “It’s in need of a loving home, and I picture it standing guard by the front door. A sort of good luck charm to ward off bad things. Shall I leave it here?” Katie stepped into the room and put the WhatNot on the white dresser that had replaced the small white bookcase where the Winnie-the-Pooh lamp used to sit.

  You could take that WhatNot and bash in her head.

  So the OCD keeps saying, but it’s not true. A thought is just a thought; it has no power.

  “Thank you,” Maisie said. “I do love it.” Then, with her thumb tucked underneath her splayed fingers, she stroked her hair twice on one side, twice on the other, and looked at Jake.

  “C’mere,” he said, and Maisie ran to him.

  “I am sorry, Uncle J. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Love you, too.” Jake guided Maisie down to sit on the end of her bed. He kept his arm around her, and she glued herself to his side. The bed was where the red metal crib had stood, but the mural had disappeared under a wall of dark-blue paint. Katie’s mind ran a marathon of doubt—Why did I run? I should never have run—as she lowered herself onto a psychedelic beanbag.

  I control fire; I am strong. For Maisie, I am strong.

  Katie scratched her legs, dug deeper and deeper with her nails, raked at her skin until it burned. Until her anxiety dipped. Was this why her mother had sliced open the inside of her thigh with a razor?

  “I’m sorry, so sorry,” Maisie said. “I don’t mean to be a bad kid, but I feel as if I could explode. Explode, Uncle J! And I want everything gone—these feelings, these thoughts. And I—I want Daddy. I want my daddy.”

  “Shhh. Everything’s okay, baby. I know it’s the situation, not you.”

  As Jake started rocking and singing, Katie blocked the memory of Cal soothing Maisie in the same spot nine years earlier, but another memory tumbled in to fill its place.

  Katie was twelve and standing in the kitchen in Boston, screaming at her mother, “It’s your fault Dad left. I hate you.” A rush of guilt started behind her eyes and shot down to her stomach. It had been so easy to blame her mother for everything. After all, her father was the handsome charmer; her mother was needy and temperamental. And Katie translated everything through a black-and-white prism. Always had. Had chosen to see her father as the wronged party even though she’d heard her mother yell about “the other woman” before grabbing the steak knife. Maybe that was the reason she struggled to trust Jake. He reminded her too much of the first man who broke her heart.

  “Your anxiety’s pretty high,” Katie said. “Isn’t it?”

  Maisie started bashing the crown of her head with her open palms, a gesture that made a world of sense to Katie. Bash it out, God. Bash it out.

  I did this to my daughter. Me.

  No, if it’s genetic, it’s not my fault.

  “Hey.” Jake eased Maisie’s hands down and held them.

  “And the anxiety ramped up when Uncle J mentioned taking you to the hospital,” Katie said. “Am I right?”

  Head lowered, Maisie nodded.

  “But here’s the thing. You don’t have to go.”

  Maisie pushed herself up and glanced at Jake. “I don’t?”

  “She doesn’t?” Jake repeated.

  “No. You don’t. Is your fear thermometer so high that the idea of going to the hospital makes you feel as if you could shoot into the sky and orbit Pluto?”

  “Yes! I can’t do it, I simply can’t.” Maisie burrowed back into Jake. “Other people go to the hospital all the time. I should be able to go, but I can’t. Ava Grace went after her grammy got a new hip.”

  “But Ava Grace doesn’t have a stinky voice, does she?”

  Maisie shook her head multiple times.

  “Honey, OCD loves to tell us we should or must be able to do something, but that’s baloney. Human beings are not robots, programmed to behave or feel the same way. We’re gloriously messy thinkers.” Katie swallowed. “And we’re not fortune-tellers or psychics, even though OCD loves to warn us about the danger lurking around every corner. Driving here, my voice told me that I’d run someone over, and I needed to turn around and check to prove that I wasn’t a criminal. OCD wants proof and certainty all the time. But that’s not how life works.”

  “Gosh, that’s awful.” Maisie twizzled the ends of her hair. “How did you keep driving?”

  “I reminded myself that a thought isn’t a call to action. It’s nothing but a powerless thought. Brains are very complicated, especially when they malfunction, but we can learn how to retrain them.”

  “That sounds hard.” Maisie scratched her arm.

  “Like everything, honey, it gets easier with practice.”

  Maisie sat up and turned to Jake.
“Do you forgive me? Do you?”

  “Of course I do, ’Mazing Maisie.”

  “Really forgive me?”

  “Once is enough,” Katie said gently.

  Jake glared at her; Katie ignored him. “Once is you asking, twice is OCD. The voice is telling you that if you don’t keep apologizing, something awful will happen to Uncle Jake, right?”

  Maisie nodded.

  “Wrong. Checking is a nasty trick OCD plays on you, and eventually you and Uncle J will need to come to an agreement on how many times a day you can check. Your ultimate goal will be zero, but that could take a while.”

  “How’s that helpful?” Jake asked.

  “Obsessive-compulsive disorder is sneaky, and checking is a well-disguised compulsion. So is reassurance seeking. Both send you spinning around on the worry wheel.” Katie patted her chest and cleared her throat theatrically. “Checking is bad,” she said in her best Darth Vader voice.

  Maisie giggled.

  “Avoidance creates problems, too,” Katie said. Ben’s face flashed through her mind.

  “But if we don’t go to the hospital, isn’t that—”

  Katie cut Jake off with a flick of her hand. “Maisie, have you read Harry Potter?”

  “Gosh, yyyes! Uncle J does the different characters very well. He’s especially good at Snape.”

  “My favorite character. I knew all along Snape was Harry’s protector.”

  Maisie smiled, and Katie continued. “You know how Harry insists on using Voldemort’s name, not saying ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’?”

  Maisie nodded again.

  “To tackle anxiety, you have to be as fearless as Harry. You have to name your fear and face it. That’s how you take away its power. But some fears are sooo big they take a long time to tackle. Going to the hospital might be one of those fears—until you’ve met with a psychologist and learned how to out-debate the OCD monster.”

  “I don’t like failing,” Maisie said.

  “This isn’t about failing, sweetheart. It’s like trying to do calculus before you’ve learned your times table.”