Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  She waited, wondered who should speak first, waited a little longer, and then couldn’t stand it. She didn’t want bad feelings between them, not now. “Richard, I’m sorry. I guess a man does like to be the one to take the first step.”

  “Not necessarily, Bobbi. It’s not a problem. Don’t worry about it.” But he didn’t say, “So let’s go across the street anyway.” He continued to lie in the same position, his eyes shut. Bobbi couldn’t help but wonder whether the differences between them were starting to show themselves already. Would she always drive him crazy with her frankness, and would he always frustrate her with his reticence?

  “Why don’t we go in for a swim?” he said.

  Bobbi had no idea how to read that. Was it a little dip he wanted before they went across the street? Was he merely hesitant to say that? Or did he mean “I’ve got a better idea than the one you had. I don’t want to go to the motel right now.”

  “Okay.” Bobbi got up.

  Richard pulled himself up slowly, and then he walked alongside her to the water, but he didn’t take her hand, didn’t touch her. They waded into the water, and then without warning, he dove in and started to swim. She thought for a moment that he was challenging her, that he would call back with an invitation to race, but he didn’t say anything; he simply kept swimming into the surf, taking powerful strokes.

  Bobbi plunged in too, and she swam with all her strength, but she couldn’t keep up. She raised her head from time to time, watched him move away from her until so many waves were between them that she could get a glance only once in a while. Finally, she was exhausted, and she had no idea where he was going. She doubted he could hear, but she called out, “I’m turning back.”

  She turned as a wave took her. She tried to ride it as far as she could, to rest. She was carried back to the shore much faster than she had gone out, however, and she crashed awkwardly onto the beach. She came up spitting and coughing, but she hurried to get her balance and trotted out of the water. Then she spun around and looked back. She scanned the

  water as far as she could see, but he had disappeared.

  Richard was wearing dark blue swimming trunks, and she watched for that blotch of color on the water, for his arms splashing, but she saw nothing. He simply wasn’t out there. She knew that she must be missing him somehow, that he had changed his angle or that she was not looking in the right direction at the right moment, when the waves lifted him into view. But nothing was there, no swimmer, not a break in the water except for the constant waves. She looked up the shoreline to the lifeguard who was seated on a high lookout. He was relaxing, apparently unconcerned. Had he seen Richard go out and still had him spotted, or had he not been paying attention?

  She kept forcing down her fear, telling herself what a good swimmer Richard was, but she was trying to swallow away the salt in her mouth and couldn’t seem to get it down. Her heart was still pounding much harder than it should have been. Where was he?

  She spun toward the lifeguard, decided to run to him, changed her mind, looked back at the water, took a long, sweeping gaze across the waves, and then changed her mind again. She suddenly took off, trying to run hard in the loose sand. She was about to scream at the lifeguard when she glanced ahead and spotted Richard, farther north in the water than she had expected, closer to the shore, and riding a wave toward the beach.

  She kept running—to him now—but her panic had too much inertia to give way so immediately, and suddenly what she felt was anger. She angled into the water, stumbled as a wave caught her ankle, and had to put a hand down to catch herself. Just then Richard raised up, stood in the water, which was waist high on him. He didn’t smile, didn’t say anything. He merely took a long breath and then wiped his hand over his hair, smoothing it back.

  Bobbi was standing in front of him now, her feet in the water. “Richard, why did you go out so far? I couldn’t see you.”

  He shrugged, looking confused—probably more at the passion in her voice than at her words.

  “I couldn’t see you, Richard,” she shouted. “I looked and looked. I thought you had gone under.”

  “I . . .” But clearly, he didn’t know what to say.

  “Why did you keep going? Why did you leave me?”

  “I was just swimming. I thought you were behind me.”

  “I can’t swim that fast. We should stay together.” But now—stupidly—she was crying.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and she heard some kind of capitulation in his voice, as though he were saying, “So is this one more thing I have to do to please you?”

  “It scared me, Richard. Really scared me.”

  He walked toward her in the water and tried to take her into his arms. But she put her hands on his chest and said, “Why do you do things like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “In Hawaii we swam together and came back in together.”

  He raised his hands, palms open, and said, “I’d just started to swim again. I was weak then.”

  “But this is our honeymoon.”

  “What does that mean, Bobbi? That we never let each other out of sight?”

  Bobbi heard his anger. She knew it was time to let up, to think before she spoke, but she never had been good at stopping once the words started to roll. “You swam away from me, Richard. You wanted to get away from me.” She hesitated and took a breath, tried to stop again, but added, “I don’t think you’re happy, Richard.”

  “Bobbi, what in the world are you talking about?”

  But Bobbi didn’t answer. She had told herself a thousand times that she wasn’t going to say this to him. She was going to make him happy, not demand it of him.

  Richard’s eyes went shut. He rubbed his hand over his face again, his hair. “Bobbi, let’s calm down. All right? I’m sorry I swam out farther than you thought I was going to, and I’m sorry . . . that I seem unhappy to you. But I’m not. Can we sit down for a minute and just talk this out?”

  “Is that what you want to do? Talk to me?” And suddenly she started to sob. “I thought you wanted to drown.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “Drown? Why would I want that?”

  “I don’t know, Richard. Because of the things I say. I’m

  driving you crazy already, and we just got married.”

  Her face was pressed against him, and she heard him laugh, inside his chest. Then he took hold of her shoulders and pushed her back far enough to look at her. He smiled. It was that tender, slow smile that always made her want to curl up with him, think of nothing but how much she loved him. “Trust me,” he said. “I don’t want to drown. What I want to do is walk across the street with you and . . . stay at the motel for a little while. But first we need to talk. Okay?”

  “Really? Do you want to talk?”

  “No. I want to go back to the motel. But we need to talk.”

  “Let’s just go to the motel, then. We can talk later.”

  “Okay,” he said, and he smiled again.

  “But I did it again. I made it my idea.”

  “No, it was my idea. You just bumped it up a notch on our priority list.”

  “Is that all right?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Oh, Richard, I’m not like this. I’m not a stupid little girl. I don’t get all out of sorts and fuss and cry about silly things. You know me better than that, don’t you?”

  He was still smiling. “I thought I did,” he said, “but that was before I tried to drown myself.”

  “I’m sorry, Richard. It scared me so bad.” And she took hold of him, was so glad to have his strength around her again—glad to walk across the street with him.

  Later that afternoon Richard was reading, sitting in a big chair in the motel room. Bobbi had made some sandwiches in the little kitchenette, but before they ate, she wanted to have that talk. She went to Richard and knelt by his knees. “Can we talk now?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. Here’s what I want to say.” She
took hold of his legs, wrapping her arms around them. She was wearing the old plaid robe she loved, not the new, nicer one she’d gotten for Christmas. “I shouldn’t have said that about you not being happy. But it’s what I feel sometimes.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m fine.”

  “But there’s something I do worry about.”

  “What?”

  “I think you took the job with my dad so we could go ahead and get married. It’s not what you really want to do.”

  He reached down and took hold of her, under the arms, and he pulled her up onto his lap. “Listen to me,” he said. “Your dad gave me a great opportunity. I thought it through and decided I would grab it. It solved a lot of problems, and it opened up the chance for me to make a good living. Every man has to work, and I don’t think the average guy gets up in the morning and says, ‘Oh, boy, I love my job.’ What I’m doing is a whole lot better than what most men do. And I don’t mind it at all.”

  “I’m sorry, Richard, but I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s going to be such a long life for you if you have to face a job you don’t really get any satisfaction from. You’re doing it for me, and I appreciate it, but I’m afraid something like that will gradually sap the life out of you.”

  “Bobbi, we talked at one time about my going back to college and becoming some kind of professor, but I didn’t even know what I might want to teach. So it’s not like I’m giving something up. And think about it—doesn’t a professor wake up some mornings and wish he didn’t have lectures to prepare or a bunch of research papers to read?”

  “I want you to be happy, Richard. I want you to do something you’re excited about. You’re smart, and when we were in Hawaii you were always talking about reading all the books

  in the library, learning everything.”

  “I still read a lot.”

  “I know. But only after a long day at work. I don’t think you care about washing-machine parts.”

  “Of course I don’t. Who does? But—”

  “Wally does.”

  “Oh, come on, Bobbi. Who can look at a little hunk of metal and get excited?”

  “Wally gets excited about making things work right at the plant. He told me that. But he also told me that he didn’t think you liked what you were doing.”

  Richard was silent for a time, and she could feel the tension return, his chest muscles tightening. “Bobbi, I don’t know what else to tell you,” he said. “I want you. I want to provide for you and our family. I found a good way to do that, and I feel lucky for that.”

  “Now tell me you’re happy. Really happy.”

  “These few days with you have been the best of my whole life, Bobbi. How can you ask me whether I’m happy? I’ve never been happier.”

  She liked that, but she didn’t trust it. She kissed his neck. “Why don’t you start taking classes at the U, the way Wally plans to do? You could study psychology or history. Then, gradually, you could break away from Dad’s company, and you could do something that really excites you.”

  “Maybe, Bobbi. I mean, I wouldn’t mind taking some classes, but there’s no way that I would ever make the same kind of money at anything else—especially teaching.”

  “That’s not important to me.”

  “It’s more important than you think, Bobbi. You’ve never known anything else. And it matters to me. I want to provide our family with a nice house and all those other things you’re accustomed to.”

  “And sacrifice your own life to do it?”

  “That’s what a man does, Bobbi. He goes to work. He makes a living. If he doesn’t make washing-machine parts, he makes something else. It’s all more or less the same.”

  But there was something plaintive in the words, as though Richard were acceding to a force he hated but couldn’t change.

  “What if I go to college?”

  “I think you should. I’ve always told you that.”

  “What if I become a college professor?” She leaned away from him so she could look him in the face.

  “Sure. Why not? I want you to be a mother first—and soon—but the day could come when you could do that.”

  “I mean, what if we were both professors? Couldn’t we do all right financially that way?”

  “And what happens to our kids? Do they get lost in the shuffle somewhere? I don’t see how that could work.”

  Bobbi didn’t either, really, but it was what David Stinson had pictured, and he had always made it seem possible.

  “Will you at least sign up for a class or two this next fall?”

  “Sure. I’ve been thinking about doing that all along.”

  “Okay.” She took a long breath and tried to decide whether she would let this all drop now. But maybe this was the right time to ask. “There’s one other thing I think you should tell me.”

  “What?”

  She twisted, so she could look straight into his face. “You told me that something happened to you after your ship sank—but that you didn’t want to talk about it. You wanted to forget it. But you haven’t forgotten. It’s still bothering you, isn’t it?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I see you staring off at nothing sometimes, and you look like a broken-hearted little boy. Then you see me looking at you, and you try to cover up—like you’re afraid I’m going to ask you what’s wrong.”

  “Everybody sits and thinks sometimes. That’s nothing to make a big thing of.”

  “Come on. You know there’s more to it than that. What could it hurt for you to share with me what’s on your mind?”

  But Richard only glanced away.

  “You’re going to tell me that you don’t ever want to talk about it, Richard. But I think we should. I think this is a good time—right now, at the beginning of our marriage—for you to let me share some of the burden. I really think that talking about it would help. You wouldn’t have to—”

  “No. Talking won’t help.”

  “But if you shared it with me, it wouldn’t be inside you, working on you.”

  “Bobbi, that doesn’t even make sense. Telling you doesn’t take it out of my head.”

  “Sometimes when you talk about something, get it out in the open, it doesn’t turn out to be so bad as you thought.”

  “Bobbi, bad things happen in a war. Horrible things. And when the war is over, a guy has two choices: He can keep thinking about all that, and let it bother him forever, or he can put it behind him and go on. A man with any sense moves ahead and lets the past die.”

  “You’re not doing that, Richard. I feel it in you sometimes. It’s like a little bit of life has gone out of you. You’re ninety percent of who you always were, but the missing ten percent makes all the difference. I see it in your eyes, your voice, everything. You’re making do, but you’re not fully Richard, the way I knew you at first.”

  “Then why did you marry me?”

  “Because I love you.” She slid off his lap, took hold of his hands, and looked up at him. “All I’m saying is that you aren’t as happy as you were when I first met you, and I want to help.”

  “I am happy, Bobbi. I do have some devils I’m dealing with. I admit that. But they’ll disappear and I’ll be fine. I’ve made my choices, and I feel they’re right.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me what happened?”

  “I’ve told you a lot of things.”

  “But nothing more?”

  “Let’s remember Hawaii and be happy that the war brought us together, but let’s forget the rest.”

  “I don’t have to forget the war. I saw some bad things,

  but they aren’t plaguing me now.”

  “I’m not so ‘plagued’ as you seem to think I am. I’m fine.” But he wasn’t looking at her, not directly.

  “So we just go on from there?”

  “Don’t say it that way, Bobbi.” He slid off his chair and sat next to her on the floor.
He took hold of her arms, just above the elbows. “I was going to wait until we got back to surprise you, but I just decided—I want to tell you now.”

  “What?”

  “While we’re gone, a contractor is going to dig the basement and start setting the footings for our new house. By fall, we’re going to be living up on that hill I promised you, looking down on the valley. Providing you with that house is going to make me happier than anything else I can think of. That’s what I’ll be going to work for every day. A goal like that can make washing-machine parts look pretty good.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “The only thing I ask of you is that you start making us a little baby, so we can start filling up the house.”

  “I want a baby, too, Richard, but—”

  “Don’t say ‘but.’ Let’s just be happy. I will if you will. I promise.”

  Bobbi agreed. She thanked him, kissed him. But she didn’t believe it. Things just weren’t that simple. The problem wouldn’t disappear just because they had said the words.

  Chapter 18

  Alex was almost home. He had expected a slow voyage and then a long train ride, but a friend had pulled a few strings and gotten him air passage all the way. On a Monday morning early in May, he had learned that he was being discharged, and now it was Friday afternoon, and already he was on the last leg of his flight. He had spent a mostly sleepless night in a dump of a hotel room in New York City and had come within a few minutes of missing his connection in Chicago, but the airplane was crossing the Rockies now. He would soon see the Salt Lake Valley. He kept thinking about those numbing nights he had spent in foxholes in the Ardennes, and how he had dreamed of this day, above all other days. He would soon see Anna, and he would finally meet his son, who was nearing his first birthday. What made all this even better was that Anna and Gene were in Salt Lake now, and coming home really meant coming home.

  But Alex was nervous. He had been gone for four years. When he had left, he had thought of doing his part in the war and then returning to college. He hadn’t known he would come home a different person, and he certainly had never imagined that he would marry while he was gone. He was returning to some big responsibilities, and his future was anything but clear to him.