The Promise Girls

by Marie Bostwick

  “I don’t care how she feels!” Joanie barked. “I am not letting her within ten thousand miles of my son. You know what she’s like, Avery.”

  “I do. Maybe better than you. I lived with her for seven years after the book came out, Joanie. Losing us changed her. I’m not saying she was suddenly transformed into a normal mother—Minerva is always going to be Minerva. But what’s so great about being normal? Normal is boring.”

  “She’s not quirky, Avery. She’s toxic. She scarred us.”

  “Is that what you think we are? Scarred?”

  “You think we’re not?” Joanie scoffed.

  “No. Maybe a little . . . dented. But that’s what makes us interesting! And Minerva is part of that. Not only did she let me fly my freak flag, she encouraged it.”

  “It wasn’t a freak flag,” Joanie spat. “It was a freak show. She exploited us, Avery. She used us to feed her own need for attention, she engineered us, tried to make us be what she couldn’t.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Joanie scowled. “What do you mean how do I know? I lived through it. I know what she did. So do you.”

  “But do you know why she did it? Did you ask her?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We were kids when the wheels came off the bus. We were impacted by the choices she made, but do we really understand why she made them? Maybe there were things going on that we didn’t understand. Maybe she was doing what she thought she had to do. Did you ever ask her?”

  “I don’t need to ask her. I don’t want to know.”

  “But I do.”

  The sound of that deep, familiar voice made them both turn around. Walt was standing in the doorway. He was so tall and broad, with the shoulders and voice of a man. But at that moment, he had the pleading eyes of a child.

  “Walt,” Joanie said quietly. “You don’t . . . you can’t understand—”

  “I know. But I want to. If you don’t give me a chance to figure it out, I never will. I’ve been researching the character I’m going to interpret at Fort Nisqually over the summer, Lawrence Aloysius McCormick. He died more than two hundred years ago. Do you realize that I know more about his family and ancestors than I do my own?

  “There are so many blanks in my history, and yours. So many things we never talk about. I don’t know who my own dad is, let alone my paternal grandparents. And your dad was just some anonymous sperm donor. But now, the only grandmother I might actually have a chance to talk to is coming to Seattle. You might not want to hear what she has to say, but I do. I’m tired of knowing the history of strangers better than my own family.

  “Remember when I was little and you explained to me that you and my aunts were test tube babies? You were afraid that somebody at school was going to tell me before you did. I didn’t really get it. For a long time, I pictured faceless people in lab coats mixing up some potion in a big glass beaker, stirring until it started to smoke and spark. When the smoke cleared, there was a baby in the beaker. I thought it was the same for me. Even then I realized that wasn’t how other people came into the world, but in a way, it kind of made sense for us. We weren’t like other families. I thought that was why. But there’s more to us, isn’t there? We’re not just some sort of collective chemical reaction.

  “There’s a history to all this, Mom, and it’s more than you’re telling me. Maybe it’s more than you know. But whatever it is, I want to understand it. I want to understand us. Don’t you?”

  Chapter 36

  Having spent most of the morning rehearsing ways to bring Joanie around to the idea of resuming filming, Hal was more than a little surprised when she opened her front door and announced, “I’m ready for you to bring the camera back. Under certain conditions. Well, really only one condition. No crew. I want only one camera and you’re the only one behind it.”

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

  One camera and no crew would make his job tougher, but if that was what it took to get production back under way, so be it.

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “Minerva’s coming for a visit,” she said, setting her lips into a line.

  “You’re kidding,” he said. “Minerva is coming here? To Seattle?”

  “Her train arrives in about an hour. Avery and Walt just left for the station. They’re going to swing by and get Trina along the way. Apparently, Walt’s not the only one who’s eager to meet his notorious grandmother. I hope they don’t end up regretting it,” she said in a voice that made Hal think she meant the opposite.

  He was disappointed to have just missed Avery and Walt. Film of Minerva meeting her grandchildren for the very first time would have been documentary gold. For a moment he toyed with the idea of hopping into his car and going down to King Street Station to capture the moment. But in the face of her mother’s impending arrival, Joanie had a lot on her mind as well and with the house empty, Hal knew she needed to talk. The only problem was, he didn’t have his camera with him.

  As he was about to say he needed to run back to the apartment and pick up his equipment, Joanie said, “Hungry? I just pulled a loaf of banana bread out of the oven. I put in extra walnuts, just for you.” He followed her into the kitchen.

  This would be the last time, he promised himself, their last undocumented conversation. From here on out, everything Joanie and her sisters said or did would be recorded on tape, fodder for his film. But anxious as he was to get to the red meat of this movie, he knew he was going to miss these talks. Just as he knew that their relationship was about to change.

  Lynn was right. No more softballs. He had a movie to make, a job to do. If Joanie and the others got hurt in the process of him doing it . . . Well, that’s what they signed up for. Joanie understood the risks involved and she’d cashed his checks anyway. But why the sudden change of heart?

  “Because of Walt,” she said, handing him a plate with two thick slices of warm, crumbly banana bread slathered with melting butter. “He wants to know his grandmother, to understand where he comes from. Can I deny him that opportunity? If I tried, he’d only come to resent me for it. He’s not a baby anymore. I can’t shield him from everything, can I?

  “But if Minerva insists on coming here, invading my territory and disrupting our lives, then I want it all on film. I’m not going to give her a chance to lie, rewrite history, or try to take it all back later.”

  “Fair enough. Cameras don’t lie,” Hal said, and shoved another piece of the warm banana bread into his mouth. “Hey, as long as we’re telling the truth, why is this stuff so good?” he asked, licking melting butter from his fingers. “What do you put in it? It’s like some kind of banana bread crack.”

  “Sour cream. Makes it moist. And I put in a little extra cinnamon, too, plus some ground cardamom.”

  “Well, it’s incredible. Why aren’t you having any?”

  “I’m dieting.” He gave her a look and she said, “No, really. I’m serious this time. I’ve got to fit into my wedding dress.”

  “Your what?”

  Hal choked on surprise and a chunk of walnut. Joanie grabbed a glass from the cupboard, quickly filling it with water.

  “I’m okay,” he rasped, his eyes watering as he waved off her attempts to pound his back. “Went down the wrong pipe. Now, what was it you were saying? Your wedding dress?”

  “Not my wedding dress. Just the dress I want to wear to the wedding.”

  “Who’s getting married?”

  “Meg,” she said distractedly, putting the bread knife into the sink and brushing crumbs from the countertop. “And Asher. They’re going to renew their vows during the Memorial Day barbecue, reenact everything as close to the original ceremony as possible. Didn’t I tell you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Guess I’ve got a lot on my mind. And so much to do before the wedding. That reminds me; could I get your help with something?”

  * * *


  The attic, entered via a sharply angled ladder that pulled out of the upstairs ceiling, smelled like paper, dust, and mothballs and was so dark Hal could barely see his hand in front of his face.

  “The light pull is in the middle of the room,” Joanie advised, calling up to him from the bottom of the ladder. “Just walk about five steps straight ahead and you should find it.”

  Hal took a tentative step forward, feeling his way with the toe of his shoe. “Hey, are there mice up here?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Hate mice.” He took another step forward, searching for the light pull, his hands sweeping and groping through the darkness like he was playing blind man’s bluff.

  “Definitely no mice,” she assured him. “Maybe a few spiders.”

  “Hate those too.”

  The light pull, a single piece of string that felt a lot like a spider web, hit Hal in the face. He let out a startled yawp and flapped his hands in front of his face.

  “Found it,” he said, ignoring the sound of Joanie’s laughter. He tugged on the string, illuminating the attic, which was a lot roomier than he’d supposed.

  “You are a deeply disturbed woman,” Hal said when Joanie’s head popped through the hole in the floor. “Even your attic is organized. Look at this!”

  He spread out his hands to encompass the rows of matching and neatly stacked boxes, arranged according to size, and various pieces of furniture, artwork, and equipment, all shrouded by white dust covers.

  “When you take down your Christmas decorations, I bet you test every string of lights, replace the missing bulbs, and coil them into neat little bundles before you put them away, don’t you?”

  “That way they’re all ready to use the next year.” Joanie climbed off the ladder and dusted off the legs of her jeans.

  “Okay, you are never allowed to come to my apartment. Ever. So,” he said, clapping his hands together, “what are we looking for?”

  “Pictures. All of Meg and Asher’s photo albums were lost in their house fire, so they don’t have any pictures of their wedding. I’m hoping there might be a couple of shots up here somewhere, anything I can use to help re-create the original bouquet, the table decorations, and the food—that kind of thing.”

  She walked to the center of the room and put her hands on her hips, frowning. “I haven’t been up here for years, Walt always brings down the Christmas stuff for me, but I think the pre-2000 boxes are over in that corner.”

  “You mean you didn’t label them by individual years?”

  “Not until 2006. Wish I’d thought of it sooner. What?” she asked when he shook his head. “I have a system.”

  He lifted his hands. “Not saying a thing. Systems are good.”

  “Darn straight they are,” she grumbled.

  Hal pulled the upper boxes from the stacks and set them on the floor so Joanie could start searching through them. For all her declarations about being in a hurry, when Joanie opened the first box and found it filled with Walt’s old baby clothes, Hal realized this might take some time.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, holding up a teeny pair of red corduroy bib overalls. “I’d almost forgotten! Can you believe Walt actually used to fit into these? Sixteen years . . . Seems more like sixteen minutes.” She sighed, folded the overalls, and put them back into the box. “Those were the first clothes I ever made for him.”

  “Who taught you to sew anyway?” Hal asked. “That doesn’t seem like it would have been Minerva’s thing.”

  “I taught myself. When I bought the house the old owner left behind a sewing machine and cabinet, a 1948 Singer—”

  “That old-fashioned black one you have in the corner of your sewing room?”

  “That’s right. For three months, I used it as a sofa table—I didn’t know there was a machine inside. But I was rearranging furniture and I realized it was pretty heavy for a table that size. I opened the lid and found the machine inside, still working perfectly. The timing was perfect too. I had a houseful of naked windows and no money to buy drapes. I found ten yards of blue gingham in a bin at the thrift store and made curtains out of it. Until that moment, I’d never so much as sewn on a button. Couldn’t have been simpler—I stitched a hem on the bottom, folded over the top, and stitched that to make a rod pocket—but you wouldn’t believe how many times I ripped out the seams. But when I finally hung them up I was so proud. Silly.” She laughed softly. “I felt like I’d really accomplished something.”

  “But you did,” Hal countered. “You taught yourself something completely new and you stuck with it even though it was hard. Now you’re such an expert that you can make your living sewing. Not a lot of people have that kind of determination.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged. “It might just have been my perfectionist streak kicking in. Or because Minerva practically stenciled the words ‘failure is not an option’ on my nursery room walls. Or, I might just be stubborn.”

  “You are that,” Hal said, pulling another box from the stack. “I’ve never had anybody tell me no so many times and with such conviction. You’re better at setting boundaries than anybody I know.”

  Joanie opened another box and pulled out a stack of three-ring binders. “Well. Maybe there’s a silver lining to everything. Even having Minerva for a mother.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that you wouldn’t be who you are today if not for Minerva.”

  “Yeah? And what’s so great about that?” she quipped, flipping through one of the binders.

  Watching her face, Hal had to fight back the urge to say, Everything.

  “Tax returns from 1998 to 2004,” she mused, unaware of his gaze. “Complete with copies of every single receipt arranged by date. Pfft. Think we can probably get rid of these.” She closed up the box and tilted her head toward him. “Don’t say it. I already know. I’m a total whack job.”

  He swallowed the witty retort that came to his mind, reminding himself that his mission was to uncover the facts, not flirt with Joanie, and put the box on the floor next to her.

  “How do you feel about Minerva’s showing up after all this time? Are you even a little bit glad to see her?”

  Joanie shoved the box aside. “Not an atom’s worth of glad. I’m only doing this for Walt. Hey, do you mind going through the boxes over in that corner?” she asked, pointing. “If you find anything besides pictures, just close it back up and don’t tell me. If I keep taking trips down Memory Lane every time I uncover another artifact we’ll never get out of here.”

  She opened another box.

  “Oh! Will you look at this? The macaroni necklace Walt made for me in kindergarten. He painted the noodles blue because it’s my favorite color. Aww . . . He was such a sweetie. I should have had ten more just like him.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Hal asked, tearing the tape from a box that turned out to be filled with old sheet music.

  “Have more kids? It’s not easy raising even one child when you’re single, let alone two or three. For all her faults, I really don’t know how Minerva did it.”

  “You could have gotten married. Didn’t you ever want to?”

  “I have Walt. He’s all I need.”

  He recognized that clipped tone she hadn’t used with him for some time, the one that signaled the raising of invisible barricades. A few days before, even as recently as yesterday, he’d have backed off. Now he couldn’t.

  “What about Walt’s dad? Why didn’t you ask him for help?”

  “Because I didn’t know who the father was. I told you before. I was seeing a couple of different guys.”

  “Okay, but a couple isn’t the same as an army—there couldn’t have been that many candidates. You could have gotten a paternity test, forced him to help pay the bills.”

  “I decided we’d be better off on our own.”

  “Like Minerva?”

  Tearing the tape from another box, he paused to look at her, expecting to see that familiar flash of anger in her eyes. What he saw instead was disappo
intment. Whether with herself or with him he couldn’t say, but he knew he’d wounded her and that burned more deeply than her anger ever could.

  “I’m sorry . . . I only meant . . . You’re both strong women. You did what you had to do.”

  “It’s not the same. Minerva planned it, every minute of our lives from conception on, because she wanted to be in control. I was trying to make up for the one time in my life when things went out of control. I did what I did so that everyone, that Walt could live as happy and normal a life as possible.” She stood up, looking down at him. The betrayal he saw in her eyes pierced him.

  “It’s not the same.”

  She walked to the ladder and climbed quickly down, ignoring his apology and disappearing into the hole in the attic floor. Hal stood up and called her name, starting after her. Stepping across the box he’d just opened, he glanced down and noticed there were pictures inside. He squatted down on the floor, folded back the box flaps, and began rifling through the contents. With any luck, he might locate a couple of snapshots from Meg and Asher’s wedding that he could use as a peace offering to Joanie.

  Luck was with him.

  Near the bottom of the box he found three photos. The first showed Meg and Asher standing behind a table and cutting into a three-tier cake topped by fresh pink roses instead of the traditional bride and groom figurines. The second was of Meg and Joanie together, arms around each other’s waists as Joanie triumphantly waved a bouquet of pink roses and ivory sweet peas over her head—had Joanie caught the bridal bouquet? The third was of the ceremony itself and showed Meg and Asher from the back, looking toward the blue-suited minister—or perhaps a justice of the peace?—while Joanie, in silhouette and holding a single pink rose, stood witness to her sister’s vows.

  He laid the picture in the flat of his hand, careful not to leave fingerprints. Joanie was younger, no doubt about it. Her hair was longer and she was a little thinner—though not as much as all her moaning about the need to lose weight would have led Hal to believe. Time and troubles hadn’t yet etched that little indentation that appeared between her brows when she was bothered into a permanent line.