The Promise Between Us

by Barbara Claypole White

  He swallowed a swell of nausea.

  Callum parked on the road, alongside a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. He removed the key from the ignition and placed his hands back on the steering wheel. Sliding them into the noon position, he tightened his grip and stared through the windshield. If danger was coming, from which direction would it approach? He glanced into the overgrown lot with the boarded-up house. A terra-cotta pot sat disintegrating on the stoop. Earthenware shards lay where they had fallen.

  The speech he’d prepared on the drive over fled his brain. It was, he supposed, what happened when you accepted the inevitable. Dear firing squad, lock and load. Or maybe he was having another out-of-body experience—spinning through space with a jet pack of shame. Dissociation and he were old friends. After all, that was his survival mechanism. Katelyn ran; he played possum.

  He exhaled slowly and turned his gaze to the rambling house opposite with the huge front porch that leaned. It spoke of the old South, of heydays long past, of neglect.

  Callum muted his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. Then he exited his car and hit “Lock” on his key fob, hesitated, and hit “Unlock.” Reaching across to the passenger seat, he dragged his bag toward him. He might not be able to protect his family from the approaching storm, but he could keep his laptop safe.

  A muscle car shot down the street, angry music blaring. The back of his neck prickled; the bag tugged on his right shoulder.

  Callum never traveled light.

  Looking both ways, he crossed the street and walked toward Katelyn’s next move. All those years spent trying to erase their marriage, and what if Katelyn sparked something long buried? Even Jake didn’t know that in his dreams, Callum still loved his ex-wife. It wasn’t as if he had learned how to grieve or survive a breakup. They were in love and she vanished; she reappeared, and he had sacrificed her for their daughter.

  Callum walked around to the side of the house, passed a dumpster, and stopped at the bottom of the metal stairs that led up to the second floor. At the top was a small landing with a collection of brightly colored plant pots. If Lilah were here, she would comment on the polished-steel wind chimes hanging from the eaves. She always homed in on people’s details. After faculty social events, she would regale him with every nuance he’d missed. Lilah, his own personal translator.

  He imagined her voice: “What do you think? Should we get some of those wind chimes?” Lilah turned everything into a joint decision. Once she figured out the truth, would there be any more we? How many times did his world have to shatter?

  Grabbing the railing, he began his ascent, one step at a time. When he reached the top, he raised his clenched hand, avoided the hummingbird feeder attached to the glass with suction cups, and knocked. A surprisingly simple gesture that could cost him another marriage.

  The door opened immediately, and there she was.

  He blinked.

  Yes, she was still there.

  She stepped back. Heart hammering as if he were racing his bike, he narrowed the gap between them. Nine years of absence remained. She looked exactly the same and entirely different. She was everything he knew and nothing that was familiar. A stranger in sheep’s clothing.

  Behind him, the door closed, sealing off his exit. The place smelled of old age and damp. On the right was a small bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a plastic shower curtain pulled all the way around. Wooden floorboards creaked as she led him into a spacious room with a high ceiling, crown molding, and a breakfast bar. The furniture was sparse, but the bookcase was full. Strings of white lights had been hung over the double window. Four strands of white lights on the Christmas tree, four strands in the huge fig tree in our bedroom. Always had to be four. Strange fact to remember. Under the window, on what appeared to be an upturned plastic crate, sat a miniature garden with moss, tiny plants, and a pretend patio with a red table and four empty chairs. A perfectly orchestrated, abandoned scene. An old ceiling fan wobbled above them; a dreary metal picture watched him from the opposite wall.

  “This is weird,” she said, and he turned.

  A hint of a smile played on the lips he’d once found irresistible. No lipstick, but thick lines of black gunk outlined her eyes. He’d never seen her hair short. Or with red highlights. Her toenails were painted blue—did she used to wear nail polish?—and she was dressed in denim cutoffs. A silver chain hung down her cleavage and disappeared under the black T-shirt that clung to her breasts. That was the first thing he’d noticed about her in college, her breasts.

  His stomach lurched as if he were hurtling down an elevator shaft headfirst. Any second now, he could smash into concrete and split open.

  “You look . . . different.” Good, he could still speak.

  “And yet you haven’t changed one bit.” She fiddled with the two earrings hanging from her left ear. When did she get the second piercing? “Can I get you something? Coffee? Tea? Vodka?”

  He shook his head. “I’m married.”

  “Remarried.”

  “And my wife is pregnant.”

  “I know. I read your letter.” Katelyn sat down in the fabric moon chair that belonged in a dorm room and gestured toward the futon opposite.

  He sat. A herculean achievement since the futon wasn’t on a frame. It was merely folded over to create a ridiculously low sofa. The coffee table between them was empty except for a vase of blue flowers, the blue of her eyes, and a white envelope. He glanced up from the envelope, its placement too obvious, too deliberate in a room devoid of clutter.

  “Do you need money?” he said.

  “Bit late to offer financial support, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know how to do this, Katelyn.”

  A ghost of a smile. “You think I do?”

  She was eerily calm. Was this how she’d deceived him all those years ago, hidden her illness?

  “How are your parents?” she said, and then started picking at her fingers. Maybe not so calm, then.

  “In Australia on visiting professorships. A last hurrah before retirement.” He took a breath. “Jake told me you want to talk about Maisie, but you have to know, I can’t let you back into her life. She’s trying to connect with Lilah, she’s excited about the baby, she’s—”

  “Wonderful, Cal.” Katelyn gave a real smile. “She’s wonderful. Even her style is unique.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She’s amazing.”

  “’Mazing Maisie. You did a great job raising her.” Katelyn’s smile disappeared. “I’m sorry you had to do it alone.”

  He nodded. “Jake helped.”

  Katelyn nodded. After nine years apart, they could only nod.

  “Please tell me the but that’s coming doesn’t involve a court battle,” he said.

  “You think I would put Maisie through a custody trial?” Below them, a door slammed. “You might not believe this, but she’s always been my priority. I left for her; I stayed away for her. Why do you think I agreed to a divorce?”

  “You didn’t love me anymore?” he said.

  “I always loved you.”

  He stared at the pale-gray rug with the small brownish stain. “Before we talk about Maisie, I need to understand. Why, Katelyn? Why did you leave us?”

  “I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I was dangerous. I thought I would hurt you both. I was sick, Cal, so sick. I didn’t know I could get well. I didn’t know there was a name for what I had. I didn’t know that name wasn’t psychopath.”

  “And now? Are you still sick?”

  “You mean, am I a danger to you or Maisie?”

  “Katelyn . . .” He sighed. “I’m asking how you are.”

  “I’m in a good place. My illness is under control, but seeing Maisie again has triggered”—she reached up to scratch her neck—“issues.”

  “Tell me what happened nine years ago,” he said slowly, one word at a time. No different from climbing the stairs outside her door.

  “I headed toward the mountains. Lived
on the streets, moved through homeless communities where no one expected anything. Mostly I stayed in an old tent someone gave me, hoping I stank so bad that people would stay away. But when Ringo died, I didn’t even care about surviving. I just wanted it to end.”

  “Ringo, he looked after you?”

  “Until the day he died.” She curled deeper into the chair, tucking up her legs in a way that mirrored Maisie. “After that, I moved into a shelter while I planned my suicide. Eventually I tried to throw myself off an overpass, but a Good Samaritan had other ideas. The next thing I knew, I was in the ER. Then they moved me to the psych crisis unit, and one of the psychiatrists diagnosed OCD and depression. All those violent images I had, the ones I tried to tell you about? Classic postpartum OCD.”

  She kept scratching her neck; he wanted to ask her to stop.

  “My compulsions have always been mental. Pure obsessions locked away in my head. Easily hidden, which means you’re off the hook, if you’re worrying about missed warning signs.”

  “But, Katelyn, the night you left, you threatened to”—he swallowed—“torch the house.”

  “No, I didn’t. I told you I had images of doing horrific things I would never do. My mind was stuck in a desperate need to protect Maisie. OCD is like, like, hyper-responsibility. It told me that lamp of hers was a fire hazard. I was trying to explain, and if you’d—”

  “Been more sympathetic?”

  She waved him off. “I’m not assigning blame. There is none, Cal. There’s nothing but human tragedy.”

  “I’m sorry.” Another wave of nausea hit. “What happened after Delaney moved to Asheville?”

  “And you didn’t want me back?”

  “I still loved you, Katelyn, but I had to protect Maisie.”

  “It was a good call.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The black makeup smudged. “I wasn’t fit to be her mother. After I came out of the hospital, I could barely be a sister. I lost another year to my illness, but with Delaney’s help, I pasted myself back together. Five years ago, we moved to Durham so I could work with an artist called Ben Holt, not reclaim my old life. It’s unlikely Maisie and I would have reconnected but for the docent program.”

  Callum turned his new wedding ring around his finger.

  “I will love our daughter until my last breath,” Katelyn said, “but I haven’t earned the right to be part of her life. I hope Lilah has.”

  He tensed. “Please keep Lilah out of the conversation.”

  “I’m not a threat to your new family, and Maisie need never know who I am. But maybe I have one last shot at being her mother, by giving you information that can help her. That’s all I want, Cal. For you to help her. And I wish, with all my heart, that what I’m about to say wasn’t true.” She drew a deep breath. “I think Maisie has OCD. And don’t freak out, but I think Mom had it, too. That means there could be a genetic link.”

  “You said it was postpartum. I heard you say ‘postpartum.’”

  “Since reconnecting with Maisie, I’ve started looking back. Questioning odd behavior—mine and my mother’s. I think the OCD was there, dormant but with a wick, and Maisie’s birth was the match. As a child, I couldn’t handle spontaneity. I had this overwhelming fear Mom would die, and . . . And remember how I couldn’t cope with traffic delays, and how everything had to be just so? That was OCD building its strength.”

  “This is ridiculous. After limited interaction with our daughter, you’re diagnosing her like an armchair psychologist? Maisie is a confident, happy child.” His breathing sped up; he was panting hard. “She doesn’t wash her hands until they bleed. She’s not a neat freak.”

  “There’s nothing neat about obsessive-compulsive disorder, Cal. It means getting kicked to the ground by an invisible force that won’t stop, no matter how much you plead. And even if you find the strength to drag yourself up onto all fours to think, hope, pray you can keep going, it pummels you over and over.”

  “Don’t go there, Katelyn.” He struggled to stand, to get up from the stupid futon that was so damn low. He needed to get out of this white room filled with the heat of the afternoon before he vomited.

  Katelyn kept talking, her voice a distant echo. “I don’t expect you to understand how it feels to be paralyzed by fear. But OCD is a hardcore news cycle that runs on a twenty-four-hour schedule of horror.”

  “I understand better than you think.” He swallowed the taste of puke. I know what real monsters look like. Not the invisible kind.

  “Does she have night terrors, nightmares, disturbed sleep patterns?”

  “Every kid has—”

  “The bastard can find her even in sleep. I’ve watched her, Cal. I’ve talked with her. And I’m telling you, she has OCD.”

  “You’ve talked to her about this?”

  “When Maisie and I met at CAM, I had an anxiety attack. I told her I have a voice inside my head. She told me she has one, too. That’s OCD.”

  On the other side of the window, a black helicopter buzzed low in the cloudless sky. Callum hugged himself.

  “You shared. Intimate details. Of your mental illness. With a young girl. Who thinks Katie Mack. Is a superhero.” If he spoke in bite-size pieces, maybe rage wouldn’t tear him apart. “Did you consider she might be eager to impress?”

  “Jake agrees with me,” Katelyn said.

  “You think Maisie told Jake something she hasn’t told me? She tells me everything.”

  “No, I’m saying he suspects, which is why he agreed to mediate this meeting.” She stood up and handed him the envelope. When he refused to take it, she slipped it into his bag. “In there you’ll find a list of local child psychologists who are experts in the field. Please, for Maisie’s sake, contact one of them.”

  “Maisie is a mentally healthy child. She’s not vulnerable in any way. She doesn’t have disturbing thoughts. She makes up ghost stories, for goodness’ sake.”

  “If she’s hardwired for full-blown OCD, Maisie has two big triggers looming—end of elementary school and a new sibling. What if they’re enough to wake up the beast the way pregnancy did with me?”

  “I don’t have to listen to this.” He glanced at his watch. “I need to get back to campus. You are not to meet with her again unsupervised. Do you understand?”

  “I’ll do whatever you ask if you’ll agree to contact one of those doctors. And I can help, if you’ll let me.”

  “I haven’t needed your help in nine years, Katelyn. What I do need is for you to stay away from my family.”

  He walked toward the door. As he reached for the doorknob, she spoke.

  “This is my world, Cal. And I promise you, it’s going to get worse.”

  He slammed the door and found himself on the metal landing, alone. This time there was no misreading her words. Katelyn had issued a clear threat.

  FIFTEEN

  LILAH

  The witching hour brought moonlight in through wooden blinds that had been another decorating miss. Wasn’t it hard enough to stay asleep through the heat of pregnancy? But now—at three o’clock in the friggin’ morning—she had to contend with her husband cracking his knuckles? Lilah kicked off the sheet. Callum, naked but for a pair of boxer briefs, collapsed in the floral armchair that screamed, The first wife chose me.

  “Couldn’t sleep again?” she said.

  “Sorry.” He jolted up, a sheen of sweat on his chest. The ceiling fan ruffled his hair. “Did I wake you?”

  “No,” she lied. “Baby MacD seems to think it’s time for spring training. Come back to bed. I miss you.” She reached over to pat the empty space.

  Callum walked to his side of the bed and spooned behind her. While she wrestled with the body pillow he’d given her, one arm circled her mountainous belly.

  “I love you so much.” He brushed her hair aside and rested his chin on her shoulder.

  But you don’t have to keep chanting it like a spell. Great, now her inner chatter had become catty. Sleep deprivation was turn
ing her into a harridan.

  “I love you, too, but I wish you’d talk to me.” She raised his palm to her mouth.

  His muscles tensed under her lips. “About?”

  “Whatever has you prowling around our bedroom for a third night in a row. Is it Maisie?”

  “Everyone thinks I’m a good dad.”

  “With excellent reason. You’re the most competent parent in the history of parenting. You know when to be silly, when to be serious. You have endless patience, set clear boundaries, on it goes. If they handed out dad-of-the-year rosettes at the state fair, you’d have ten, lined up in a neat row on the mantelpiece.”

  His breath tickled her skin. “But I make it up as I go along.”

  “I was hoping that was the definition of parenting. If it isn’t, I’m screwed.”

  Callum covered her neck with butterfly kisses. “You’re going to be such a great mom.”

  Going to be, not are. A fact that she couldn’t debate, and Lilah was all about facts. At least she used to be, before hurtling into Callum and Maisie’s life as if she were an arrow that couldn’t fly straight.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, my attempts to parent your daughter have not been successful.”

  “Our daughter. Yours and mine.”

  “Your daughter, my stepdaughter. Those four extra letters will always spell out exotic other. Or in my case, not the real mother.” Letting out an “Oof,” she managed a three-step roll to face him, despite the maternity sleep shirt that fought against her. Could Callum see the big white letters stretched across her ginormous boobs that read You Did This to Me?

  “She’s never really had a mother. You’re her first and only.”

  “Repeating something doesn’t make it true. And much as I appreciate the vote of confidence, Maisie talks about her real mom nonstop. And Jake talks about Katelyn as if she were a paragon of motherly virtue.”

  “Jake did that for Maisie’s benefit when she was little. Now we’re stuck with the myth.” Callum flopped onto his back. “I loved Katelyn, but something happened to her after Maisie was born, and neither of us understood. At least not back then. With hindsight I realize she had serious emotional problems.”