Promises to Keep Read online

  I moved forward, peering into every empty booth along the wall until finally, as I suspected, I found him in the last one. He sat there with his back to the door, hunched over the predicted cup of coffee, an ashtray on the table just beyond his right hand. It was full of cigarette butts, crisscrossed and crushed, like a pile of fallen soldiers after battle. One lighted cigarette lay in the crevice of the ashtray, wispy smoke rising as it gave up the ghost. Daddy must have gone through a whole pack just waiting for me to arrive.

  I cleared my throat and tried to find my voice. “Daddy?”

  He turned, and seeing me, his eyes filled first with joyful recognition followed by something like gratitude.

  “You came, Roz,” he said. I could smell the smoke on his breath and in his clothes. He only chain-smoked when he was nervous, and I wondered briefly if he was as afraid of seeing me as I was of seeing him. He might have been afraid, but he managed a smile as he waved toward the bench seat across the table. “Sit down, sweetheart. I ordered you a chocolate milk shake. I knew you’d like that.”

  I noticed then the tall beveled glass that sat there waiting, like Daddy, for someone who might not come. The head of whipped cream had melted and was sliding in tiny avalanches down the side, leaving white puddles on the table. The plump maraschino cherry floated in the milky swamp like a toppled boat. A paper straw leaned against the inner lip of the glass, looking shipwrecked itself.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” I said quietly.

  “Well, go on, Roz. Have a seat and drink it.”

  I did as I was told, sliding into the booth and dropping my books on the seat beside me. I took off my mittens and unwrapped the scarf from around my neck. I unbuttoned my coat but left it on.

  Pulling the milk shake toward me, I leaned forward and sucked on the straw while studying Daddy’s face. “You grew a mustache since I saw you at the library,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Daddy chuckled softly. “Like it?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so. You look different.”

  “Uh-huh.” The coffee cup shivered slightly in his hands as he raised it to his lips. When he’d settled the cup back in the saucer, he asked, “Listen, Roz, did you tell anyone I was here?”

  I shook my head without letting go of the straw. I didn’t want to lie out loud.

  He took a deep breath while his index finger traveled the rim of the saucer. Suddenly he blurted, “I’ve missed you something terrible, Little Rose.”

  I lowered my eyes, pulled the shake closer to me.

  “I want you back, honey,” he went on. “You and Valerie and your mom. I can’t live without you.”

  I let go of the straw then but didn’t look up. “You knew we’d come here, didn’t you?”

  “Where else? Of course your grandfather would help your mother get away from me. But listen, I understand why he did. I really do.” He reached across the table. I dropped my hand to my lap before he could catch it. “Roz, I know I drank too much. I know it. I know I did some things that . . .” He stopped, shook his head. “Like I told you, I’m making some changes. I’m not going to drink anymore.”

  I bit my lip, ventured a glance in his direction. His brown eyes pleaded with me. He reached into the left breast pocket of his flannel shirt and withdrew his pack of Marlboros. His fingers trembled slightly as he lifted yet another cigarette to his lips. An index finger went back into the pocket to fish out a lighter. He flicked the lighter once, twice, three times, but no flame appeared. He patted both shirt pockets as though in search of matches, then gave up and put both lighter and cigarette aside.

  “Your mother,” he said abruptly. “How is she?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “She’s working,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah. She’s working at Grandma Marie’s store. She’s there right now.”

  He nodded, seemed to study his hands clutched together on the tabletop. “And Valerie? She doing okay?”

  “She’s fine, Daddy.”

  He let out his breath. “I can’t tell you, Roz, how much I miss that baby girl. I bet she’s grown just since I’ve seen her last, hasn’t she?”

  I wasn’t sure she’d changed all that much, but I nodded anyway.

  “I want to see her grow up, Roz. You and Valerie both. I want to see the two of you grow up.”

  I didn’t say anything. A thick silence hung between us.

  “Listen,” Daddy said finally, “you want something to eat? A hot dog or something?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You know, they’ve got the best dogs in town here,” he said, smiling briefly. “I should know. I eat here pretty often.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. Here or . . . well, never mind.”

  “Daddy?”

  He looked at me expectantly.

  “Do you live here too now? I mean, in Mills River?”

  He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he looked around the café and said, “You know what this place reminds me of?”

  I shook my head.

  “No? You remember Sweet Pete’s, don’t you? That ice cream parlor up in Linden Hills where I used to take you and the boy for ice cream – ”

  “You mean Wally?”

  “And you’d always get that hot fudge sundae with the peppermint ice cream. Remember that?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Those were good times, weren’t they? I mean, we had some good times together, didn’t we?”

  “Sure, Daddy.” I liked the way he smiled at that, so I added, “And it was fun when you took us swimming at Lake Calhoun too.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, tapping the table with one finger. “You remember that, right? That sandy little beach on the north shore of the lake, not far from the boat rental place, remember?”

  I shrugged. “Sure, Daddy, I remember all right.”

  “We had good times, didn’t we, Little Rose?”

  I nodded and he smiled again. He leaned closer to me and said, “Listen, how’s school? Is the school any good here?”

  I thought a moment before saying, “Well, yeah, it seems like an okay school to me. I’m doing good. Not so good in math, but good in everything else.”

  “That’s my girl. And listen, you doing okay otherwise? I mean, you’re all right, aren’t you?”

  I almost said yes until I remembered what was coming up. “I have to get my tonsils out.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ve been having sore throats, and the doctor decided it was time for my tonsils to go.”

  “So when are you getting them out?”

  “Friday.”

  “This Friday?”

  I nodded. Daddy’s eyes veered off toward the wall, and his lips moved slightly, as though he were calculating something. Then he said, “That’s October the twenty-seventh.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I’m kind of scared, Daddy.”

  “Ah now, Roz. Don’t worry.” He reached for my hand again, which had sneaked out from under the table. I let him cover it with his own. “Listen, you might have had them out two weeks ago, on Friday the thirteenth. Then I wouldn’t have been so sure. But the twenty-seventh, that’s not a bad luck day, huh? So nothing to worry about.”

  Daddy had a system of bad luck and good luck days, the most obvious of which was Friday the thirteenth, which was definitely a bad luck day. I can remember him refusing to go to the job site, calling in sick rather than taking a chance of being hurt or even killed in a construction accident whenever the thirteenth fell on a Friday. But Daddy didn’t stop there. He had a complicated and, to me, incomprehensible system of determining good and bad luck days, though Mom called it all nonsense and refused to pay attention to his calculations. Not long before Mom decided to leave him, Wally and I heard her say that with Alan Anthony, no day was a good day. They were all bad luck days, every single one.

  “Besides,” Daddy went on, “there’s nothing to it. It’s no worse than getting a tooth pulled.”
r />   “You don’t have to go to the hospital to get a tooth pulled,” I argued.

  “Listen, Roz, I wish I could be there for you, but don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

  He squeezed my hand tight, and I found myself squeezing back. “Do you really think so, Daddy?”

  He caught my gaze and held it. “Little Rose,” he said gently, “do you think I’d lie to you?”

  I hesitated just a moment before saying, “No, I guess not.”

  He smiled. “You’ll be fine. And afterward you can meet me here, and I’ll buy you another chocolate milk shake. How does that sound?”

  “Good, I guess.” I took a long, pensive sip of the shake before asking, “Daddy, do you really think we’ll all be together again?”

  He looked at me for a long moment, his face stony. Then nodding slowly, he said, “I’m going to make it work this time, Roz. I want you to believe that.” He laced his fingers together and leaned forward over the table. “Listen, about the drinking, I know what it does to me. I know. And that’s why I’m not drinking anymore. I swear to you, Roz, I haven’t had a drink since you all left Minnesota and came down here.”

  “Really?” I asked, my voice thin.

  “Really, Roz. Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He opened it and laid it on the table in front of me. “This is from the last AA meeting I went to. I brought it along just to show you I’m going. The group meets at a church in Wheaton, so I’m going over there as often as I can.”

  I pulled the paper closer and looked it over. Sure enough, it seemed to be an agenda for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, including the topic of discussion, the words to the Serenity Prayer, and a notice of upcoming events.

  “If getting you back means no more drinking,” Daddy went on, “so be it. I’m done with all that. You’ve got to believe me.”

  With the proof of his going to AA right there on the table between us, I gave him an agreeable nod. “I believe you, Daddy,” I told him.

  The door to the café opened, letting in a gust of cold air. We could feel the cold all the way at the back of the cafe. Daddy shivered as he glanced at the huge clock on the wall above the counter. “I’d better go, Roz,” he said.

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  “You have a way to get home?”

  “I’m going to walk over to Marie’s and ride home with Mom.”

  Daddy slid out of the bench, dropping a five-dollar bill on the table as he stood. He lifted his jacket off the seat and put it on. Latching the zipper, he said, “I’ll see you again soon, Roz. And listen, everything is going to be all right. I promise you that. But if you say anything to your mother, or to anyone at all, you’ll ruin everything. I can trust you not to tell, can’t I?”

  A small lump rose in my throat. “I won’t tell, Daddy.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “That’s my Little Rose.”

  He leaned over, cupped my face in his hands, and kissed my forehead. When he did, something – some small persistent rumbling in my mind – told me not to trust him. But something else, some far louder voice in my heart, told me that was silly, that of course I could accept my daddy’s words as truth.

  I looked up at Daddy and smiled. My father would be coming home, and all would be well.

  chapter

  22

  Tom Barrows stopped by the house the night before I was scheduled to get my tonsils out. He showed up without warning just as we were sitting down for dinner, so of course Mom invited him to join us.

  “Tillie,” Mom said as she bustled back to the kitchen, “let’s move to the dining room table so there’s room for everyone.”

  “All right, Janis,” Tillie agreed. “I’ll get the place mats out.”

  “But, Mom,” I complained, “I just finished setting the kitchen table.”

  “Well, Roz, just get it un-set and take – ”

  “Never mind, Mom,” Wally cut in. “He can sit at my place. I’ll take a plate up to my room and eat there.”

  “Oh no, Wally. I won’t have you doing that. You need to eat here with the rest of us.”

  “Yeah, well, no thanks.” He gave Tom Barrows a grumpy look, served himself up a plate of pork chops and potatoes, and headed for the stairs.

  “Wally!” Mom called.

  “Let him go,” Tillie said. “He’ll poison the atmosphere if he stays, and then we’ll all lose our appetites. These pork chops cost fifty-nine cents a pound, and I won’t have them wasted.”

  Mom cast apologetic eyes at our visitor. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

  “It’s all right, Janis. I was a teenaged boy myself once. I know how it is.”

  Tillie snorted out a laugh as she untied her apron and laid it over the back of her chair. “You were a teenager twenty years ago, Tom. Today’s young men would make the worst of your lot look like a bunch of altar boys, hair all slicked down and shoes all spit-polished to a shine.”

  “What do you mean, Tillie?” Mom asked, looking stricken.

  “You know exactly what I mean, Janis. Look at the world these kids are facing. What with the war and the hippies and all the drugs and this . . . this . . . this so-called sexual revolution,” Tillie sputtered. “ ‘Make love, not war,’ they say, when heaven knows they’re far too young to be making either one – ”

  “Tillie,” Mom interrupted, casting a glance at me.

  “Something’s happening to this country, and it isn’t good,” Tillie went on, undeterred. “Something’s happening, and it’s happening fast.”

  The five of us were seated now, with warm serving dishes being passed from hand to hand. Tom Barrows spooned a mountain of mashed potatoes onto his plate with a swift flick of his wrist. “People have lost their civility,” he said.

  “Oh, they’ve lost a whole lot more than that,” Tillie argued. “They’ve lost their faith, and that’s the problem right there.”

  “Their faith in what?” Mom asked.

  “Why, their faith in everything, Janis. Everything. It’s like an anchor’s been cut, and the whole country’s drifting, just drifting without any clear direction. It’s as though no one knows where to go or even whether there is anywhere to go or if we’re all just sailing along for no apparent reason. So our young men, who are supposed to be our up-and-coming leaders, mind you, they’re all tuning themselves out like Timothy Leary and getting high on that marijuana tobacco and singing about some answer that’s blowing in the wind. Blowing in the wind, my foot! The answer’s plain as day, and it’s blowing right over their long-haired heads.” To demonstrate, she drew an arc in the air from her chin to the back of her head.

  “I’m not sure I’m following – ”

  “And everybody’s angry, in case you haven’t noticed,” Tillie said, cutting Mom off. “The feminists are angry and the Negro folks are angry and the young folks are angry – with Wally a case in point – and the intellectuals are angry – ”

  “Tillie – ”

  “And the artists and the musicians are angry and the politicians are angry, especially the liberals, those fine folks who love all of humanity but can’t stand individual people – ”

  “Well, surely, Tillie – ”

  “And meanwhile everyone’s going around carrying peace signs and calling for peace and singing about peace and being angry about the fact that there’s no peace to be had, while all the while they’re mocking the very one, the only one, mind you, who can give them peace, and that’s the Lord.” By now Tillie was viciously buttering a piece of bread, and when she finished, she slammed the knife down on the table. “They mock Him by denying His very existence, but instead of feeling free, they just feel angry because suddenly life doesn’t make sense anymore. They want to be rid of God, and they want life to have meaning anyway, and it just doesn’t work and it makes them angry. And anger kills. I’ve lived long enough to know, and I can see it coming. Anger is going to be right at the heart of the demi
se of this country. America is going to fall, and when we do, we’re not getting back up again.” She paused and looked at each of us – Mom, wide-eyed and perplexed; Tom, blinking heavily behind his glasses; me, who didn’t have a clue what she was carrying on about, though I wondered whether she wasn’t a little bit angry herself.

  Finally Tom Barrows gathered his wits about him and said, “I’m quite sure you’re right about anger, Tillie. It can be very destructive, but – ” he shot a worried look at Mom – “I don’t think the country’s in all that much danger of self-destruction, do you?”

  “I certainly do, Tom,” Tillie said. “Mark my words. America has one foot in the grave and the other on an oil-slicked roller skate, and it’s too late to turn back now.”

  “Well – ” Mom patted her lips with a napkin – “maybe there are more pleasant topics of conversation . . .” She looked around the table, as though frantically searching for one. Landing on me, she exclaimed, “Roz, you haven’t eaten a bite of your supper!”

  I looked down at my plate. She was right; instead of eating I’d been pushing mashed potatoes around with my fork. “I’m not hungry,” I said.

  “You’re not? What’s the matter?”

  “She’s probably nervous,” Tillie noted.

  “Nervous?” Mom cast a questioning glance at me. “What about?”

  Had she forgotten, I wondered?

  “Don’t you remember?” Tillie echoed. “Poor child’s getting her tonsils out tomorrow.”

  “Of course, I know,” Mom said, “but . . . oh, Roz, is that what’s bothering you?”

  I winced and looked away.

  “Well, listen, honey. Everybody gets their tonsils out sooner or later. There’s nothing to it.”

  “That’s right, Roz,” Tom Barrows added, smiling at me as though we actually liked each other. “Don’t worry for even a minute. Very few people die as a result of getting their tonsils out, you know.”