Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [102]
“It’s what we’ve been praying for,” I reminded her.
“Yeah.”
I was trying to hold on to my excitement, but Mara wasn’t making it easy for me. “You don’t seem very happy for me,” I said.
“It’s just that . . .” She hesitated, her words trailing off.
“What, Mara?”
“It’s just a feeling I’ve got.”
“About what?”
“Your daddy. And this whole thing.”
“You still don’t think I can trust him, do you?”
“I don’t know. Like I said before, I don’t know your daddy.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You don’t know him. He’s a good man. He took Lyle Monroe to the hospital and stayed with him all night when he didn’t have to.”
Mara nodded. “I know. You told me that.”
“He’s every bit as good as your father.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t.”
“Then what are you saying?”
She gave me back the note and leaned forward a little. “I still think you should have told your mom.”
“That would ruin everything.”
Her jaw worked again. “Did you hear back from your uncle Joe yet?”
I shook my head, reluctantly, and flopped back in my seat. “I haven’t mailed the letter yet.”
Her eyes widened. “You haven’t? What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know, Mara. I just . . .” I looked at the desk, the ceiling, the rows of books stretching out beside us. Anywhere but at Mara. “I don’t know,” I finished lamely.
“You’re afraid of finding out the truth.”
“No I’m not!”
“Yes you are.”
Our eyes met then, locking angrily. After a tense moment she said, “Mail the letter, Roz. You still have two weeks.”
I slipped Daddy’s note back into my pocket, gathered my books, and stood up. “I’ve got to go.”
Mara said something, but I didn’t catch it, and I didn’t look back as I headed for the door.
chapter
44
On Friday afternoon when I got home from school, I found Tillie in the kitchen making a pot of chicken soup. “Is that for supper?” I asked.
“Nope.” Tillie shook her head as she stirred rice into the pot. “It’s for Lyle. Johnny drove him home from the hospital this afternoon.”
“So he’s all right?”
“He’s fine. He’ll need to rest a few more days before going back to work at the hardware store, though.”
“I didn’t know he was working at a hardware store.”
Tillie nodded absently. “Just until he can get a teaching job.” She lifted a spoonful of soup to her lips, blew on it, tasted it, added more salt. “I thought a little homemade chicken soup would help him get his strength back. I’m going to take it to him tonight. Esther Kinshaw is coming over in a little while to stay with you and Valerie.”
“What about Mom?”
“She’s coming with me.”
“She is?”
Another nod. “She’d like to see Lyle, and we’d both like to thank that Mr. Knutson for what he did. That is, if he’s there tonight.”
My heart dropped to my toes. In my mind’s eye I saw myself running through the snowy streets of Mills River, beating a path across the miles from McDowell Street to Cisco Avenue so I could warn Daddy not to be at the boardinghouse tonight. But I couldn’t run that far, not in the cold, not even without the cold . . . not even in a million years. If I could have, I would have called him at work, but I didn’t know where he was working, or even whether he was working. But I had to warn him somehow that Mom was coming, because if I didn’t . . .
“Tillie?”
“Yes, Roz?”
“I don’t feel so good.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and laid one cool palm across my forehead. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s my stomach.” I clasped both hands across my midsection. “I have a stomachache.”
“Hmm . . . well, I can give you some bicarbonate of soda. That should help.”
I shook my head. “I think I’d better lie down.”
“It’s probably just a little indigestion. What’d you eat for lunch?”
I tried to think back that far. Lunch seemed years ago. “We had . . . oh yeah, meatloaf and mashed potatoes.”
“That explains it,” Tillie said knowingly. “No telling what the ladies down at the school cafeteria put in their meatloaf. I’ve known the head cook, Thelma, ever since she was born. Did you know she failed home economics back in . . . now what year was that? . . . she was in Paul’s class, I believe, and it was the year they