Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [111]
“Now, Mother,” Lyle countered as he cast an amused glance at Mom, “a bullet that both enters and exits your shoulder is more than a flesh wound – ”
“Well, son, having been the one who was shot, I should know. . . .”
As the three of them bantered about Tillie’s wound, I took one last look at Daddy. I felt as though I should say something else, one last parting statement, but I had no more words.
I patted my jeans pocket, not the one I’d taken the candy wrappers from but the other one. Tucked deep inside was the necklace Daddy had given me for Christmas. That, I was going to keep. Not for any sentimental reason, but as a reminder. If I was going to survive in this world, I had to understand that not everything I wanted to be true was true, and not everything that looked good was good.
I moved to the hall and took Tillie’s hand. “Come on, Tillie,” I said, “let’s get out of here.”
Tillie squeezed my fingers and smiled. “Now you’re talking, Roz,” she said. “Lead the way. I’m right behind you.”
epilogue
Tillie lived for another three years in the house on McDowell Street, long enough to see Mom and Lyle get married and long enough to greet her grandson, my brother, Ross Monroe. Tillie said Ross looked just like his namesake, the grandfather he would never know . . . at least not this side of paradise. “But when I see him again,” Tillie promised the baby, “I’ll tell him you’re here. He’ll be proud to know that.”
Certainly his other grandfather, Grandpa Lehman, was proud of him, calling Ross the gem that rose up out of the ashes, the little man who sailed in after the storm. Gramps had offered to move us out of the house after the shooting, “So you don’t have to live with the memories,” he said. But Mom said no, she wanted to stay. She had a feeling good things were in store for us there, and she was right, the birth of Ross some two years later being one of the happiest events.
Wally came home from Vietnam shortly before Ross was born. When he came back from his tour over there, he was a different person, and that in a good way. Much of the anger was gone, not because it had been spent on the battlefield, I think, but because the threat of Daddy had disappeared from our lives. Wally said he finally felt safe. No more North Vietnamese Army, no more Vietcong guerillas, and no more Alan Anthony. For the first time in a long time, Wally was at peace.
And so was Mom. I’ll never forget the evening she called me away from my homework, asking me to join her downstairs in the living room. When I arrived, everyone else was already there: Tillie, Wally, and Valerie. Mom was on the couch with baby Ross in her arms, her husband, Lyle, beside her.
“What is it, Mom?” I asked.
“Are we in trouble or something?” Wally added.
Mom shook her head. “No, you’re not in trouble. I just wanted to look at you. I just wanted to have you all right here in the same room at the same time.”
“Okay.” Wally shrugged, took another bite out of the apple he was eating. “As long as we’re not in trouble.”
Mom’s eyes moved over each of us, one at a time. She gazed lovingly at the sleeping baby in her arms, then reached for Lyle’s hand. “God has been good to us,” she said quietly.
“Indeed,” Lyle said.
We were quiet for a time and didn’t even feel awkward about it. We shared an almost tangible gratitude that we were all there and all together.
Finally Tillie said, “This house is happy again. I can feel it in my bones. Can’t you, Lyle?” She looked at Lyle, who smiled and nodded. “It was built for a family,” Tillie went on, “and now it’s satisfied.”
We really were family now, as Tillie was Mom’s mother-in-law and my brother Ross’s grandmother. And my grandmother too, mother of my stepfather, Lyle, who I didn’t think of as my stepfather at all but as my daddy. Now I knew how Mara felt about Willie Nightingale.