Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [44]
“Daddy?” I lifted a hand to his cheek, as though I had to touch him to make sure he was real.
He smiled, nodded. “I’m here, Roz.”
His skin was rough and warm. My palm tingled from his days’ growth of whiskers even after I dropped my hand. “But how – ”
He laid a finger to my lips. “No questions. Not now. We have so little time, but I wanted to see you.”
I was still struggling to catch my breath. It was hard to speak. “You left the Sugar Daddies? In my desk?”
He nodded again.
Before either of us could say more, something caught my eye over his shoulder. At the far end of the aisle, the same teenaged girl who’d bumped into me earlier was pushing a cart of books and replacing them on the shelves. Daddy glanced over at her, then back at me.
“Roz, I’ve only got a minute, so I want you to listen carefully, all right?”
I met his eyes again. “All right.”
He squeezed my shoulders tightly. “I can’t live without you and your mom and Valerie. Ever since you went away, I’ve been dying inside, Roz. I want us to be together again, so . . .” He paused; he seemed to be looking for the right words. “I’m going to change, Roz. I’m going to make things right. But I need some time, so it’s not going to happen overnight. Do you understand?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure I did understand.
“I’m working on making us a better life, and I want you to know that. But meanwhile, I don’t want you telling anyone you saw me. Don’t tell your mother, don’t tell Wally, don’t tell your friends. No one, you hear?”
I thought of Mara. “No one at all?”
“No one. Or it might ruin everything.”
“But, Daddy – ”
He looked back over his shoulder at the girl with the cart. “I’ve got to go now, Roz.”
“Will I . . . Will I see you again?”
“Of course. And you can know that I’m always close by.”
“But, Daddy – ”
He kissed my forehead and stood. “I love you, Little Rose.”
He looked at me a long while, waiting for me to respond. But I couldn’t say anything. In another moment he was gone.
I stumbled weakly down the aisle and fell into a chair at the table where Mara had built her fortress of books. She paused in her writing and frowned at me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said.
I put my head down on the table and wept.
chapter
17
The next morning I woke up sick again. This time I was diagnosed with strep throat, and this time Dr. Sawyer scheduled me for surgery in three weeks. On Friday, October 27, a few days before Halloween, I would have my tonsils removed.
No one thought about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to go trick-or-treating. Not even me. All I could think about was Daddy, and when I would see him again, and whether or not he’d be able to put our Humpty-Dumpty family back together again.
In the first feverish forty-eight hours of my illness, my mind carried me back to the library and my few minutes there with Daddy. Over and over I felt his hands heavy on my shoulders, saw the look in his eyes, heard him say, “I love you, Little Rose.” And in my fog, I answered, “Daddy, Daddy,” until finally I awoke and saw my mother’s face above me, her eyes wide with distress. Those eyes told me something awful was happening.
“What’s the matter, Mom?” I asked fearfully, wondering whether I was sicker than she was letting on.
She tried to smile. “Nothing, sweetheart. Go back to sleep.”
When she left, Tillie’s face came into view. She too wore an odd expression. I swallowed hard in spite of the pain in my throat. “Tillie,” I asked, “am I dying?”
She frowned at me. “Of course not, child.”
“Then what’s the matter with Mom?”
She hesitated before answering. Then she said, “You were crying for your daddy is all.”
“I was?”
She nodded. “But never mind. A fever makes us do funny things. Your mother knows that.”
I missed an entire week of school recovering from strep. Mara brought my homework by every day, but as much as I wanted to see her, Tillie wouldn’t allow her past the front door. “We can’t have that sweet little girl catching your germs and ending up sick herself,” Tillie said.
Tillie worked tirelessly, nursing me back