Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [47]
That night, when I turned out the bedroom light at nine o’clock, Mara turned on a transistor radio she’d brought along with her.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Listening to a show. Will it bother you?”
“No, it’s all right. What is it?”
“The Literary Hour With William Remmick. Though I don’t know why they call it that, since it only lasts a half hour.”
“I never heard of it.”
“No, I didn’t think you would have. It’s coming out of Chicago.”
“What’s it about?”
“You know, books and stuff. Professor Remmick, he interviews authors and talks about their books. Stuff like that.”
The radio was turned down low, nestled on the pillow close to Mara’s ear. I heard the murmur of voices, first a man’s voice, then a woman’s. I couldn’t quite make out the words, but I knew I wouldn’t be interested anyway. I wondered why Mara wanted to listen to a show like that. I wondered even more why she’d rather listen to a grown-up talk show than talk with me. Mom had told us to go to sleep, but I’d have gladly lain awake whispering in the dark with Mara, and would have too, if it hadn’t been for the radio putting a wedge between us.
I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice when I said, “Do you listen to this show every night?”
“No,” she said. “Just Sundays and Wednesdays. That’s when it’s on.”
“Oh, okay.” I lay on my back in the dark, looking up at the ceiling. Laughter came from the radio, and Mara chuckled along with it. I felt like I’d been abandoned. “Well, I’m going to sleep now. Good night, Mara.”
“Good night, Roz.”
She probably thought I drifted off, but I didn’t. Not quite, anyway. I might have been right on the edge of sleep, but after a time my dreams got snagged by the show’s theme song rising up from Mara’s pillow. Mara must have turned the volume up a notch, because I heard the man’s voice say, “That’s it for tonight, folks. We’ll see you again on Wednesday, when we’ll be interviewing best-selling author J. P. Westmoreland. Until then, this is William Remmick saying good-night and thank you for joining us. And good night to you, Beatrice. Sweet dreams.”
And then Mara’s soft voice drifted toward me as she whispered to that faraway man, “Good night, Daddy. I love you.”
The radio clicked off, the room fell silent, and in another moment Mara’s steady breathing told me she was asleep.
chapter
19
In the morning, I didn’t say anything to Mara about the man on the radio. But over the next three days, as we went to school, worked on homework, ate supper, helped Tillie with dishes, played with Valerie, and fell asleep side by side in the twin beds in my room, I regarded her with no small amount of suspicion. I had heard that crazy people could appear completely normal, and I wondered whether that was the case with Mara Nightingale. I thought maybe her dreams had carried her into a fantasyland and somehow imprisoned her there, though imprisoned may not be the right word. Maybe she wanted to stay in that place of make-believe, where some guy on the radio was her father. Maybe she was happier there than in the real world, since in the real world her daddy was a mechanic and not a professor of literature.
I couldn’t wait for Wednesday night. I wanted to see what Mara would do when the show came on again.
At nine o’clock I turned out the light. I heard the radio click on in the dark.
“Will it bother you?” she asked.
“No. It’s all right. It won’t keep me awake.”
“Good night, then, Roz.”
“Good night, Mara.”
I didn’t close my eyes. I pinched my earlobes against sleep as I listened to the low rumbling of Professor Remmick’s voice. I heard Mara alternately sigh and softly laugh. After my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out the shape of her in the other bed. Her hand rested on the radio by her ear, and by the end of the half hour the little box was pressed against her cheek.
Then, as on Sunday night, the closing tune began to play, and this man named William Remmick