Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [62]
I curled my pinkie around hers and squeezed. “I promise.”
The doorbell rang again, and trick-or-treaters came and went while Mara and I talked together on the couch. Tillie came and brought us root beer floats and asked after the Nightingales and Willie and Hester’s new little grandson – whom Tillie called Mara’s nephew, though he was really her half brother. Mara took the confusion of her family life in stride and was able to remember who was what without a hitch. Though I envied Mara because she might get to meet her daddy, I was glad that the woman I called Mom was in fact my mother and not my grandmother, who, incidentally, was already dead. At least the people in my life were who they said they were, and that made everything far more simple.
After a time Mara said quietly, “Have you heard anything else from your daddy?”
I shook my head. “Nothing since Hot Diggity Dog.”
“Does he know you had your tonsils out?”
“Yeah. He knows. I told him when I saw him at the café.”
“I thought maybe he’d send you a get-well card or something.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how he’d get it to me. I’ve been here at home ever since I got out of the hospital.”
“Oh yeah. I guess he can’t exactly show up at your house and give you a card.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “If he did that and Wally was home, Wally would kill him.”
“Really? Wally would kill him?”
“That’s what he said.”
“He hates your daddy that much?”
“Yeah. Well, like I told you before, he’s not Wally’s father. He’s Wally’s stepfather. I bet Wally hated him even before he married Mom. Most kids hate their stepparents, you know, just because they’re not their real parents.”
Mara stared at me while loudly slurping the last of the root beer at the bottom of her glass. Then she said, “Aunt Josie came over the other day to visit with Mama – ”
“Your grandma?”
She nodded. “And Aunt Josie started talking about some girl she works with and how she thinks the girl has found herself a sugar daddy.” She stopped and frowned at me.
I waited. Then I said, “So?”
“I didn’t know what she meant, so I asked her, and she said never mind, I wasn’t meant to hear what she’d said. Later I called my cousin Bernadette, because she knows everything, and when I asked her what a sugar daddy was, she said she couldn’t tell me because it was something ugly. I begged her to tell me, and she said all she was going to tell me was that it was something between old men and young girls, and if anyone ever wanted to be my sugar daddy, I should run.”
A shiver ran through me. Whispering, I asked, “What do you think it means?”
She looked away and drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know for sure, Roz, but I think a sugar daddy is someone who’s only going to hurt you in the end.”
She kept her gaze out the window, as though she didn’t want to look at me. I paused only a moment before blurting, “You’re talking about my daddy, aren’t you? You think something bad’s going to happen because of Daddy.”
“I’m not saying that, Roz.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Lips a taut line, she blinked several times. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “Just be careful.”
I shut my eyes and leaned my head against the couch with an exaggerated sigh. “I know, Mara, I know. You told me that already, remember?”
“Yeah, but – ”
“And then I met Daddy at the café, and everything was fine. Better than fine. Everything was good.”
“I know, but – ”
The doorbell rang again, interrupting Mara and ending our conversation. It was Willie Nightingale, here to pick her up. I peeked through half-closed lids when Mara said, “Hi, Daddy!”
“Time to get on home now, baby. School tomorrow.” The huge man fidgeted in the hallway like a lumbering bear, hat in hand.
“All right, Daddy. I’m coming.” She turned back to me, gave me her bright smile. “Bye, Roz.”
I lifted one hand in farewell, and then she was gone. Heavy with fatigue and sadness both, I drifted off to