Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [68]
“It’s got the bookmark in it that I just gave you for your birthday. Don’t you like the bookmark?”
“Oh sure. I like it. Yeah, peace. It’s perfect. And the chocolates were great. We ate them all, the whole box.”
“Who’s we, Wally? I bet you were with those Delaney twins, weren’t you?”
“Them, and a bunch of my other friends. We were having a good time. Oh yeah.” He chuckled and his head started bobbing, as though he were listening to a tune I couldn’t hear.
“Yeah, I bet.” I felt my jaw tighten. I looked again at the book in my hand. “You sure you want me to have this?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“But why are you giving it to me?”
“Don’t you know?”
I waited a moment. Then I shook my head and said, “Know what?”
Wally looked about the room as though he were searching for the words. Finally he found them. He drew in a deep breath and let them out slowly. “On his eighteenth birthday, a man’s supposed to give his little sister his most prized possession.”
My eyes narrowed. “He is? I never heard of that.”
“Yeah. It’s true.” He laughed again. He sounded pleased with himself.
“So you’re giving me your most prized possession?”
In the dim light I saw Wally’s face become solemn. “Just take care of it for me, will you, Roz?”
I was unnerved by the shift in his mood. He looked as though something terrible was about to happen, but I couldn’t imagine what. In my confusion I said simply, “Sure, Wally. I’ll take care of it for you.”
“Promise?”
I traced an X across my chest with one index finger. “Cross my heart, but why can’t you just take care of it yourself?”
He put his finger to his lips again to shush me. “No questions, all right?”
I narrowed my eyes and thought a moment. I didn’t like unanswered questions, but I finally relented. “All right,” I said.
Wally smiled, nodded, and sighed in quick succession. “You know, Roz,” he said, “you’re really not such a bad kid.”
“Well . . .” I felt myself frown. “Thanks, Wally.”
He leaned toward me, and for one brief moment I was in his arms.
By the time I woke up the next morning, he was gone.
chapter
28
Mom’s screams brought Tillie and me running. “Merciful heavens!” Tillie called out as she pounded down the stairs. “What’s the matter, Janis?”
“It’s Wally,” Mom cried. “It’s Wally!”
But she couldn’t get beyond those two words to tell us what was wrong with Wally. We found her in the kitchen, holding a piece of paper that had been ripped from a spiral notebook. With trembling fingers, she handed the paper to Tillie.
Tillie read it and afterwards slapped it with both hands against the spot above her heart. “That young fool!” she cried. “I can’t believe he’d do this.”
Bewildered and near tears, I looked from Mom to Tillie and back again. “What is it? Will somebody tell me what’s going on?”
“Your brother has gone off to enlist in the army,” Tillie explained. “That fool! He’ll end up getting himself killed in Vietnam.”
“Oh, Tillie!” Mom’s eyes widened at the thought. Her tears spilled over and coursed down her pale cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Janis. I didn’t mean that. He might not end up in ’Nam at all.”
But it was too late. Mom sank to her knees, weeping as though Wally were already dead. Tillie bent over her and tried to console her while I ran upstairs to get Valerie, who had been awakened by Mom’s screams and was now screaming herself.
By midmorning, our house resembled the scene of a wake. Grandpa came and called the police, and within minutes two cops arrived and read the note and listened to Mom’s story, spilled out between sobs. To everyone’s frustration, including the cops, they said they couldn’t do anything because Wally was an adult and he had left voluntarily, but they stayed anyway at Tillie’s invitation and drank cups of strong coffee and offered their speculations as to where Wally might be. Tom Barrows showed up and nervously paced the downstairs hall, looking as helpless and as useless as he was. Neighbors, alerted by the cop car in front of the house, came and went and came back