A Pledge of Silence

by Flora J. Solomon

  Margie was worried about her mother. Working in the garden was becoming more difficult, with her taking frequent breaks to “catch her breath,” as she would say.

  “I’ll be fine. I’m just a little tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. I had a dream about your dad.”

  “Oh? What was it about?”

  “I don’t even remember. I just felt his presence.”

  “Should I call Dr. Middleton, Mama? It’s been a while since you’ve had a checkup.”

  “Heaven’s no. You better get going or you’ll be late to your meeting.”

  Margie hugged her mother and decided she would make an appointment regardless of her mother’s objection.

  Margie didn’t care much for sitting in meetings or for going over financial reports, but both were a necessary part of her life now. She spent the morning listening to others’ business discussions before she got her ten-minute allotted time on the agenda. Driving home, her mind drifted to her mother’s dream of her dad. Sometimes she dreamed about him too: sitting in his chair by the fireplace, wearing the blue cable-knit sweater Mama had knitted, reading Wild West fiction—Zane Grey a favorite author—his glasses perched on the end of his nose, his pipe smoldering in the ashtray. One time a dream seemed so real she woke up with her eyes stinging from tobacco smoke.

  Mama wasn’t in the house when Margie arrived home. She was probably in the garden, which wasn’t unusual. Margie changed into an old pair of slacks, a long-sleeved shirt, and a ratty cardigan sweater. She ate a bologna sandwich and drank a glass of milk before going outside. She slipped on her garden boots kept on the back porch and grabbed her trowel and gloves. She didn’t see her mother anywhere. She checked the greenhouse and the shed, but both were empty. She called, “Mama! Are you out here?” There was no response. The only obstructed view was the rows of blackberry bushes that had just begun to show signs of new growth. She walked out there, expecting to see her mother pruning dead vines.

  The third row back, she found Mama sprawled on the ground, her mouth slack, eyes open, and her hand gripping the front of her dress. Margie fell to her knees and gently jiggled her shoulder. “Mama! Mama!” Feeling her mother already cold, she laid her head on her mother’s silent chest and sobbed.

  The first wave of tears past, she closed her mother’s eyes and arranged her hair softly around her face before covering her snugly with her sweater, tucking it under her chin and firmly around her arms. I shouldn’t have left her alone. Stumbling to the house, she called Wade and told him to pick up the children from school. After she called the ambulance, she hurried back to the field to stay with her mother until it arrived and took her away.

  Family and friends gathered to lay Mama to rest next to Dad. Standing at the graveside, the coffin hovering over that deep hole in the ground, Margie remembered her mother’s dream of Dad being beside her, and she drew comfort from it. Is that why she told me?

  Sad and drained, the family returned to the house that felt too big, and the next several days were lost in a blur of mourning. But then, Wade and Margie returned to work, and Barbara and Gary went back to school. Gary’s baseball team played a game, and the family attended to cheer the team on—as usual. They gradually absorbed the chores Mama had just assumed to be hers. However, it was weeks before Margie could water the flowers her mother had planted or wear a sweater she had knit without a tear coming to her eye. Time passed and her intense sadness began to dim.

  However, Barbara wasn’t healing. Instead she became withdrawn, spending long hours in her room. If allowed, she’d sleep all day, then roam the house at night. She avoided her friends and declined to participate in family activities. She lost interest in school and her grades dropped, and when Wade questioned her about it, she said her grades wouldn’t matter anyway. Margie noticed on some days the clothes she wore were dirty and her hair needed washing.

  Wade tried to interest Barbara in her music again and invited her to play with him at the Delta Ray. Margie hoped it would be a breakthrough, but Barbara declined the invitation; instead she stayed in her room and played sad Patsy Cline songs over and over on her record player.

  Margie worried about Barbara’s sadness, remembering herself when she was depressed and not having the will to pull out of it. “She needs to open up to someone,” she said to Wade. “I’d like to call Dr. Garber and see if he’d talk to her.”

  Wade agreed, and Margie called his office, but the doctor was out of town until the end of June.

  The month of July arrived blazingly hot and humid. Inside, even with circulating fans blowing on high, the sodden air barely moved. A fly buzzed irritatingly around Margie’s face while she prepared a dinner of roast beef with fresh-picked broccoli and cauliflower, the cooking of vegetables giving the house a musty smell. From outside came the grinding sounds of heavy trucks paving the road. Dirt whirled up and the air reeked of fuel.

  Wade and Gary had left a couple hours earlier to attend first a baseball tournament at the park and then a carnival the town brought in for Fourth of July celebrations. Barbara wasn’t interested in the carnival, instead saying she’d rather go for a walk, and Margie saw her heading toward the pond at the back of their property, where she liked to sit under a tree and read.

  Margie had detected an improvement in Barbara’s demeanor these past few weeks. Though Barbara still spent many hours in her room, Margie could hear her playing her guitar, and sometimes she came out and chatted awhile with whomever was around. She was growing this summer and stood taller than Margie now.

  The teakettle began to whistle and it didn’t stop even after Margie took it off the burner. The shrill noise hurt her ears, and a fly wouldn’t stay away from her face. A drop of sweat rolled into her eye, causing it to burn, and another dripped down her cheek and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. She felt woozy in the oppressive heat and sour smell of the kitchen.

  She heard a crack, a buzz, and several loud pops. She jumped with a start, all her senses acute, her breathing short and heart thumping. She whirled around and saw a dark figure standing in the kitchen door, thin and pale with a white lock of hair falling over his forehead. Max Renaldo! Her throat constricted and her vision dimmed. “Get out of here! Get out! Get out!” She grabbed an iron skillet and leaped toward the figure, swinging it with all her might, chasing Barbara off the stoop. The child ran into the barn.

  When Wade returned, he found smoke rolling from the kitchen, the roast beef and vegetables burned to a crisp on the stove, and Barbara wide-eyed and trembling in the barn, hiding behind the tractor.

  Margie lay curled, fetal, in her bed, glassy-eyed and wondering what she would have done with that iron skillet had she caught her daughter.

  Barbara sequestered herself in her room, refusing to come out even for meals.

  Margie, teary and shaky, talked to her through the door: “I’m sorry, Barbara. You startled me. The light was behind you. When I saw you at the door, I couldn’t tell it was you. I thought you were an intruder. I’m sorry. Please come down to dinner.”

  Wade tried to coax her out. “There’s an open mic at the club tonight. Come with me. We’ll play a few duets.”

  She said she didn’t feel like going.

  She let Gary into her room with a plate of food. He reported back that Barbara said she didn’t want to live at home anymore. She hated it here without her grandma, and now she didn’t feel safe.

  Margie called Dr. Garber’s office and felt relieved that he could see her the next day. She didn’t tell Wade about the appointment. She’d stuck to her story about the intruder, but she wanted to tell Dr. Garber the truth.

  She arrived at his office worried that he would admonish her for not taking his advice. Years ago he had suggested she continue with counseling to head off a crisis in Barbara’s teen years. His office looked a little worn, and his hair had gone to gray, but his easygoing manner was the same. Her file lay open on his desk.

  He said he’d been following her children’s scho
ol careers as they were reported in the local newspaper: Barbara an honor student and accomplished musician, and Gary a budding sports star. He asked about Wade and the Abundant Harvest Food Pantry. He offered his condolence for her mother’s recent death. The catching up aside, he said, “Tell me what brings you in today.”

  “It’s my daughter. Like you predicted years ago, she has grown into the image of Max Renaldo. She’s even taken on some of his mannerisms.” She told him the latest incident, her eyes batting and mouth going dry—saying it out loud magnified the horror of it. “I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have hit her with that iron skillet.”

  “Did you feel you relived the moment you killed Max?”

  “No! Oh God, I hope not. But the rage I felt seeing him standing at my door!” She closed her eyes and felt a shiver go down her back. “Barbara’s been depressed about her grandmother’s death. Now she’s scared of me. We’ve never had a warm relationship, and I’m afraid what I did will break it completely . . . both of us scared of each other.”

  “Does she know who Max Renaldo is?”

  “No. I’ve never told anyone. There’s no reason to. She and Wade share a special bond. I don’t want that bond damaged.”

  “And as long as your mother was there to act as a buffer between you and Barbara, everything seemed fine.”

  “It was fine. Both of the children thrived.”

  “Besides this vision of Max, have you had other images or vivid recollections of traumatic events that happened when you were in the Philippines? It’s common, we’re finding. In the literature, it’s called a flashback now.”

  “Nothing as vivid as this. Occasionally, I’ll have a nightmare. I don’t remember them, but I’ll wake up crying or in a cold sweat. Sudden loud noises still startle me. The Fourth of July week is always the worst. When I feel jumpy, I use the techniques you taught me to get through it. Sometimes it helps.”

  “Except for this recent episode, have you noticed an increased nervousness in yourself—say, over the last year?”

  Margie thought back to last summer and the year leading up to her mother’s death. “Wade told me a few times I was being irritable and short with the children. I thought I was overtired, and you know how kids are . . . they can be irritating. I had a checkup with Dr. Middleton, who didn’t find anything wrong. He prescribed Valium and told me to get some extra sleep.”

  Dr. Garber jotted notes. “I suspect this crisis has been a while in coming, and it was precipitated by your mother’s death. I’d like to speak to the whole family together, and with Barbara alone, and then with the three of you. How much have you told the children about your past?”

  “They know that Wade was a journalist during the war. He’s told them some stories about when he was in Europe. They know I was a nurse and worked for the Red Cross. Neither one of us has ever mentioned the Philippines. When you talk to the children, I’d rather you not mention it. They don’t need to know about those horrors.”

  Dr. Garber met with Barbara twice that week, and Margie watched her daughter for clues of what they might be discussing. The image of her wielding an iron skillet at her daughter wouldn’t leave her thoughts.

  She said to Wade, “Every time she thinks about me, it’s what she’ll remember.”

  “Margie, it was a natural response. You thought she was an intruder.”

  “But why wouldn’t I recognize my own daughter?”

  In her mind, she worried it would happen again, and she agonized—was she a danger to her daughter? Should she have given Barbara up while she was still a newborn and before Wade had a chance to fall in love with her, as Gracie had suggested? She quickly dismissed that thought. Despite the harsh images Barbara’s presence had the potential to evoke, Margie loved her, and would do whatever was needed to protect her.

  Wade canceled his weekend commitment at the Delta Ray. He left for work later in the morning and came home earlier in the evening. Even Gary hung out around the house more instead of playing with his friends out in the fields. Barbara stayed in her room most of the time. Margie saw her reading a catalog, but her daughter didn’t tell her what it was about.

  Dr. Garber called Barbara, Margie, and Wade in for a group session. They gathered at the same round table where Margie had sat years ago while trying to come to terms with her own depression. Barbara, looking afraid, kept glancing at her parents, and Wade kept folding and unfolding his hands, while Margie tried not to think about those conversations from the past. The catalog Barbara had been reading sat in front of Dr. Garber.

  He surveyed the group. “Why all the glum faces? No one is on the way to the gallows. We’ve all done some good work here.”

  Margie felt her shoulders relax, and Wade’s hands quieted.

  “I’ve consolidated my notes, and with your permission, Wade, I got copies of Barbara’s school records. As I’m sure you know, her IQ is right up there. She’s accomplished in everything she does. It’s my opinion that the high school program here in Little River is not going to be enough of a challenge for her. There’s a private school in East Lansing that’s affiliated with Michigan State. The name is Lake Charles Academy. I think she may benefit greatly from their program. They’re selective about who they admit, and the academics are rigorous. Almost a hundred percent of their graduates are accepted at the top-tier universities.”

  Margie saw the color drain from Wade’s face. He said, “Send her away to school?” He turned to Barbara. “What do you think, honey?”

  “Well.” Her voice sounded tiny. “I’ve read through the catalog. Some of the students do research in the university’s biology labs, Dad. That would be so cool. They have a good music department too. Maybe I could learn to play the harp. I’ve always wanted to try it. The campus is on a lake, and there are canoes.”

  He said to Dr. Garber, “Isn’t there anything else we can do? She’s only fourteen.”

  “According to the tests I’ve given her, she’s a mature fourteen, and she’ll be fifteen in November. As an alternative, you can keep her home and supplement her academics with classes at U of M. She needs to be challenged academically. It’s your decision to make, but my recommendation is to consider the private school.”

  Margie was hearing what Wade was not, that for the mother-daughter relationship to work, there needed to be some distance between them. A private school only an hour away seemed like a solution, but she wondered if Barbara would feel pushed out. She asked, “Would you be okay living away from home, Barbara?”

  “I think so. I’d like to see the campus.”

  “I don’t know,” Wade resisted. “Maybe next year.”

  Dr. Garber sat back in his chair. “Give it some thought. I can make an appointment for a campus tour and a meeting with the headmistress. I know her personally. She’s a wonderful woman—a Ukrainian and a survivor of the Holocaust.”

  A flicker of realization came into Wade’s eyes, and Margie felt another level of relief. A woman who’d survived a prison camp knew the struggles of former internees and their families.

  After two weeks of tours, testing, and interviews, and the family debating the pros and cons, and upon Dr. Garber’s recommendation, Barbara was accepted to start the fall semester at Lake Charles Academy. Margie felt heartened by Barbara’s interest and excitement as they bought clothing and assembled supplies.

  There were tears in Wade’s eyes when he hugged her good-bye. Margie felt sad too, and on the drive home she tried to soothe their gloom. “It’s only an hour’s drive. She’ll be home every time we turn around.” However, in reality the emotion she felt most was relief, a release from the daily reminder that deep down she had a dark core, an evil side that could be triggered, given the right circumstance.

  CHAPTER 30

  Little River, 1996

  In Memory of Wade Francis Porter, Margie read on the small card to be given out at today’s service. She had known this day was coming. Wade was eighty-five, and his heart had been weak for a few years, but foreknowle
dge didn’t make the day any easier to face. She heard Gary’s car in the driveway and got up to unlock the door. Catching her reflection, she saw a pouf of cotton-white hair, a stark contrast to her black dress—one attached to so many sad memories.

  Gary, at forty-six, still moved with the grace of an athlete. He taught mathematics and coached football and basketball at Little River’s new high school. On this cold November morning, ice crystals glittered on the shoulders of his charcoal topcoat. A blue plaid scarf circled his neck, and leather gloves covered his hands. The look on his face reflected the sadness she felt.

  “You’re late,” she said.

  “The roads are bad.”

  “Is Barbara here yet?”

  “No. Her flight was canceled. She got on another one and should be here soon.” Gary brought Margie’s coat from the closet. “Mom, we’ve got to go.” He held out her coat.

  A sudden wave of weariness swept over her, and she couldn’t make her feet move. “Promise you won’t leave me alone?”

  “Not for a second. Please, put this on.”

  He helped her shrug into the long, heavy garment. She arranged a silk scarf inside the collar, then grappled with the buttons, her fingers stiff and moving slowly. She wavered on her feet.

  Gary gathered her into his arms and held her close. She buried her face in the rough fabric of his coat and wept. They stood clutched together, mother and son, wishing away the hours ahead and longing for a rewind of the clock.

  With Gary on one arm and his wife, Liz, on the other, Margie entered the church’s vestibule, which was crowded with sad-faced people brushing sleet from their dark coats and out of their hair, mumbling softly to her: I’m sorry for your loss. He had a good, long life. I loved his music. I didn’t know he was a war correspondent until I read his obit. You probably don’t remember me—Wade called me Kodak. Margie drew a sharp breath, and her eyes searched this man’s face, remembering their meeting in Wade’s shack in Santo Tomas.