Promise Me

by Richard Paul Evans

  “Okay,” he said tentatively, “I’m listening.”

  “I need to go into the other room. Call back in a couple minutes.”

  “All right.”

  I hung up the phone, kissed Charlotte good night, then went to my bedroom. The phone rang as I was walking in. I picked it up and sat on the bed. “Hello.”

  “It’s Marc.”

  “Listen, I don’t want you to take this wrong. I’m just as angry and hurt as I was a couple days ago. Maybe even more. But this isn’t a time to just be thinking about us. Right now our little girl is sick and she needs you. And I need your help. I can’t do this alone. I’ve missed so much work lately that I may lose my job.”

  “You want me to come back home?” he asked.

  “I don’t want you to. But I think, with things the way they are, it would be best for Charlotte.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “When can I come back?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. Then I could work the late shift.”

  “I’ll be back around lunchtime.”

  “I want to be very clear about this, Marc. You can’t touch me and you’re not sleeping in my bed. You can sleep in the front room on the couch. Are you clear on this?”

  “It’s for Charlotte,” he said. “No touching.”

  “It’s only for Charlotte,” I repeated.

  “Understood.” We were both silent for a moment, then he said, “It will be good to see you.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye,” he said.

  As I hung up, my eyes welled up with tears. Beneath my veneer of anger I was soft. Part of me, a part of me that I despised at that moment, wanted to curl up in his arms and cry. I hated being so needy. I hated wanting healing from the man who had inflicted the injury.

  The next day, Marc arrived at noon carrying a McDonald’s bag. As he walked in the house, I thought he looked a little peaked, which was understandable for the emotional ride we’d been on. “I brought Charlotte something for lunch.”

  “I already made her a sandwich, but thanks. When do you leave town next?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Not for three weeks?”

  “I told Dean to go ahead and change my territory like he wanted. It will cost us some commissions, but I won’t need to be gone as much.”

  I couldn’t believe the changes Marc was making. “That will be good,” I said.

  “Hold on. I got you something.” He brought a long, narrow box out of his pocket and set it on the kitchen table next to me. “It’s a . . .” He suddenly looked embarrassed. “Just open it.”

  I lifted the lid off the box. Inside was a beautiful strand of pearls. I had always wanted pearls.

  “What is this for?” I asked.

  “It’s a late Valentine’s Day present.” Then more softly, “It’s a token of my love.”

  I put the lid back on the box. Under different circumstances I would have squealed with delight. I would have thrown my arms around him, grateful for such a fabulous gift. But circumstances had changed. I knew that the pearls weren’t a token of his love, they were a token of what he’d done. I knew I could never wear the necklace—it would only remind me of her. “Thanks,” I said sadly. I left the box on the table and went to work.

  Is it our actions or our desires that define us? That’s like asking if the trip is made by the horse or the buggy.

  Beth Cardall’s Diary

  Roxanne clapped enthusiastically when I walked in through the cleaners’ front door. “I should have baked a cake,” she said.

  “Should have,” I replied.

  “So how’s it going?” she asked, following me back to the press.

  “Char’s been doing a little better. I think she might be able to go back to school in a couple days.”

  “And how are things with Marc?”

  I thought of the pearls. “I don’t know. He just got back.”

  “But you’ve talked with him.”

  I looked up at her. “He’s remorseful and humble and walking on eggshells. And part of me just wants to smack him. Why can’t he have the decency to at least be a jerk? Then I could feel good about hating him.”

  “Well, don’t kid yourself, he is a jerk and deserves to be smacked. Just don’t get too carried away.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Simple math. If you really want your marriage over, then spare yourself the drama and cut loose. But that’s not really what you want.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know you better than you know yourself. You still love him. You wouldn’t be so angry if you didn’t. So if you’re not going to end the thing, don’t damage it any more than you have to. You can beat your car with a baseball bat for breaking down, but if you’re not going to get rid of it, then someday you’ll end up paying for all the damage you inflict. Does that make sense?”

  I looked at her, wondering where she came up with this stuff. “In your usual twisted way, yes.”

  “I know it sounds strange to say it, but in some ways you’re lucky. Everyone makes mistakes. Under the right circumstances even you might.”

  “I would never—”

  She interrupted me. “Never say never, baby. Good people sometimes do bad things. But at least Marc is willing to own up to it and seek forgiveness. That says something about him. And he’s been there for Charlotte all along. It’s not easy for him to come crawling back into the lioness’s den to take care of his daughter, but he’s willing. He gets a gold star for that.”

  “You’re saying he’s a good guy?”

  “I’m saying that he’s human. And to err is human. To forgive . . . well, that’s love.”

  Hate, resentment and anger are parasites that feed off the heart until there’s nothing left for love to live on.

  Beth Cardall’s Diary

  Over the next few weeks Charlotte’s health remained about the same, except I was having more trouble getting her to eat and she was still losing weight.

  Ironically, I hadn’t had Marc around the house that much since we first got married. It’s like I had to get rid of him to get him back. He seemed changed in other ways. He seemed more of a homebody, as if his previous ambition had drained from him. He even started going to bed early. I asked him if he was all right, but he just shrugged. “It’s just a hard time,” he said.

  As things fell back into a natural rhythm, I found myself mulling over what Roxanne had said about beating the car. She was right about one thing. I still loved Marc. That’s why his cheating hurt so much.

  Forgiveness requires selective memory, and after several weeks I decided to move his dalliance from center stage. His sin may not have been forgotten, but it wasn’t dictating our every interaction either. I began to see the man I loved again.

  Five weeks after he had moved back in, I decided to make a change. I was sitting in the break room eating my lunch with Roxanne when I announced my decision.

  “I think I’m going to do it,” I said.

  Roxanne wrapped a paper towel around a frozen burrito and put it in the microwave. “Darling, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She pushed several buttons, and the oven started.

  “I’m letting Marc back in.”

  “You already did that, babycakes.”

  “In my bedroom.”

  I suddenly had her full attention. She sat down next to me. “Really.”

  “I’m ready to move on.”

  She smiled. “So things are going pretty well.”

  “More than well. Better than ever. Marc’s been a complete saint. I think this whole thing was a giant wake-up call for him.”

  “Won’t be the first time someone walked through hell to get to heaven,” Roxanne said. The timer bell rang on the microwave, and Roxanne got up, opened the microwave door and reached inside and pulled out her burrito, lifting it by the corners of the paper towel. “So when are you doing this?”

  “I was thinking of making him a nice dinner a
nd telling him tonight. Do you think Jan could sit?”

  “She’s probably free and you know how she loves Char. Why don’t you just have Charlotte sleep over? Just in case one thing leads to another.”

  Jan was available, and I arranged for her to pick Charlotte up from school, then run by the house for pajamas and a change of clothes. The more I thought about the night, the more excited I got. I didn’t call Marc to tell him—I wanted the evening to be a complete surprise. I left work at four, stopped at the grocery store and picked up a bottle of red wine, a loaf of peasant bread, asparagus and a couple of steaks. I put the steaks on to broil, then set the table with china, silverware and tall candlesticks.

  Marc had told me that he would be home by 6:30, so at 6:20 I lit the candles, put on some perfume and waited for him in the front room. He didn’t come. By 7:30 I began to worry that something had happened. By 8:30 my emotions started running wild and I began imagining him with the other woman. I called his office line, but it went straight to voicemail. I waited for him until eleven, then I blew out the candles, put the steaks in foil and went to bed without eating. My emotions vacillated from anger to worry. Where was he?

  He didn’t come home during the night. The next morning I called his work. His secretary, Gloria, put me through to Marc’s boss, Dean.

  “I was just about to call you,” Dean said. “We were worried when Marc didn’t show up today. Yesterday he was acting rather peculiar. He left work at noon to go to an appointment and missed an important meeting later in the day. No one has seen or heard from him since. We assumed he was at home.”

  “No, I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning,” I said. “What do you mean by peculiar?”

  “He offered another salesman his two biggest accounts.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “It makes no sense,” Dean said. “Gloria also said she overheard him on the phone earlier in the day. She thought he was . . . crying.”

  I thanked him and hung up. I was frightened. Had I been too harsh? That night, after Charlotte was in bed, Roxanne came over to the house and sat with me while I made calls to whoever I could think of who might have seen him. I called the area hospitals and police stations to see if he’d been in an accident. It was around nine when the headlights of Marc’s car flashed through our picture window on our living room wall. Roxanne looked at me. “I’ll go, babe. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Roxanne went out the side door to avoid bumping into him. I heard the door unlock, then Marc opened the front door and walked in. I walked into the foyer to meet him. He reeked of alcohol.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Gone,” he said, avoiding eye contact.

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “Aren’t you sharp.”

  “Marc, where have you been?”

  “I don’t have to answer to you.”

  “You’re still my husband.”

  “Not for long.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ve been drinking,” he said. “That’s what it means. That’s where I’ve been. That’s all you need to know.”

  “You’re on a real winning streak here. First cheating, now drinking.”

  He waved a clumsy hand to brush me off. “Don’t talk to me. I’m through talking. I’m getting my things and leaving.”

  “You’ve been begging me to stay and now you’re leaving?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “What about Charlotte?”

  “She’s going to have to get used to it anyway.”

  “What are you talking about? Get used to what?”

  “Being fatherless.” He stopped to look me in the eyes. “Not that you care, but I found out why I’m not feeling well. I have pancreatic cancer. The doctor’s given me two to six months to live. How do you like them apples?” He walked to our bedroom, knelt down at the dresser and began pulling out clothes.

  I followed him, dumbstruck. When I could speak, I said, “Marc, I didn’t even know you weren’t feeling well.”

  “You weren’t doing much thinking about how I was doing.”

  I crouched down next to him. “Marc, please stop. I do care. I was so afraid that something had happened to you. Thursday night I made us a candlelit dinner. I want you back.”

  He stopped what he was doing. “It’s too late for that.”

  “No, it’s not. Where will you go?”

  He looked at me sadly. “If I’m lucky, I have maybe thirty to forty days left of any kind of quality. I’m not going to waste a single one of them being abused by you. I told you I’m sorry for what happened. But I’m done now. I’m not going to spend my last days on earth beating myself over what I can’t change. Or let you do it.” He stood, his arms full of clothing. “Where’d you put my suitcase?”

  “Marc, what happened, the other woman, it broke my heart, because I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I forgive you for what happened.”

  He looked at me in disbelief.

  “I forgive you, Marc. Completely. I want you back. I want things to be the way they were.”

  “They can’t be the way they were.”

  “No, but there can still be love.”

  He took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

  “Where will you go?” My eyes welled up with tears. “Do you really want to die alone?”

  His eyes began to moisten as well. He shook his head.

  “You belong here with your family. We’ll take care of you.”

  He laid his clothes on the bed, then wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

  I took his hand. “I married you for better or for worse. Most of it has been better. You’ve been good to me. You’ve given me Charlotte. You’re a good father. I want to be with you. I want you in my bed. It’s forgotten. I promise.”

  “Can you really do that?”

  I put my arms around him. “I will. I promise. Let me care for you.”

  He suddenly began to cry. “I’m so sorry about everything. I’m sorry I have this.”

  “We can beat this. Together, we can beat this.”

  He shook his head. “It’s too late for that. My oncologist said that even if they put me through chemo and radiation it would only buy me a few months at best. He said, ‘Go home, put things in order and cherish every minute with your loved ones.’ ” He began to cry again. “I told him I didn’t have a home.”

  “You do. You have us. And that’s what we’ll do. We’ll make the most of every minute. I love you. I always have.”

  Marc dropped his head on my shoulder and we both wept.

  Just when I was ready to take the bandage off my nose, an axe took off my head.

  Beth Cardall’s Diary

  Physically, Marc did okay for the next three weeks, but it was clear that the cancer was spreading. Almost as difficult as watching his decline was watching Charlotte experience his loss. Telling her that her father was dying was the most difficult thing I’d ever done. It was hard to know how much she really perceived. What does a six-year-old know of death? For that matter, what does anyone really know?

  By August, Marc had difficulty walking and I took a leave of absence from work to care for him. On a cool morning in September, I had just finished bathing him when he asked, “Do you love me?”

  “Of course I do,” I said, drawing a terry cloth towel across his back. “Haven’t I shown you?”

  “In spades,” he said quietly.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I wonder if you would love the real me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind,” he said.

  I pushed the exchange from my mind, chalking it up to the myriad drugs the doctors had him on. About a week later I was feeding him lunch when he mumbled, “E pluribus unum.”

  E pluribus unum?

  “I need to confess something.”

  The way he said this filled my chest with fear. I instinctively knew that whatever he was going t
o say was bad. “I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “If it’s going to hurt me, please don’t tell me.”

  “I don’t want to die a liar. I don’t want our relationship to have just been a lie.”

  My panic was now so thick I could barely breathe. “Please, Marc, don’t do this.”

  He said, “Ashley wasn’t the only one. There were others.”

  Others? I looked at him waiting for the other shoe to drop. When he didn’t say it, I asked, “How many?”

  “Maybe eleven.”

  Eleven. I began to cry. My heart wasn’t a yo-yo; it was a paper target on a shooting range. It was roadkill. “You couldn’t have just kept this to yourself?” I got up and walked out of the room.

  Nothing was the same after that. Marc was a stranger to me—a man I’d never really known. I didn’t speak to him for the next three days. Oddly, I wasn’t angry—emotionally, that account had been bankrupted—I was something more. I was indifferent.

  Marc stayed in our bedroom while I slept with Charlotte in her bed. I don’t think it was coincidence that his confession was the start of his great decline. He lived for just three and a half weeks more and I cared for him through it all. It wasn’t easy. I’m neither a doormat nor a saint. I stayed with him because of Charlotte. She was still sick, complaining every few days of a stomachache, no doubt made worse by her fear and anxiety over what was happening to her dad. I wasn’t about to punish her for the sins of her father. Besides, Marc had nowhere else to go, and regardless of how much I’d been hurt, I couldn’t live with my daughter’s father dying alone, even though more than once I wished I could have.

  On the third day of October the hospice workers started their vigil. My husband, they told me, was actively dying (which sounded to me like an oxymoron). I had no doubt that Marc was sorry for what he’d done, sorry for his betrayal, even more sorry, I think, that he had told me. Those were his last words to me, the saddest last words one could leave this world with: “I’m sorry.”