Solemnly Swear

by Nancy Moser

  “I gave up peace for Lent.”

  Karla gave her an extra hug. “You had peace once. You can have it back. All you have to do is—”

  Deidre pulled away, not looking back. “I gotta go.” She left her mother-in-law and her false promises of peace behind.

  ***

  Deidre drove with the slip of paper in her hand: 384 Mockingbird. It was a residential neighborhood of small, nondescript homes built in the sixties. Pastels were the exterior paint color of choice. It was like driving through a basket of Easter eggs: blush pink, sky blue, moss green, and baby yellow.

  She stopped looking at addresses when she spotted Sig’s SUV in the driveway of a yellow house with white trim. She tried to remember if anyone they knew lived in this neighborhood. Someone she and Don might have known would be more likely.

  Deidre parked and went up the front walk, her nerves at attention. Did Sig want her to meet some child he hoped to operate on? Was this the home of some old lady who wanted to contribute to the foundation but wanted to meet “the wife” first?

  Sig was at the door before she could even ring the bell. “Come in,” he said.

  The inside was simply but tastefully done. The pastel colors outside were carried within. The place had an airy feel.

  “Sig, why have you brought me—?”

  Deidre’s words were cut off when she saw Audrey come out of the kitchen.

  “Hello, Mrs. Kelly.” She extended a hand. “Nice to meet you. Again.”

  Deidre let her mouth hang open and shook her head. “I don’t need this.” Then she turned toward the door.

  Sig blocked her way.

  “Hear us out, Deidre.”

  A bitter laugh escaped. “Hear you out? Do you think I’m actually going to stand here while you tell me how much you love each other and flaunt your relationship in my face?”

  “It’s not like that,” Audrey said.

  Sig led Deidre to a couch. “Sit. Please.”

  She sat only because her legs were about to give out. “I don’t want to hear any of this. I can’t believe you’ve had me come here to meet your lover, your little chippie, your…whatever you want to call her. I thought after overhearing the gossip back at the awards banquet that you’d have the sense to break it off, and the decency to be faithful to your wife. Especially after all I’m doing to help you get out of the fix you got yourself into.”

  “Stop!”

  Silence fell over the room.

  “I’ve brought you here to explain and to tell you the truth.”

  “Hmph.”

  “I’ve had a really hard day, Deidre. I did something earlier today, nearly did something that…anyway, I’m weary of more things than you can imagine. But in this I can set something right. I should have done it sooner and I don’t know why I didn’t.” He glanced at Audrey, who stood in the doorway between kitchen and living room. “When Audrey called me this afternoon, saying she’d met you and Nelly…”

  Here it comes. Audrey’s given him an ultimatum. “It’s me or them, Sig. It’s time you decide.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Audrey said. “I kept the clothes aside, in case you want to come back.”

  “I don’t want the clothes!” Deidre yelled. “I don’t want anything you’ve touched. And I will never shop in that store again. In fact, what I should do is call the manager and tell her that she has an adulteress in her employ. See if she wants to keep you on after that bit of information!”

  Audrey put a hand to her mouth. She began to cry. “Excuse me.” She ran down the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

  “Why did you do that?” Sig asked.

  Deidre watched incredulously as Sig went after Audrey. She heard him knocking softly on a door. “Come out. It’s okay. She just doesn’t know. She doesn’t understand. It’s my fault and I’ll make it right. I promise.”

  Deidre heard a door open and in a few moments Sig and Audrey appeared. She had a tissue to her eyes, and he had his arm around her shoulders. “Deidre, I would like you to meet Audrey Cannell, one of my patients.”

  Involuntarily, Deidre looked down at Audrey’s leg. The limp. She remembered thinking Sig was attracted to her because she needed his medical expertise. She crossed her arms and sat back in the chair. “Do you give this kind of attention to all your prospective patients?”

  “She’s not a prospective patient,” Sig said, looking at Audrey. “I already operated on her. And botched the job.”

  “My limp is better than it was.”

  “You’re being kind. It’s worse, and because of my error, it will never be better.”

  “So you’re having an affair because you feel sorry for her?”

  “We’re not having an affair.”

  Audrey shook her head. “No. Not at all.” She looked at him. “He’s like a father to me.”

  Like a father? This did not compute.

  Audrey continued. “I never knew you thought he and I...”

  Sig led Audrey to a chair and stood between the two women. “I’ve kept both of you in the dark. It was for the sake of my reputation that I’ve kept Audrey a secret, and not for the reason you think.” He breathed deeply, then spoke again. “First off, you have to know that I have never been unfaithful. I wouldn’t do that. Ever.”

  He seemed sincere, and yet...

  “Secondly, as I said, Audrey was one of my patients. One of my first patients. I operated on her leg and hip. She had a similar problem to the one our Nelly had. But with Audrey I made mistakes during the operation. She will always limp because of me.”

  “People make mistakes,” Audrey said. “You were only trying to help.”

  “I was only trying to be your savior. Save the poor crippled girl and be the hero.”

  Audrey smiled up at him. “You are a hero. You’ve gone above and beyond.”

  Sig shook his head. “I was young and cocky and thought I knew more than I did.” He wrapped his arms tightly around his torso. “Audrey’s father was dead, and her mother wasn’t healthy. Her mother could have sued me for malpractice, but she didn’t. She was a very good, forgiving woman. She brought her daughter to me, trusting me to do what was right.”

  Audrey nodded. “She died four years ago, when I was eighteen.”

  Sig took up the story. “Suddenly, Audrey had no one. Both parents dead, a bum leg, no money for college or a good future. So I stepped up and started to take care of her. I paid for her education. She graduated last May in fashion merchandising.” He looked at Audrey proudly. “She is already the buyer at Sassy’s.”

  “Assistant buyer,” Audrey said. “Among other duties. And on the side I design costumes for a few of the music shows around here.”

  “The point is, Audrey was a patient of mine. That’s how I know her. That’s why she’s in my life.”

  The doubt and anger and angst of the past six months juggled before Deidre’s eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me? Especially when you heard the gossip about the two of you. If you’re doing a good thing for her you should be proud of it.”

  He shook his head. “I’m doing a good thing now. But I ruined her life, Deidre. There are no number of bills I can pay that will change that. And I didn’t tell you or anyone because frankly, I didn’t want people to know that I’ve ever messed up. Pride kept my secret. I didn’t want to risk my reputation by having anyone know that the great Dr. Sigmund T. Kelly screwed up. Having them think I was unfaithful was preferable to having them thinking I was inept.”

  Deidre was stunned. Every thought and accusation had been off base, and oh, so wrong. Her husband had his faults but all in all he was an honorable man.

  He sat on the couch beside her and took her hand. “I’m so sorry, Deidre. I’m sorry for Audrey, I’m sorry for not telling you, I’m sorry for putting you through … everything.”

  The great Dr. Sigmund T. Kelly began to cry.

  As he should have.

  ***

  Of his three jobs, Bobby enjoyed driving a cab the
most. He liked to drive because it gave him a feeling of control and freedom and often gave him time to daydream. Plus, he met some interesting people. Some rude people. Some nice people. And some weird people.

  Although he was still thinking about Becky’s suggestion that he quit one of his jobs, he was pretty sure the cab job would remain on his resume. For one thing, it paid the best. But the downside was that it took him away on weekends. Time away from his family—and his art. One, he regretted; the other, he embraced.

  Chicken.

  Today he was assigned the airport. It was one of his favorite runs because sometimes he got to meet famous people. With all the celebrity shows around Branson: Andy Williams, Bobby Vinton, and the Oak Ridge Boys to name a few, there was a lot of coming and going involving famous people. He’d picked up Debbie Reynolds once. She was as adorable now as she was in those old Tammy movies.

  But no stars today. Not so far at least.

  He picked up a petite woman with a rolling carry-on.

  “Welcome to Branson. Where to?”

  “The Excelsior.”

  He pulled into traffic. “In town for business or pleasure?”

  “Pleasure, though it could turn into business. I wasn’t planning on it being for business. but…” She sighed. “In the plane I was thinking about Branson and all the big shows. Are they hiring?”

  “Depends on what you do. You a performer?”

  She laughed. “If I sang or danced, they’d clear the auditorium. But I have done quite a bit of work with stage lighting. Most theaters use computers to run the lighting and sound. I know how to use all that..”

  “You a computer whiz?”

  “I have my moments. Actually, I recently got my degree in theater with a minor in production design.”

  “Congratulations. I never went to college.”

  “It’s not for everybody.”

  Or available to everybody. It was a huge regret in his life. But Grandpa hadn’t had the money, Bobby hadn’t had the inclination, and when Grandpa died and Becky came into his life, the door had closed forever.

  “Do you like living here?” she asked.

  “I do. It gets a bit crazy with all the tourists, but if you go out of town a ways, into the hills, there’s nothing prettier. I’ve been here since I was a teenager.”

  “My grandpa used to live here. I visited him once, but we lost touch.”

  “Too bad—losing touch.”

  Her voice softened. “Yeah. It is.”

  They rode in silence until he pulled into the hotel. “Here you go.”

  He heard her take a deep breath. “Suddenly, I’m nervous. I mean, I was coming here for family but I’m suddenly thinking of a career change? It’s crazy.”

  “You’ll do fine. One thing leads to another. That’s the way life works. And you’ll never know if you don’t try.”

  “I do want to create and be a part of something that makes people happy.”

  “I agree with that one. That’ll be $9.50.”

  She handed him fifteen. “I’m feeling generous; keep the change.” She got out of the cab, lugging her small suitcase to the pavement. She leaned down to make a parting remark. “My mama always said, ‘The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.’”

  Bobby’s stomach flipped and he looked at her for the first time. “William Cowper, right?”

  “Right. Wow. Small world.”

  The girl was a pretty thing, cute, with short ruffled hair.

  The doorman took a step toward the cab and with a sweeping hand gesture, motioned Bobby on. “Have a good one,” Bobby told the girl.

  “Thanks.”

  Bobby pulled forward so another taxi could move in behind him. But he paused at the edge of the street and looked back to the hotel entrance. The girl hadn’t moved inside. She stood there, looking after him.

  His stomach grabbed. No. It can’t be.

  Another taxi drove up behind him, wanting to exit.

  He sped into traffic.

  Bobby pulled to the side of the road and got out his cell phone. He had a phone book in the cab and looked up the Excelsior Hotel’s number. He dialed.

  As soon as the hotel operator answered, he suddenly realized he didn’t know if Cass had married. She hadn’t mentioned it. And she was just out of college.

  “Hello?” the operator said for the second time.

  “Sorry. Do you have a Cassie—maybe Cassandra—Mann registered?”

  “Let me check. Yes. She just registered. Would you like me to ring her room?”

  All courage left him. “No. No thanks.”

  He disconnected the phone.

  But not the thoughts about his sister.

  ***

  All day there were at least two passengers in Bobby’s taxi, for long after his sister physically left, the thought of her remained.

  He hadn’t seen Cass more than once or twice since he was fourteen and she was eight. After his parents died, his two older brothers went off on their own and the three younger sisters left to live with an aunt in Chicago.

  His oldest brother, Martin, ran away and never came back. His second brother, Chuck, just sixteen, also ran away but had shown up at Grandpa’s a few years later, first with a stolen car and later wanting money for drugs. Besides not having any extra cash, Grandpa was of the mind not to give a loser money that would be used to dig himself a deeper hole.

  So Chuck got mad and trashed Grandpa’s shop. Bobby would never forget the pained look on Grandpa’s face when he’d seen the destruction. But in true Theodore Mann fashion, he’d taken a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Well. ‘Pears we have some work to do.”

  Together, Bobby and Grandpa put the shop to order. Chuck’s name wasn’t mentioned again. And he hadn’t returned. A few years later, when Grandpa died, Bobby thought about trying to find him but didn’t make the effort. Chuck had been headed for an overdose— which became a reality a few years later. Bobby received word because Chuck had Grandpa’s phone number in his wallet.

  Some family he had.

  Bobby pulled into his driveway on Magnolia Lane, the driveway to Grandpa’s old house. Tanner waved at him from his tricycle on the sidewalk, as Teresa and Becky sat on the porch.

  Becky smiled her special welcome smile.

  Tanner zoomed toward the car. “Hi, Daddy!”

  Yes indeed. Some family he had.

  ***

  Ronnie wanted to meet at the fund-raiser because she needed to go in early to help. Ken was grateful for that. He didn’t want to be at this thing any longer than necessary.

  But when he walked down the long corridors of the hotel toward the ballroom, when he saw the sign outside the room saying, “AIDS BENEFIT: Help Us Find a Cure!” he balked. AIDS? He didn’t want anything to do with that charity. Why hadn’t he asked Ronnie what kind of fund-raiser it was?

  He knew the answer. He’d been so pleased with the idea of spending more time with her he hadn’t cared.

  But he did care. He hated fund-raisers but hated them even more when they played the sympathy card for people for whom he felt no sympathy. He’d imagined an evening spent listening to philanthropists laud the merits of the opera or new playground equipment, not coughing up depressing statistics about death and disease.

  I’ll just go home. Then, when Ronnie calls I’ll tell her I don’t feel well. It won’t be a lie. The very thought of sitting through this kind of evening makes me feel sick.

  “Ken!”

  Caught.

  He turned toward her voice, resigned. Maybe if he wrote a big check up front he could bow out of the rest of it. He wasn’t in need of a chicken dinner that much. At the moment Burger Madness held more appeal.

  Ronnie rushed toward him, looking lovely in a royal blue dress that flowed in her wake when she walked. She kissed him on his cheek and slipped her hand around his elbow. “I’m so glad you came.”

  “You should have told me,” he said.

  “What?”


  He nodded toward the sign. “AIDS? Frankly, that’s not my kind of charity.”

  She let go. “It’s not anyone’s kind of charity, Ken. Nothing would make us happier than to not have to be here.”

  “You don’t have to be here.”

  “There you’re wrong.” She led him toward the opened double doors. “Let’s get seated. Just do what you do best.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Pretend.”

  He didn’t have time to react. She drew him into the ballroom that was set with round tables for eight. There must have been fifty of them. He did the math: four hundred people? Gathered for AIDS? The upper crust too. He recognized a few celebrities from the stage shows in town and the female anchor for the evening news out of Springfield. People dressed in their Sunday best. For AIDS?

  As they walked, Ronnie greeted people, smiling, chatting. As the principal at one of the high schools in town, she knew a lot of people by name. A few tables in, Ken’s mood lightened as he realized someone might recognize him. Maybe the evening wouldn’t be a total waste. He could use a recognition hit.

  With that goal in mind, they reached their table too soon. Three people were already seated. Ken recognized the man as the manager of one of the country music theaters. Bob something?

  The man stood as they approached. “Ken! Ronnie said you were coming. Long time no bogey—because of you.”

  Bogey Bill. Ken extended his hand. “Bill. Nice to see you.”

  “You remember my wife, Helen?”

  “Indeed I do. I still haven’t gotten over that peach-colored golf skirt you wore in the women’s tourney.”

  “Oh, you.” Helen blushed and accepted his peck on her cheek.

  For the first time, Ken noticed the third person at the table, the man who’d had his back to their approach.

  “Hello, Dad.”

  Ken shot a look toward Ronnie, but she wisely avoided eye contact by hanging her purse on a chair—one seat away from Philip. Leaving an empty chair between them.

  Ken felt like a lobster in a trap.

  Philip stood and Ken feared he might try to hug him. He chose the trap and sat down. “Hi, Philip.”