Today's Promises

by S. R. Grey

  Speaking of Callie, she’s hanging back, standing behind Cody, giving him time to reconnect. Jaynie and Mandy have retired to the kitchen, to give me time alone with the twins, I’m sure.

  Holding out my hand, I say to Callie, “Hey, I missed you too, you know.”

  “You did?” she hesitantly asks.

  “Yes.” I nod emphatically. “Like every single day, Miss Callie.”

  Smiling brightly, she takes my hand. And ten seconds later she’s laughing, nestling in next to her brother, all of us hugging. “I missed you so much, Flynn,” she says.

  My heart is touched. And, just like that, I have another snippet of joy to stow away.

  “Aw, sweetheart,” I whisper. “I missed you and your brother like you wouldn’t believe. I’m back to stay though now. And that means we can see each other a lot more often from here on out.”

  “Are you really back for good?” Callie sounds unsure and takes a step back, exiting from our hug. Cody, however, stays glued to me.

  “Yes,” I reply, with what I hope is a tone of certainty she will hear and believe. “I’m back for good. I promise.”

  A few more minutes pass, and then Jaynie and Mandy rejoin us in the living room.

  “You okay?” Jaynie asks when she sees me swiping at my eyes.

  Mandy is off to the side, chatting with the kids about what they’d like for lunch.

  Amid excited requests for grilled cheese and tomato soup, I tell Jaynie, “Yeah, I’m great. It all went way better than I expected.”

  “I tried to tell you not to be so consumed with worry, you silly man.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, yeah, you did. And you were right, babe.”

  “Always,” she says, bumping my hip.

  “Lesson learned. I should always trust Jaynie.”

  “You bet your ass.”

  The next several hours fly by, and the next thing I know our entire day has been spent with Mandy and the twins. It’s a little like old times, but way better.

  For one thing, there’s plenty of food.

  Mandy cooks up a huge fried chicken dinner that everyone digs into. Accompaniments that are quickly devoured include creamy mashed potatoes, peas, and biscuits with lots of butter.

  “I love butter,” Cody exclaims at the dinner table. He then proceeds to lick all the butter off his biscuit.

  “Gross,” Callie says as she makes a sour face.

  But not two seconds later, it’s her who is slathering extra butter on her own biscuit and handing it over to Cody.

  She says to him, “Here, I dare you to eat this one. It has even more butter than yours did.”

  Mandy, Jaynie, and I share a bittersweet smile, as we know what’s really going on. Callie daring her brother to eat another buttery biscuit may sound like a typical kid dare, but really it’s so much more.

  Cody isn’t starving anymore, but Callie remembers all too clearly when he was.

  Cody eats the biscuit, plus three more—mine, Jaynie’s, and Mandy’s.

  Yeah, we all remember.

  After dinner, Mandy and Jaynie start clearing dishes. I offer to help, but both girls insist I spend more time catching up with the twins.

  That’s fine with me, as I soon discover I have a lot of catching up to do.

  Cody unwittingly reminds me of this fact when he says to me, “Hey, Flynnie. Did you know we go to school now? Like, to a real school, with compooters and everything.”

  “No way, little dude,” I exclaim, trying to sound shocked.

  “Yes, way,” he reiterates, nodding.

  “Do you like your real school?” I ask.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Callie rolls her eyes. “Of course he likes his school, Flynn. He gets to stay in a special class all day, where they draw and play on computers and have fun. I’m in real third grade, where we do real school stuff.”

  I close my eyes, and my heart feels like it’s being squeezed in my chest.

  See, Jaynie, Mandy, and I homeschooled the twins as best as we could while we were in foster care. Still, I don’t think it was ever really enough. Callie was fine, excelling in all the subjects we taught. Cody, however… Well, he was a different story. He just needed much more help than what we were able to give him.

  Shit.

  It pisses me off that we just didn’t have the resources. But now I’m so fucking happy to hear he’s in a class that suits his learning style. Though I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it still kills me that we couldn’t provide more for him.

  There was just so much we weren’t equipped to handle.

  Nonetheless, I can’t let old regrets bring me down. Not today.

  And they won’t.

  Despite a few bittersweet moments, our reunion runs smoothly. The only glitch is that Mandy’s boyfriend, Josh, ends up stuck at the plant he works at.

  That kind of sucks, seeing as Josh is now the twins’ foster dad. To say I was hoping to meet him would be an understatement.

  “He’ll be home after eleven,” Mandy informs me, a few hours after dinner, when I again bring up the subject. “You’re welcome to hang around till then.”

  All five of us are chilling in the living room, our stomachs full from Mandy’s tasty meal.

  Though I’d love nothing more than to meet who we were always told was the love of Mandy’s life—a guy who, by the way the twins’ eyes light up when his name is mentioned, treats the children extremely well—Jaynie and I have to decline the offer.

  “I’d love to stick around,” I reply. “But we promised Bill we’d have his ride back no later than ten.”

  Jaynie, seated next to me on the couch, adds, “Speaking of which, it’s already after eight. We should probably hit the road soon to give ourselves plenty of time to get back.”

  The twins, who are lying on the floor, playing a board game, jump up when they hear we’re leaving.

  “No leave yet, Flynnie,” Cody begs as he comes over and plops down on my lap.

  “I have to, bud.”

  Wide eyes fill with hope as he asks, “You come back tomorrow, then?”

  This is where it blows that we don’t yet have our own car.

  “I’m afraid we can’t, little man,” I try to explain. “We borrowed the car we drove up in.”

  “So borrow it again,” Callie interjects.

  She’s crawled into Jaynie’s lap, and is peering over at me like what’s the problem with that?

  As Jaynie curls the ends of Callie’s long charcoal-black hair around her finger, she tells her, “Once we have our own car, honey, we can visit more often. And we can stay as long as we like.”

  “I guess I can wait for whenever that happens,” this precocious child concedes.

  With a dim pallor of disappointment cast over the final minutes of our visit, we begin the long process of saying our good-byes.

  Jaynie and I hug the twins for a solid ten minutes, and then Mandy walks us to the door. The twins stay behind in the living room to, upon Mandy’s suggestion, resume their board game.

  “Hey, guys, hold up a sec.” Mandy grabs a jacket from a hook near the door and adds, “Let me walk out with you to your car.”

  It’s kind of clear by now that she wants to tell us something out of earshot of the kids. Jaynie looks over at me, like I may have an idea as to what Mandy wants to talk about.

  I have no clue, so I shrug and shake my head.

  Once we’re out in the tiny, postage-stamp front yard, I turn to Mandy and ask, “So, what’s up?”

  She glances back at the house. I guess to make sure the twins haven’t followed us out.

  When she’s sure the coast is clear, she says, her voice still hushed, “I just want to give you guys a heads-up. You should hear this from me first, not someone else.”

  “What’s going on?” Jaynie asks, her brow creasing with concern.

  Mandy makes a face. “Uh, well, here’s the thing… Josh recently heard from an old friend who’s now a state trooper that the authorities are re-openin
g an investigation into what kind of environment Mrs. Lowry was providing for us foster kids the past several years.”

  “A horrible one,” I scoff.

  Jaynie’s face pales. “We aren’t going to have to testify or anything, right?”

  That’s Jaynie’s big fear.

  Every terrible thing we endured is still so fresh and raw for all of us, but especially for Jaynie. She suffered the worst at the hands of our captors, and that’s really what they were. We were all trapped up there at the Lowry house. I could talk if I needed to, about all the shit we went through, but I know for a fact Jaynie isn’t anywhere near that point yet.

  Testifying isn’t a worry, though, at least not for today.

  We realize this when Mandy explains: “There’s a detective on the case, but he’s not looking into what happened during our time at the Lowry house. Not that it wasn’t awful, what we went through, but it seems”—she lowers her voice another notch—“something much worse may have occurred before any of us ever lived there.”

  “Shit, Mandy.” I take a step back. “Like what?”

  “Yeah, what could be worse than what we went through?” Jaynie chimes in.

  Mandy wraps her arms around herself, like she’s now chilled by more than the cool night air. I understand. I’m feeling kind of icy myself.

  “A girl went missing,” Mandy says. “A girl Mrs. Lowry was fostering about seven years ago.”

  “So back when she first started fostering, then,” I remark.

  “Yeah, back then.” Mandy nods. “I guess state records had this girl listed as having been placed elsewhere, following the days she spent at the Lowry house. Apparently, though, that was some kind of mix-up.”

  I muse, “I guess they’re going through everything now with a fine-toothed comb.”

  “Yeah, only because Allison and Mrs. Lowry were convicted of felonies,” Jaynie interjects, shaking her head. “You know, those crimes that involved money people lost. Not anything to do with how kids, like us, were physically hurt and mistreated. I swear,” she practically spits out. “It’s always about the goddamn money, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe not this time,” Mandy says, sending a sad, small smile Jaynie’s way. “The girl who used to live at the Lowrys, the one involved in the mix-up, they’re really looking into this pretty intensely. Apparently, her name was similar to someone else’s in the system. And that girl is the one the state was keeping track of.”

  “That’s one hell of a mix-up,” I snort, disgusted at the total ineptitude of the state system.

  “I know, right?” Mandy shakes her head. “Anyway, the authorities think this girl may have never left the Lowrys.”

  I watch Jaynie as she swallows hard.

  “How old was she?” I ask, my voice cracking at the implications of what Mandy is telling us.

  Bowing her head, she says, “Sixteen.”

  “Maybe she ran away?” I offer, grasping at any explanation so Jaynie doesn’t have to hear this. Her nightmares are horrid enough.

  But Mandy, her eyes moving from me to Jaynie, then back to me, crushes that hope when she says, “Mmm, I don’t think so, Flynn. The last place this unaccounted-for girl was ever seen was at Mrs. Lowry’s house.”

  “What are you saying?” Jaynie says, at last.

  Her voice is more strained than I’ve ever heard it before. So I reach for her hand, to offer any comfort I can.

  Jaynie is trembling when her hand slips into mine.

  And frankly, I start to shake as well, especially when Mandy says, “Someone up on that property, either Mrs. Lowry or Allison, had to have killed that poor girl. And then they probably hid the body.”

  Jaynie

  “Shit, Flynn, this is bad. Really bad.”

  Those are the first words out of my mouth when we settle into Bill’s car.

  Flynn buckles his seat belt and closes his eyes. I’m sure he’s imagining some poor girl, a girl like me, meeting her untimely end at the hands of Mrs. Lowry, or that bitch, Allison.

  Shuddering, he says, “God, I hope it’s not true.”

  I let out a scoff of disbelief. “Oh, I’m sure it’s true. Think about it. Think how close we came to being finished off up there.” I make a sound of disgust. “We’re not talking about kind benefactors here.”

  “True.” Flynn scrubs his hand down his face. “I’m sure something bad did happen to that girl.”

  Thinking of how Allison treated us so much worse than her mother did, I say, “I bet Allison did it. She’s vicious and violent.”

  I know firsthand the extent of Allison’s rage.

  Flynn agrees with me, but then, when he sees how worked up I’m becoming, he says, “Let’s talk about something else on the ride home.”

  “Yeah, that works for me.”

  On the drive back to Lawrence, I try with all my heart to push all thoughts of Allison and her evildoings to the back of my mind. And I do pretty well, until that night when a nightmare wakes me up.

  After dreaming of Allison kicking me in the abdomen, and thusly killing the child who was growing within me, Flynn rocks me back to sleep with words of comfort. His own tears intermingle with mine, and we press our cheeks together and cry for what could have been.

  “It’s over, though, Jaynie,” he tells me. “She can never hurt you that bad ever again.”

  But it seems she can when—a couple of days following my nightmare—I show up for an appointment at the local free clinic. The plan is to finally start on birth control. But it may be a moot point when the repercussions of the violence Allison inflicted on me rears its ugly head.

  I’ve been thinking all this time that Flynn and I have just been lucky. I mean, we have sex all the time, right? And I’ve not yet become pregnant.

  And now I know why.

  I am informed, during the routine exam, that I have severe scarring in my uterus, scarring that was never there before, scarring that may render me infertile for the rest of my life.

  I am numb.

  I’m still given a contraception shot on the slim chance the doctor could be wrong.

  But I know she’s not.

  I leave the clinic in a daze, devastated by the possibility that not only has Allison taken away my baby, but now, thanks to her brutality, I may never call myself a mother.

  I’m scheduled to work that evening in the sandwich shop, but as soon as I get back I request the night off. Flynn had that stupid interview in Forsaken today, and when I wander upstairs I’m sick to find he’s still not home.

  “Oh, great,” I mutter to myself in the lonely silence of our bedroom. “I can see how relying on the bus to get to and from work is going to make for some long-ass days for everyone.”

  Flynn finally arrives home when it’s well after seven.

  By that time, I am miserable.

  With the news of today so fresh, and Mandy’s update the other night still in my head, I can’t think of anything other than the horrible things that have happened over at the Lowry’s place.

  Flynn finds me curled up in our bed, with my face wet from all the crying jags that keep coming in waves. I tell him everything, and he holds me close as I sob into his flannel shirt. When I’m finally spent, I collapse against his firm chest, my reserves depleted.

  But while my own tears have ebbed, Flynn’s have just begun.

  Twisting to peer up at him, just as he tries to disguise a sob as a cough, I say, “You should find someone else. You deserve to be with a girl who can give you children someday.”

  He hastily wipes away teary evidence of his sorrow, but his gray eyes remain sad, even as he declares, “Jaynie, don’t be ridiculous. It’s you I love, not what you can or can’t give me. And if it ends up just me and you for the rest of our lives, I accept that. In fact, I’d count a long life with you as a gift.”

  I shake my head, all set to start anew at convincing him of my sound reasoning. But Flynn silences me with an index finger to my lips. “Hey, no more talk of me finding another gi
rl. I love you…and only you. It will always be you, Jaynie-bird.”

  Will it be, though? What if Flynn changes his mind in five years? Well, if that happens, so be it. Until that day comes, I will stand by him.

  In a strangled tone racked with sorrow, I whisper, “I love you so much, Flynn. I’m just—I’m just…so damn sorry.”

  “Aw, Jaynie…”

  We hold each other close for a long, long time.

  Eventually, though, we move on to talk of his interview. It’s not that our sorrow has passed. It’s just that we have no choice but to accept our fate and move forward.

  Clearing my throat, I say to Flynn, “Hey, you never told me what happened at your interview this afternoon. Did you get the job?”

  “Yeah,” he replies. “I sure did. They seemed really happy to have me.”

  “Of course they’d be happy. You’re a good, reliable employee.” I take a breath, blow it out. “So… When do you start?

  “Tomorrow,” he replies.

  I sit up. “What kind of construction project will you be working on?” I ask, truly curious.

  Still resting his head on the pillow we were sharing, Flynn peers up at me. “I’ll be working on the first phase of some new apartment complex,” he says.

  Forsaken is a rundown dump, so to say I’m surprised is an understatement.

  “A new apartment complex is being built in that town?” I scoff. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Nope, it’s all true,” he says. “But they’re being built over on the outskirts of town. Never fear, Jaynie-dear. Forsaken remains the shithole it’s always been.”

  “No surprise there,” I murmur, rolling my eyes.

  Flynn sits up next to me. When he leans over me to reach for a pack of gum over on the nightstand—a pack I just now notice—my eyes widen. That gum definitely wasn’t there earlier. He must’ve bought it today, before or after his interview.

  That worries me. Flynn only chews gum when he’s staving off a craving for a cigarette. See, he started smoking again when he was stuck in Forsaken. But since we’ve reunited, he hasn’t smoked once.