Promises to Keep Read online

  “But I want him here on school days,” Eliza whines, “and I want Googie too. Why can’t we wake her up in the mornings?”

  “Because Googie won’t be a very happy Googie if she doesn’t get enough sleep,” Callie warns, to which Eliza has no response, so silence ensues as she quickly finishes her eggs, then pushes her chair back to go and sit at the computer in the kitchen and play Club Penguin.

  Jack comes up behind her, rapt, as a cartoon penguin surfs the screen, and Callie stacks the dishwasher and wipes down the table.

  “Come on, guys,” she says, checking her watch. “Five minutes till the bus. Brush teeth. Eliza? Brush hair. Shoes and coats on. Let’s roll.”

  When she gets home, Callie takes an Imitrex, then goes back upstairs to try to sleep off the headache. It is true that often the headache gets better as the day progresses, but right now she needs to lie down.

  Honor sits down gently on the bed, sliding a cup of hot camomile tea onto Callie’s bedside table.

  “How are you feeling, honey?” she says when Callie opens her eyes.

  “I’m okay,” Callie lies.

  “You’re going to the doctor today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your regular doctor?”

  There is a pause. “No. Mark.” Her oncologist.

  The blood drains out of Honor’s face as she places a hand on her heart to still it.

  “What? It’s . . .” She can hardly speak, a wave of nausea coming over her.

  “No, it’s not.” Callie attempts a smile. “Reece insisted on calling Mark yesterday because my scan is due next month, and Mark said he’d rather see me himself. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, Mom, and I’m more comfortable with Mark anyway. I barely even know my internist, and I know Mark will refer me to the best neurologists, or whoever I need to see.”

  “Okay.” Honor exhales loudly. “I just . . . I just got scared.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m not. Even Mark said it could be any number of things.”

  “Like migraine? Or perimenopause?”

  Callie smiles. “Yes. Exactly.”

  But that isn’t really how Callie feels.

  Just as she knew the minute she was pregnant with Eliza, she has a knot in her stomach, a feeling of dread, a certainty that something is very wrong, and she has been trying to bury her head in the sand, hoping that tomorrow morning she will wake up and everything will be fine.

  Tomorrow morning keeps coming, and each morning she wakes up and it is not fine, and she is so scared she can’t even think about it; every time she does think about it she finds herself unable to breathe.

  She doesn’t even know why she is so scared. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer she never had a flutter of fear. She knew she would be fine. This is not the same thing. Not that there were any symptoms with breast cancer the first time around, and she has no idea what this is, whether it is cancer, or whether it is something else, but whatever it is, she is pretty certain it is serious.

  Which is why she has refused to go to the doctor. She doesn’t want to know. She refuses to accept that there may be anything wrong with her, because, as she has said before, bad things do not happen to Callie Perry, and if, perchance, they do, they will still end well.

  Look at the cancer. It brought her and Reece closer than she could have ever imagined possible. For four years she had been immersed in her children, had not forgotten about her husband, but he had no longer been her priority in the way he was pre-children. The diagnosis made her open her eyes and pull her husband close again.

  Reece didn’t changed his travel schedule, but he came home from the office a little earlier, left the house a little later, was at most, not all, of the appointments with the oncology team at Poundford Hospital.

  They took the time to be together again, just the two of them. Reece even surprised her with a second honeymoon after she was declared cancer-free, or, at least, showing no evidence of the disease.

  They went to Paris. Of course. They stayed in a little hotel behind Sacre-Coeur, where they lay in bed all morning eating buttery croissants and huge bowls of café au lait, and spent the afternoons touring the museums, the Tuileries, a trip out to the Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte. And late-night dinners in candlelit bistros, falling in love with each other all over again over a sparkling Burgundy and a pear tarte tatin that was heaven-sent.

  Life, despite having been so complicated that past year, suddenly seemed so simple again. Reece loved Callie. Callie loved Reece. They both loved their children. And life was good. Better than good. Wonderful.

  Thinking back to those days almost feels like a distant dream, and Callie can’t even imagine, or remember, what it is to feel that good, that optimistic. She just wants the pain to go away.

  Honor leaves her daughter and goes down to the kitchen. She will drive Callie to the hospital, for Callie is no longer allowed to drive until they can get rid of the headache and find out what is wrong with her, and she leans her hands on the kitchen counter and drops her head.

  She is scared in a way she too has not been before. But she cannot be scared. She has to be strong for her daughter. But is she the only one who has noticed how Callie’s appetite has dropped? How Callie is pretending to eat, but only takes one or two bites before announcing she had a huge snack just an hour ago and she’s practically full to the brim.

  Is she the only one to have noticed the worrying shadows under Callie’s eyes, her palor, her skin?

  Please God, she closes her eyes and prays. Please let it be nothing. Please let Callie be fine. She knows this probably isn’t quite right. That it might be better to pray for the strength or the fortitude to get through whatever it is that He decides is going on, but she can’t quite bring herself to do that.

  Praying is something she is not wont to do that often, for while she believes in the Universal Spirit, in a guiding force, in protective angels that watch over us, she has spent many years questioning the God of her Catholic upbringing, and the only other time she turned to Him for help was almost five years ago.

  When Callie was first diagnosed.

  Reece checks his watch and swears under his breath.

  “Shit, I have to go. Al? Can you take over?” His creative partner nods, and Reece grabs his jacket and waves a group good-bye as he leaves the meeting room.

  “I’ll be back later,” he shouts to his assistant. “Doctor’s appointment.”

  His assistant stands up. “You have a four p.m. with—”

  “I know, I know.” He pauses by the door. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back by then. But now I’m late.”

  He is always late, which he tries very hard not to be, but life is so busy, and he gets so distracted, and there is always somewhere he needs to be.

  Today, he thinks he doesn’t necessarily need to be with Callie for this doctor’s appointment. He is sure that this will just end up being a consultation, and that Callie will be sent home with a list of other specialists she will have to see, but Callie has clearly not been feeling well, and when she turned to him last night and said, “I need you to come with me,” he heard.

  He runs up Fifty-second Street and speed walks across Lexington to the garage, waiting only a few minutes for the guys to pull his Audi out, gleaming black, brand new.

  He folds his body inside and guns the engine, loving this car just as much today as when he had the casual thought that he might like an Audi S5, and spent the next few hours in his office with the door closed, salivating over pictures on the Internet.

  The traffic in midtown is terrible, but there is nothing he can do now. He should have left twenty minutes earlier, and it can’t be helped. He rings home to tell Callie he’ll meet her at the hospital and that he may be ten minutes late.

  Honor picks up the phone.

  “Honor? It’s me. The traffic’s horrific, so it’s going to take me longer than I thought. Can you drive Callie? I’ll meet you at Mark’s as soon as I can.”

  “Of cou
rse,” Honor says. She knew this would happen, as it so often does. It has become a standing joke that they have to bring two cars to every social occasion, for Reece will always show up half an hour late.

  She feels a surge of irritation, because this isn’t a social occasion but something important, and then she suppresses it. She loves her son-in-law. Loved him the minute she met him and saw how he looked at her daughter; more important, she has learned to accept him, with all his foibles and idiosyncrasies.

  “We’ll see you there. Have you eaten?”

  “No,” he says and smiles, as he heads onto the West Side Highway.

  “Want me to bring you something?” she asks.

  “I’d love you to bring me something!” He is enthusiastic. “What are my choices?”

  “Leave it to me. I’ll surprise you,” she says, walking over to the fridge.

  It is no surprise to Honor that Steffi became a chef, because Honor was always cooking. Both Callie and Steffi, when young, would perch on stools and help her, and she remembers Steffi cooking herself elaborate meals when she was only, what, five? Or six?

  Today’s child would never be allowed anywhere near a hot stove, or boiling water, but Honor has a clear memory of Steffi making scrambled eggs first of all, when she was around four, then the obligatory cookies and muffins, and then devising entire menus for the whole family.

  She would sit at the kitchen table with Honor’s cookbooks all around and choose something. She used a lot of pork, because George, Honor’s second husband, adored pork, and Steffi adored George.

  For a very long time, Honor stands at the counter and thinks. She has had a perfect life. Good God, it was hard when George died. So hard, for so long. But she continued with her life, started a book group, attended classes; all things she would not have had time for in her marriage.

  And she found that life could be good again. Better than good. Wonderful. Surrounded by family and friends, she tries very hard not to dwell on loneliness.

  Or fear.

  She wishes she didn’t feel quite so fearful now.

  Roasted Tenderloin of Pork with Fig, Prosciutto and Sage Stuffing

  Ingredients

  1 pork loin, around 1½ pounds

  ½ stick butter

  6 dried figs

  4 slices prosciutto

  1 clove garlic

  8 fresh sage leaves, or about 1 teaspoon if using dried (it is far more pungent)

  Salt and pepper to taste

  1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

  2 tablespoons honey

  Olive oil

  Method

  Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  Cut a pocket along the length of the pork, almost going through to the other side, but being careful not to. (Think of the Muppets, and you will get the idea.)

  In a food processor, pulse the butter, figs, prosciutto, garlic, sage, salt and pepper until a paste forms. Fill the loin with the paste, and tie it with string to keep it together.

  Mix the mustard and honey into a paste and cover the meat with it.

  Drizzle with oil, then cook for 1 hour.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Now that it’s about to become reality, Steffi is really not sure about this whole moving to Sleepy Hollow business. Had it been San Francisco, for example, or even Portland, Oregon, she would have jumped at the chance, but Sleepy Hollow, New York? What is there for a single girl to even do there?

  Aren’t places like Sleepy Hollow for married people like Callie and Reece? For married couples with small children who are looking for a proper house and space in which their children can play?

  Granted, it will be free accommodation, and there is a part of her that has already started romanticizing about her life in the country: big roaring fires; long walks with Fingal loping by her side; cozying up on the sofa next to some long-haired rock star who, miraculously, lives at the end of the dirt road and has been looking for a gorgeous woman just like—well, who would believe it!—just like Steffi.

  Then she thinks about what it will actually mean: getting up at the crack of dawn to feed the chickens and the goats, never being able to find a plumber who can come within less than a week, so having to live without essentials, like toilets, for example. On top of which the sheer loneliness may be enough to drive her crazy.

  Where will she work? Who will she talk to? Will she be accepted? Mason assured her it would be fine, that there are tons of interesting people around and it isn’t exactly deepest darkest countryside. But what would have felt like a fantastic adventure in her twenties, now, at thirty-three, just seems like it might be a big bad mistake.

  Steffi steers the rental car off the highway and peers out of the window at the sky. Raining all morning, the sun is finally struggling to break through, and she thanks God, again, for GPS, which was surely the only way she was ever going to make it here without a minor heart attack.

  She may spend time close by in Bedford, and she may have been in New Canaan just the other day, but she has never actually been to this town before, and a sense of direction has never been her strong point.

  It looks much like suburbia, she thinks, following the GPS, but as she keeps driving and the sun comes out at last she passes through a pretty town with old-fashioned stores and a true country village center, and smiles at the charm.

  She follows on down the road, past white clapboard antique houses, falling-down iron picket fences, past a few barns that have clearly been there for well over a hundred years.

  The next left, Matilda tells her—Matilda being the calm and assertive voice of the GPS—and she turns left, then right, then right again, onto exactly what Mason had described: an old dirt road that looks as if it will lead to nowhere.

  As she makes the turn, Fingal, who has been fast asleep on the backseat, suddenly lifts his head and stands up, his tongue hanging out as he starts panting and whining in pleasure.

  “You know you’re home, boy, don’t you?” she says, and Fingal’s tail whacks her on the shoulder.

  She bumps down the track, glimpsing the roof of the house as she rounds the corner, and then over the cobbled apron, along the graveled driveway and up to a pretty, Italianate farmhouse, with strategically placed rocking chairs on the wide, wraparound porch.

  “Wow!” Steffi whistles to herself, getting out of the car and standing for a moment, while Fingal whirls around in delirious circles with, Steffi would swear, a genuine smile on his face.

  She watches him for a few seconds before doing a slow turn to take in the view. Next to the house is a large wooden barn and behind it she can see the corner of a cage—must be the chicken coop.

  “I’m so sorry I can’t make it down again to show you myself,” Mason apologized the other day, as he handed her a key. “But you’ll be fine. There’s no one living there now, but there’s a guy down the road who’s helping me out with caretaking stuff. I’ll try to get hold of him to explain who you are.”

  She walks down past the side of the house, and grins when she sees the chickens, squatting down on her haunches to get a closer look and clucking gently at them, surprised and delighted when they strut over to see if she has anything for them.

  “Sorry, girls,” she says. “Not this time. But maybe next.”

  Standing up, she holds her breath for a moment, for Mason had said nothing about the stunning views from the back porch, stretching out over the hills for miles.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispers, before nosing round the corner to where the miniature goats are grazing. They too are friendly, and she scratches their heads in delight as she croons softly to them.

  After a wide stretch, she steps up to the back porch, calls Fingal to her side, and walks around to the front door. Mason has told her he never bothers locking it when he is there, but the house has been empty for a while, hence the need to give her a key. It turns easily and the door pushes open to reveal a large hallway with a curving staircase on one side and a marble fireplace on the facing wall.

&n
bsp; A small sofa is on one side of the fireplace, a wing chair on the other, and Steffi sinks down on the sofa. There is no fire in the grate, but it is easy to imagine one, and what could be nicer than walking into an entrance hall that feels like a living room with a roaring fire and squishy sofa?

  She gets up, almost reverentially, and peeks through the archway into a gracious living room with original floor-to-ceiling French doors on one side. The wide-planked floorboards are stained a dark ebony, with worn Tabriz rugs, and every wall is lined with bookshelves, thousands of books everywhere she looks.

  The sofas are a dark gray, with large, soft, gray and cream striped cushions; there are faded ticking curtains. The aura is one of shabby elegance, much like, Steffi thinks, walking around and examining the small porcelain boxes grouped on an end table, Mason himself.

  Lithographs are propped up here and there, framed, resting on the bookshelves, leaning on the books themselves. She has no idea if they are valuable, if they are original lithographs, numbered or prints, but she recognizes some: a couple of Picassos, a Matisse, a Leger.

  Back through the hallway Steffi finds his study, and she smiles at the thought of Mason sitting here, for his personality is imprinted on every surface. From the large old mahogany desk with the antique reading lamp to the many more prints and pictures covering every spare inch, to the haphazard piles of books on the floor, all around the edge of the room, each of them threatening to topple over.

  Big rattan baskets hold dozens of magazines. Architectural Digest, Publishers Weekly, Time, The New Yorker.

  A cracked-leather wing chair sits next to the fireplace, with a high footstool, a mohair blanket thrown over the arm. Steffi sits down and puts her feet up, leaning back and smiling as she surveys the room.

  This is indeed a room in which she could be happy.