A Sister's Promise (Promises) (5 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

“Boy or girl?” Kate feigned interest, looking at the infant in the girl’s arms. Kate never knew how to treat teenage mothers. She didn’t want to encourage them by “oohing” and “aahing” over their babies. They got plenty of that everywhere they went, she figured.

“Girl,” she said, snuggling the baby. “Her name’s Graciella Maria. I’m Michelle and I want to enroll here.”

Kate took her place behind her desk. “Have a seat.”

What a shame Graciella hadn’t inherited her mom’s eyes. Michelle had short, curly brown hair framing her plump face and instead of eyes to match her hair, she possessed the most striking emerald green eyes.

“Do you have day care arrangements?” Kate asked.

“Yes.” Michelle pointed at the man sitting next to her, whom Kate assumed was the baby’s father. His hair sported a crew cut, making Kate wonder if he had just finished up time in the military. “He works nights, so he can watch Gracie while I’m in school. Then I’ll be home with her in the evening.”

Crew Cut Man eyed Kate coldly as if he knew she thought he was too old for Michelle. Turning to Michelle’s sweet face, Kate tried to remember which career center classes still had room—cosmetology, auto mechanics, floral design? “What are you interested in?”

“I like science.”

Science? Maybe the certified nursing assistant class had an opening.

Michelle handed her a battered folder. “I want to go to college.”

Of course she did. A few years ago Kate wouldn’t have hesitated to put her in whatever class she said she wanted—calculus, anatomy & physiology, astronomy. But Kate had seen too many teen mothers with lofty ambitions get overwhelmed with the college-prep curriculum and quit school altogether.

When Kate opened the folder, she was impressed to find all of Michelle’s school records. Most students that transferred in (usually kids bouncing between divorced parents) didn’t bring the proper documents with them.

Kate examined Michelle’s transcript. “What happened last year?” She only had a few classes listed—all with dismal grades.

“The doctor put me on bed rest and I missed a lot of school.”

She flipped to Michelle’s marks from the previous year and was shocked. They were all A’s and B’s. How did a girl doing all of the right things end up so wrong? “Where are your parents?”

“My mom is still in Detroit. She’s not a part of my life. Let’s just say, she was more than happy to sign the marriage consent form and get me out of the house.” She said it matter-of-factly and without a hint of bitterness.

“Here’s what I recommend. I’ll sign you up for CNA, certified nursing assistant, training. That way when you graduate, you’ll have a marketable skill.”

“But will that prepare me for college?”

Kate considered her answer. “You could go to a technical school if you wanted. But the point is, you won’t have to. You’ll be ready to enter the workforce and won’t have to spend any money on tuition.”

“I want to go to a real college. I’m not sure exactly what I want to do yet. Maybe be a veterinarian.”

Most of the new moms Kate had worked with had no idea of the time and energy a baby required. They thought they could drop them off in daycare and go back to being normal teenagers. When convenient, they carried the babies like dolls—proudly, as if they really accomplished something by getting pregnant.

Opening her filing cabinet, Kate pulled out registration forms for the career center. “I understand. But juggling parenthood and school is harder than you think.”

Crew Cut Man straightened up in his chair. “Maybe she’s right. It makes sense to bypass college if you can get a great job right away.”

Well, she wouldn’t say it was a
great
job. And the fact that he was on her side brought her absolutely no comfort whatsoever.

She shuffled through Michelle’s vaccination records to see her birth certificate. The girl was only fifteen. Finding Michelle’s old schedule, Kate blurted, “Wow.” Advanced English 11, physics, U.S. History—AP.

“I took chemistry last year but didn’t finish because of the pregnancy. The counselor at my other school put me in physics even though chemistry was a pre-requisite. It was a little hard, but the teacher worked with me during study hall.” Michelle was transferring in with an A-.

Here was Kate’s dilemma:
 
if Michelle took the college-prep curriculum but didn’t go to college, she would be worse off than if she had taken the career center class. If she took the CNA training, there was no way she would be prepared for vet school. “How will you pay for college?”

“Through scholarships and loans mostly.”

Perfect come-back. After all, that’s what Kate told students all of the time. If you’re willing to take out a loan on a car whose value depreciates over time, why not take out a loan for your own education, an investment that never loses its value?

Her insides twisted. Finally she decided to create a schedule that would impress college admissions officers, but might be too challenging for a young mother. She hoped Michelle would prove her wrong. That a baby didn’t always derail one’s life.

# # #

Friday after school Mr. Mohr walked into Kate’s office, which made her stomach twist even tighter than it already was. As a new principal anxious to assert his authority, he probably objected to the amount of time Kate had taken off.

“Feeling better?” he asked, as if he were trained to say such pleasantries, but didn’t really mean them.

I’m not the one who’s sick, she thought, but the words would not come out of her mouth. “I’m fine, sir.” He didn’t make them call him ‘sir’, but Kate felt compelled to do so. He reminded her of Uncle Burt, who after retiring from the army, still woke at five a.m., ran several miles each day and demanded the utmost respect from Kate and Joely at all times.

Still standing, he towered over her. “We have a couple of issues to deal with. First, Linda Cochran came to see me about you.”

Oh, no. Mrs. B. “Really? What about?”

“She said she e-mailed you over a week ago asking you to remove a student from her class and you still haven’t done it.”

Kate racked her brain trying to remember. This was an example of why she nicknamed her Mrs. B. Why did she have to go complain about Kate to the principal? Any other teacher would’ve stopped by her office to see what was going on. But Mrs. B refused to speak to her. What was her problem? “I will get right on it, sir.”

“Don’t forget this year’s evaluation determines whether you get tenure,” he said.

Kate worried that he would hold Mrs. B’s complaint against her. “I remember.”

“I expect to see you really step up to the plate. Put in extra hours. Impress me.”

She nodded. “I will, sir.” Even though she wasn’t sure how. As soon as he left her sight, she turned off the lights and locked her office door, anxious to be somewhere else.

CHAPTER SIX

No warning could’ve prepared Kate for the scene that greeted her as she stood in the doorway of Joely’s apartment. Fruit flies hovered around blackened bananas on the kitchen counter and a week’s worth of unopened mail lay scattered across the linoleum. Except for the sunlight from the open door behind her, the place was as dark as a movie theater.

“How dare you,” Joely accused, her hair wild and knotted.

Kate’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“What did you say to my neighbor?” Joely must have watched through the peephole as Kate chatted with the thin woman in the parking lot. “Just get in here.” She stepped aside to let Kate past.

Joely’s hostility caught Kate off guard. Then Kate remembered how just that morning she had yelled at her poor cat when he hacked up a hairball on the bedroom carpet. Kate wanted to rage at the world and she wasn’t even the one who was sick. “I was just asking her to check-in on you every once in a while.”

Kate leaned forward to give Joely a hug, noting that she was wearing sweatpants and a wrinkled T-shirt with no bra. She smelled like an old person—of Ben-Gay’s minty menthol.

Joely pulled away. “She doesn’t need to know.”

Kate decided to ignore Joely’s attitude and flipped on a light. “I brought you some books from the library.” She held up two paperbacks about living with lupus. She had left the ones with older copyright dates and more dismal overtones at home.

Joely glared at her through squinted eyes. “I’m serious, Kate. I don’t want you telling people.”

“Why not?” Kate placed the books on an end table. “It’s a fact. Why would you keep it a secret?”

“I don’t want people feeling sorry for me.” Joely lumbered toward the living room.

“But your friends would want to know.”

“It’s none of your business who I tell or don’t tell.”

Kate realized Joely would kill her if she knew she had told Aunt Suzy. For some reason she thought Aunt Suzy might show some concern and reach out to Joely. But their former guardian’s total lack of compassion was probably one reason Joely had been determined to be a great mom to her own children. “So, I’m assuming no one has been over to visit?”

Joely walked over to her La-Z-Boy and slowly lowered herself down. She placed a heating pad over her shoulder. “And I definitely don’t need anyone checking in on me.” She closed her eyes.

“Yes you do.” Kate yanked up the cheap plastic blinds with a clatter. She had hoped Joely would be in a better place now that she had the proper diagnosis and medication. Kate
needed
her to be better. “Sitting here in the dark doesn’t help.”

Joely blocked the light with her hand. “Nothing will help.”

Kate reminded herself that this wasn’t about what she herself needed. If Joely continued isolating herself, she was going to sink even deeper into what appeared to be a black sea of depression. Joely thrived off of the energy of other people. Even though she was single, she always had someone with whom to go out to dinner or play cards. In fact, her circle of friends was so large that Joely once joked that she knew three different women named Lori and two named Abina.

On the wall behind Joely was another window with a view of the orangey-pink sun over the water. At least it looked like it. It was actually one of Joely’s three-dimensional
trompe l’oeil
paintings. Kate always said it looked like a sunset, but her sister had insisted it was daybreak.

Kate sat down. “Maybe you’d feel better if you talked to your friends.”

“I don’t want my friends to know. They will treat me differently and I just can’t handle that.”

Kate stopped arguing, but contemplated calling some of Joely’s girlfriends behind her back.

Seeing Joely so pale and worn-out reminded Kate of the first winter after Dad died when Joely got the stomach flu. Kate nursed her as best she knew how, putting wet washcloths on her forehead, giving her an empty mop bucket for when she felt nauseated and letting her watch whatever she wanted on TV. But she remembered feeling helpless to ease her sister’s suffering—just as she did now.

Twirling a few strands of hair, Kate looked down as Herman the hamster crawled through her legs. She shook her head, disagreeing with Joely that it was cruel to leave him in his cage. “How are you feeling?”

“Horrible. I’m too young to feel like this!” Joely hit the arm of the chair with her fist, then winced.

Kate went into problem-solving mode. “Did you take your medication?”

“It’s not working.”

“Let’s call the doctor and tell him you need something stronger.”

Joely looked down. “It’s the weekend. He won’t be in.”

Kate left a message with the answering service, which the doctor returned within minutes, advising her what Joely could take to ease her “discomfort”.

When Kate went into Joely’s bedroom, her knee bumped into the bed. The room came equipped with one of those ridiculous Murphy beds that folded up into the wall. Joely probably could have qualified for one of those low down-payment mortgages, but she told Kate once that she wanted to wait until she got married to buy a house.

Kate crawled over the unmade sheets and jerked open the blinds. The light revealed another one of Joely’s
trompe l’oeil
paintings. This one looked like real French doors opening into a private garden where red roses ascended white trellises, giving the illusion of wide-open spaces. Kate would love for Joely to paint something like that in her master bedroom when she was feeling better. If she ever felt better.

Pushing the metal bed frame into its vertical resting place, Kate saw hamster feces on the carpet.
Yuck!
Kate picked them up with a tissue. After she washed her hands, she returned and admired one of her favorite pictures on Joely’s dresser:
 
she and Joely roller-skating for the first time. Their hair (Kate’s blond and Joely’s brunette) was up in matching pigtails. At the time Joely was still shorter than Kate and they hadn’t even a hint that their circumstances would soon drastically change. Both of them were laughing, bent stiffly at the waist, clinging to each other as they tried not to fall down. It wasn’t quite clear who was helping whom.

Behind the frame Kate saw some amber-colored prescription bottles. She brought Joely the recommended pills then visited the kitchen. She handed her a red ceramic cup filled with water.

Before Joely could take a drink, the glass slipped through her fingers and hit the coffee table edge, breaking into jagged triangles. “Shit!”

Kate bent over. “Don’t move. I’ll pick up the pieces.”

“That was Fiesta ware.”

Cringing, Kate realized the cup had sentimental as well as monetary value. “What happened?” She’d been sure Joely had a grip on the glass before she let go.

“All of a sudden I felt a jolt of pain in my hand.”

Kate swept the floor and brought Joely another glass. She watched as Joely raised it to her mouth with both hands, just like a child.

Unsure if it was a good time to mention it, Kate said, “I’ve been e-mailing a doctor out west. He’s doing some clinical trials on new lupus medications. I thought you might want to go meet him.”

“What would it matter?”

Kate reminded herself to hold onto her patience.

Joely stared at the wall. “I should’ve married Lucas.”

“Lucas? What are you talking about? You had nothing in common.”

“He wanted kids. Enough for his own basketball team.”

Kate didn’t respond. Lucas had been Joely’s high school boyfriend. He thought it was funny to take Joely to Hooters before the Homecoming dance and his motto had been “It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.” Joely claimed that he had a tender side that he kept hidden. Kate had been very outspoken about their incompatibility, confident Joely could find someone more suitable. And in college they both thought she had, an outgoing accounting major, named Jake. But they were wrong.

Kate looked around the room. When they were roommates in college, Kate cleaned more compulsively than her sister, but Joely never completely gave up like this. “Do you want me to tidy things up?” She sprung into motion, picking up Joely’s glass and other dishes.

“No,
Mom
.” Joely waved her hand dismissively, then grimaced. “Let’s talk about when you are going to put your mothering skills to better use.”

Kate’s heart accelerated as she walked toward the kitchen.

Joely’s voice suddenly softened. “Kate, you’re going to be such a good mom.”

Kate put the dishes into the sink, then returned to the living room. “Well, I don’t know about that.”

“You’re not backing out on me, are you?”

Instead of answering, Kate said, “I’m glad you brought this up because what you asked me isn’t really fair.”

“Asking you to be happy isn’t fair?”

Kate put her hand on her hip. “Who are you to decide that having a baby would make me happy?”

“Well, I’ve waited long enough for you to figure it out.”

“Joely, it’s just not that simple.”

“Sure it is. You told me you would have a kid. You and Mitch would be great parents. Therefore, you should have a kid.”

Hearing Mitch’s name made her squirm. She wasn’t used to keeping secrets from him.

Obviously becoming an aunt meant more to her than she had realized. She had been secretly counting on that opportunity to be involved in a child’s life over the long run. But now that motherhood was her only option, she felt ambivalent. “It’s a big decision, Joely. Give me some time to figure things out.” She turned toward the kitchen.

“The problem is there isn’t time.”

# # #

Late Sunday morning, still in her pajamas, Joely watched a kitchen remodel on TV. Usually she would have critiqued their color palette or their workmanship, but she remained silent.

“When do you think you’ll feel like going back to work?” Kate asked during a commercial break.

Unlike Kate, Joely had been brave enough to pursue a career with an uncertain future. When Joely finished her art degree, she waited tables for nearly a year until an interior designer saw the leopard she had painted on a friend’s car and hired her. Ever since then, she spent her days painting murals—vineyards in dining rooms and Neverland scenes in nurseries—that kind of stuff. It was her dream job.

“I have no idea.” Joely watched her hamster crawl under the couch. “I don’t know how people do it when they retire. It’s odd not having a reason to get out of bed in the morning.”

“That’s why I’m sure you’ll be happier once you’re painting again.” When Kate thought about it, it wasn’t just the activity, but the people that made her own job enjoyable. If she didn’t work, she would miss Trish and Rhonda. . . and every one of her students from Susan Abel to Kevin Zwik. Joely, however, didn’t see the same people repeatedly except for Kelly, the decorator she worked for. Every job meant meeting new clients and she loved that.

They watched two more decorating shows before Joely spoke again. “I like your necklace.”

Kate fondled the red stone on the chain around her neck. “You know where I got this, don’t you?”

“No,” Joely answered, which Kate couldn’t believe since it was such an awesome story.

“Don’t you remember when Mom and Dad took us to a mine? We sifted through buckets of dirt looking for gems. I probably wasn’t older than six and you must’ve been about three. I thought maybe I’d find gold and we’d be rich, but mostly I found obsidian and green-colored hiddenite. Just as you were growing restless and decided it would be more fun to chase ducks in a nearby pond, I actually found a dust-covered red stone. The owner of the mine said it was a real garnet. So we took it to a jeweler and had it cut, polished and made into this necklace,” Kate finished her monologue, twirling the stone in her right hand. “How could you not remember that?”

Joely shrugged. Of all the things she had going for her, a good memory was not one of them. When she took high school chemistry, she hung note cards all over their bedroom to help her learn the elements. By the day of the test, Kate had unintentionally memorized even the not-so-obvious ones—like potassium is represented with a K and Pb is the symbol for lead. Somehow Joely still only scored a C-.

Joely nodded toward the stone. “It’s very pretty.”

“That’s what you thought then, too. When you saw it, you said you wanted one and started to cry.”

“I did not.”

“Yes you did.”

Joely picked up a paperback book near her and started flipping through it. “A garnet is perfect for you.” Her finger pointed at the text. “It says here it’s associated with creativity and devotion to others.”

Kate silently berated herself for not trying to find a gem for Joely. Back then I was so self-centered, she thought. I’d taken pleasure in having something my little sister didn’t have. Once again I can have something Joely can’t, only this time I don’t want it.

Kate feared Joely’s melancholy mood was starting to wear off onto her. Even though it was noon, they hadn’t even eaten breakfast. Kate suspected if she weren’t there, Joely might not bother to eat all day. “How about I make us some waffles?”

“Actually, I think I feel like going out.”

Kate smiled. Definite progress! Although you’d never guess it by looking at them, they both loved going out to eat.

Kate grabbed her overnight bag and walked into the bathroom so she could brush her teeth. Just as she was about to turn on the faucet, the phone rang. And rang. And rang. Then Joely’s cheerful “I’m not here right now” message came on the answering machine. Kate listened through the door just in case it was Mitch calling for her. But it was another man’s voice:
 
“Hi, Joely. It’s me, Drew. Haven’t seen you in a while. Where
are
you? Give me a call and I’ll treat you to your favorite, a venti caramel macchiato.”

Kate peeked into the living room to see why Joely hadn’t picked up the phone. Her sister sat in her recliner, staring blankly at the wall. Kate’s heart sank.