A Promise to Keep Read online

  “Some of us make more than others.” She shoved her plate aside. Her cell phone, lying on the table, vibrated, and she picked it up. “Nick’s in the kitchen, eating with Derek and his kids.”

  Hayden nudged her plate back in front of her. “Finish your food.”

  “No. I didn’t have much of an appetite to start with. And now...” She climbed from the table. “This conversation has been put off for thirteen years. It’s way past time.”

  Hayden hastily untangled his long legs from the bench and strode after her as she headed toward the basement doors. Without faltering, she plowed through the throng that had gathered around the food-laden buffet table in the game room, oblivious to or ignoring the looks she was getting. Hayden slowed down long enough to glare at Judy, who despite having a toddler in her arms and a preschooler tugging at her pant leg, had managed to spare an evil glare for Ronni as she’d passed through.

  Hayden got to the paneled hallway just in time to see her pause outside his father’s home office. “Ronni!” he called. “Wait for me.”

  He caught her just as she opened the door.

  She placed her palm on his chest. “No, Hayden. I appreciate the thought. I really do. But this is between your mom and me.” She stole a peek over her shoulder, to where Lydia perched on the edge of the oversize cherry desk.

  “You’re sure?”

  Ronni nodded. “Just...don’t go too far, okay?”

  “You got it.”

  ###

  Mrs. Hawkins set out a chair for her in front of the desk and gestured to it. “Have a seat.”

  The padding of the folding chair squished as Ronni did as she was told. There were no extra “real” chairs in the office because Michael Hawkins didn’t usually hold meetings here. And if, as a Hawkins child, you were summoned to this room, you stood.

  She knew because Ian had told her numerous stories of being brought before the family judge. More often than not, he’d stood here with Hayden at his side, the pair of them in trouble for one incident or another.

  The Sir Hawkins escapade, for example.

  She bit back a smile.

  “Something amusing I missed about this?”

  Ronni raised her head, met Lydia’s frank blue eyes. “I was just thinking about Ian. About the Sir Hawkins incident at the Fourth of July parade.”

  The corner of Lydia’s mouth twitched, and she shook her head. “If it wasn’t one thing, it was another with those two. And yet...” her expression sobered “...somehow, neither of them ever got arrested. None of my children ever got arrested.”

  Ronni sighed, lowering her gaze to Lydia’s beige mocs. “I’m sorry.” And yet she knew some of the Hawkins kids, Ian included, had done things that, had they been caught, could have resulted in arrest. The thought buoyed her. Maybe Lydia wasn’t Perfect Supermom after all.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “For everything. For what’s going on with Nick, for— for Ian...”

  The soft tick of a clock on the bookshelf punctuated the silence that grew and grew until Ronni was afraid it would strangle her.

  Finally, she glanced up at Lydia, whose blue eyes shimmered. The muscle along the edge of the older woman’s jaw twitched. “Why? I’ve waited years to know why you abandoned my son when he needed you most.”

  “Because I was afraid. Because watching him fade inch by inch hurt more than I’d expected.” Ronni shook her head, offering a wry half smile. “Ian was larger than life. A force of nature.”

  Lydia nodded. “He was that.”

  Ronni swallowed hard. “I—I couldn’t stand to see him like that. I’m sorry. I was only eighteen....”

  “And he was only nineteen,” Lydia asserted.

  “I know. If I could go back and change it, I would.” For one thing, she’d marry Ian when he asked the first time. But she’d stubbornly wanted to be sure he loved her for her, not because they were having a baby together. Then he’d gotten the cancer diagnosis—and when she’d asked him to marry her at that point, he’d refused. He had promised that after he’d beaten the cancer, they could revisit the marriage issue, but he wasn’t going to marry her just to make her a widow. When he’d become convinced he wasn’t going to make it, she’d stormed out....

  And then it was too late.

  “How much would you change?”

  “W-what?”

  “Would you change...getting pregnant?”

  Ronni shook her head. “No way. Nick might be making me crazy right now—”

  “Which is what teenagers do.”

  “But I wouldn’t give up having him. I wouldn’t miss out on any part of my life with Ian...except the part I did miss out on. The end. I’d do that differently.”

  Lydia’s mouth flattened. After a moment, she nodded. “I’d do it differently, too. After Ian died... Hayden was right, what he said outside. You were an easy scapegoat. Watching your child die... If you thought you hurt, know that I hurt even more.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Ronni said softly.

  “You hurt my son. Badly. I wanted to make you pay for that. I was so angry at you for making his last few weeks even more miserable. He had enough to deal with. He didn’t need a broken heart on top of it. I’m sorry. I didn’t consider how young you were, or how much you were aching, too.”

  “Mrs. Hawkins, I was trying to make him fight. He’d given up. Resigned himself to dying.”

  The woman looked stricken. “What? No. Ian was a fighter. He didn’t give up until after you...”

  “Maybe he didn’t tell you how he really felt?”

  A knock sounded on the door. Lydia scowled. “Not now.”

  The door opened, and Alan, her oldest son, popped his head in. Hayden peered over his shoulder.

  “Sorry, Mom, but this... Ronni, there’s something you’re going to want to see. Right now.”

  Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Ronni pulled it out as she rose to her feet. A call from Vera. She stabbed Ignore. “Is Nick all right?”

  “Nick’s fine,” Alan assured her. “Nothing to do with him. Well, not directly.” He crooked a finger. “Follow me.”

  Grateful for the interruption, but apprehensive at the same time, she headed out the door on his heels, Hayden on hers, and Lydia bringing up the rear. “What’s going on?” she asked Hayden.

  He shrugged. “Not sure.”

  By the time they’d made it up the long flight of stairs to the foyer, their unusual parade had picked up a few more people. On the main floor, Alan bypassed the living room, the dining room, and headed down the main hallway. At the base of the stairs that led up to the bedrooms, he turned into the family room.

  “Mom,” Nick called from the kitchen, “what’s up?”

  Alan stopped in the doorway, shaking his head while furtively pointing at her son.

  Ronni popped into the kitchen. “Nothing.” She glanced at the two plates in front of him. The end of a hot dog in a shred of bun smeared with mustard were the only things that remained. “You get enough to eat?” Sometimes the kid was a bottomless pit. And when his friends stayed over, she needed a full freezer just to keep up with their teenage appetites.

  Derek, sitting at the end of the kitchen table, sawing up a hot dog for the little girl next to him, rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable what he just put away. I don’t think I ever ate that much. Something to look forward to with Jack, I suppose.”

  Jack stuck out his tongue in his father’s direction. Then he turned to Nick. “You wanna go play some more football?”

  “Sure.” They both jumped from their seats.

  “Clean up after yourselves first,” Ronni said.

  They skidded to a stop, raced back to the table, grabbing up their plates and napkins, which were promptly stuffed into the oversize garbage can by the pantry before they resumed their race outside. The screen door squeaked, then slammed.

  Ronni headed back to the family room. Hayden waited just inside the doorway, as did Alan, who held the television remote in his
hand. The big TV in the entertainment center had been paused.

  Lydia sat next to her husband on the blue-and-white sofa along the front wall. Judy had joined them, as had Elke, both sisters minus their children, though Elke clutched the baby monitor in her hand.

  “Shut the door, Hayden,” Alan said.

  He arched an eyebrow, but did so.

  Ronni’s phone vibrated in her pocket again. She pulled it out. Another call from Vera. Once more she stabbed Ignore. She would connect with Scott’s mother after Alan unveiled his mystery.

  Her stomach knotted. Oh, please, God, don’t let him have gotten his hands on some kind of video surveillance that showed Nick creating graffiti with the spray paints he’d been caught with.

  Just what she needed. Graphic evidence of her ineptness at motherhood.

  “Dad and I were catching the news. As soon as we saw it, we figured you needed to see it, too.” Alan pointed the remote at the set, and the picture jerked back into motion.

  “Tonight as part of our special Memorial Day weekend coverage, we’ve got a story that will deeply touch you. A veteran who came home, not missing a limb, but in limbo.” The male anchor at WEGL shuffled several papers, then addressed the young female reporter who’d joined him at the news desk. “Some of you may remember about a year and a half ago, when Sergeant Scott Mangano—”

  Ronni’s chest tightened. She pressed her hand over her heart.

  “—was injured in Iraq. He spent time in Walter Reed before being transferred to a care facility here in Erie. Tonight we bring you the full story of a war hero whose condition raises thought-provoking questions. Sergeant Mangano, soldier, son, husband, stepfather... But what really happened that fateful day in Iraq? Was it a deployed man’s worst nightmare? His body, a mere shell, clings to the remnants of life. His mother holds out hope for a recovery that, according to medical experts, will never come. Tonight, we remember and honor this man.”

  The screen showed Scott’s military photo as they cut to a commercial.

  Ronni’s hand slid to her stomach. The two bites of mac and cheese she’d eaten threatened a return trip. Her knees trembled.

  Alan fast-forwarded the commercials. The silence in the room made the whoosh of her pulse in her ears sound even louder.

  Hayden laid his hand on her shoulder. “Sit down, Ronni. You’ve gone white as a...” He hesitated a moment. “A ghost.”

  Somehow he steered her over to the other sofa, getting her seated. As he perched on the arm of it at her side, her phone vibrated again.

  Alan stopped the playback as she pulled it out. This time when she read the display, she answered. “Vera?”

  Hysterical tears and incoherent babbling came through the speaker. The only things Ronni could make out were “news,” “I’m sorry,” and “true?”

  “Vera, I haven’t seen the whole thing yet. We’ll talk about this later, okay? I’m sorry, I have to go.” She clicked the phone shut.

  The door to the family room flew open and Nick barreled through, his phone in hand. “Mom! Andy texted me and said there was a piece on the news about Scott and...” The boy paused, taking in the television, and the somber expressions on the adults’ faces. “Nobody thought I should see this? I’m not a baby!”

  “Then sit down next to your mother and don’t act like one,” Hayden said.

  Nick threw himself onto the sofa on the other side of her, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “L-let’s get this over with, please.” Ronni looked at Alan, who nodded and started the playback again.

  The woman reporter provided the narration this time. “This was Sergeant Mangano before his deployment.” Scott’s service photo flashed again on the screen, followed by a series of other pictures. “He was a son.” Scott hugging Vera. “A husband.” A picture from their wedding day of Scott feeding Ronni cake. “A stepfather.” A photo of Scott with Nick, each of them with a fishing pole. Vera had apparently been very generous with access to her family photos. “He worked in the shop at General Electric. This is Sergeant Mangano now.”

  Ronni sucked in a deep breath as a shot of Scott in his wheelchair, vacant eyes staring into the distance, filled the screen. “Oh, God. No. How did they get that footage?” Her fingernails dug into her palms.

  “Living in the limbo known as persistent vegetative state—”

  “Permanent,” Elke corrected from across the room.

  “According to medical experts, there’s little chance of change.” The story cut to a neurologist from one of the local hospitals, talking about PVS in general terms.

  Then they showed Vera, holding Scott’s picture. “I still have hope. You can’t give up hope. Miracles happen.”

  Ronni’s eyes misted over. Bless Vera’s heart, she still couldn’t accept that her son wasn’t going to recover.

  “The cause of Sergeant Mangano’s injury wasn’t an IED.” They went into the details of Scott’s accident, the crash and rollover of the truck he’d been driving on duty. “We spoke to some of the other members of the unit to get their take on how something like that could happen.”

  Ronni shifted toward the edge of the sofa as her stomach twisted again.

  Dan, Scott’s buddy, shrugged his shoulders. “Accidents happen, man. No matter where you are, bleep—” they blurred his mouth and bleeped out his chosen curse word “—happens. The roads over there ain’t exactly I-90, you know?”

  “Any possibility he was impaired in some way? Had he been drinking? Had some sort of emotional distress?” the reporter asked.

  “He wasn’t DUI. And he seemed fine to me. Like I said, bleep happens.”

  “Another member who served with Sergeant Mangano has a different theory.”

  “Distracted?” said another female voice as they showed the footage of Scott in his wheelchair again. “Yeah, I think he had his bleepin’ head up his bleep that day.” There wasn’t a note of sympathy in her response.

  Ronni went dead still when they showed the woman’s face, a brunette with a medium-length shag and pouty lips coated with a glossy sheen. For a moment, Ronni’s lungs couldn’t expand past the band of steel encircling her ribs. Her heart pounded. She’d seen that face before. Those pouty lips and dirty mouth had been doing dirty things...to her husband.

  Bile rose in her throat.

  The next question the reporter asked went unheard, but the response...

  “A Dear John Skype. That’s what he told me.”

  The air in the family room changed. The weight of the stares from the Hawkinses made the hair on the back of Ronni’s neck stand up. Hayden, eyes widening as he looked at her, shifted away.

  The explanation sat on the tip of her tongue, the urge to blurt it all out almost unbearable. But a glance at her son’s befuddled expression showed he hadn’t understood the woman’s claim.

  And Ronni refused to taint Nick’s memories of the only father he’d ever known. She forced herself to breathe through her nose slowly, keeping her teeth clenched.

  “Technology has changed how our troops communicate with their loved ones while deployed. Internet-based phone calls let soldiers read bedtime stories to their kids. In this case, it may have contributed to the accident that changed Sergeant Mangano’s life.” They showed the original series of pictures again, Scott as son, husband, stepfather. “When we asked Mrs. Mangano about the circumstances of her husband’s accident, she had this to say.”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  Ronni winced at her clipped tone in the nursing home’s reception area. Editing could certainly make an innocent comment seem a hell of a lot worse.

  The rest of the so-called news report blurred. Something about the sacrifices made by military personnel. About honoring those who’d served. And remembering those like Scott who’d made it home, but not in the same condition he’d left.

  Alan clicked the television to a stop again.

  A fuzzy spot appeared in Ronni’s field of vision, a sparkling haze that remained even w
hen she closed her eyes tight.

  Fabulous. Just what she needed.

  She opened her eyes. Everyone—or at least the ones she could see—stared at her expectantly.

  She jumped from the sofa, stumbled toward the door as the flickering spot expanded to blot out more of her vision. “I—I need to use the bathroom.” Arms outstretched, she bolted.

  Hayden watched her stagger from the room, then turned back to face his family. She’d Dear Johned an active military man while he was deployed to a war zone?

  It didn’t get much lower than that. Except maybe for leaving a dying man.

  Hayden had been willing to finally forgive her for the situation with Ian. Especially after learning how his brother had been resigned to his death, and she’d tried to make him fight. But this latest revelation...

  “Same old Ronni,” Judy quipped. “Man in trouble? No problem. Bail.”

  “What’s a Dear John Skype?” Nick asked. “I mean, I know Skype. We talked to Scott in the field every week with it. But Dear John?”

  Judy, eyes blazing, leaned forward. “It means your mother told Scott she was going to divorce him while he was in the middle of a war.”

  Nick jumped to his feet, sending Hayden into full alert mode. His muscles tensed as the boy glared at Judy.

  “Well...maybe she should have.” He ran out the door, calling for his mom.

  Not the reaction Hayden had anticipated from his nephew. The rest of the family looked equally surprised.

  “In the interest of fairness,” Alan said, “the media likes to sensationalize things. People have agendas. We don’t know what that woman’s agenda is.”

  “Ronni didn’t deny it,” Judy pointed out. “Isn’t that the sign of a guilty person?”

  “The news also glossed over the fact she’s at the nursing home every day. Caring for someone who’s completely incapacitated,” Elke said. “I can’t see a woman who’d intended to divorce a man sitting by his bedside, wiping drool from the corners of his mouth and dealing with everything else that goes with PVS.”

  “We blamed her for abandoning Ian,” Hayden said, torn between the urge to defend her and the sick feeling in his gut that the Dear John thing was indefensible. “There was more to the story than we knew.” Most of the family still didn’t know what Ronni had told him about her breakup with Ian. “And Nick’s reaction...”