The Promise Between Us Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE PROMISE BETWEEN US

  “If you leave your newborn child because you have unstoppable thoughts of harming her, are you a good mother or a terrible one? This dilemma is at the heart of Barbara Claypole White’s novel, a wrenching story of how one woman’s OCD has a ripple effect on those around her—including the people she tried hardest to protect. This is an eye-opening and realistic exploration of mental illness—a topic that greatly deserves to be front and center.”

  —Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things

  “Barbara Claypole White does not merely write about people with mental illness—she inhabits them; she IS Katelyn, the young mother overcome with images of killing her new baby, the mother who leaves her baby to keep her safe . . . Later White IS that same child, Maisie, now beginning to struggle with OCD herself—and all Maisie’s worries, all her thoughts and the details of her pre-teen life are precisely, exactly right. Perfect. White knows how to tell a story, too, how to fully create each additional realistic and fascinating character, and also how to increase suspense as the family drama unfolds. This brilliant novel about obsessive-compulsive disorder is compulsively readable.”

  —Lee Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girls

  “In The Promise Between Us, bestselling author Barbara Claypole White explores survival, shame, and above all, compassion. With the deft hand of a true artist, she creates complex characters, whose lives have been ravaged by mental illness—when it goes unchecked and through its tumultuous effect on generations of women from one family. Readers will be drawn into Katie Mack’s world, they’ll root for her and her daughter, Maisie. The Promise Between Us redefines motherhood and sacrifice, delivering a heartfelt story with a powerful message.”

  —Laura Spinella, bestselling author of the Ghost Gifts trilogy and Unstrung

  “Barbara Claypole White knocks it out of the park with her latest family saga, The Promise Between Us. In this riveting page-turner, Claypole White digs deep into the intricacies of her characters’ lives and the devastating effects of a mental illness when left unchecked. It can easily be classified as a story about motherhood, family, and sacrifice. But mostly, it’s a tale of love, redemption, and renewal. The Promise Between Us has something for everyone: suspense, romance, and even a hint of mystery. A fast-paced read that captivates from the first word until the last. A definite book club selection that I highly recommend.”

  —Kerry Lonsdale, Wall Street Journal and Amazon Kindle bestselling author of Everything We Keep

  “In The Promise Between Us, Barbara Claypole White masters the art of bringing a reader up close and personal to the influences and forces of a mental illness. In this powerhouse of a story, Katelyn MacDonald’s decision to give up the precious gift of raising her baby, Maisie, in order to protect her, makes for a compelling page-turner. This is an in-depth portrayal of what it means to live in a world where every single thought or action comes into question; it is a story for the times, a story filled with stark realities; but most important of all, it is a story about hope, healing, and the strength of a mother’s love.”

  —Donna Everhart, USA Today bestselling author of The Education of Dixie Dupree

  “With The Promise Between Us, Barbara Claypole White gives us compelling characters and wonderfully complex relationships to shed important light on too little known, too little discussed challenges of mental illness.”

  —Laurie Frankel, bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is

  “Some books make you stop and think, and compel you to examine your own perceptions, how you feel about an issue. The Promise Between Us is such a book. The complication at the heart of the story is riveting: suffering symptoms of postpartum OCD that could lead to her harming her newborn, a young mother does what would be unthinkable for most new mothers. She leaves her baby in order to protect her. Is it the right decision? As the consequences continue to ripple out over the next several years, lives are unraveled and rebuilt in ways that are surprising, sometimes painful, often joyful. Combining elements of suspense and romance with laugh-out-loud doses of wonderful humor for leavening, this is ultimately a story about the redemptive power of love. This is Barbara Claypole White at her finest.”

  —Barbara Taylor Sissel, author of The Truth We Bury

  OTHER BOOKS BY BARBARA CLAYPOLE WHITE

  The Unfinished Garden

  The In-Between Hour

  The Perfect Son

  Echoes of Family

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Barbara Claypole White

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542048989

  ISBN-10: 1542048982

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  For my two Christmas stars,

  fearless in their compassion:

  Zachariah Claypole White

  Stephen Whitney (1987–2016)

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  Raleigh, North Carolina . . .

  ONE CALLUM

  TWO LILAH

  THREE KATIE

  FOUR KATIE

  FIVE MAISIE

  SIX KATIE

  SEVEN KATIE

  EIGHT CALLUM

  NINE JAKE

  TEN KATIE

  ELEVEN KATIE

  TWELVE KATIE

  THIRTEEN KATIE

  FOURTEEN CALLUM

  FIFTEEN LILAH

  SIXTEEN KATIE

  SEVENTEEN JAKE

  EIGHTEEN MAISIE

  NINETEEN LILAH

  TWENTY JAKE

  TWENTY-ONE KATIE

  TWENTY-TWO LILAH

  TWENTY-THREE JAKE

  TWENTY-FOUR CALLUM

  TWENTY-FIVE KATIE

  TWENTY-SIX CALLUM

  TWENTY-SEVEN KATIE

  TWENTY-EIGHT KATIE

  TWENTY-NINE KATIE

  THIRTY LILAH

  THIRTY-ONE KATIE

  THIRTY-TWO LILAH

  THIRTY-THREE KATIE

  THIRTY-FOUR JAKE

  THIRTY-FIVE KATIE

  THIRTY-SIX MAISIE

  THIRTY-SEVEN KATIE

  THIRTY-EIGHT CALLUM

  THIRTY-NINE KATIE

  FORTY JAKE

  FORTY-ONE KATIE

  FORTY-TWO KATIE

  Raleigh, North Carolina . . .

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Every thought is just a thought until you assign it meaning.

  —Angie Alexander, founder of Friends with OCD

  When the world says, “Give up,” Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”

  —Author unknown

  Raleigh, North Carolina

  Crouched in the corner of my baby girl’s bedroom, we both shake: the three-legged mutt and the mother with a colony of fire ants multiplying in her brain. Hardly a five-star protection squad, but we would die to keep Maisie safe.

  Ringo nudges my arm and wriggles closer. His circle of trust is smal
l, namely me, but then I rescued him after he collapsed in our driveway, deprived of food and love. Neither of us has eaten. I can’t, and Ringo won’t leave my side. Not tonight.

  Across the room, the blinds are open. The sky is cast-iron black, no stars. In the red metal crib with polka-dot bedding, under the soft light of her Winnie-the-Pooh lamp, ’Mazing Maisie makes suckling noises. I don’t have to see her to know she’s sleeping with arms flung above her head, mouth blowing pretend kisses.

  What goes through her mind at seven months? I know it’s more than instinct. I know the smile that greets her daddy or her aunt—even her godfather the one time he deigned to visit—is pure joy. You can’t fake joy. Is she dreaming under the gaze of the cow jumping over the moon? I was six months pregnant and screeching along to Bruce Springsteen when I painted that mural. Although, let’s be honest, I traced the outline. Cheated, the way I’m cheating at motherhood.

  The sound machine hums fake waves. Harmless waves. Gentle waves that bring memories of our weekend at Ocean Isle when Maisie was six weeks old. Cal saying, “My girls,” as if he’d won Best Family and couldn’t believe his luck. Will that change when he comes home from his conference and sees the trash can full of sharp objects: the kitchen scissors, the butcher knife, the pruning shears?

  Anything that could be used to hurt Maisie.

  Who am I kidding? Anything I could use to hurt Maisie.

  “If you have to take me down, buddy,” I tell Ringo, “do it. No hesitation.”

  He licks my face.

  All I want is to be a good mother to my baby girl. Stopped bathing her unless Cal was in the house, because what if I slipped and she fell out of my hands? Unplugged the kitchen appliances, because you never know when one’s going to short out and start a fire, right? Stop, avoid; stop, avoid—my new pattern, but it isn’t enough. Nothing I do is enough.

  I’m a middle school teacher, not the next Susan Smith. She strapped her babies into car seats, watched them drown, and lied about it on national TV. I wouldn’t have lied. I would have killed myself. Slowly, painfully, with a dirty knife from the garbage.

  A car door slams in the street. I sit up and listen, but no key turns in the lock. I slump back against the bedroom wall and rub my hands down my thighs. Try to erase the sweat. Ridiculous to crank the heat up to eighty, but Maisie must never feel the February cold. Purgatory is cold, not warm. I should know. I shivered through my childhood.

  Has Cal finally been able to get a break? I’ve made him twitchy. Anxious. He fusses over what I eat and when I sleep. What sleep, Cal, what sleep? He’s found a sitter for next weekend, one of his grad students. I know he wants to help, but how can I trust our baby to a stranger? And what if, what if we were in a car wreck and something happened to both of us?

  I grab my head, dig in what’s left of my fingernails. I wasn’t this way before that news report. A mother had drowned her baby in the bathtub. I cried as I sliced up raw chicken for dinner and wondered how a mother could do that. Then my mind showed me. Showed me, Katelyn MacDonald, as Norman Bates in unwashed yoga pants.

  That’s when they started: the images.

  I haven’t told anyone about my private horror movie. Not Cal, not the doctors. They would take Maisie away. I’d lose her forever. Baby blues, the pediatrician said when I told him I worried all the time. Depression and PTSD, the shrink said. Easy fixes—swallow these pills and think happy thoughts. Apparently seeing my mother stab my father at the kitchen table was enough to send any future adult loco. According to the professionals, we never escape our childhoods. Mine was short-lived after the kitchen incident. Dad ran off, and Mom prayed and drank, prayed and drank, while I raised my baby sister.

  Twelve years old and anointed mother of the house.

  Another image pounces, then hammers and pounds. An image so perverted I want to puke or open the window and toss myself out like an unwanted spider. I shove my hand across my mouth and bite down. Hard. I am not this person. I am not.

  Are you still listening, God?

  I need sleep; I need Cal to come home.

  He doesn’t believe in therapy, but he urged me to take the pills. Doesn’t know I flush them down the toilet. When I filled the prescription, I was still nursing. How could I risk drugs entering her system, contaminating her little body? And now that she’s weaned, I can’t take the meds, because what if they erase my fear, but not the images? I need that fear. It’s all I have left to protect Maisie.

  Turning, I check she’s still in the crib. Still safe.

  On top of her bookcase, the Winnie-the-Pooh lamp glows. Embers glow, the embers of a fire. Fire. Fire maims, fire kills. The lamp flickers. Is it a fire hazard? Yes! Terror steals the world’s favorite teddy bear, labels him a threat.

  Winnie-the-Pooh waits for my next move.

  My heart booms in my ears. The world slants as if trying to shove me off. Wobbling, I stand up. Tap the wall four times—four to keep Maisie safe. Has to be four. I need to unplug that lamp; I need to dump it, but I can’t risk moving, because what if? What if I pick up Maisie instead of the lamp? What if I drop her? What if I want to drop her?

  What if I’m the one weapon I can’t toss in the trash can?

  The floor shimmers, seems to pitch and roll. I shake my head. Can’t pass out, not if there’s a fire. One spark, that’s all it would take.

  One spark.

  My mind cracks open. Why, why is this happening again? New images hit like buckshot. A fire flaring, Maisie trapped in the crib, me picking her up, me dropping her on the stairs. The fire claiming her. What if I want the lamp to short out and burn the house down? What if I want her to die?

  The image plays again and again. Always again. No pause to reload. Legs can’t support my weight. Kicked in the gut, I’m on my knees. Powerless, I curl up and scream silently.

  More images attack in a fresh assault. Over and over. Over and over.

  A twisted thought—loud, clear—shouts, then roars. Lunges and jabs, sharper and sharper. An ice pick in my brain: I’m going to kill my baby.

  That’s not true! I love you, Maisie. I promise I will protect you from danger.

  But what if I can’t? What if I’m not strong enough to be her mother? What if I’m not who I thought I was? What if the danger is me?

  The front door clicks; fear keeps me paralyzed.

  The hall light goes on. Ringo wags his tail—thump-thump, thump-thump against my ribs—and Maisie starts to howl. From silence to screams in less than two seconds. Must go to her, must comfort her. Can’t, because what if? What if?

  Cal rushes through the doorway and lifts Maisie from her crib. He kisses her pink cheeks. I want to hold my baby girl. I want to kiss her. But it’s not safe. I’m not safe.

  I know how bad I look: dirty hair, unwashed clothes. I probably smell.

  Can you smell evil?

  “Why are you on the floor? Why didn’t you pick her up?” He frowns at me. “Why’s the house hot?” He looks around the room. “Where’s your sister?”

  So many questions, but then again, I’m not the mother either of us expected. Took me three years to talk him into having a baby. Welcome to hell, honey.

  The Winnie-the-Pooh lamp flickers again, and he leans toward it. Words smash together in my throat, dry as kindling: Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it! Too late. He mutters about a new bulb and turns back to me.

  “Why are you crying?”

  His girls are sobbing a duet. Cal looks from one of us to the other, but he doesn’t step closer to me. Good, he’s putting her first, as he should. He sways and rocks and pats and cradles. Maisie begins to settle. He’s finally learning how to soothe her, but he needs to keep practicing, because I can’t touch her anymore. I can’t pick up my own baby.

  I could drop her down the stairs. I could throw her down the stairs.

  I sniff, swipe my hand under my nose. Sit up.

  The image still plays. Never-ending background static. Or is it the theme song of a psycho?


  “My sis—she got the flu,” I say. “I . . . I didn’t want her near Maisie.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? All those texts I sent to check in, and you didn’t tell me? Mom would have helped out.”

  But that’s the reason I kept quiet. The perfect mother-in-law who sees only the perfect son. Doesn’t he understand the weight of shame?

  Cal’s beautiful blue eyes stare. On our wedding night, he murmured I’d saved his life. I trust him, he trusts me, and I haven’t been honest. I glance at the Winnie-the-Pooh lamp, stand up, and swallow. He waits for my explanation, follows my lead as always. Ringo waits too, head resting on his paws. I’m a deer trapped in the headlights of insanity.

  “I need help,” I mumble.

  “I know.” He keeps rocking Maisie. “I’ve been reading up about childhood trauma, and we need to talk, but not tonight. Let’s bring Maisie in with us so we can all sleep, and we’ll tackle this in the morning.” He tries to give me a smile, but it won’t stay in place.

  “I don’t think this has anything to do with my childhood. I think this is worse.”

  He stops moving. “Worse how?”

  “Something happened to me after Ocean Isle. I keep picturing these awful things—in my mind. And they feel so real. I can’t get rid of them, Cal. Can’t make them stop.”

  I inhale, exhale; he watches.

  “I see myself hurting Maisie, even though I would never do that. Never. But what if the house burns down with Maisie trapped in her crib and it’s my fault? What if I start a fire and don’t even realize it and . . . I think I’m going mad.”

  “You need to go to the ER. Now.” His voice is cold steel. “I’m calling your sister.”

  “What? No! No, they’ll take Maisie away and lock me up in a cell with no light and no air and—” I grab my arms, scratch my skin. Want to claw it off. Want to rip myself into pieces. Want to tear out these images. “Please. I love you, I love you both.”

  Eyes darting in every direction, he starts to cry. “You admitted that you want to set our house on . . .” He waves it away, doesn’t want the visuals. Neither do I, but I have no choice. My mind has no “Off” switch.