The Promise Between Us Read online

  She stretched out the fingers of her left hand and then curled them, one by one, into a fist. “Good for them. Irrelevant for me.”

  “Yes and no. Whitmore would like one of us to meet with the kids. He’s requested you, and I second that.”

  A heavy tool hit the concrete with a clang, and the goldfinch that had managed to get trapped inside the building flapped up near the ceiling. Her heart pounded as her phone buzzed with a text. Delaney.

  I’m waiting by your truck.

  Come in, Katie typed and hit “Send.”

  “I never do public events, Ben. Never.”

  “I know and respect that. But this is different.”

  “Different how?”

  Why does Ben put up with me? What if he’s been faking all these years? He only took me on because I forced him to. What if he hates me?

  “The director wants to make your piece the focus of the exhibit. He’s into your concept of recycling fear to create art. In fact, Whitmore wants to talk to you about doing your own show.” Ben smiled.

  “Who’s Whitmore?”

  His smile slipped into a sigh. “You weren’t listening, were you? I’ve told you already, he’s the director of CAM.”

  Ben looked tired. Was he getting enough sleep?

  I did that to him; I’m a shit person. Wait, that’s correct. A blend of truth and OCD. Damnit, Katie. Don’t agree with the OCD. See? This is why I can’t go to Raleigh. My mind’s going to become a mushroom field again. OCD popping up everywhere like fungus, a scattershot of obsessions, of intrusive images, and—

  “It’s hard to commit to anything right now.”

  “But this is huge. You’re branching out and leaving me behind.”

  “What if I don’t want to leave the nest?”

  “Hey, stop picking at your skin and pay attention.” His chimney sweep hand grazed her forearm. “I’m proud of you.”

  “But I—”

  “Don’t do Raleigh, I know.”

  An old image pounced. One she hadn’t seen in a while. Her hands picking up Maisie . . . and throwing her down the stairs. The images of harming Maisie had long vanished because Maisie was no longer part of her life. But what if they were back in the same city? What if?

  That’s OCD trying to scare me, trying to hold me hostage with old fears. An unwanted thought is just a thought; it has no power. Did I hurt Maisie? No, that’s why I left. To keep her safe.

  Katie glanced down at Ben’s steel-toed work shoes. No laces and easy to remove if a stray spark landed where it shouldn’t.

  “What if I came with you?” he said.

  “Went where with my sister?” Delaney sauntered toward them in a skin-tight denim skirt, her cropped T-shirt hanging off one shoulder to reveal a turquoise bra strap. With heavy black eyeliner and that slight sway of her full hips, she was more groupie than bookkeeper.

  Ben stared at her flip-flops and shook his head. “You’re not—”

  “Wearing safety glasses or sensible footwear, I know.” Delaney turned to Katie. “Hard day playing with fire?”

  “Hard day poring over people’s accounts?”

  Delaney’s laugh competed with the angle grinder whirring on the old loading dock. “Hope I’m not interrupting, but we need to plan a visit to see our mom before my sister finds another hundred excuses to get out of making the trip to Greensboro. For our mother’s birthday.”

  “Would you at least think about it? Please?” Ben raked his hands through his dirty-blond hair. He kept trying to sculpt it up, but the front continued to flop forward into a cowlick that made him look younger than thirty-five.

  “Think about what?” Delaney said.

  “Stop being nosy, honey.”

  “Can’t. I have a very boring life and thrive on gossip. Ben? What am I missing?”

  “The director of the Contemporary Art Museum is your sister’s latest fan, but she refuses to meet with him and the sixth-graders who are going to be our public mouthpieces for the show’s opening night. Plus he’s interested in doing a Katie Mack show. Which is—”

  “Huge.” Delaney nodded. “But we’re talking Raleigh, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Raleigh,” Delaney repeated as if she hadn’t heard him. “You know what? You should go, Sis. This is one of those subliminal messages from the universe. Same as when you wandered into that art show in Asheville and met Ben.”

  “Excuse me?” Katie shot her sister a warning look.

  “Think of it as a big-ass exposure.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell her,” Ben said. “You can’t have too much exposure as a young artist.”

  “I’m hardly a young anything, and that’s not what she meant.” Katie glared at her baby sister. Delaney raised her eyebrows, and a slow smile spread like a dare. They were back to being teenagers: Katie struggling to keep Delaney out of juvie; Delaney sneaking in after curfew, stinking of weed.

  “One of you care to explain?” Ben folded his arms.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, tell him,” Delaney snapped. Katie didn’t answer. “Fine, I’ll do it. An exposure is—”

  “A method of confronting irrational fear,” Katie said.

  Ben scrunched his lips together, the way he did when he was concentrating. “That’s how you got into welding, to confront your fear of fire, yes? This is something similar?”

  “I guess, only this is a fear of driving.” The lie slid out easily, covered in the powdered sugar of truth. Ben still believed she hated highway driving, but she didn’t. Not anymore. It was an excuse used to cover up a multitude of things she didn’t care to explain. Driving on the highway was an old fear, confronted years earlier at excruciating cost. Learning to handle fire had been far less painful.

  Liar. I’m a liar.

  No, thinking I’m a liar doesn’t make me one. I’m telling a half-truth to protect him. From me.

  “Sis, it’s time,” Delaney said quietly. What she really meant was You’re in a holding pattern. Staying away from Raleigh was no different from dumping all the knives in the trash nine years earlier. It was avoidance, and avoidance was a one-way ticket back to hell.

  “I’ll drive,” Ben said. “We can grab dinner afterward.”

  “Nice,” Delaney said. “It can double as a date.”

  “Maybe that wasn’t a date.” Ben frowned.

  “See?” Delaney said. “Even your seriously cute welding guru has given up making the moves on you.”

  “At the risk of repeating myself, that wasn’t—”

  “This from the person who has turned down two marriage proposals from her live-in boyfriend,” Katie said.

  “Three, if you count the time we were drunk and—” Delaney flashed her green eyes at Katie. “Never mind. Come on, get back on the dating wagon before you become a wizened old crone. I hear Ben’s single again.”

  “Don’t mind me, guys,” Ben said. “Really.”

  “What happened to—” Katie gestured as if attempting to sign, but it didn’t help her remember the young woman’s name.

  “Olivia.” Ben glowered. “She dumped me. Apparently I spend my life in the studio.”

  “I heard you stood her up. Again.”

  “Lost track of time working on a piece,” he mumbled. “How the hell do you know this, Delaney?”

  In the opposite corner Trent snickered.

  “Really bad idea to confide in the studio giggler,” her sister said.

  Wait. Had Ben mentioned the breakup? What if he told her when she was zoning out? What kind of person didn’t realize her friend might be suffering? Should she apologize to him? Was she a bad person if she didn’t apologize? But Ben and Olivia had only been on a handful of dates. Hadn’t they?

  Delaney linked her arm through Ben’s. Ben stiffened. “Okay, forget dating this hunk o’ love, but please, Sis. Think about going to Raleigh. Don’t do it because we’re asking. Do it for yourself. When we left the mountains to come back to the Triangle, you said it was time. Well, d
itto.”

  Was it, was it time? The cracks were opening up again, almost imperceptibly, but that was the monster’s MO. A year ago Katie had finally qualified for health insurance with access to a bona fide mental health professional, not a student in training, and he’d known less about OCD than she did. And now she had a $4,000 deductible, which meant therapy appointments were out of pocket, and her pockets weren’t that deep. So she was off meds and flying solo, using self-taught techniques to tackle fear. Except for the biggest fear of all.

  What if I drive past her? What if I hit her? I could kill her, run her over in my truck, the perfect killing machine.

  A thought is just a thought; it has no power. Have I ever hit anyone? No. I’m a good driver. Could I get in an accident? Maybe, but that doesn’t mean anyone would get hurt.

  Delaney cleared her throat. “An answer sometime this century might be good.”

  “I’m weighing my options,” Katie said, but her sister kept grinning.

  “I don’t want to push you into something that makes you uncomfortable,” Ben said.

  I control fire; I am strong. I’m a welder who works in a helmet decorated with Power Girl stickers.

  “Yes.” Katie took off her apron and hung it up. “Yes. I’ll do it.”

  Delaney stared, openmouthed.

  “Didn’t think I was up for the challenge? I’ll go, but only by myself. And if I have a panic attack on I-40, crash, and die, I’ll come back to haunt you both. Consider that fair warning.”

  “Stop right there,” Ben said. “You make the arrangements, and I’ll drive.” He removed a scrap of paper from his jeans pocket and handed it to Katie. “Whitmore’s contact numbers.”

  Delaney looked at him. “Love it when a plan comes together, don’t you?”

  An image pounced, of bashing in Ben’s head against the MIG welder. Katie slowed her breathing.

  A thought is just a thought, not an action. It can’t hurt anyone; it has no power.

  The thought passed, but unease twittered.

  Delaney was right. Going back to Raleigh was the ultimate test, the ultimate exposure. Keeping OCD chained when it latched on to Ben—a friend kept at arm’s length—was one thing. Taking it on a field trip into the city where the two people she loved most lived, worked, played, and laughed? That was in a different league.

  Katie picked at a torn piece of skin on her fourth finger until it came free with a sharp sting. A different league.

  FOUR

  KATIE

  Katie dropped to her knees in front of the Videri Chocolate Factory. She might have arrived forty-five minutes early—less time than it had taken to get from downtown Durham to Raleigh driving well below the speed limit—but it could take her that long to find her keys. And now she was kneeling in a city parking lot. Kneeling in a parking lot, reaching under the truck, and––Aha! Found them. But that didn’t stop the shaking. A full-body shake. Why had she done this without Ben? On what side of stupid did that belong?

  As she stood up, an image of a dead child flashed. A child she had killed. With her truck. Her OCD, the voice, whispered to go back and check. But she hadn’t run over a child, had she?

  The cab’s so high, how would I know if I’d hit a child? What about that car stopped on the shoulder? I’m sure I spotted an empty booster seat in the back. Suppose I ran over a child and left the scene of an accident? Oh, God, heart’s racing. Pulse all over the place. Need to go back and check, but there’s not enough time. Late is never an option. I’m freaking out, I’m freaking out. Can’t breathe. I’m having a heart attack. I’m going to die, here, in a parking lot. Alone.

  No, this is anxiety, Katie. Focus on your breathing. Breathe. One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four. It’s just anxiety. You’ll be fine.

  I control fire; I am strong.

  The parking lot attendant limped over, a guy who looked as if he should be whooping it up in a retirement community, not collecting parking fees in ninety-degree heat.

  “You picked up a leaf, ma’am.” He pointed to her knee.

  “A leaf?” Katie brushed it off her jeans.

  “Yup. I’m guessin’ fall is on its way. How about that?”

  “Yeah. How about that.”

  She took a deep breath, exhaled, and paid him. Then she blew out another breath, and another, and another. Released each one into the Carolina-blue sky, let them float away with the toxic thoughts.

  A thought is just a thought; it has no power. And OCD lies. I’ve never hit anyone. I’m a good driver, a safe driver.

  With a backward glance at the Chocolate Factory, she left the parking lot and headed up the street toward the Contemporary Art Museum. Anxiety hovered like a swarm of no-see-ums, her heart thumped in her throat, but adrenaline powered her legs. Kept her moving. To her right, a jackhammer drilled, decimating concrete as a work crew destroyed to rebuild. The warehouse district was reinventing itself.

  A glass office door opened, and a group of arty types tumbled out, laughing. Katie sidestepped their energy. Had she ever had such enthusiasm for life? A serious child, she realized her life plan without missing a step: watch over Delaney, get into UNC, complete a master’s in teaching, become a beloved teacher and a devoted wife. She was a good everything until she had become a mother.

  CAM greeted her from under a geometric canopy that zoomed down low as if captured mid-flight. The glass wall of the museum was decorated with white shapes: a fish, a moray eel, a basketball, the words “The Nothing That Is.”

  The Nothing That Is. Nice.

  Katie pushed open the large yellow door and entered the museum. Above her, tubes of light hung down between one-dimensional blobs that resembled painters’ palettes or flat clouds. Clouds . . . a quiet, distant idea for a piece. Less than an idea, more of a tingle. And a huge departure from the metal panels that hinted at darkness lit only by a blood-red moon.

  She walked in circles, eyes up, listening to creativity spark.

  “Don’t get dizzy,” a young woman with blue hair said from behind the information desk.

  “It’s speaking to me as all art should.” Smiling, Katie walked over. “Katie Mack. I’m here to meet with the docents, but I’m ridiculously early.”

  “No worries,” the young woman said. “Once the kids arrive, there’s a cyclone of chaos. If I were you, I’d look around while it’s quiet. I’ll tell Whitmore you’re here.”

  “Thanks.” Katie wandered into the lofted space where an installation was going up behind huge sheets of opaque plastic.

  The white expanse calmed. Silence, glorious silence, descended in her brain as she walked down the concrete ramp and through a glass-walled space, empty but for a long table. She kept going, onto the lower level, stopping by a black-and-white photograph positioned under its title: Failure of the American Dream. A man draped in an American flag stood in front of a village of tents, staring into the camera.

  At the edge of her sight, a tent was displayed in a cordoned-off area. Not a tent for family camping trips, but a tent for permanent shelter. It could have been her tent, the one she had lived in until the day Ringo died. She should walk away. Shouldn’t go into the exhibit, shouldn’t.

  She went inside.

  A list of rules for the homeless community hung on the wall. One column said do, one said don’t. The last line was a reminder that you might not have a home, but you were free. Living in a tent hadn’t helped her understand the concept of freedom. And neither did life in a four-bedroom colonial. No, the power to act without boundaries, without restraint had come from salvaging discarded, broken scrap.

  What might have been was another unwanted thought. Better for Maisie to grow up believing her mother was dead rather than worrying about a parent who had considered suicide. But to be so close after nine years . . . What time did Maisie get home from school? Had Cal found someone else? Was he with her today, on what should have been their fourteenth wedding anniversary?

  What if I get lost driving home and end up on
my old street and run her over? I could kill her. Katie stared at the stained sleeping bag on the floor. I did the right thing when I gave her up. I saved her from the trauma of being my daughter. I kept her safe.

  “Katie Mack? Thank you for agreeing to do this.” A man with short gray hair, octagonal glasses, and garnet studs in both ears walked toward her, hand extended. Dressed head to toe in dark gray, he was cute in a precise way. As she shook his hand, Katie checked his fourth finger. “Get back on the dating wagon,” her sister had said. How was she supposed to do that when no relationship survived the three-week mark? When she still loved the man she’d married? No wedding ring—she looked into Whitmore’s face—no chemistry.

  The clamor of recess surged above them, a sound no teacher could forget.

  “The excitement level is always high when the kids arrive, but they’ll settle down soon. And their visual arts teacher will be around for crowd control.”

  “I’m used to kids.” Katie paused. “I mean, I taught middle school briefly. In another life.”

  Did I lie? I think I lied. I’m a shit person. Was that a lie? No, that was the truth.

  Her stomach did somersaults to the pulse of what if.

  “Let’s give them a few minutes to put their stuff in the cubbies, shall we?”

  Pinpricks of sweat dribbled down her chest. “Tell me more about the docents.”

  “Such a smart, quirky bunch. Quite outspoken, too.” Whitmore smiled as if remembering something. “We have twenty right now. Mostly kids who don’t quite fit. True individuals. And I should probably show you how to do the CAM high five. They take it seriously.”

  He led Katie in an elaborate dance of hand movements.

  “Which schools do they come from?” she said.

  “Two magnet schools in the downtown.”

  What if I ran over that kid when I turned off the highway? I could have, I could have run over that kid and not realized. I need to go back and check. Go back and check.

  Whitmore kept talking; the private soundtrack in her brain kept playing.

  A thought is just a thought; it has no power. I would know if I’d run over a kid.