A Vow to Cherish (3 page)

He responded to her teasing rebuke with a frown. “You’re right, of course.” He shook his head. “Every year I look at the families enrolling their kids in kindergarten, and I don’t envy them a bit. In some ways, they have some of the best years of their lives ahead, but I have to say, I’m thankful we’ve done our job and can heave a sigh of relief.”

“John!” Ellen stopped dead in the street, her hands-on-hip stance matching the exasperation in her tone. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I can quit worrying. I still fret over Jana, even though she has her wonderful Mark, a job she loves, a nice apartment. But there’s still just so much that can happen.” Her eyes sparked. “And about the time we think we can quit worrying about Mark and Jana, we’ll have grandchildren to lose sleep over! I’m not holding my breath for that, though. I’m afraid those two are both far too wrapped up in their careers and—”

“Hey…You worry too much, Mama.” John tousled her hair playfully, loving the soft feel of her curls between his fingers. “There’s plenty of time for that.”

She leaned into his shoulder. “I know. And I know Mark and Jana are happy together. I have to let them live their own lives. Kyle, too. I’m sure he’ll be better off if we let him make a few mistakes. I just feel like worrying is part of my job description.”

“Well, don’t look now, but our job description just changed rather drastically.”

She sighed. “I can handle that, I guess. But it’s going to feel strange. It might take some getting used to.”

He started back up the street, picking up the pace. She followed, lengthening her stride to keep up with him, and breathing hard. They circled the neighborhood and ended up back in their driveway.

“Hey.” He put a hand on Ellen’s shoulder. “Let’s celebrate our freedom. How does breakfast at Perkins sound?”

“Mmm. Sounds great.” She shot him a mischievous grin and took off running. “Beat you to the shower!”

John easily overtook her, and they pushed and shoved their way up to their attic room, Ellen squealing like a schoolgirl.

They ended up sharing the shower, laughing, suddenly carefree and young again.

Half an hour later they climbed into the car and headed toward the restaurant. John felt Ellen’s eyes on him as he navigated the heavy morning traffic.

He glanced over to find her gazing at him with misted eyes. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and cleared her throat. “I’m just thinking…how much I’m looking forward to the rest of my life with you.”

Concentrating on the busy street, he reached for her hand and squeezed it.

Suddenly, the empty nest felt wonderfully full.

E
xactly six weeks later Ellen wound up in the shower at one o’clock in the morning. She and John had laughed about it at the time, and had gone back to bed and slept soundly. She didn’t give it much thought beyond that morning.

Until it happened again a few weeks later.

Only that time, she was dressed for work and almost out the door before John stopped her and sent her back to bed. And now it had happened again last night. Alarm bells went off in her head. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something wasn’t right.

She’d felt tired and run-down for a couple of months, but she’d never had trouble sleeping before. “I don’t know why I don’t check the clock before I get out of bed,” she told John.

She didn’t know why, except that her usual morning routine involved slamming the alarm off, heading blindly for the shower and not opening her eyes until the hot spray hit her face.

She was a few months overdue for her annual physical exam, so she scheduled an appointment. She intended to mention the incidents to Dr. Morton, but by the time she sat on the edge of the examining table, vulnerable and covered only by the flimsy white gown, it seemed like a silly thing to bother such a busy man with.

To her surprise, he brought up the subject. “Let’s see, Ellen…” He leafed through her chart. “How old are you now?”

“This is strictly confidential, right?” she teased. Jerry Morton had been their family physician for almost twenty years, and Ellen was comfortable joking with him. “I’ll be forty-seven next month.”

“Are you still getting your periods regularly?”

“Like clockwork.”

“Any problems with hot flashes or night sweats?”

She shook her head. What was he suggesting?

“Moodiness? Sleeplessness?”

She seized the opening. “Well, actually, I have felt kind of run-down lately, but I’ve been…having a little trouble sleeping, so I just attributed it to that. It’s no big deal, except that I’ve always slept like a log.” She didn’t tell him about her confusion, getting dressed for work in the wee hours of morning. It seemed silly now and inconsequential.

“Unfortunately, waking up in the middle of the night is common in menopause.”

Dr. Morton’s statement jarred her.

Her face must have reflected her surprise because he put up a hand and smiled. “Don’t worry. With your regular periods, you’re not there yet, but it’s quite possible you are in what we call perimenopause—the early stages. It’s not at all unusual for the transition between regular periods and fullblown menopause to begin as early as forty, or even before.”

She hadn’t given that possibility a thought. She wasn’t even forty-seven yet. Surely she had a few years before she had to worry about that.

Dr. Morton seemed not to notice her dismay. He gave her a handful of pamphlets and explained some of the symptoms she might expect to experience over the next months. She left his office in a haze, but with a clean bill of health.

Two weeks later, on a stifling August day, Ellen walked through the front doors of Calypso Elementary on the first day of school. She’d had the same classroom in this building for ten years, and she had spent most of the past two weeks decorating bulletin boards and arranging the desks and other furniture in her room.

She’d arrived almost twenty minutes later than she planned. Now she stood in the middle of a hallway bustling with parents dropping off children, and she felt completely disoriented. She didn’t know which way to turn. She could picture her classroom, where just yesterday she’d taped cute little frog-shaped name tags to the front of each desk. But suddenly, she hadn’t a clue where to find that room. She looked to the left and saw nothing familiar. Calypso Elementary wasn’t that big. She turned right. Same thing.

She stumbled down the hallway in a daze, peering into each classroom she passed. She had no idea how she’d gotten into this strange place. Had she somehow gone to the wrong building? But there was only this one building on the grounds. Wasn’t there? At the end of the hallway, she turned and started back in the other direction.

“Ellen! Did you lose somebody already?” A friendly voice greeted her.

She looked up and recognized Ginger Barkley, a fourth-grade teacher. “As a matter of fact,
I’m
lost.” Maybe Ginger knew what was going on.

The teacher gave her a funny look. “What do you mean?”

“I…I think they switched rooms on me.”

Ginger pointed to the other hallway, looking more puzzled than Ellen felt. “What do you mean? You’re in the east hall, right?”

She looked down the corridor Ginger indicated. As quickly as the confusion had come over her, everything suddenly came back into focus. She
was
in the wrong hall.
What is wrong with me? Ginger must think I’m crazy.
She feigned a laugh, trying to cover up her confusion. “Oh, I’m just getting my exercise.”

Ginger laughed nervously and Ellen hurried away, certain the teacher was staring after her. Ellen walked straight to her room, everything suddenly set right.

The rest of the day went fine, but the incident left her unsettled. She was too embarrassed to mention it to John that evening.

She had a larger class than usual this year, and the next days were full, trying to establish classroom rules and a routine for twenty-seven excitable second graders.

The weekend came and Ellen found herself exhausted. “Boy, I must be getting old,” she told John as she dumped spaghetti in a pot for Friday night’s supper. “I am beat.”

“Well, it happens to the best of us.” John was preoccupied, searching the kitchen for something. He sifted through a stack of magazines on the telephone desk. “Ellen, didn’t you bring the mail in?”

“Yes. I thought I laid it on the desk. It’s right there, isn’t it?”

“No. It isn’t. I looked there and everywhere else in the house.”

“Well, I know I brought it in.” She turned down the burner on the stove and joined the search. Ellen even went back out to the mailbox to see if maybe she’d only imagined bringing it into the house. When ten minutes of hunting hadn’t produced anything, they gave up.

John’s tight-lipped silence told her how irritated he was with her. He was Mr. Organization and they often squabbled over her haphazard ways.

Ellen shrugged off his attitude and went to the kitchen to try to decide what to fix for dinner. She opened the refrigerator and reached for the crisper drawer. She couldn’t remember if she had salad makings or not. But as she bent to pull out the drawer, she gave a little gasp. There, on the shelf in front of her, limp with moisture, was the stack of bills and letters. They sat accusing her.

“Good grief!” She rolled her eyes, knowing immediately that she was the culprit.

John appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, a question in his eyes.

She stood in front of the open refrigerator door holding the droopy envelopes. “Well…I found the mail.”

“It was in the fridge?” He tipped his head. “Are you losing it, Ellen?”

She laughed, embarrassed. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought.”

He shrugged with that half-disgusted air she knew too well, and took the mail from her hands. After raising a skeptical eyebrow in her direction, he headed down the hall toward the den.

That night, when they were getting ready for bed, she tried to soothe his testiness. “I just thought all those bills needed to be put on ice for a while,” she said, forcing a laugh.

No response.

“It’s a joke, John.”

But he apparently didn’t see the humor. The corners of his mouth turned down as he studied her intently. “Are you okay, El? You’ve been so preoccupied lately. It’s not like you to be so…so flighty.”

She shrugged. “I guess I’m just tired. Work is kind of wearing on me this year for some reason. I’ve got a bigger class than I’m used to and—”

“Well, get some sleep.” He cut her off, sounding unconvinced. “You need it.” He turned out the light and rolled over.

Ten minutes later, she heard the soft snuffling that told her John was asleep. But she lay awake a long time, mulling things over. She finally entered a fitful, restless sleep, punctuated by a bizarre dream.

In her dream, she was lost in a long dark hallway. She shouted for help again and again, but no one came to rescue her. She walked on and on down the ever-narrowing passage, never finding a doorway, meeting only strangers who were as lost as she.

The next weeks were too much like the nightmare. Ellen started to seriously fear she was having a nervous breakdown. Many days she felt her old self, perfectly in control. But just when she started to put the disturbing incidents out of her mind, that disoriented, on-edge feeling would steal upon her, as it had that first frightening day of school. On those days she couldn’t find any orderliness to her teaching. She would start a math lesson and ten minutes later, it was as though she were waking from a deep sleep, and she would realize that she was repeating the same material over again.

Her students, bless their hearts, took it all as a joke. “Mrs. Brighton, you’re teasing us! We already did that page.” They accused her of pulling another of her famous April Fool’s tricks. Except April was a long ways off.

As the days passed, she distanced herself from her students more and more, assigning group work and reading time, and showing films to fill in for what she seemed to have forgotten to prepare for.

She began avoiding her coworkers, purposefully arriving at school late and leaving early. She couldn’t trust her own actions and reactions to others, and she never knew when she might say or do something stupid. As many times as she realized her gaffe after the fact, it made her tremble to wonder how many times she’d blundered without knowing it. She feared the other teachers might not be as forgiving as the children.

And so, Ellen faked her way through a month of school days.

J
ohn was having a busy and frustrating year with a controversial school-bond election coming before the voters. There were meetings with the school board and public forums to preside over.

Ellen had drawn into a shell, avoiding him. He knew something was eating at her, something wasn’t right. But frankly, he didn’t have time to make an issue of it.

Whenever he found his thoughts hovering on the subject of Ellen’s erratic behavior, he pulled them swiftly away. Instead, he often found himself reliving their early days together, drawing comfort from memories of their past.

He would never forget the first time he’d gotten up the courage to speak to the pretty new teacher, Miss Randolph. Well, it hadn’t been like that exactly. He smiled to himself. He’d been trying to get up his courage all right. But Ellen had beat him to the punch.

He’d been in his fourth year of teaching, and his life was full and busy with classroom projects, grading papers and staff meetings. John had fallen in love with his students. He was captivated by his second graders’ enthusiasm for the simplest pleasures. He was drawn to their innocent trust in life’s goodness.

One of his responsibilities was supervising an early-morning detention hall for kids who, for one reason or another, couldn’t serve their time after school. The same group of delinquents seemed to make their way to his classroom every few weeks. These were the kids who especially stole his heart. He ached for them. At seven and eight they seemed so innocent, so full of hope and promise. Some of them were truly bright. In fact, it was their very keenness that sometimes got them into trouble. Their detentions were, for the most part, the result of pranks, tardiness or occasional cheating. But by the time they were ten or eleven, these same kids would be pulled into the sordid world of drugs and gangs that seemed to be the inevitable destination for boys (and more than a few girls) of the projects.

He saw some of them—his former students—on the sidewalks after school making their deals. They acknowledged him with glazed eyes, revealing a glimmer of guilt, but gone were the warmth and candor that had existed between Mr. Brighton and his young charges in those morning hours just a few years earlier. When he saw hardened eyes in faces still soft and whiskerless, and heard youthful lips utter ugly curses, he couldn’t help feeling as though he had somehow failed them.

It was this he’d been contemplating the afternoon Ellen Randolph came into his classroom the second week of the school year. He stood in his room gazing out the window at a group of boys clustered in front of the old building.

So deep in thought was he that she was standing right behind him before he realized anyone had entered the room. She cleared her throat loudly, and he spun around, his heart pounding. And not because of her fresh-faced beauty. Though there was certainly that.

Ellen burst out laughing. “I’m sorry.” She muffled another giggle with the back of her hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“My fault.” His mouth turned up in a sheepish smile. “I was a million miles away.” He regained his composure and stuck out a hand. “I’m John Brighton. You’re the new kindergarten teacher, right?” All innocence, as if he hadn’t already gleaned every tidbit of information he could find out about her.

She nodded. “Right. Ellen Randolph. I remember seeing you at the first staff meeting. But you haven’t been to one since…”

“No. No, I get the honor of monitoring detention hall that time of morning. You’d think we could at least wait till school has been in session for a couple weeks before we start handing out detentions. I guess they want it known in no uncertain terms that ‘violators will be punished.’” He curled his fingers into quote marks and chalked them in the air to emphasize the legalese. “Actually, that’s what I was pondering so intently when you walked in here and scared the daylights out of me.”

She smiled. “I’m really sorry about that.”

There was something powerfully endearing about the glint of humor her eyes held—as if she wanted to burst out laughing at him, but was much too nice to do so.

Now her expression turned serious. “Rough bunch of kids, huh?”

“Oh no, it’s not that. Actually, they’re some of my favorites. They’ve got spirit, you know?”

She nodded her agreement, her auburn curls bouncing against her cheeks.

“They’re not bad kids,” he said. “Not yet anyway. That’s what bothers me. I look out there—” he gestured toward the window “—and I see what they have waiting for them a few years down the road. I just wish I could do something to keep them away from all that.”

Her gaze followed his to the unruly group gathered outside. “I know what you mean,” she said. “I grew up on a farm, and I guess I was a little naive. I came here thinking I could make a difference in these kids’ lives. But how can I really do anything for them when they’re surrounded by bad influences day in and day out? Sometimes I just want to load all my little kindergartners on a bus and take them to the farm and let my mom and dad have them for a few years.”

Her smile held a hint of sadness, and immediately John was drawn to her compassion for these kids he’d come to love so much.

“Well, if you’re an example of what your mom and dad can do with a kid,” he told her, “I’m all for that idea!”

Ellen’s face colored, and she quickly changed the subject. “I guess I’d better get moving if I’m going to finish all my papers and still catch a bus before dark.” She was halfway out the door when she stopped abruptly and put her hand to her mouth, flustered. “Oh! I almost forgot why I came down here in the first place.”

He waited, enjoyed watching her cheeks grow pinker.

“I was wondering if you have a state map I could borrow for tomorrow morning. I’ve been up and down the hall and nobody else seems to have one.”

“Well, this is your lucky day. I have one—it’s kind of ancient, like everything else around here, but you’re welcome to use it. It’s heavy, though…it’s on a roller. Here, I’ll show you.” He rolled down two or three maps that were mounted like window shades at the back of the room. “Here we are—Illinois. How about if I bring it down to your classroom first thing in the morning?”

“Oh, that’d be great. Thanks.” She turned to go. “See you around, Mr. Brighton.”

I hope so,
John had thought as he watched Ellen walk down the hallway.

And the next morning as soon as his detention class had been dismissed, he took the map to her classroom. She was standing on a chair tacking some of the children’s artwork high on a bulletin board. He purposely sneaked up behind her and then cleared his throat loudly. She gasped and lost her balance. Her arms flailed in the air as she involuntarily and ungracefully leaped from the chair to keep from falling. When she righted herself and saw that it was John, she burst out laughing at her own exaggerated antics. “Well, I guess I had that coming!” she conceded blushing.

He put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Yes, you did, but I really didn’t mean to knock you off the chair. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It served me right.” She shook a finger playfully in his face. “But you do it again, and I’ll send you straight to detention, young man!”

He laughed. “I’ll bet you’ve got a reputation around here already. Mean ole Miss Randolph.”

“Well, I’m working on it. It’s ‘kids’ like you who turn perfectly nice teachers like me into old crabs, you know.”

John was taken with her lighthearted teasing and those smiling blue-gray eyes.

“Hey! Do you like Chinese food?” he asked impulsively.

“Well, to tell you the truth I’ve never tasted it, unless you count the chow mein in a can that my mom used to make when there was nothing else in the cupboards.”

John shook his head. “That doesn’t count. Listen, there’s a place in Calypso, where I live, that makes the greatest Chinese this side of the globe. Would you like to go there with me Friday night?”

She flashed a smile. “Friday? I’d like that. What time?”

“Would you mind leaving from here after school? It takes almost an hour on the bus. I don’t have a car yet.” He shrugged an apology.

“I don’t mind the bus, really. I’m just not too crazy about taking it back into the city late at night.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll ride back with you. My mom lives on the West Side, and I can stay with her if it’s too late.”

“It’s a date, then. I’ll wait here for you after school.”

John started to leave the room, then he laughed and turned to hold up the unwieldy rolled-up map. “I’m getting to be almost as forgetful as you are.”

The memory startled John, seeming almost to have been a prediction of what they were going through now, more than twenty-five years later.

But he let his thoughts continue to ramble, unwilling to leave the comforting reminiscences of the past.

Friday nights in Calypso had become a standing date for John and Ellen. Back then the Friday-night special at the China Garden was egg foo yong, and it was so exquisite they rarely ventured another choice. John had never felt so comfortable with a girl before. Not that Ellen was just “comfortable.” He was incredibly attracted to her. But there came a time when he was afraid if he brought romance into the picture he might lose the best friend he’d ever had.

He found he could talk to Ellen about anything. She listened to his ideas, and understood his feelings like no one he had ever known. With no qualms or hesitation, he shared parts of himself that he had never let anyone else get close to. His feelings about his father, his fears that he might turn out to be too much like Robert Brighton. She listened without judgment and asked questions that helped him understand himself better. He trusted Ellen. It was a new experience for John, who had grown up in such a silent home.

And while Ellen tended to be quiet and reserved in social situations, with him she was vocal and exuberant. Their time together was punctuated with jokes and teasing. He’d never known there could be so much to laugh at in the world.

The hour on the bus from the city each week was spent in rapt conversation. Over the months, John poured out his whole life story to Ellen. Somehow, her compassion soothed the pain of his past.

She in turn opened up her life to him. Together they mulled over problems they encountered with their students; they analyzed the world and everything in it; and one day, somewhere along Eden’s Expressway, John knew he was in love with her.

They got married on a hot August evening. Illinois was parched and dusty in the midst of a drought that had brought creases of worry to Howard Randolph’s forehead. But John saw the worry change to pride as the older man brought his daughter to meet John at the altar of the little country church.

It was a brief ceremony, beautiful in its simplicity. Ellen looked trustingly into John’s eyes as he spoke to her the vows that a myriad of couples down through the centuries had spoken.

“I, John, take thee, Ellen, to be my lawful wedded wife. To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, and to thee only will I cleave, as long as we both shall live.”

And Ellen, lovely in her grandmother’s gown, ivory with age, echoed the troth in a voice strong and full of confidence.

Ellen’s parents gave the newlyweds money for a motel in Springfield and loaned them their car for the trip. They drove away from the church, replete with promise for the life they would live together. Over and over they exclaimed to each other, “Can you believe it? We’re really married!” They manufactured excuses to say “my husband” and “my wife.”

It was after midnight when they finally found the motel. It was on the edge of town and had seen better days. The paint was peeling inside and out, and the curtains and bedspread were straight out of the thirties. “The dirty thirties,” John had joked.

But the yearning and passion and pure love that burned in their hearts that night as they became one in body and spirit belied the humble room they shared.

John raked his hands through his hair and forced his thoughts back to the present. Would he and Ellen ever share that sweet, simple love again? Just months ago, they’d been eagerly looking toward this golden time in their lives. A time when they finally had the house to themselves, and time to enjoy some of the things they’d put off while they raised their family.

How had life suddenly become so complicated and confusing—and frightening?