Promise Me: Chapter Five (Book One of The Kirkland Family)

Chapter 5

Why do I get the feeling I’ve been played?  Hannah asked herself as she left the Kirkland farm that evening.  

When Josie asked her granddad about working for Hannah, his face got all innocent and open, and when a man does that, Hannah’s red flags start whipping around like kites in a hurricane.  He insisted that Hannah come out for dinner that night to discuss it with Mrs. Kirkland.  Josie’s grandparents put up just enough argument to make Josie and Hannah almost beg for it.  They obviously didn’t approve of Justin’s rules for his daughter any more than Hannah did, and after working out the details over a helping of homemade ice cream, it was decided that Josie would get to go to the store with Hannah three days a week.  Two of those, Hannah had to pick up the girl in the mornings and bring her home, but on the Wednesdays, Mrs. Kirkland could bring her when she goes to her bible study class and water aerobics, yet Hannah would still have to drive Josie back to the farm, unless she wanted to keep her until church started those nights at seven o’clock.

Once that was figured out, Mrs. Kirkland started asking all kinds of questions about Hannah’s life ever since she left town after high school.  Josie picked up on the acting and singing parts of the story right away.  “You can sing?”

“According to music producers...” Hannah said, suppressing the bitterness in her voice, “No.”

“Don’t listen to her, dear,” Mrs. Kirkland said kindly.  “Hannah is a wonderful singer.  She used to write her own songs, too.  Had such a beautiful voice, like an angel.”

“Yeah, that was the problem,” Hannah sighed, remembering all the rejections from her demos.  “They said I was too sweet, too country, not edgier enough or angry enough, or everything enough.  But I guess it’s for the better.  I didn’t have it in me to be that kind of person.”

“As well you shouldn’t be, dear,” Mrs. Kirkland said.  “Never try to be something other than you are deep down inside.”

Hannah gave her a gracious smile, but the pain of all those rejections still hurt.  She hadn’t picked up her guitar in years because of it, just wanting to put it all behind her now that she failed in something that used to bring her such joy.  She had a notebook full of songs she’d written during high school and those days in California.  Hannah had been proud of them then.  But now, that notebook sat in a drawer.  She didn’t have the heart to throw it away, but she couldn’t open it up and read all those words of love and happiness either.  A lot of those songs had been written before she broke up with Luke.  I think I even titled one “In Love with Luke.”

“I want to hear you sing,” Josie piped up, her face glowing at the prospect.

All Hannah could say was, “Not tonight,” and get out of there before Mrs. Kirkland started making her believe in lost dreams.

*****

Bright and early Monday morning, Hannah drove out to the Kirkland’s farm.  Mr. Kirkland met her coming out of a barn and waved, the blue tick hound, Aspen, right on his heels.  Josie’s grandfather still had that too-innocent look to his smile.  And it still gave Hannah a wary feeling.  Just how much were they going to hide from their son about all this?  Josie bolted out of the house, wearing a flowery sundress and looking like she was headed to a junior high dance, and all Hannah could do was groan.

“No,” she told the girl.  “I work at a farm store.  You’re going to get dirty.  Go put on some jeans and an old t-shirt...and some sturdy shoes,” she added, arching an eyebrow at the low-heeled sandals.

“But,” Josie began her whine, and Hannah turned around, saying, “I’ll just come back tomorrow.  Maybe you’ll be dressed appropriately then.”

“No!  Wait!  Give me five minutes!”  The girl turned around and disappeared into the dark interior of the house.  Hannah smiled to herself, saw Mr. Kirkland laughing as he grabbed a wheelbarrow and headed back into the barn.

Four minutes and twenty-seven seconds later -- And yes, Hannah counted -- Josie dashed down the porch steps in some faded blue jeans, a sleeveless yellow t-shirt that read Bayside Rocks, and a pair of still-shiny cowgirl boots.  “Okay, I’m ready!”

“Have you had breakfast?”

“No, she hasn’t,” Mrs. Kirkland said, coming out of the house behind her.  “Too excited to eat.  Here, dear.  I wrapped some sausage in a pancake.  Eat it on your way.”

Josie took the food, rolled up in a paper towel and kissed her grandmother.  “I’ll call you when I bring her home this afternoon,” Hannah said and the two girls got in her Honda -- the guinea pig family in a box in the backseat -- and drove away.

“So, what are we going to do today?”  Josie asked, turning around to coo at Teddy and her babies.

“Don’t know yet.  On Mondays, I usually help Kim out in the green houses for a while because her plant shipments come in today.  So, we’ll probably spend most of the morning there before it gets too hot,” Hannah said as she drove out of the farming area by the Arkansas River.  Lollie Bottoms, the folks around here called it.  A wide-open flatland between the curling river and a series of low ridges.  There were pumpkin farms, corn farms, rice farms, the Kirkland’s soybean farm, duck hunting, and most recently the construction for the town’s new municipal airport...which upset a lot of the residents here.  But, there were pros to having the airport so close to the farmers.  Crop dusting would be easier.

Just as the old country road hit an expanse of gravel, one of Hannah’s tires popped, the car swerved recklessly, and Josie screamed.  

“Calm down,” Hannah told her as she carefully slowed to a stop.  Thank goodness the only traffic around here were tractors and the occasional pick-up truck.  “It’s just a flat tire.  And the perfect way to start the day.”

Josie glared at Hannah, though her green eyes glowed wide with alarm.  “How is this perfect?”

Hannah grinned.  “Your first lesson on responsibility.”

“Driving on bad tires?”

Laughing at the girl’s clever retort, Hannah turned off the engine, set the emergency brake and unbuckled her seat belt.  “No...changing a bad tire.”

“I don’t know how to change a tire.”

“Good...now you get to learn.”

Josie groaned and followed Hannah out of the car to the trunk.  After hefting the spare and tools out of the back, Hannah said, “Now, aren’t you glad you changed clothes?”

Forty minutes later, they were back on the road and Hannah was late for work.  Even though Hannah learned to change a tire from her dad and could do it with her eyes closed in the middle of California rush hour traffic, using up only about half the time it took that morning, she made sure she walked Josie through all the steps, explaining why each one was important.  After all, she learned the hard way why it was impertinent to keep up with all the lug nuts.  Those little buggers were as sneaky as Mr. Kirkland on April Fool’s Day.

“That was fun!” Josie exclaimed, her face all flushed with joy.  “Who knew changing a tire could be so much fun?!”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Hannah said, wiping sweat off her forehead and only streaking it with tire grease.  “Next time, I’ll show you how to change the oil.”  It was meant as a joke, but Josie squealed, “Oh, will you?!”

Man, you are desperate for some attention, Hannah thought if car repair excited the young girl.  But she laughed with Josie, and the rest of the drive into town was uneventful.  

Over the following week, the two got into a groove.  They spent the mornings with Kim, and Josie learned all about the plants growing there in the gardening center, absorbing the information like the roots of a willow tree, but when the afternoon heat drove them indoors and away from the sauna-like conditions of the greenhouses, Josie helped Hannah stock the shelves in the store, they ate their lunch under a shade tree and rode around in the Gator like two wannabe NASCAR drivers.  And the more time the two of them spent together, the more Hannah came to like Josie.  When the girl was happy, then the whole world seemed a little happier.  She honestly lit up the day with her smile, and Hannah found herself smiling right along with her.  But when the girl was moody, and usually for no reason...God, help us all!  No wonder Justin was practically tearing his hair out.

Mrs. Kirkland told Hannah that Josie crashed, exhausted, in her bed after dinner on Monday, and on Wednesday night, Hannah allowed Josie to come home with her and wait for her grandparents to pick her up for church.  It was easier than driving back out to the farm.

“Wow, this is your house?” Josie breathed as Hannah parked beside her two-story Victorian just on the outskirts of the downtown area.

“Oh, yeah, it’s all mine,” Hannah said, seeing the peeling paint on the porch columns, the broken railing she never got around to fixing and the badly patched roof.  “It was my grandparent’s, and then my dad’s.  I grew up here.”

“Really?  That’s so cool.  I’ve never lived in a house, except grandma’s and grandpa’s.”

Hannah shot her a sideways glance.  “Where do you live?”

“In a condo near the ocean,” Josie explained.  

“That sounds a lot more exciting than this old thing,” Hannah said as she gathered Teddy and her babies from the backseat.  Josie grabbed her backpack, stuffed with a change of clothes for church and her iPod.

“Not really,” Josie shrugged.  “It’s not very private.  Lots of old people around, and in the summer, it gets crowded with tourists.  My friend, Laura, lives in this really cool castle-like home, but it’s nothing like this.  You’re not allowed to touch anything in her house.  It’s weird.”

“Do you and Laura live close to each other?”

“No,” Josie said, “But I wish we did.  We go to the same school -- this all-girls school.  It’s okay.  The teachers are nice, but I don’t have many friends there.”

Hannah hefted the box in her arms and shut the back door with her hip.  She walked up to the porch and juggled to get her key in the lock.  “Why not?”

Again Josie shrugged.  “The girls there are rich and snobby, a bunch of trust fund babies.  Or those do-gooder types trying to impress the sisters.”

Hannah laughed.  “Josie, you said you live in a condo near the beach, and I know for a fact your dad makes enough money to call himself rich.”

Josie stuck her nose in the air.  “Yeah, but I’m not snobby.”

With a patient, indulgent chuckle, Hannah said, “Yeah, I could see that right away.”

They entered the house through the front, stopping in the entryway while Hannah flipped on some lights.  “Whoa,” Josie said as the staircase and molded archways leading out of the front hall came into view.  Hannah was proud of what she managed to accomplish on the inside of her home.  After her grandmother passed away to meet her beloved husband in heaven, Hannah’s dad renovated the kitchen, bathrooms and stairs.  But the rest of the house had almost been neglected since then.  While she nursed her father during his cancer, many of the needed repairs were left undone, but in the last year, she eventually found time to do a few things here and there.  The hardwood floors gleamed with a new coat of wax, and all the walls had been patched and repainted.  Of course, there was so much still to do.  New windows, new doors inside and out, and a new roof, not to mention the whole front porch.

However, it was a brighter place now, no signs of the illnesses and deaths that took place here, only a vision of a happier future, something Hannah strove to achieve when she redecorated.  All the old antique furniture was gone, with the exception of her grandmother’s china hutch, the old canopy bed up in Hannah’s childhood bedroom, and her father’s massive oak desk in the study.  In place of all that worn furniture, Hannah sporadically bought low-backed sectional seating in a colorful striped pattern for the living room, dainty side tables in a white washed finish, and a mishmash of shelving for the wall next to the fireplace.  And a new bedroom suite for the room she slept in now.  Her dining room still sat empty, as she couldn’t decide on a table and chairs for it, as was the same for most of the furniture in two of the three bedrooms upstairs, but she added small pieces here and there as they spoke to her...a hall table painted in a brick red, a blue and cream checkered wing-back chair for the study, and rugs of all shapes, sizes and colors dotting the floors.  

“It’s like crazy cool in here,” Josie said.  “Is that your guitar?”

Hannah looked at where she was pointing, behind the front door.  There sat her guitar case, where she stuck it when she got home five years ago.  She’d never had the nerve to move it.  

“Did you paint around it?” the girl asked, giggling.  Hannah didn’t say anything.  She walked into the study and put the guinea pigs in their cage.  Teddy was glad to be home.  She checked to make sure her little ones where okay and then went to exploring her habitat...you know, in case some other animal had crawled in there since that morning.

“Will you teach me to play?” Josie asked from the hallway.  And when Hannah straightened and turned around, her old guitar was in Josie’s arms, being strummed.  For a second, Hannah couldn’t breathe.  That instrument hadn’t seen the light of day since she left California.  It was badly out of tune, and the sounds coming from Josie’s plucking made her wince...and made her want to cry.

“I don’t know if I remember how,” Hannah whispered once her lungs started functioning.

“I hear it’s like riding a bicycle,” Josie announced, her focus on the strings and her fingers.  Then she thrust it out to Hannah.  “Here, give it a try.”

“I’ll pass,” Hannah said, sweeping out of the study to go to the kitchen.  Josie followed her, and the sour notes followed too, pounding inside Hannah’s chest cavity with each strum.

“Don’t you like to play anymore?”

“No, I don’t,” Hannah said, opening the refrigerator.  “Are you hungry?  What time are your grandparents coming to get you?”

“Six-thirty,” Josie answered the second question.  “Why?  Are you trying to get rid of me already?”  There was a hint of desperation in the girl’s voice.  Hannah closed her eyes for a moment, guilt ravaging her soul.

“No, Josie, I’m not trying to get rid of you.  I’m just asking,” she explained, feeling very tired all of a sudden.

“Well, they won’t be here for another hour, and I want to hear you play,” Josie said.

Hannah barely stopped herself from slamming the refrigerator door.  “I’d rather not.”

“Please?!”

“No, Josie.”

“Pretty please?”

“Josie, just stop,” Hannah said with a whine in her own voice.  For the love of God, just stop!

“I’ve got a whole hour to bug you about this, and I’m really, really good at bugging people,” Josie announce smugly.  “Just one song, and I won’t ask you again.”

Hannah eyed the guitar.  Her fingers itched.  One song, and I’ll never have to play it again.  “Fine!  You win, but you owe me.”

“Yay!”

Hannah scowled as she took the instrument and went into the living room.  Sitting down on the sofa, she adjusted the strings, doing what she could to tune it.  All of the strings needed to be replaced, but if she was only playing it this one time, what did it matter?

Fingers shaking, she strummed a chord.  Oh, my lands!  That felt good.  She pushed the feeling away and thought about what to play.  Looking up at Josie, who sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her, she asked, “What do you want to hear?”

“Sing me something you wrote.”

“Something I wrote,” muttered Hannah.  There was one song she’d been very proud of, sending it off to numerous record labels...rejected every time.  “Okay, but no laughing.”

Josie zipped her lip and smiled at Hannah.  Taking a deep breath, Hannah started to play.  After the introduction, she sang out in a raspy, unused voice.

“There’s a side of my heart that you cannot see...
You give me your love, but I know what I need...
The world is spinning around and around,
But you are not here to hold me down
You love me but leave me again...and again...
And that’s when...

I need more, I need better, I need someone other than you
I need life, I need air, I need to soak up a little more blue
Blue from the sky on a bright spring day
Blue from the waters in an ocean far away
I need blue, blue, blue
And someone...
Other than you...”

The song continued through several more verses and a repeat of the chorus, and as Hannah sang it, her voice strengthened and she relived the afternoon she wrote it.  It had been the day after her twentieth birthday...the day her mother showed up at her home in California after remaining absent for most of Hannah’s life.  It had been raining for almost a week, a rare sight in the sunny climate of Los Angeles, and she remembered thinking that the day was so damn dreary because of her unexpected guest, wishing her mother would leave so the sun would shine again.

Josie listened, amazed into silence, and as the last chord drifted away, Hannah was blinking back tears.  An echo of melancholy lay heavy in the air...then Josie jumped to her feet, shouting, "That was amazing!"

Hannah gave her a watery smile.  "Thank you."

"How come you're not singing in Nashville or something?!"

Long-suffering resentment coursed through Hannah.  "I don't like country music."  At work, the guys had this tendency to switch over the radio whenever they thought she wasn’t paying attention, but it always got turned back to her favorite rock station.

"But you're so good at it."

"I am not.  That wasn't country."

“Yes, it was,” Josie argued.

“No,” Hannah said, shaking her head, “That was soft rock, like Norah Jones and Jewel.”

Josie’s face scrunched up.  “Who?”

Hannah rolled her eyes.  “Never mind.  But that was not country.”

Josie eyed her weirdly.  "When was the last time you heard a country song?"

Hannah shrugged, putting her guitar away.  "I don't know.  Back when what's-his-name was popular...Garth Brooks, I think it was.”

The girl blinked at Hannah.  “Since Garth Brooks?  That was like before I was born.  Things have changed a little since then.”

Hannah eyed Josie.  “I take it you like country music.”

Josie shrugged.  “I like all kinds, but daddy listens to country--”  Of course, he does.  “--so, I’m familiar with it.  Here, I’ll show you what I mean.”  She dug through her backpack for her iPod and searched through a list of songs for one.  “Listen to this one, it’s The Band Perry.”  Josie popped up and plugged her device into Hannah’s stereo, fiddling with dials and buttons until a song came blaring out.

Hannah sat back on her sofa, listening to the voice of a female singer, thinking she’d heard the song before.  There were some definite country qualities to the music, but the woman singing the song reminded her of a few popular singers from Hannah’s high school days.  The lyrical value of the song was impressive, and Hannah actually had to make her foot stop tapping to the beat.

“What’s this called?” she shouted over the music.

Josie, who was dancing spasmodically in the middle of Hannah’s living room, shouted back, “‘You Lie’!”

“What?!”

“It’s called ‘You Lie’!”

“‘You Lie’?”

Josie nodded and kept twirling and bouncing on the balls of her feet, singing to the song in a voice that was actually pretty good.  Huh, she can sing.  Wonder what her daddy thought about THAT.  He probably never even noticed.  The song ended and another one came on from a different singer, and Josie laughed, grabbed Hannah by the arms and pulled her from the sofa.  “Dance with me!”

Hannah obliged the girl with trepidation, but soon they were both giggling and prancing around the house, kicking off their shoes to slide around in their socks, even reenacting the scene from Risky Business by skidding across the hallway with a wooden spoon held up like a microphone.  By the time Josie’s grandparents rang Hannah’s doorbell, the two girls were winded and grinning from ear to ear.

“My gracious,” Mrs. Kirkland said when she saw the panting duo.  “What have you two been doing?”

“Dancing!” Josie exclaimed, grabbing her backpack.  “Hang on, I’ve gotta change real quick.”  And she dashed into the downstairs bathroom.  Hannah turned off the stereo and unplugged Josie’s iPod.  Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland entered Hannah’s living room, looking around.

“My, how you’ve changed this place,” the older woman said, a smile of appreciation on her elegant, farm wife’s face.  

“Yes, well...” Hannah said, looking around.  “It needed a lot of work, and still does.   Can I get you something to drink while you're waiting?"

"Oh, no thank you, dear."  Mrs. Kirkland moved over to the mantle where an old photo of Hannah's own grandparents sat inside a silver-plated frame.  "Did you know your grandmother taught me back in grade school?"

Hannah smiled.  "No, I didn't.  She only taught for a few years, if I remember correctly."

"Yes," Mrs. Kirkland sighed heavily.  "Once she married and started showing...Well, a mother's place back then was in the home.  It was a shame how she'd been forced to quit, but women back in those days, there only so many options for them."

Hannah glanced at Mr. Kirkland for his reaction to this.  He calmly stared back, though his eyes softened with sympathy.  "You make it sound like like the dark ages," Hannah replied.  "It couldn't have been more than sixty-five years ago."

Mrs. Kirkland smiled.  "Just be glad we weren't mature women during those times.  What a ruckus we would have caused!"

Mr. Kirkland barked a laugh, and his wife turned to him.  "Don't you agree, dear?"

"Yes, ma'am,"  he replied smartly, winking at Hannah. "You two lovely ladies would have caused no end to trouble.  I'm glad I hadn't been old enough back then to know women like the two of you.  I would have been in just as much trouble." 

Josie came out of the bathroom, still smiling.  "Can Hannah come with us to church?"

Hannah opened her mouth quickly.  “Oh, thank you, but I’ve got a lot of housework to catch up on.”  Mrs. Kirkland smiled serenely, seeing the veiled panic in Hannah’s face.

“Maybe some other time, then, dear,” Mary Alice told Hannah, who breathed out, relieved.  Mrs. Kirkland had not been the first member of Hannah’s church to try and coax her back, but Hannah hadn’t felt comfortable inside of a church in a very long time, not since she left home after high school.  There was no real cause for it.  One day, out of the blue, she stopped believing, though she made an effort to keep that hidden.  Even when she returned to Arkansas to care for her dad, she’d accompany him to service every Sunday morning, but she would sit in the back row, staring blankly at the ceiling and biding her time until it was over, not speaking or looking anyone in the eye until she was well away.  

“Aww,” Josie said, tucking her blouse into her skirt.  “Come on, Hannah!  It’ll be fun!”

“Sorry, Josie,” Hannah said, trying to ignore the sadness in the girl’s green eyes.  “I can’t.  Maybe another time.”

Josie began to whine again, but her grandfather spoke up immediately, “Josie.”  And Josie shut up, just like that.  Hannah gave Mr. Kirkland a grateful smile.  He smiled back.  The elderly couple herded Josie out of the door, and she waved them off.  Closing the door, Hannah turned to face her empty house, with the exception of Teddy’s shuffling in her cage.  Twenty minutes ago, the walls shook with music and there had been laughter and happiness, and now it was gone again, leaving Hannah alone with her thoughts and memories.  Sighing heavily, she walked to the back of the house, pulled rubber boots on her socked feet and set out to work on her vegetable garden.  In all honesty, it’s not like she had any other pressing plans tonight.