Free The Promise by Ann Weisgarber Page A

that one word spoken so softly that I almost didn’t hear it, I understood what his son meant to him. They held on to one another, Andre’s arms around his father’s neck. The dogs circled them, their tails a blur of movement.
    Andre raised his head just enough to look over Oscar’s shoulder and up at me where I sat on the buckboard. His face was brown from the sun, and freckles dashed across his nose and cheeks. Black hair flopped over his forehead. He was so young, I thought. So little.
    He frowned, his dark eyes wide and unblinking. ‘Who’s she?’
    ‘You know,’ Oscar said, his voice low. ‘I told you yesterday. Remember?’
    He ducked his head, his small fingers curling into Oscar’s shirt.
    Andre didn’t want me here, I understood. He had his father, and that was enough. Until now, Oscar’s son had been a shadowy figure in the back of my mind. So, too, was Oscar’s first wife, the woman who was this child’s mother. But here, at Oscar’s home with this small boy clinging to his father, I was pierced by one more truth about this marriage. With barely a thought to it, I had intruded into a child’s life and changed the balance of his existence.
    Oscar feathered the cowlick at the back of Andre’s head, then straightened and stood up. Andre’s arm went around his father’s leg.
    ‘Miss Ogden,’ Oscar said to the woman who stood at the top of the porch steps.
    ‘Mr Williams.’ Her tone was flat as though our arrival was of little consequence. She wore a plain blue dress, and its white collar was unbuttoned at her throat. She’d crossed her arms, and her sleeves were rolled to the elbows. Her gaze drifted off toward the sand hills, then wandered back, finding me.
    ‘Ma’am,’ she said.
    Her coolness startled me. So did the touch of Oscar’s hand as he held mine and helped me down from the wagon. My feet on the ground, the dogs pushed their noses into my skirt, driving me toward the wagon. Oscar whistled, sharp and curt, and they backed off.
    ‘You’re not scared of dogs, are you?’ he said.
    ‘Only when there are so many.’
    Andre said, ‘There’s just four,’ and that started the introductions. ‘This is my boy,’ Oscar said to me. ‘Andre Emile Williams.’
    ‘I’m so very pleased to meet you,’ I said, but the sentiment was not acknowledged. Andre wouldn’t look at me. Instead, he studied the polished tips of his laced-up boots.
    ‘Young man,’ Oscar said.
    Andre looked up.
    ‘What do you say?’
    He wrinkled his nose, the freckles blending. ‘Thank you?’
    Oscar hesitated, then, ‘Thank you, what?’
    ‘Thank you, ma’am.’
    Oscar nodded. ‘Andre, this is …’ Oscar glanced at me and then away. He didn’t know what to call me. He cleared his throat and said, ‘My wife.’ Andre’s eyes widened again but Oscar ignored him and turned toward me. ‘Let’s get out of this sun,’ his hand now on my elbow.
    ‘House is five feet up,’ Oscar said as we mounted the steps, Andre behind us. ‘Never had a drop of floodwater inside.’
    I heard the pride in his voice. I said something foolish about the comfort of living in a house that did not flood. It was the best I could do. We were on the covered porch now and Oscar had begun the next set of introductions. The woman was Miss Nan Ogden, and I was Mrs Catherine Williams. She and I exchanged greetings, my ‘How do you do?’ hollow in my ears and her ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance’ equally hollow but spoken with a drawl that stretched each syllable. She was thin and bony with knobbly wrists and high cheek-bones. Andre leaned against her, one foot on top of the other, and clutched a fistful of her skirt. I had to look up past the brim of my hat to meet Nan Ogden’s eyes. They were gray and remote, and her eyebrows were full. Her skin was smooth; she was younger than I. She’d tied her brown hair at the nape of her neck and with her arms still crossed, she stood with most of her weight on one foot, her hip out