Promise Me A Rainbow (18 page)

“What happened to her own true love? Didn’t he save her?”

“Catherine said the princess was such a pain in the you-know-where, he was still trying to make up his mind if he wanted to.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“Yeah,” Fritz said. “Me, either.” She didn’t tell him that she thought the princess must have been a lot like Margaret. “Did you like the story?” She thought he did because he laughed, but she wanted to hear him say it.

“I liked it.”

“Me, too. I’m going to remember it forever. Catherine’s mother told her that story when she was a little girl—they used to come to the beach in the summertime. Catherine doesn’t have a little girl, so she told it to me. She says I have to save it so I can tell
my
little girl. It’s like when a real mother . . .”

Fritz stopped. She hadn’t meant to say that. She glanced at Joe and he reached for the picture again, holding it in his hands for a moment before he sat it back down on the table. “You don’t remember Li—your mother, do you?” He looked at her and she bowed her head. “It’s all right if you answer, Fritz. It isn’t going to make me mad or sad or anything like that.”

She looked up at him. She didn’t necessarily believe that, but she knew he wanted to hear what she had to say. “Sometimes I think I do . . . but then I think, not really. I think I just remember what people tell me about her. Joe?”

“What?”

“Is it all right if I like Catherine?” Her eyes searched his face, as if she wanted to find out the truth regardless of what he said.

“Yes, Fritz, it’s all right.”

“I like her a lot,” she offered, giving away as much of her feelings as she dared. She didn’t tell him that Catherine was more and more like a mother—like a
real
mother she’d always wanted. “I’m glad you didn’t . . .” She broke off.

“Didn’t what? You can tell me what’s on your mind, Fritz.”

“Didn’t . . . yell at her or anything,” she finished lamely.

“I’m trying to do better about the yelling. Okay?”

“You can’t help it,” she said. “It’s how you are.”

“Oh, it is. And how do you know that?”

She shrugged. “Experience—and Grandmother D’Amaro. She said you get mad fast and get over it fast. Ever since you were a little boy. I’m used to it, but . . .”

“Catherine’s not,” he said, finishing it for her.

She looked up at him. “I want to keep seeing the gnomes,” she said. “Della says it’s just a phase, but I want to see them until I grow out of it.”

“Fritz, I’ve told you you can—whenever it’s all right with Catherine. We just don’t want to bother her too much, though. What else does Della say?”

“She says . . . she doesn’t like Catherine. That’s why she put the picture out.” She didn’t tell him that she’d tried all day to get to the picture and put it away, because she knew it would upset him to see it. But being the A-number-one helper
and
a motherless child, she never got the chance. “Am I going to get to go see Catherine and the gnomes if Della doesn’t like her?”

“I don’t think Della has anything to do with this, does she?”

Fritz looked at him in surprise. “You know Della,” she said in case he needed reminding.

“I know you, too. If you think Catherine’s okay, then she is. Fritz, there’s something I want to ask you—”

“Joe?” she said, interrupting.

“What?” He hadn’t intended to talk to her now, but suddenly he didn’t want to wait any longer. He’d worried too long, and he couldn’t do anything about it if he let it stay hidden.

“Is this turning into a serious talk?”

“Yes, I think it is.”

“Do we have to?”

“Yes, we do.” He reached out to brush her hair out of her eyes, and she fiddled with the pebbles on the tabletop, pushing them into a circle.

“I don’t like serious talks much.”

“Why not?”

“Because I always end up not getting to watch television.”

He tried not to smile. He supposed that it must seem that way to her. “This isn’t that kind of serious talk. This is something I need to ask you about. I was going to wait until later and work up to it, but I don’t think that’s the way to handle it. I’m just going to tell you what’s on my mind, and then we’ll talk about it. I’ve . . . been wondering about why you call me Joe.”

She looked at him sharply, as if that were the last thing she’d expected, but she said nothing.

“You know how Charlie and I tease each other. He calls me Pop and I say I don’t want him to. You don’t call me Joe because of that.”

It wasn’t a question, and she looked away.

“You used to call me Daddy and now you don’t. Can you tell me why?”

Fritz sat looking at the pebbles, the silence between them growing.

Charlie came whistling down the stairs.

“So what’s going on?” he asked as he came into the kitchen.

“Fritz and I are having a private talk,” Joe said. “Get whatever you’re after and go back upstairs.”

Charlie looked from one of them to the other. “What have you done now, kid? You go over the wall again?”

“Charlie . . .”

“I’m going, I’m going. I got to get me a little something to eat before I die of starvation. I can see the headlines now: REMAINS OF TEENAGER FOUND SHRUNKEN AND SHRIVELED IN FRONT OF COMPUTER. Hey, Pop, she’s bawling.”

Joe gave him a hard look to squelch any further remarks, but Charlie stood expectantly until the silent reproval finally registered.

“Oh!” he said. “You want me to go. Okay, well! Here I am . . . going.”

He retreated back upstairs, taking as much as he could carry out of the refrigerator. Fritz was indeed crying. She sat forlornly in her chair, her head bowed, tear after silent tear sliding down her cheeks.

“Fritz,” Joe said. He moved out of his chair and knelt down beside her. “Fritz . . .”

She didn’t say anything, but she suddenly reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She was his youngest child, his baby, and she seemed so fragile to him. He held her, gently patting her back and letting her cry, because he knew from personal experience what a relief tears could be.

“What is it, Fritz?” he said after a moment. He tried to see her face. “You can tell me.”

She wouldn’t look at him. She said something that sounded to him like “motherless child,” and his heart contracted.

Ah, Fritz
, he thought. Fritz felt Lisa’s loss as much as he did. He’d been wrong to think that she’d been too young to be as affected by it as he and Charlie and Della. To talk about this was to pour salt in both their wounds, but it had to be done, no matter how painful it was. He took a deep breath.

Please. Please let me say the right thing
.

“Is that what it’s about? Your mother dying?”

She moved her head, but he couldn’t tell if it was an affirmation or not. Her wet face pressed harder into his shoulder.

“Your mother died, Fritz. She didn’t want to leave us—she couldn’t help it. But I’m here. You’re my little girl. Whatever it is, I’ll fix it if I can. But I can’t do anything if you won’t tell me.”

Her weeping intensified. He didn’t know what else to say, what to do. How had she become so miserable, and how had he been so stupid as to not see it?

“Fritz . . . ?”

Suddenly she lifted her head. “I—did it, Joe.”

“Did what, Fritz? What did you do?” he asked gently, wiping her tears away with his fingers.

“I jinxed—her.”

“Who?” he asked, not understanding at all.

“Lisa!” she wailed. “I—don’t want—to—jinx you—too!”

She flung herself on his neck again.

“Fritz, honey, you can’t jinx me.”

“I—can, Joe!”

He picked her up and sat down in the chair with her on his lap. “Stop crying now. I want you to tell me—”

“I—can’t—say it.”

“Yes, you can. I want you to start at the beginning, and I want you to tell me just like you told me Catherine’s story about the princess. You can do that. We’re going to sit here, just you and me, and you tell me the story about the jinx.”

She kept sniffing, and he reached for a stray napkin left over from the cookout that was still lying on the table.

“Here, wipe your nose.”

Obediently, she did so. “One more,” she said, and he handed her another napkin. She took a deep, wavering breath, and she kept the napkin crumpled tightly in her hand.

They sat for a while in silence while she struggled to stop crying.

“Are you ready?” Joe asked after a moment.

She nodded.

“Okay, then. Let’s go with it.”

For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to say anything, but she sighed again.

“I . . . saw it on television,” she said, her voice hesitant. On the Andy Griffith Show. And the cartoons . . .”

He waited for her to go on. “I see,” he said when she didn’t. “And what does a jinx do?”

“They make bad things happen. They . . . don’t mean to, but they do. It’s how they are.”

“But you don’t make bad things happen, Fritz.”

“Yes, I do. I make Della mess up her fingernails when I come into the room. And I made Charlie lose things on the computer.”

“
They
do that, Fritz, not you. They may blame you because they’re aggravated, but that doesn’t mean you did it.”

“But that’s how I
do
it,” she insisted. “I aggravate. That’s what I did to Lisa.” She was in danger of crying again, and he hugged her tightly.

“Don’t cry, Fritz. Tell me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know. But I want you to trust me that it’s the best thing to do.”

“Are you
sure
, Joe?”

“I’m sure.”

He could feel her gathering up her courage, and the admiration he already had for her intensified. She was such a brave little kid, and God, the burden she must be carrying. “Go on now. Tell me.”

“I heard my grandmothers . . .” she began again.

“They didn’t know you were around, you mean?”

“Yes. Everybody said all I used to do was follow Lisa around and say, ‘Mama, Mama, Mama.’ And then Grandmother D’Amaro had to come stay with me that day because Lisa wanted to get out. She said Lisa was aggravated because I wouldn’t take my nap or anything.”

“Fritz, you were two years old. All babies that age follow their mothers around like that. Della did it. And Charlie. And you.”

“But nothing happened when Della and Charlie did it. I’m the jinx. I’m the one that made her go out and die.”

“No! No, you didn’t. Here. Sit up here and look at me. Look now.” He made her look into his face. “Whenever you ask me anything, what do I always tell you? The truth or a lie?”

“The truth, but . . .”

“You’ve never known me to tell you anything but the truth, have you?”

“No.”

“That’s because I don’t lie to my children. I never have, and I never will. And I’m telling you now it wasn’t anything you did. Your mother wasn’t upset with you. You had some new teeth coming in, and you weren’t feeling good, that’s all. We were in a car wreck, and your mother was killed. It was an accident. It had nothing to do with you. It was not your fault. Do you understand?”