The Promise

The Promise

1313 words

    As I awoke to the brightness, of the sun coming up through the bus window, I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window. ‘More cows than people’ I chuckled to myself..just like Eddie said there’d be. 

     I wondered how much further we had to go to get to my destination. I was headed towards a small town in Pennsylvania. In fact, Eddie said it was a tiny town. So I figured what I had to do wouldn’t take long. I tilted my head back and drifted back off to sleep..

    When the bus finally reached my stop. I grabbed my backpack and stepped outside. There wasn’t much to see, in any direction. And I was the only passenger to have gotten off at that particular stop. But I had a reason. A good reason. A promise I made to my friend Eddie, before he died. 

     Eddie had been my cell mate for almost 8 years when we were locked up. During those years, we learned a lot about each other, and eventually became friends. But he had been dying for quite some time now. We all knew it. You could look at him and tell. Ever since we’d gotten out, he looked very gaunt and frail. 

    One night, I was  visiting him in the hospital and heard him whisper to me. “C’mere New York”, (which had become his nickname for me), and motioned with his hand. He wanted to whisper something in my ear. 

     He said with a raspy voice, “This is it, I can feel it,” I began to try and console him but he shushed me and continued, “I need you to do me a favor. Go to Pappasquaw Pennsylvania and go to the diner. It’s the only one around, you can’t miss it. And find the beautiful waitress there named Mary Grace. And you look her straight in the eye and you tell her my message.”

      He strained as he spoke but he spoke with intention- to show how important it was. “Miss Mary Grace has been there forever and I imagine she still is-not much else to do in Pappasquaw if you’re not farming.” He coughed as he chuckled. I am sure she is still there. She’s a ‘Stick around type’. 

     The food in the restaurant is terrible, in fact it’s only one star, so don’t order anything. Except the pie. All the pies are good because Miss Mary Grace makes them herself.

      He whispered in my ear, “You find Miss Mary Grace and you tell her I said this. “It was her. It was always her. She the one.”

      I was confused so he continued as best he could. “Even though we both married other people, we had dated before and had even become engaged. She was the love of my life. Until she moved away. 

     “I’ll never forget that year. Her daddy had gotten a job in Minnesota and he only had a week to get there. So our goodbyes were rushed and not as sincere and they should have been. I never saw her again.”

     I leaned in with curiously and asked him if he was serious-that that is what he wanted for his last dying wish. He nodded, closed his eyes and his hand went limp.

     “Guess that’s enough for now”, said the nurse. “Y’all tired him right out. I nodded to the nurse and made my way out the door. 

      The next day I returned to an empty room. As I stood there looking, trying to process, a nurse came and told me he had slipped away during the night. I don’t know why I was so stunned, he had told me himself that last night was it for him.

      There only a few of us at his graveyard service. He didn’t have any family left, so a couple of the nurses thought it would be nice to come, a woman in a black dress arrived by herself, and myself were the only ones that were there.

      Shortly after, I remembered the promise I’d made. I had to get to Pappasquaw and find Miss Mary!

      When I told the bus driver what my destination was, he laughed and asked if I was sure. “There ain’t nothing out there but fields and a small diner.”

      I nodded and found a seat. I knew it would be a long drive so I settled in. 

     “What ya got going on in Pappasquaw anyway?”, said the woman in the seat next me. “I’d be scared to go by myself to that ghost town.” She chuckled but I don’t think it was because of her joke. 

     “It’s personal,” I said and tried to stare at the window. The lady didn’t seemed to like that answer but I didn’t care and drifted off to sleep. 

    So when we finally got there, and the bus driver laughed, I could see why. 

    The diner was right there so I headed in. 

    “What would you like Sweetie?”, came a voice from just behind me. It spooked me a little and must have jumped. “Sorry I startled ya Darlin..what’ll it be?”

     I remember Eddy’s warning and headed his advice. I asked what kind of pie they had and when she got to peach, I stopped her. Then ordered some coffee. That couldn’t be that bad, right?

     Wrong! It was nasty and tasted like creek water but it washed down the peach pie just fine. And the pie was obviously home made, so I asked who made them.

    “Oh Miss Mary makes all the pies,” she said with a smile. She’s known for her pies.”

      I asked if Miss Mary was around. I wanted compliment her directly as well as pass on Eddie’s message.

     “Oh well I think she’s  out back-I’ll go take a look see,” said the waitress, whose name I had learned was Claire. 

      Claire was gone for just a minute when she came back out and said Miss Mary would be right out. I waited a few moments with anticipation, to see what Eddie’s long lost live looked like.

    As she pushed open the kitchen doors, she looked like a movie star. Even in jeans and a t shirt, you could feel her prescence in the room. 

    “Now what is it Honey? Someone wanted to talk to me?”.

      I clumsily made my way to the counter and stuttered, “Yes Maam. I’m here to speak on Eddie Falco’s behalf”.

     She looked as if she had seen a ghost and was going to pass out. She mentioned that she hadn’t heard that name in forever. “We better get a booth,” she said, and brought us both over some more pie. 

     I told her what Eddie had told me, and that I always follow through with promises. She told me story after story about her and Eddie, when they were young and before they got married and he became incarcerated. 

     She didn’t ask any details about his crime, she only asked me if he had suffered during his death. I couldn’t tell her the whole truth so I answered with, “No he didn’t suffer. I believe he died from a broken heart.”

     Miss Mary wiped her eyes and thanked me for coming. She asked if it was a long trip and of course I said no. She asked where I planned to stay tonight and I just shrugged.

     “I hadn’t gotten that far in the mission,” I chuckled and she immediately announced that I’d be staying in her extra room for the night. 

      I thanked her and walked out into the night. Stars were everywhere and it was a beautiful night. And I said, “I see you, Buddy-your message has been recieved.” And I swear I saw the slightest twinkle in one of the start and I knew. I knew he had seen me pass on his message, all these years later.