Promise Me by Cora Brent

exist.”
    “Grayson,” I wiped a tear away.  I couldn’t even say this to Rachel.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do if I’m pregnant.”
    “Damn,” he said softly.  I didn’t back away when he pulled me gently against his chest.  My head came to rest on his muscled shoulder as if it were used to being there.  He didn’t say meaningless things like how it was all going to be all right.  He just held me and let me cry until I was exhausted enough to try sleep again. 
    “Good night, Promise,” he said, sitting down and staring out into the night. 
    “Good night, Grayson.” 
    I did fall asleep soon after that but awoke once again with the pounding internal alarm which screamed that something terrible was about to happen.  I sat up on the mattress for a long time, trying to calm my breathing.  Somewhere nearby I heard the deep curses of men and then the high yips of coyotes.  I crept to the window, easing my finger around the paper shade.  He was still there, right where I had left him, staring stoically into the moonless desert night as he kept silent vigil against my demons. 

Chapter Eleven
     
    Things gradually began to get easier over the next few days.  I still had the specter of a terrible possibility looming over my head, but I tried to push it out my mind.  A large package containing my new clothes arrived and I started to feel more free the moment I put on a pair of denim shorts and a simple t-shirt.  Kira and Rachel labored every day with me on the trailer, adding homey touches to make it more comfortable.  
    Grayson stopped by frequently to share lighthearted tidbits of information he thought might interest me.  There was a coyote den about a half mile into the brush beyond where his trailer sat.  The pups which had been born in the late spring were growing larger and sometimes he would sit quietly under a nearby mesquite tree and watch them caper.  He brought me a handful of pottery shards he had discovered in the wash beyond Riverbottom.  Together we spread the broken clay pieces on an old piece of plywood and tried to make sense of their shapes.  I held the ancient shards and tried to visualize what they had looked like whole, how they had been used by people, women most likely, who had long since been returned to the earth. 
    Several times Grayson caught me watching him.  I couldn’t read the look in his eyes when he stared back.   I remembered how he’d asked me what I had thought of him and wondered if he was afraid I’d been too indoctrinated with bigotry to recover.  I wanted to tell him otherwise, that he might just be the best man I’d ever known.  But I was too shy to say the words so I told him instead about the precarious adventure of teaching Kira how to bake bread from scratch. 
    He only asked me once about the horrors of the Faithful.  “Will they try to come after you?”
    The thought had occurred to me.   I shrugged. “I don’t know how they would find me.  It’s not like I’m going to email my father with my street address.”
    Grayson seemed grim.  “There are ways if they are determined enough.”  I must have looked alarmed because he tried to smooth his words over.  “Don’t worry,” he said brushing a hand down my arm.  “I told you no one will hurt you anymore.” 
    His touch made me feel strangely warm.  I smiled.  “Yes.  You promised.”   
    He smiled back.  “Yeah.  I promise.  Promise.” 
    One afternoon I helped Kira bake an old recipe I conjured from memory.  I’d been making it in my mother’s kitchen since I was small.  It was called ‘Sand Cake’ and used corn starch instead of flour. 
    “Hey, can I use your laptop?” I asked suddenly. 
    “Sure,” she shrugged, sitting on the counter and swinging her legs while reading a battered copy of Catcher in the Rye . 
    I opened up the lid and Googled ‘Faithful Cooperative’.   It was the term I’d heard tossed around in Winston’s tense