59. Still Learning
Roman
If that day wasn’t anything like Summer, it was just as little like me. We both skived off work. We ate and we talked and we laughed and we made love again and she cried a little more and I held her and was glad to do it. Not much ceasing to hope going on, but heaps of seizing the day.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t as far gone as I’d have liked, because when I suggested that she move in with me once Delilah left, she said no. She said more than that, of course, because Summer would always explain. “I lived with my mom and Delilah until college,” she said. “Then with roommates. Then on the show, in a shelter on the sand with a whole lot of people, and then with Felipe. When Delilah leaves, it will be the first time I’ve ever lived alone. Ever. I think I need to do it, even if it’s just in a caravan. I need to know what I actually want. How much I want … noise and music and conversation, and how much I want silence. Tell me you don’t know that about yourself.”
“I know that,” I said. “Probably because I’m not as good at hanging onto people as you are. You’ll be lonely without Delilah, though, surely.”
“I may be,” she said. “But I think I have to be lonely. I have to feel my feelings now, with no goldfish bowl around my head. I have to find out how good it feels to come and be with you. And you have to find that out, too.”
“As you’re lying naked on top of me at the moment,” I said, “with your hair tickling my chest in a way that’s driving me mad, the answer is, ‘pretty bloody good.’”
“Yes,” she said, “but we won’t always be having sex.”
“Yeh,” I said. “Pity.” And she laughed. But she still didn’t agree.
Six days later, though, she let me drive her to the airport. I’d take my victories where I found them.
Summer
Delilah said, “You realize you’re being weird.”
“What?” I blinked. We were standing on the porch of the main house, under the sheltering eaves. Roman had said on the phone last night, while I’d been watching Delilah pack and trying not to panic about it, “I’ll walk down and get you. Carry Delilah’s bag, eh. Good for a man to have something to do.”
In the end, though, I hadn’t been able to sit there and wait for him. I’d been up since six on this Sunday morning, unable to sleep. I’d have gone down to the garden and weeded just for something to do, if it hadn’t been late May with nothing growing. And, of course, raining. I’d walked all the way to Tunnel Beach instead, down the steep track to the hidden spot amongst the cliffs, had felt the spray of surf in my face from the rough seas, and then had had to climb all the way up again, soaking wet. It had helped, though. I hoped.
Delilah said, “Excuse me?”
“Excuse me?” I said. “What?”
She sighed. “You cannot seriously want me to stay.”
“No,” I said. “I want you to live your life. Spread your wings. All that. Of course I do.”
“Besides,” she said, “you have Roman now.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “Looooove.”
I said, “Do you think that’s all it is? That I need somebody with me, and it doesn’t matter who?”
“Well,” she said, “yeah. Probably. I mean, look at the evidence. Felipe goes to prison, and you come collect me like a left-behind package. I’m about to leave now, and, well …”
I said, “No. It wasn’t just needing company. It was needing you. And thinking you needed me.”
She blinked mascara’d lashes, because she’d begun doing more of the girly thing lately. She and Priya and Frankie, going to the Op Shops and the makeup stores, trying on. Experimenting. The girls because they’d grown up in a cult, and Delilah because … Well, I wasn’t sure why. I decided to ask. Why not? “Why are you wearing more makeup these days?” I asked. “Dressing up more? You look pretty, and it’s not too much. I’m just wondering. Experimentation is normal, of course, at nineteen, but—why?”
She stared at me. “Do you actually not know?” She had to say it a little loudly, because the rain had picked up and was beating hard on the tin roof of the porch.
“Well, no,” I said. “I don’t. I assumed it was just that. Experimentation.”
She would have answered, but my phone dinged with the gate notification, and I told Roman, “Buzzing you in now.”
“OK,” Delilah said, picking up her suitcase. “Let’s get this show on the road. My new life, starting now.” And I got another pang straight to the heart.
The spatter of tires on gravel, and Roman’s car came down the hill. He was out of it the moment it stopped, taking the porch steps two at a time, grabbing the suitcase from Delilah, then stopping to look at me and ask, “OK?”
“No,” Delilah said. “She’s being weird.”
Roman slung the suitcase into the trunk, slammed it, and told me, the rain streaming over the hood of his raincoat, “Get in back with her if you like. Last minutes together, eh. I’ll be the chauffeur.”
That was why, when we were on Highway 1 and headed for the airport, I asked Delilah, “So, why? On the makeup and the clothes and all.”
She sighed. “Hello? Captain Obvious says—because I realized I won’t always be compared to you?”
“To me?” I blinked. “But you don’t look anything like me.”
“Which would be,” she said, “the point. That’s what’s been good about hanging out with Frankie and Priya. They compare themselves with Daisy all the time, too. Not so much for how she looks, but she’s, like, so ultra efficient and capable. Also like you. Awkward, when you have to be grateful to somebody at the same time you’re resenting her and being jealous.”
I was aware of Roman in the front seat. He didn’t turn his head, though, so I did my best to pretend he wasn’t there. Why did the important conversations always happen right at the screaming end of things? “I’ve been a mess plenty of times this year, though,” I said. “And before that. I was arrested.”
“No,” Delilah said. “I mean, yes, you were arrested, but no, you haven’t been a mess. And that’s been kind of hard, because I’ve felt like a mess. I know I’ve been all, haha, you need me, but really? When Aunt Iona died? I was kind of terrified. I put off college to save money, but I couldn’t … I couldn’t imagine going, OK? Having to figure everything out. Where to live. How to eat. And now, I kind of feel like I can. I’m still scared, but I can.”
“Of course you can.” The emotion was tightening my throat, but I needed to say this. “You’ve got all kinds of courage and all kinds of strength. You know how to work, and you know how to keep going. You’re one of the most capable young women I’ve ever known.”
“If I am,” she said, “I get that I learned that from you. I get it, OK? I just need to prove it. By myself. Frankie’s managing university, and she grew up in a cult and had to leave school when she was sixteen! She was married, and he was about forty years old and seriously abusive, and look at her now.She says, just don’t hook up with any guys, because they’re distracting and can knock you off your path. And, I mean …”
“Exhibit A,” I said. “Me.”
“Well, yeah. Although Roman’s OK. Probably because he’s a grownup and doesn’t expect you to be his mommy and pay attention to him all the time. I know you’re listening,” she said to the back of Roman’s head. “You can say ‘Thank you.’”
“Thank you,” he said, and I caught the edge of his smile. “I’ll go back to ignoring you now.” Except that he was exiting the motorway and headed to the airport, and we were nearly there.
Delilah said, “The motorway’s two lanes here. Not even divided. And it’s the main one in the country! The freeway in Seattle is eight lanes. It’s going to feel so different. Big. Noisy. Crowded.”
“It is,” I agreed.
“I expect I’ll adapt, though,” Delilah said.
“I expect you will.” I wanted to say, Call me if you need me, but I didn’t. That wasn’t what she needed to hear from me at this moment.
She fell silent as Roman went around the circle and stopped in front of the terminal, but when he popped the trunk and jumped out to get her bag, she didn’t open her door. I waited, and finally, she said, “I really do love you, you know. You didn’t have to come back for me, and you did anyway. I’m not even your sister.”
“You’re my sister in my heart, though,” I said. “You always will be.” I was losing the battle with the emotion. “Just remember,” I managed to say, “that you can always call me. If you need me, I’ll be there. The same way you’ve been there for me.”
She stared. “You’ve never said that. About me.”
“I should have,” I said. “You’re right that I needed you with me this year. You’ve been what’s pulled me back into life again. I was in a bad place, but when we went to that memorial garden …”
“And told the guy we were keeping Aunt Iona in the cardboard box,” Delilah said, her smile wavering around the edges. “And you said, maybe we should have those necklaces made with her ashes. Still so ick. And we laughed so hard.”
I reached for her and hugged her. “Every time,” I said. “Every time, when I’ve been close to giving up … you’ve been why I haven’t. You don’t think you’re beautiful, and you’re wrong. You’re a star. You’re going to go to Seattle, and you’re going to shine. And I’m going to be so proud. Every step of the way. I’m going to be watching, and I’m going to be proud.”
Now we were both crying. Delilah hadn’t cried any more than I had this year, but surely, some things needed to be said with tears. “If the roots aren’t watered,” I said, “the tree will never grow. Koro told me that. I think he meant this. I think he meant feeling things to your heart. Letting yourself cry, and heal, and grieve, and love. Letting yourself live all the way. It’s scary, and it’s hard, and it’s the only way to be real. It’s the only thing that’s worth doing.”
“O-OK,” she said, and gulped. Her makeup was smearing, and I reached out with two thumbs and wiped the smudges below her eyes. “Why does … does yours never do that?”
“Excellent waterproof mascara,” I said.
“Oh. I’m still learning, I guess.” Her hand groped for the door handle. “And I have to go or I’m going to cry all over you. I have to—I have to go.”
When I hugged her goodbye, there under the overhang on a gray winter morning, letting her go felt impossible, and it felt like the only choice. I said into her ear, with every bit of fierceness I had, “We’re all still learning. But I’m here for you. I have your back. You are not alone.”
She nodded, gulped, and pulled away. Then she put her hand on her suitcase and said to Roman, “You’d better be good to her. If you aren’t, I’ll come back here and kick your ass.”
Roman said, “If I’m not good to her, I’ll let you.” Then he gave her his own hug and said, “If you need money, text me.”
“Geez,” she said. “How’s a woman supposed to get independent?” And walked through the doors.
I cried all the way to Roman’s house. He didn’t say anything, just handed me a box of Kleenex.
I said, “You bought K-kleenex. You never have K-kleenex.”
“I do now,” he said. “We’re all still learning. As the woman said.”