Chapter 26 Mo
Mo
Mo McDonnell didn’t like to spend her days regretting things—she considered it a waste of good time. But as her niece began to sing, more rattled than Mo had seen her yet, she felt a pang of regret so abrupt it took her breath away.
If Mo was being honest with herself, part of her hesitancy to ask Deli about the details of her arrival had been the fear of what she’d say.
She hoped that she could love away the last twenty years of absence.
She hoped that she could keep Deli close long enough to rebuild the bridges Mo had burned when she left.
She wanted to leave Deli with a permanent way to come back to her. She hoped she wasn’t too late.
Mo remembered feeling so adult when she was Deli’s age—so on her own in the world. Now she knew how young she had been. She wondered if Deli had any idea how much better was yet to come, or if she felt so much older than she really was, like Mo had.
Andrew played softly and slowly as Deli followed along on her phone.
It gave the song a mournful sort of feeling—less like a declaration of love and more like a plea for it.
The quiver in Deli’s voice shifted from tinny nerves to an urgent, round sound as she sang about a man who would walk five hundred miles to reach his beloved.
Douglas laid a hand on Mo’s shoulder, his other pressed to his chest.
Before Deli could get through walking five hundred more, she turned to face the fireplace, shoulders bunched as the microphone hung limply at her side. Andrew shot Mo a look and continued to play.
Mo stood.
“Da da da da,” she sang.
Lachlan’s eyes flashed her way. He nodded once, and his rich voice joined hers. Mo waved her hands to encourage the room.
“Da da da da,” came Blair and Douglas.
“Da da da da,” Graham joined.
They all sang while Deli did not. “La da da da da da da da da da da da da daaa.”
Lachlan led the room again as Andrew looped the chorus. Mo wove her way to the fireplace and gently pressed her hand between Deli’s shoulder blades.
“You okay?”
Deli’s lips were pressed together, silent tears streaming down her face. “I’m fine,” she said, forcing her words through the tightness in her throat. “I just think I’m too hard, or too complicated, or . . .” She trailed off.
Mo felt it in her chest. “Honey, what are you talking about?”
“To lo—” Deli looked up at Mo with the same garden-bloom eyes she’d had as a little girl, but the bitter smile was foreign. “Nothing. Sorry, I’m so dramatic.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m working on it.”
Mo’s heart buckled at the knees. “There’s nothing to fix.”
Deli scoffed. “Tell that to my mother.”
I wish I could, Mo thought. The deep knot in her core threatened to unspool as she remembered the way that Rosemary’s hands used to tug a brush through Mo’s tangles.
She forced her guilt back and reached out to touch the tip of Deli’s nose.
“Come on, buddy,” she whispered. “The rule is, we gotta belt it.”
Deli laughed weakly and smiled. Mo looped her arm around Deli’s waist and spun the two of them around.
“Da da da da!” Deli yelled, rallying. Andrew moved from picking to strumming, and The Wallflower’s patrons sang their hearts out.
At the end, even though they’d barely made it through a single verse before endlessly looping sounds, the entire pub stood up and clapped.
They whooped. They rushed the stage and jostled Deli, hugging away what Mo hoped was the last of her niece’s sorrow for the night.
It was hard to stay lonely in a warm place with people who wanted you to be there.
“Alright, you lot!” Lachlan called. “Let’s let Celine Dion get some air. Who’s next?”