Chapter 39 Deli #2
“I’ve never even seen him with a camera.”
“Lachlan’s da was a hard man. He was the hardest on Lachlan. The plan was always that he’d stay and take over The Wallflower’s Crown when it was time. Lachlan said he wanted to.”
That was what Lachlan had done, as far as Deli could tell.
“All I ever wanted was this.” Blair swept an arm toward her kitchen and her sofa dotted with bright toys and tiny socks.
“We had a plan, and god, I loved him, but it was never easy for Lachlan. My parents . . . I have never wondered if I was loved. But Lachlan? A day’s not gone by that Lachlan Scott didn’t wonder what about him needs changing. ”
Something horrible and hot was rising in Deli’s throat. If Blair noticed, she had the grace to act like she didn’t.
“He’d put the camera in the attic when he was a boy, and when he found it again, something in him came to life. Suddenly, Fearnhall wasn’t big enough—he’d run out of portraits to take. And for the first time, he found the courage to tell his parents he was going to leave. He told me, too.”
“But all you ever wanted”—Deli cast a fond look around Blair and Andrew’s life, where race cars were scattered across the floors and a rubber ducky lived by the sink—“was this.”
Blair’s soft sadness gave way to gratitude. “I told him I’d go with him, but he knew my heart was here. And Lachlan was making an escape. So he ended things with me. It was kind.”
The two women shared a moment of silence.
Deli recalled the way he’d changed as he searched her for something he’d broken. “He didn’t leave, did he? Where are his parents? Where the hell is his brother?”
“He did leave. We said when he came back we could try again, but he told me never to wait for him if it came to someone else.”
Blair tapped her phone screen and showed Deli her background. It was Andrew, his eyes sleepy but laced with mischief, like Penny’s cornflower blue. Their two kids were draped over him in their bed, fast asleep.
“Andrew went to school with us, too, but he was a year younger. He was shy. Then one night I went to a pub quiz where he was playing music a town over. I walked in and . . . I almost felt like I’d never heard music before.
When Andrew saw me, he missed a couple notes.
Turned bright red!” Blair laughed, remembering.
“And that was it?” Deli asked. “After all that time, suddenly Andrew? No thoughts of Lachlan?”
Blair looked at Deli with a tender tilt of her head. “Standing in that pub? I’d been struck by a lightning bolt that made things new. Like I’d never seen him before that moment.”
Deli thought of the moment she’d met Trey, even though they were just kids. She felt that, too, in a way. Maybe not lightning, but like she’d been caught in a tide and her life would never be the same.
“If I met Trey now, there’d be lightning.”
“I saw Andrew, and I knew I’d love him forever,” Blair said.
Deli opened her mouth to say me too about Trey, but Blair held up a hand.
“Because of the way he looked at me. He looked at me like I was a lighthouse and he’d been lost at sea.
I could feel it down to my bones, Deli. Andrew saw me in such a way that I had no choice but to see myself differently. ”
The warm place in Deli’s mind that cradled thoughts of Trey chilled.
“Wait,” Deli said, “if Lachlan left . . . why is he back?”
Blair blanched.
The door burst open in a riot of limbs and backpack and tiny shoes being kicked off.
“Mummy, Mummy! You’ll never believe what I did today!” cried a little voice.
Blair couldn’t smile wider. She waved through the kitchen window to a car pulling away. “What’s that, love?”
“I went off the Diving Board! Mu—” The voice vanished. Deli saw one giant brown owl eye, then a second as an elfish face with wispy platinum chin-length hair peered around the doorway.
Blair knelt to kid-eye level. “Kieran, this is a friend of Mummy and Daddy’s.”
“Hi, Kieran. I’m Deli,” she said. “I love your house.”
Kieran’s eyes widened. “You’ve got a movie accent!”
“She’s American.” Penny slid into the small space with her sibling, eyeing Deli with a satisfied look on her face. “And a criminal.”
Kieran’s eyes got even bigger.
“Alright, alright. It’s bath time for you lot. Kieran’s hair will turn green. And Deli is not a criminal. She’s just wearing sweatpants.”
“Sweatpants from jail,” Penny muttered as her mom herded them toward the back of the house.
Blair checked her watch. “Mo will be here in a few! Thank you so much for your help! I’m loving having you here, my friend!”
Deli watched Blair disappear down the hallway, but Kieran ducked quietly under her arm and walked silently back toward Deli. Both of Kieran’s hands were knotted together in a tight ball held at the base of their throat.
After a painfully long silence, Kieran finally said in a tiny voice, “Excuse me?”
Deli tried to smile in a not-scary way. “Yes?”
“My name is Kieran, and I live here.”
“Hi, Kieran.”
“Erm, my friend told me to ask you a question.”
Deli blinked. “Your friend?”
“He’s my see-through friend only I can see. His name is Cal.” Kieran sniffled, rubbed their fingers against their shirt, and said, “He wanted me to ask if you’re still sad inside?”
A fridge magnet clattered to the floor as Deli took an involuntary step backward. Her jaw felt wired shut. “I . . . I’m . . . I wasn’t sad.”
Kieran let out a big, dramatic sigh, the way that children do, raising their arms and letting them fall by their sides. Then, much to Deli’s horror, Kieran crossed the kitchen, stuck out their little hand, and wrapped it around hers.
“You don’t need to be sad.” Their voice was small but sure. “You are good,” Kieran said, patting her hand. “That’s what he told me. Delilah has always been good.”
Her heart skidded to a halt. Before she could say a word, a blaring horn rattled the windows like shock paddles. Aunt Mo grinned while she headbanged to Aerosmith.
When Deli looked back down, Kieran was already gone.