Chapter 65 Deli
Deli
When medical dramas were at the height of their popularity, teenage Deli used to sit with her eyes glued to the screen, holding her hand flat like a pancake, admiring the natural stillness she’d need to become the best surgeon around.
Now she felt the tremor rattling her fingers echo all the way to her heart.
“I can’t believe you’re dragging me to a witch’s house.”
Deli clenched her hand, then shook it out before turning the key in the ignition of Mo’s car. “Hannah’s not a witch, Mom. She just has a forest path behind her house, and I need some big branches.”
Lorraine held up a finger, adding one for each thing she said. “Doesn’t speak, magic forest, mind reader, spooky hair and no makeup—”
Deli’s stomach flipped, threatening to expel the breakfast Aunt Mo had forced on her. She thought of Aunt Mo’s impossible garden, blooming with things that shouldn’t grow. She thought of Douglas, of Hannah. Of an imaginary friend named Cal.
“Well, everything in Fearnhall is sort of magical. Hannah’s just quiet. And aging gently.”
Lorraine laughed. “Please. Aging is a war. You’re either winning or dying.”
Her mother flipped the mirror down and tugged at the edge of her plumped lips, running her tongue across her unnaturally white teeth. Agreeing to let Lorraine join felt like Deli’s first bad choice in a horror movie—like she was halfway down the basement stairs.
“You don’t have to come, Mom. Aunt Mo and Grandma could use your help.”
Lorraine snapped her head toward Deli. “Do you just not want to spend time with me?”
Deli didn’t have to look to know her mother’s chin would be puckered or that her eyes would be glassy with rejection. What she said next would decide the entire day. Blair’s big day. She couldn’t be the one to ruin it.
“Of course I want to spend time with you. I just don’t know if you’ll have fun. I want you to have a nice time.”
Lorraine savored the silence as she decided if her daughter’s plea was enough. “I always have fun with you, Delilah.”
“It’s Deli.”
Her voice was little more than a whisper, smothered by whatever blanket Lorraine MacDonald was throwing over the fire Deli had been kindling in her heart for weeks.
Lorraine responded with an eye roll–sigh combo and reached for the radio. An accented voice sang about going five hundred miles for someone they loved, but before they could promise five hundred more, Deli’s mother turned it off.
“God awful noise.”