Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Delilah
Mom
Package says it arrived at the post office yesterday.
Me
Thank you.
Me
I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten my call.
Mom
I was out with Debbie. Had a busy week. Available today if you have time for me.
I drop my toothbrush into the porcelain cup by the sink and spit. The faucet handle squeaks as I turn it. Toothpaste swirls down toward the drain, around and around, and I try to let it mesmerize me. Numb me. Mom’s words can cut if you let them. So you just have to be determined not to.
The rough fabric of a decades-old towel scratches my face dry. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the sink. My hair is dull and frizzy from the humidity, so I tie it back in a low bun. I stand tall, shoulders braced. No sense crying over spilled milk, my mom always insisted. I wonder sometimes if she knew she’d be the one tipping the carton over ninety percent of the time.
I gaze at the laminated chart I hung up by the mirror. A step-by-step guide to brushing your teeth with pictures, not words, so Dad can follow it even when reading becomes too difficult. It strikes me that my parents put up something similar when I was a child, new to caring for my body. Now here I am, putting little charts and graphs up around the house for my father. To preserve his dignity, so he doesn’t have to tell me when he’s forgotten the steps to things that were once second nature.
Gentle strums of the guitar fill the hall with music. No song in particular; it’s a melodic blend of so many I’ve heard my dad play through the years. Pieces of the chorus from “Heaven” by Los Lonely Boys. A random run from “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. Finally it fades into the rhythmic tune of “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Tears prick my eyes.
“Delilah?”
I pause in front of the gapped door to Dad’s study. “Yeah?”
“Can you come in?”
He’s sitting on the window seat, still playing the song absent-mindedly. The disorder from last week’s search for the laminator has been rectified. Bookshelves line the far wall from floor to ceiling. Trinkets and trophies decorate the space in front of the spines. To my right, various instruments are displayed on their respective stands. While Dad prefers piano most of all, he’s dabbled in so many other fields. There’s a violin case leaning against a filing cabinet full of music sheets from years teaching band classes. His keyboard is tucked against the wall behind his desk to my left, which separates the entry from the window.
He turns toward me, taking me in with a clouded gaze. “Come play with me. ”
My chest tightens. Those tears are still present, threatening to fall. I shake my head slowly. “I can’t right now. Mom mailed some of my things. I’ve gotta go pick them up.”
“How is Kimberly?”
Hearing my mom’s name is always jarring. So often I forget that she has an identity outside of her relationship to me. She doesn’t date much, and I haven’t brought someone home in over a year. My circle of friends and my coworkers overlap perfectly, so I talk to them online but never in person. It’s just my mother and me in that big old house, an echo chamber that makes our reality feel like the only one.
“She’s very much the same.”
He frowns like he knows that’s not a ringing endorsement. Still, the next words out of his mouth are laced with nostalgia. “Did you know we danced to this song at our wedding?”
“I did.” A weak smile pulls at my lips. Every year on their anniversary, Dad would slip an Elvis CD into the living room stereo and press play. Then he’d ask my mom to dance. It’s one of the few times it looked like their love was on purpose rather than something they stumbled into. Then they’d fold me into their embrace, and we’d sway in circles around the living room. A complete family, albeit an imperfect one.
I want to ask him about it. About how he could give that up for Lucy. But upsetting him hardly seems worth answers that will do nothing to change what’s already happened.
“You will play with me sometime, though? On another day?”
He comes back into focus. His hands move nimbly over the chords. Years of practice and a whole lot of God-given talent are evident in the movement. He’s watching me with barely contained hope and something else. I recognize it, though I wish I didn’t. He’d wear the same expression when we walked into Nana’s room at the memory care facility when I was a child. The safely guarded expectation that the person in front of him might not be quite the same as he remembered.
It strikes me that I should be looking at him like that, not the other way around. But my decision to leave with Mom all those years ago—to stay away after my letter opened the chasm between us—has brought us here. A fact that lodges my reply in my throat.
I nod instead. His shoulders slump beneath the weight of his relief.
Affection used to flow freely between my dad and me. We were the huggers. The teasing pinchers. The elbow nudgers and hip bumpers. The awkwardness I’ve felt since returning has made that piece of our relationship so dim. A shadow of what it once was. Despite this, or maybe because of it, I find myself wandering over to him and looping my arm around his neck. Placing a kiss on his forehead. His breath, now fresh with the scent of toothpaste, flows over me. He leans into me, humming his appreciation, while the heartbreaking melody fades away.
He moves on to a song I don’t recognize. Something equal parts mournful and joyous. I back out of the room, leaving it cracked so he can fill the entire house with music.
My flip-flops slap against the hot asphalt, the plastic melting slightly on the scalding parking lot. The post office is a brown, squatty building with a metal roof and a faded American flag fluttering high on the pole outside. A bell chimes when I open the door, and a blast of cool air makes my eyes water. It’s a single room, with PO boxes lining one wall and a framed-in desk with a door on the left separating the customer area from the mailroom. Behind the counter, Odette Love is fanning her face with a newspaper, a thin sheen of sweat coating her brown skin .
“Delilah Ridgefield, as I live and breathe!” She shimmies off her stool, drops the newspaper on the register, and reaches for me over the counter.
I take her outstretched hands, littered with wrinkles and sunspots, and smile awkwardly.
“I saw your package come in and thought it must be some kind of mistake.” She squeezes so hard the bones in my hands grind together. “How long has it been? You’re so grown. And beautiful. ” She releases me, then does a twirl with her finger. “You know, you look just like your grandmother. She sure was a stunner.”
My shoes stick to the floor when I try to spin for her. The whole movement is clumsy and unfamiliar. I’m not used to being observed from one direction, let alone all 360 degrees. The compliment tucks itself behind my sternum, making my chest tight. The version of Nana I knew was a shadow of what faded photographs tell me she once was. To be compared to a woman I’ve heard nothing but praises for, even if it’s hard to believe Odette’s words, fills me with warmth.
I place my fingertips on the counter to steady myself, though my world goes on spinning for a few seconds. “So you got my package?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She shuffles down an aisle of shelves behind the desk, gaze combing the stack of boxes. She notes what I assume is mine with a harrumph and turns to me. “I’ve got a bad shoulder. Can you come grab it, sugar? Leonard is out doing deliveries, or I’d trouble him.”
“Sure.”
“Just reach over that little partition and grab the latch.” She swats a hand. “No, other side. There you go.”
The top half of the Dutch door is already open and resting against the wall of PO boxes. I open the bottom partition gingerly and step through. She points out which one is mine, a large Amazon box that my mother has repurposed. I hoist it from the bottom shelf with a grunt. “I see why you didn’t want to lift it.”
Odette scoffs. “Apparently your mother shipped a box of weights.”
I snicker. My walk back to the front is more of a waddle as I work to find a comfortable position for the heavy package.
“How is she doing anyway? Your mother.”
That question again. Odette locks eyes with me, barely guarding the curiosity in her expression. No one loves gossip more than the postmaster, and she gets plenty of it in her position. I’m convinced it’s why she hasn’t retired. She sits here all day, waiting for someone like me to walk in. A fresh story. If anyone didn’t know I was in town before, by the end of today they will.
A wrinkle forms between my brows. No matter how complicated my feelings toward my mother are, I still remember how it felt to have our family’s worst moment on display for the whole town to dissect. Horrible. Invasive. The whispers about her, about my dad, from the kids in the hallways and people behind me in line at Sunshine Grocery alike, still haunt me. And though Odette has never been anything but kind to me, I can’t help but feel defensive. I couldn’t protect my parents from themselves, but I can protect them from this.
“She’s fine.” I plaster a glittering smile on my face. “Better than ever.”
Odette licks her lips, which in turn spread into a jovial smile. “Well, that’s good to hear.”
I nod. “Take care, Miss Odette.”
“You too, sugar.” She retrieves the newspaper from the register and starts fanning herself again. “Don’t be a stranger.”
A chiming bell announces my exit and drowns out my half-hearted reply.
Mom picks up before the phone has finished its first ring. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me. ”
I stop at the only blinking red light in town, waving a tractor on. Once he clears the intersection, I pull forward.
“I got your package. Thank you for sending it.”
“You’re welcome.” Her tone is clipped. She may allow me to gloss over her comment, but she’s not going to forget it either. She sighs dramatically. “I meant to return your call, but it’s been such a busy week. I’ve picked up a few extra shifts since I’ve got no one at home to spend time with.”
“At least you’ll have some extra spending money.”
We both know she doesn’t need it. Just like we both know what she’s trying to imply.
I turn down the dirt road that leads to our house. In the distance, Truett’s four-wheeler zips across the pasture. There’s a calf splayed over his lap, and what I presume is the calf’s mama trotting close behind as they head for the barn in the shallow valley behind his house.
A mixture of anxiety and yearning clenches my gut. I find myself craving his arms around me. Our embrace in the field, his tutorial on the mower… it unlocked something I’d have preferred to keep hidden away. I was perfectly happy wanting nothing from him. This, I don’t know how to navigate. This, I don’t know how to quell.
Mom clears her throat. “So, how are things?”
I shake my head. From one impossible situation to another.
“As good as they can be.” Acorns crunch under my tires as I pull into our driveway. “He’s mostly himself. There are some things he needs help with here and there. Reminders.” I think of him weeping over Lucy. Of the brightness in his face when he thought I was still in high school. I wonder absently if his brain just patched up the wounds of the last nine years by wiping them clean, and can’t help but feel a pang of envy. “Today is a good day.”
“You’re staying there to give him reminders?” She snorts. “ Seems like something Lucy Parker is perfectly capable of handling on her own.”
I swallow the bile that rises in my throat. She doesn’t know, I remind myself. She doesn’t know that the person who hurt her most in the world is gone. I try to let her animosity roll off my skin, but it leaves a few abrasions behind.
“Yeah, Mom. I am.” I watch the porch swing sway in a breeze. Let the motion lull me. There’s a bag on the front doormat, next to Dad’s Converse. A delivery, maybe? “Lucy… she died. A couple years ago, from the sound of it.”
It still feels so difficult to say. I half expect that if I walked into Tru’s kitchen right this second, she’d be standing there by the sink, teeth sinking into a peach. Juice dribbling down her pointed chin. She’d wipe it away and smile at me. Ask me where I’ve been.
Mom sighs heavily. “Well, what’s that her daddy used to say? The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
My heartbeat stills. The world tilts like I’m about to be sick. I step out of the car, sucking in a breath of humid air. She’s hurting, I reason. She doesn’t mean it.
“I have to go, Mom,” I manage to squeak out. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Before she can reply, I end the call, slipping my phone back into my pocket.
There are so many types of hurt in the world, and no two of them the same. My gaze drifts toward the Parkers’ farm. I try to remind myself that I’ll never understand what my mother went through. Just like I’ll never understand why my dad did it in the first place.
I kick off my flip-flops beside my dad’s shoes and pick up the bag. The thick, white plastic sports the logo from the shoe store in the city mall. Curious, I reach inside and remove the box. I tuck the bag under my arm and turn the box over, which is how I see the note taped to the bottom.
Temptress,
These ought to fit your tiny feet, but if they don’t, let me know and I’ll exchange them. Can’t have you mowing with those cute toes hanging out.
And before you even think it, you don’t owe me a dime. But if you’re inclined to repay me, the offer for dinner still stands.
Or skinny-dipping in the river. You pick.
Sincerely,
Tru
Inside lies a pair of white Keds, just like the ones I destroyed last week in his field. I remove them from the box and discard it beside me, tucking the bag inside. Before I even slip one on, I know, but I do it just to confirm.
Size 6. A perfect fit.