Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Delilah
Warm wood presses against my skin, no doubt imprinting the looping pattern of its grain on the backs of my thighs. My laptop hums quietly on my lap. A gust of equally hot wind rips through, giving the swing I’m sitting on an invisible push. The swing Dad installed for Mom as a gift, a place for her to lounge on summer days like this one, with a perspiring glass of sweet tea in hand. Yet another thing that wasn’t enough to make her happy.
Sometimes I wonder if I was the first, or if her disdain started long before I came to be.
My gaze rakes over the ebbing fields of Truett’s farm, settling on a lone figure bent over a downed fence post in the closest pasture. The one the females and their calves graze in, lazily scarfing down endless supplies of green grass this time of year. I squint. I can just make out a straw cowboy hat, sitting low on the figure’s head. Hope leaps in my chest. Even from this distance, it’d be a relief to see Truett. The unscrewing of a pressure valve, letting off a bit of steam.
The figure removes the hat, and my heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach, heavy as a stone. Dark hair is disturbed by gloved hands. Ollie. Truett’s farmhand replaces the hat and gets back to work.
I shouldn’t care, but my shoulders sag with disappointment. It’s a telltale sign that while I might know in my head that a relationship between us is the last thing I’m capable of right now, my heart sank its claws into a different narrative—one it’s not tempted to let go of quite yet.
I’m so lost in this round robin of thoughts that I miss the sound of tires crunching over discarded acorns. Don’t look up until footsteps thud against the weather-worn wood of the front steps and draw my attention away from the field.
“Hey, stranger,” Alicia says. A bouquet of brightly colored mums interspersed with greenery and bursts of baby’s breath sits clenched in her fist. She holds the bouquet up, a light pink blush settling high on her round cheeks. “Brought these for you.” Her other hand moves from behind her back, producing at least five Caramellos trying to spill from her grasp. “And these are for your dad. Please tell me he still loves these things, because there are about ten more in the car.”
I swallow the rising tide of nerves and second-guessing and force a smile on my face that I pray is more convincing than I feel. “Did you clean out Sunshine?”
She nods, expression morose. “I did. But it was the price that had to be paid for the great Henry Ridgefield. Citizens of Fly Hollow will understand.”
I snort softly, and a relieved smile blooms on her face. No lipstick today. It makes her seem younger, more like the Alicia I knew at seventeen. And twelve. And five.
A dark red indent cuts through my palm when I lift it from the keypad and gesture to the space opposite me on the bench. My back rests against one of the arm rails, but I tug up my legs to free a seat on the other side. “Care to join me?”
“Sure!” She balances the bouquet carefully on the handrail wrapping the porch and piles the candy bars beside it. When she sits on the swing, it rocks beneath us, then finally settles. “What are we doing? Admiring your cowboy from afar?”
“That one isn’t mine.” None of them are, I almost add. Even if my broken heart disagrees.
“Oh?” She flattens a hand over her eyes and squints, blocking out sun that’s already been shielded by the roof. “Where’s yours then?”
Now would be a good time to correct her, but that damn heart of mine has clamped its hand over my lips.
My gaze skirts the field once more, taking stock, but Truett is nowhere in sight. “Not sure.”
She hums her understanding. When her gaze flits to my laptop, a wrinkle appears between her brows. “Are you working?”
“Not exactly.” I scowl at my computer screen. “I’m researching memory care facilities in the area.”
I found the list in a folder Truett had left in Dad’s office, along with the burial plans and other forms he’d taken care of before I ever arrived in town. The temptation to call him, to ask for his help, was so strong I had to power down my phone to keep from acting on it.
Alicia’s eyes widen briefly, but she catches herself. Relaxes the surprise as quickly as it arrived. “What changed your mind?”
“It hasn’t changed. Not really.” I release the breath scalding my lungs and pinch the bridge of my nose. It stings with imminent tears that I fight to hold back. I’m so sick of crying. I’ve been doing it all week, and it’s gotten me nowhere except knee-deep in a migraine that even the strongest pain reliever won’t touch. When my eyes peel back open, Alicia is a little blurry. I blink, bringing her empathetic frown into focus. “I don’t know what to do, honestly. Dad says he’s ready to go, but I feel like I’m failing as his daughter if I put him there.”
She stretches one leg out alongside mine, our skin sticking together in the damp summer air. It’s a comfort though, to have her so close. To sit like we did what seems like a million years ago and talk about our problems as though they can actually be solved.
“What does Truett think of all this?”
I roll my bottom lip between my teeth. I should’ve known I couldn’t skirt past this with Alicia. If anyone’s gonna find out the dirt I’m hiding, it’s her. I sigh, letting the fight go out of me along with the air. “I haven’t really spoken to him since everything went down.”
“And why not?”
“With everything going on, I just can’t…” I wave a hand in the air by my head and widen my eyes, searching for an explanation in the forest across the street. When one doesn’t magically appear, I drop my hand, defeated. “I can’t pursue him and take care of my dad. I’m not capable of doing both. Not well, anyway. I certainly proved that last week, which is probably why Dad is suddenly hell-bent on going into care sooner rather than later.”
The words singe my throat. It’s a truth I’ve been too afraid to utter aloud, even in the quiet of my bedroom long after Dad has drifted off to sleep, yet I’ve served it up to her on a silver platter. Here, judge my shitty performance as a daughter. Like I’m not hard enough on myself as it is.
It’s not judgment I find swimming in her brown eyes when I glance up. Understanding wells in her gaze. It hugs the downward curve of her lips. Everywhere I look on her face, there grace is, just waiting to be found.
“Have you ever considered that it’s not that you aren’t capable of this, but rather that you’re capable of so much more? That your dad sees it, and wants it for you? A life he was never willing to take for himself but has the chance to offer you instead.”
I drop my gaze to the laptop. To my hands, trembling against the keys. “Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could afford it. Truett helps pay for Roberta as it stands.”
“I don’t suppose you’d want to ask him for help with a facility…?”
I shake my head before the words have finished falling from her lips. “No.”
She shrugs. “What other options do you have?”
“Sell the house, I guess. That was the plan they had before I came home, at least.” I glance up at the wooden beams above my head. The same ones I’ve sat beneath since I was a little girl, and my dad before me. It’s not that I want to live here forever. I just never imagined losing my childhood home like this, with no time to prepare for that particular goodbye. Tears prick at my eyes. My laugh is a wild animal, equipped with claws that rake my throat. “I thought about calling my mom to ask about the money my grandparents left for my wedding one day, but then I remembered my mom would rather die than help my dad in any way.”
It’s not like I need the money for its intended purpose. The only wedding I’ve ever been able to imagine for myself involves Truett and I eloping in one of his fields, wildflowers tucked in my hair and my father’s arm looped through mine. And I’ll never have that. So why hoard money away that could be better used to help me now?
Compassion creases Alicia’s features. “I could sit with you while you call her, if that would help.”
My lips flatten. I imagine Alicia overhearing the kinds of things my mother says to me on a normal phone call, let alone when I ask her for money to help her ex-husband get the care he needs. Shame climbs the column of my throat and lodges itself there, immovable against the pull of me swallowing.
Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? No mother should ever speak to their child in a way that they’d be ashamed for others to overhear. In a way that completely rewrites the voice in their child’s head for the worse. I can’t remember when my inner monologue became colored by my mother’s chastisements. All I know is when I suspect I’m failing at something, it’s her voice that confirms my worst fears. Hurls them back at me with a few extra concerns added on for good measure.
I know she’s wrong for being that way, and yet I can’t help but want to protect her—and myself—by hiding these ugly truths away.
“There’s no point,” I whisper. “It’s not like she’ll listen.”
Alicia’s frown deepens.
I quirk a brow. “What?”
She leans forward and rests her hand on my knee. “Maybe that’s because no one ever made her.” She catches my gaze, daring me to disagree. When I don’t— can’t —she nods and reclines back against the armrest. “Listen, as someone whose mother will also walk all over her if not put in her place, I get it. But you’re not a child anymore, Delilah. You get to decide how people treat you. Talk to you. You may think it’s some kind of failure to let others help you, but there’s power in that, too—in who you choose to lean on when times get hard. And times are really fucking hard right now.
“If your mom won’t be someone you can depend on, then fuck her. I know that’s harsh, but I mean it. You deserve better than the bullshit hand you’ve been dealt, and I’m sorry it took me so long to say so. Sorry that I ever played a part in making you feel like you’re less than, or lacking, or that you only have your mother so you have to put up with that kind of treatment lest you be left alone.” Her voice grows hoarse. She forces herself to pause and swallow, but the pain remains like a heartbeat in her gaze. Steady. Life-giving.
“But you’re not alone. Not now. You have me. Your dad. What’s the caretaker’s name—Roberta? You have her.” She tips her head toward that farmhouse on the hilltop, one eyebrow raised. “Truett, if you’ll let him.”
Tears spill down my cheeks. More and more, they are becoming the language for a type of pain that English simply doesn’t cover. I realize that’s probably why my father loves music so much, even now. It’s a language that conveys what spoken words cannot. Grief that pours out from his fingertips, while mine leaks from my eyes.
“You’re right. I know you are.” I shrug flimsily, my shoulders suddenly too heavy to lift. I’m weighed down by so many decisions that I wish weren’t mine to make, by burdens I don’t know how to let go of. My gaze meets Alicia’s through the watery mess of my tears, and I tell her the honest truth. “But I don’t know how to be anybody else.”
“Not someone else. You.” She smiles. “Just less of an island. More of a peninsula, maybe, to start with?”
I crinkle my nose. “Was that a geography joke? I thought you were a music teacher.”
“What can I say? I’m a woman of many talents.” Her laughter reminds me of the wind chimes that once hung from the rafters on Tru’s front porch, their music summoned by the slightest breeze. She lets it fade, the wind gone still, as her gaze levels mine. Her legs sweep to the floor as she sits up, reaches over, and slips my laptop from my grasp. “Call your mom, Delilah. Get whatever answers you need. Then we can decide how to proceed. No matter what she says.”
We can decide. It shouldn’t mean so much, that little pronoun, but in this moment it might be the most beautiful word I’ve heard in my entire life. My chest deflates even as fear pebbles my skin with goose bumps. When all you’ve had is yourself for so long, it’s scary to risk depending on someone else. But it’s scarier to face everything alone.
So I reach for Alicia. Hold her hand as the phone rings through to my mother, who answers the call with a heavy sigh and a distracted, “Delilah, I’m a bit busy right now.”
I swallow back the bile coating the back of my tongue. My hands tremble, but Alicia doesn’t let go of the one she’s holding. She squeezes it tighter.
“I need to talk to you.” I draw in a shaky breath, forcing the fist clasping my lungs to loosen its grip. “It’s important.”
“You’ve been ignoring me for weeks, and I’m supposed to drop everything because you’ve decided you’re ready to talk? That’s very selfish, you know that?”
I bite down so hard I’m afraid I’ll shatter my molars. I have to force each muscle to relax, one by one, until finally I can speak again. “I… Well, Dad, he’s… He’s ready to go into care, Mom. He wants to.”
“Well, that’s great news!” The immediate cheer in her voice grates on my ears. “So you’re coming home?”
I haven’t even gotten there yet. What happens to me in all this? Where do I end up?
“One step at a time,” Alicia murmurs as though she can hear my thoughts.
“Is someone with you?” Mom asks. I picture that thin little wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. Something so familiar that for a minute I can’t breathe around the wound missing it opens.
“No.” I shake my head, though I know she can’t see me. “Mom, I’m not calling because I’m coming home. I’m calling because I need help.”
“Help?” Her tongue curls around the word in disgust. “What do you mean, you aren’t coming home?”
“I didn’t say that; I just—” Heat rises up my throat. Fills my cheeks. I feel ill with a fever all of a sudden, like my entire body is revolting against this conversation. I want to give in. To say never mind and tell Alicia I’ll figure something else out. Anything else but this.
But then I think of my dad, sitting beside me on the bench at Lucy’s grave. His wide, somber gaze as he told me he was ready.
And I decide if he can be, then so will I.
“You know the money Grandma and Grandpa set aside for my wedding?”
“What?” She pauses. I’ve tilted her off axis, and it takes her a second to recenter. “Is this some kind of joke? Who the fuck are you marrying? Lucy’s kid? Delilah, so help me God?—”
“I’m not marrying anybody, Mom. That’s exactly the problem.” I lock eyes with Alicia. Hers brim with courage I don’t feel. Tears that I very much do. “I’m not getting married any time soon, but Dad needs to go into care, and I could really use the money to help him.”
“Sell the damn house.”
I blink. Alicia doesn’t.
“I can’t, Mom.”
A chair scrapes against some faraway floor. She’s pacing now, which is how I know I’ve really pissed her off.
“And why the hell not?” Mom bites.
Something cuts loose inside me, and suddenly everything I’d been holding so tightly comes unraveled in my hands. “ Why not? How about because it’s my father’s? Or because I still want to be nearby in case he needs me. I can’t dump him at a home and then abandon him.”
“Sure you can. He did the same thing with us, dumped us for Lucy like?—”
“ All he did was kiss her! ” I push off the swing and brace my hands on the railing, gaze trained on the spray of flowers. Alicia’s brows hit her hairline. “Jesus Christ, Mom, all this time you made it out like they had some wildly sordid affair, but they just fucking kissed. And I know that’s wrong—I do. But you watched me suffer for years, and all you ever did was double down, heaping coals on top of his head. You wanted me to hate him as much as you did, so you wouldn’t be alone. You told me he didn’t love me or miss me. But he did, Mom! He does. He loves me and I love him. He’s my father. And what happened between the two of you never should’ve been my business in the first place.”
Silence deadens the line. I don’t think she’s breathing, but neither am I. We’re in a standoff that spans hundreds of miles and all the years I’ve spent burying my feelings inside to keep the peace. Her peace, while my own heart was torn to shreds.
“That money was meant for you. For your wedding. Your future. You’re not gonna shack up with some dumb hick in a plain church with no one around to care.” Hurt beads on the surface of her words. It spills through the line, and I’m drenched in it. “I will not let you throw your life away for that man. Not like I did.”
I close my eyes. Squeeze them so tight stars burst in the darkness. “That man is my father. And I’m sorry that your life didn’t go the way you planned, but that’s not my fault. I don’t care about some theoretical wedding that I may or may not one day have. What I do care about is taking care of my dad, the same as I’d care for you if the situations were reversed.”
I bite hard at my bottom lip, drawing blood. It’s sharp and metallic on my tongue, and so bittersweet. All of this is so damned bittersweet. Realizing how much I didn’t understand, how much my father loves me, just as I’m running out of time. Finding Truett again, falling for him all over again…but not having the courage to let him in.
Finally standing up to my mother, while knowing it may very well mean I lose her, too.
I’m here now. Might as well go for broke.
“Mom, I love you. I do. But if you want to have any kind of relationship with me when this is all over, then you need to think really carefully about what you decide. ”
“Are you threatening me?” she bites out.
I turn toward Alicia. She’s watching me carefully, a fight lighting her eyes that reminds me I’m not alone. It’s weird how anger gets such a negative rap. It can be such a source of power, of drive. And having someone be angry for you? That can change your life.
“Not a threat, Mom. The truth. My grandparents left that money for me. And if I want to use it to help my dad, then that’s my choice. But if you decide not to cosign on that? Well, you can keep it. Because whatever wedding I have one day, you won’t be invited to it.”
“Delilah—”
“Let me know, Mom,” I interject; then I hang up the phone.
Alicia and I stare at each other, holding our breath, for so long that I choke on my next inhale. My lungs burn. My chest is tight. And my eyes are raw with tears that fell silently, without stopping, for the entire call.
But I did it. So why don’t I feel proud of myself?
“It’s not like in the movies,” Alicia finally says, her voice heavy with compassion.
I don’t have the energy to lift a brow. I feel like I’ve run a marathon, despite only making it a few steps across the porch. “What do you mean?”
“You know, where the hero wins the fight and rides off into the sunset, beating his chest in triumph.” The corners of her mouth dip as she rises, crosses the distance between us, and grabs hold of my elbows. “That only happens for Superman. Or men in general, I think, because life isn’t fair.” She snorts at her own joke, but her gaze is hard. “No one ever tells you that standing up for yourself involves killing off the version of you that allowed that treatment to go on all this time. It feels like shit because it’s murder, Delilah. A vigilante killing, but a killing all the same.”
My gaze flicks between her somber eyes. I suck in a breath; then I’m reaching for her. Pulling her in tight. She smells like jasmine and my childhood, all wrapped into one.
“I can’t believe you called me a murderer,” I murmur into her hair.
She pulls back enough to look me in the eye. “But, like, the good kind?”
I snort. Grief scrapes the surface of my heart, and I don’t just let it. I beckon it deeper. Because at least the pain means I wasn’t complacent. Stagnant. No longer a rock that the river runs through but the river itself, carving its own path forward. “Thank you for being here.”
“I’m about a decade late”—she taps my nose and smiles—“but I owed you one.”
“Better late than never,” I say, glancing over her head at Truett’s farm.