Chapter Twenty-Six
MARC
Delaney crossed the threshold first.
I thought she’d hesitate at the door. Instead, she pushed it open and walked inside with deliberate steps as though she was afraid if she didn’t, fear and grief would stop her once again.
I followed and stayed near the door. This was her time. I was here because she asked me to be, and I took that seriously.
It was like the room was held in a pocket of time.
The bed was made with precision. A paperback sat on the nightstand with a bookmark tucked three-quarters of the way through.
Reading glasses were folded beside it. A small dish of crystals perched on the dresser next to a picture of her and Delaney—a younger Delaney, summer Delaney, the version of her that had belonged to this place before she knew she belonged to it.
She stood in the center with her arms at her sides and her chin slightly lifted, like she was trying to get through this with sheer determination alone. Her eyes moved across the space slowly. Taking inventory. I stayed near the door and waited for her to be ready to begin.
After a moment, she exhaled—long and unsteady—and turned toward the closet. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, I can do this.”
She opened the closet door. I moved closer in case it was too much for her, or if she needed my assistance in any way.
The closet was filled with items reflecting the full life her aunt had lived.
The evidence was in all the pieces before us.
Dresses and blouses arranged by color, a gradient that followed ROYGBIV.
A row of cardigans—some practical, some elaborate.
The garments had been worn and were clearly loved with how well they were taken care of.
Then I saw the scarves.
She had a clear drawer of scarves. Bins full of scarves. Specific hangers that held multiple scarves. And a few were tied to the curve of a hanger as though ready to go with that outfit.
“How many did she have?” I’d seen Jem in scarves over the years, but I had no idea the extent of her collection.
Delaney turned from the cardigans she was examining and looked at the scarves. A breath of a laugh left her lips. “I know. It’s … a lot.”
“That’s … have you counted how many?”
“At least a hundred, probably more.” She touched the edge of one—silk, deep blue. “She wore a different one almost every day. Said they were the easiest way to change the whole energy of an outfit.”
I had a whole new appreciation for her collection.
“Okay. I’m thinking we need three piles. Keep. Donate. And I don’t know,” Delaney said, letting go of the scarf.
“Tell me what to do.”
She looked at me. The same look I’d noticed before, where she did that internal assessment to determine whether it was okay to ask for something.
I wasn’t even sure she realized she did it.
And I hated that she’d had enough times in her life where her needs didn’t matter, that she felt like she even had to think about that—or just do everything on her own.
I filed that away and decided that as long as I was around, she’d have one less reason to wonder.
“Hold up each piece,” she said and let out a tiny exhale. “I’ll tell you what pile to put it in. I just … I can’t go through and touch them all myself tonight. It’s too overwhelming.”
“Done.”
We found a rhythm within a few minutes. I took things off the hanger and held them out. She looked at them and said whether she’d keep it or not, and the “I’m not sure” ended up on the bed in a separate pile.
I was going to make this as easy as I could for her.
A blouse, cream with small embroidered flowers around the collar. “Donate.” A cardigan in deep green that Delaney ran a finger over before she said, “keep.” A pair of slacks, practical, well-made. “Donate.”
I picked up the next item when her hands stopped moving. This particular hanger held a dress. Simple. Navy. A subtle-wrap style.
“She wore that to my high school graduation,” she said.
Her voice had gone low and soft. “Her connecting flight was grounded because of bad weather so she drove fourteen hours to get there. She didn’t even tell me because she wanted to surprise me, and she was afraid she’d never make it in time.
” She paused, lost in thought. Probably remembering that day.
“I was walking across the stage, and I heard her shout my name.”
I held the dress and said nothing. The fabric was light in my hands. To me, it was just a dress. To Delaney, it was something else entirely.
She lightly fingered the material. “She brought me an enormous bunch of flowers. It seemed like it was every kind she could find in every grocery store she passed on her way directly from the airport. There were so many, but the ones I remember the most were the sunflowers. She said she got those because it was the only flower that looked as happy as she felt that day.” Delaney smiled.
“I have a photo somewhere of us outside on the high school football field where the ceremony was held. She’s holding the flowers, I have my diploma, and we’re both laughing at something.
I wish I could remember what made us laugh so hard. ”
She reached out, took the dress from my fingers, and carefully folded it before she added it to the keep pile.
I reached for the next hanger as she straightened up and kept going.
An hour later, the closet had three organized sections.
The keep pile was hung neatly to one side, the donate pile was in a large trash bag by the door, and the “I’m not sure” pile was folded and placed on a shelf in the closet.
Delaney was not done with those decisions yet, just done with them for tonight.
Exhaustion lined her face. I’d ordered pizza that had come in the middle of it all, and was probably cold sitting in its box on the stove.
I slipped my arm around her waist, and she laid her head on my shoulder. She let out a deep, shuddery sigh and left the room, returning with her arms full of the clothes that had been in her suitcase. The sundress, a few T-shirts, a long cardigan, and a few soft sweaters I’d seen her wear.
She hung them on the empty side. Maybe ten items in a closet that could hold fifty.
But it was a start. After she hung them, she stood back, appraising them, and nodded. She drew in a breath and let it out.
“I’m so proud of you,” I said softly.
“Thank you for helping me. I couldn’t have done it by myself.”
I wrapped my arms around her and breathed in her light lavender scent. “You can ask me to help with anything.”
“I’m hungry.”
I kissed her temple. “The pizza we ordered is in the kitchen. I’ll heat it up.”
She nodded. “I think I have just enough energy to go through a few more things other than clothes while we eat.”
I almost protested and told her she didn’t have to push herself so hard tonight. It was the first time she really had to deal with her aunt’s things, but I kept it to myself. She was the one who decided how and when she was ready to deal with her grief.
I was here to make sure she ate, drank, and eventually slept.
I left and came back a few minutes later with drinks, two plates piled high with pizza, and napkins. We sat on the floor with our backs to the bed, and the closet door opened in front of us.
After her last bite, Delaney set her plate down on the floor beside her. “I’m so glad you ordered this. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
She stood as I finished mine and entered the closet. Her gaze traveled the shelving along the top and a tiny gasp reached me. Delaney stuck her head out of the door and motioned for me.
I put my plate aside and followed her. She pointed to a box on the top shelf. “Can you get that?”
The box wasn’t too heavy, but it was just out of Delaney’s reach. “Sure.” I picked it up and put it on the bed.
“Oh my God, Marc. These are the romance novels she read. We had a running joke since I was a teen that she was hiding them from me until I was old enough to read them. Little did she know I snuck them, read a few, and put them back. Even as I got older, I still secretly read them without her knowing. It was fun to keep it a secret even though I didn’t have to.
” The laughter that spilled from her lips was lighter than I’d heard all night.
She opened the box and picked up one of the books on top.
The Billionaire Rancher’s Secret Baby.
I read the title again to make sure I’d understood it correctly.
I had.
She handed it to me, and I read the back cover with the same focused attention I gave to anything I was trying to understand, which apparently was the premise of this book, which raised several topics by the title and blurb alone.
“How?”
Delaney looked up from the next book she’d grabbed from the box.
“How is a baby a secret and from the rancher specifically? She lived two towns over.” I turned the book over again. “And he’s a billionaire rancher. How realistic is that?”
She made a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “It’s a romance novel.”
“I understand that. I just don’t get the internal logic.”
“There isn’t—those were probably popular tropes at the time.”
“Tropes?”
“They’re specific plot points in a book like billionaire, secret baby, or enemies to lovers. They tell a reader what’s in the book before they even read it.” She chuckled. “Just give it back if you’re not going to appreciate it.”
I held it slightly out of reach. “Enemies to lovers, huh? Kind of like us,” I grinned at her scoff and picked up the next one with my other hand.
The Duke’s Forbidden Temptation.
“The duke,” I said.
“Yup,” she answered, not bothering to hide her smile.
“Why is it forbidden?”
“Because he’s a duke.”
I waved the book around. “That seems like it would make things easier, not harder. He has resources and money.”