21. Delia
Twenty One
Delia
I lock up the shop before slinging my bag over my shoulder. Main Street is winding down for the evening even though it’s only six o’clock. Just the restaurants and theater remain open. Mom isn’t here yet so I lean against the light post and wait. These are the moments I wish I had a cell phone. Mom’s not usually more than a couple of minutes late and my gut starts to bubble with anxiety. She would have called the shop to let me know if she was running behind.
From the corner of my eye I see Langdon’s truck pull up to the intersection of Main. I don’t bother looking over. He pulls onto the street, slows to a stop in front of me and rolls his window down. Jesus, Mom of all the days to be a no-show.
“Need a ride?” he asks.
“Convenient, no one around to see us together,” I snap.
He puts his hands up in surrender. “Delia, please. I’m trying here.”
I soften at his earnest tone. “Yeah. Ok.”
“You can try calling her from my phone if you want.”
I shake my head and glance at the clock on his dash. “No, she would have been here by now.”
I round the hood and climb into the passenger seat of the truck. We don’t speak for a long while. The silence is brutal. But the tension between us… deadly.
“So about before,” he starts.
I hold my palm out to him. “Don’t. It’s fine.”
“I wasn’t trying to be a dick. Saturday, I mean.” He looks over at me sheepishly.
“So you were trying yesterday and today? Cool.” I cross my arms over my chest.
“God, you’re infuriating,” he sighs.
We’re alone. I could just crawl over to him, plant my hands and lips on him and ask for a do-over. It’d be so easy. He shifts in his seat. Drops of rain fall all over our awkward silence, driving me crazy but I’m too stubborn to break it. The wipers streak back and forth until the blinker clicks and we’re turning on to Lands End. He pulls up to the camper except… there’s no camper.
“Um. What should I do? I don’t want to leave you in the rain.” He looks around as confused as I am.
Panic rises, starting in my gut, working its way up to my chest and I start to breathe erratically.
“The house, I guess?” I tell him.
Langdon backs out and drops me at Gramps house. I grab my bag and launch out of the truck barely waving goodbye to him. I fly through the front door. Gramps sits in the living room in the ugly recliner by the TV.
“Where’s mom?” I ask.
“Well hello to you too. How was school?” Gramps says.
I try to slow my heart. My breath. My thoughts. “Hi, Gramps. School was adequate. The camper’s gone. Have you seen mom?”
“Still gone? I figured she’d be back by now.” Gramps pushes the leg rest down and hoists himself from the chair.
“Where’d she go? Do you know?”
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions. How ‘bout we try her phone.”
A smile spreads across my face. Obviously. We can just call her. I relax a little. Gramps wanders to the kitchen. He still has a landline. Like an actual phone plugged into a wall and it’s fifty percent bizarre and fifty percent adorable.
I’d overheard him tell Mom one night that Maeve had refused to let it go. She didn’t want my mom trying to call and not having the number. Broke my heart a little. I wish I could have known her. Surely she couldn’t be so evil that mom could have stayed away forever. I hear Gramps grunting in the kitchen so I join him.
“I keep getting a busy signal.”
I take the phone from him. “Here, let me try. Maybe you have the wrong number.” I dial but it instantly goes to a fast beep beep beep tone.
It’s off. Her phone is off.
My heart splutters in my chest. I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. “This really isn’t like her. It doesn’t feel right.”
Gramps awkwardly pats my head. “I’m sure it’s nothing. But tonight why don’t you sleep in your mom’s old room upstairs? You hungry?”
Twenty minutes ago, I was. Now my stomach is sour. I shake my head.
“I have some paperwork to fill out. Some stuff for Mom to sign for tomorrow too.”
“I’ll sign it this time. Whatcha got?”
I grab my bag from the hallway and unload a variety of papers from it onto the dining room table. I sort through the stack and pull out the ones that need signatures and slide them to Gramps along with a pen. He dutifully reads them before signing, which cracks me up because Mom always skipped the reading and just signed her name away.
“Thanks,” I say as he hands them back to me.
“Sure you’re not hungry? I have some leftover pasta salad.”
I nod. “I’m sure.”
“Don’t look so worried kid. She’ll probably be home soon.” He tussles my hair on his way back to the living room.
I want to believe him but this has never happened before and there’s a sinking feeling in my belly.
I stand with a dead smile on my face. “Mind if I take a bath? It’s been a long day.”
Gramps waves his consent from his chair .
I run the bath and wait for it to fill up as a warm place for me. I open all the closet doors looking for a clean towel until I finally find one. The inside of the door frame is marked with penciled lines.
Jenny age six. Jenny aged fill-in-the-blank all the way up to fifteen. Mom was a kid once. I run my fingers over the markings, hoping I can feel a little of my mom’s magic. I don’t. When the tub is full, I hop in and soak. I don’t last long though. I can’t quiet my mind. I feel wrong, pickled, fermented in anxiety-laden thoughts.
I get out and drain the tub hoping it sucks down my worries with it. I toss my clothes back on and am instantly annoyed. My shirt is damp from work and a full day of wearing. Of course, she isn’t here, which means neither are my clothes or any of my things. They’re all in the god damned van. What am I supposed to wear tomorrow? I shoot downstairs again and try calling. Again it doesn’t ring at all before those annoying tones buzz in my ear.
A sense of dread slowly devours me throughout the evening. Where is she? It started as the best day, and turned into the worst damn day.
“Stop fidgeting and sit,” Gramps barks.
“Sorry. Where did you say she went again?”
“She was going to run an errand and then pop over to Anna’s. She didn’t go into a whole lotta detail kid, but you’ve got to stop worrying.”
I wring my hands together in my lap. “I don’t have anything here. All my clothes, all my stuff is in the camper. ”
Gramps pauses his show and turns to face me. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t consider that. Um, all your mom’s stuff is still in her room though. I bet you can find some pajamas that’ll fit.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gramps heaves a breath out and then back in. “Maeve never could clean out her room. It’s just as she left it. Don’t worry though, we dusted once a week. Go see what you can find. I’ll try your mom again.”
Mom’s room is a time capsule from the early two thousands. There’s a window seat with a couple books stacked at one end.
The DiVinci Code, True Believer, and Flowers in the Attic. I sit on it and lean against the wall while staring out the window at the rain. Something jabs my lower back uncomfortably.
Tucked behind the window seat cushion is a spiral-bound notebook. I yank it out. The cover reads MATH in Mom’s swoopy handwriting. Irritated, I toss it on the floor. Where the hell are you Mom? I watch for headlights for what feels like forever but none come. I yank open the dresser drawers and find loads of clothing options.
I pull out a Dave Matthews band tee shirt and a pair of pajama pants and tug them on. They smell like my mom. I fist the shirt, pulling it up to my nose inhaling, tears well in my eyes. I rummage around room. Lots of books. Some cheap bottles of perfume. Long expired makeup and a few stuffed animals.
Her walls are covered in band posters and drawings. But Mom can’t draw for shit, so I deliberate on who could have drawn them. The bottom corner of each has a loopy capital D on it. That rules Anna out, and besides that, I don’t know who she had for friends. They’re mostly drawings of the fields and flowers in the backyard. A couple of the river. The bridge where kids were jumping off.
I pull open the closet door and before I can step in I nearly trip on a large trash bag stuffed to the hilt. I pull it out and open it. A scream peels out of me as I pull out my clothes. Gramps comes charging up the stairs and blows through the door as if he’s done so a million times before.
Maybe he has.
“What is it?”
I sob over the trash bag. “They’re mine.” I hold up my favorite dress. A shoe. The braided belt we bought together at a fair two years ago. “It’s all my stuff.” My voice quivers and tears streak down my face.
I look up to Gramps confused. He closes his eyes and sinks to his knees next to me on the floor. With one arm he pulls me to his side and kisses the top of my head.
“God dammit Jennifer,” he curses.
Gramps is in the room next to me and snores loudly, but I’m not mad. It is nice to be a little bit closer to someone else. It is nice to not be alone. I can’t sleep. I don’t know how Gramps can, but he’s lost my mom before. Maybe that’s what makes us different .
He held me for a long while. Too long. It was awkward and uncomfortable—we barely know each other. But I sensed he didn’t care, that he understood my grief. He held me until my tears dried up and I could breathe again. Then without a word, we looked at each other and he left me alone.
Why would she leave? What did I do? I replay the morning over and over. She walked me to the bus stop. Smiled her big, bright smile and waved. I waved back. Did I say I love you?