Chapter Fourteen #2
A bird moved in the maple above them. Somewhere on Main Street, a wagon rattled past. The evening air smelled faintly of lake water, dust, and fresh-cut pine from the schoolhouse lot.
“Jeb said something to me,” Delly said at last.
Lottie turned her head.
Delly stared toward the church steps rather than at her. “About love holding too tightly. He said holding on can look like protection. Instead, it is fear in its Sunday coat.”
“That sounds like Mr. Simms.”
“Yes. It was inconveniently clear.”
“Did you tell him so?”
“Not in those words.”
“Delly,” Lottie laughed. It felt good to laugh for once.
“I am learning.” Her mouth pulled into a small, tired curve.
“Slowly. Under protest.” Delly looked at her hands, at the plain ring there.
“You are right. I care for him. Jeb. More than comfortable, or orderly. I do not yet know how to say all of it without feeling as if the floor has vanished beneath me.”
“That is how romance often feels.”
“That is a terrible recommendation.”
“It is a truthful one.”
Delly sighed. Then she looked at Lottie without calculation or warning already waiting behind her eyes.
“You have grown up while I was guarding the girl you used to be.”
Lottie’s chin trembled.
“I did not mean to smother you,” Delly said. “I meant to love you.”
“I know.”
“Those are not always the same thing.”
“No.”
The answer hurt them both.
Delly reached for her hand, and Lottie allowed it.
The familiar shape of her sister’s fingers nearly undid her. For five years, Delly’s hands had counted coins, mended seams, cooked meals, copied ledgers, and pushed Lottie gently behind her whenever life looked too sharp.
Lottie squeezed them hard. “I still need you,” she said. Delly’s breath caught as Lottie continued. “I do. I need you beside me. I need you behind me. I need you to tell me when I have forgotten sense entirely, because I will do that from time to time.”
“From time to time?”
“Do not ruin the moment.”
Delly gave a wet laugh.
Lottie leaned her shoulder against her sister’s. “I need you behind me, Delly. Not standing always in front.”
Delly nodded slowly.
“I can try.”
“For you, that is practically a vow.”
“It is a beginning.”
Lottie looked at her sharply.
Delly blinked.
Then, to Lottie’s complete surprise, both sisters began laughing.
It was not graceful laughter. It came out cracked and wet and too close to tears, but it was better than crying alone.
Delly pulled her into an embrace. Lottie held on hard.
“I am frightened for you,” Delly admitted into her hair.
“I know.”
“I will likely remain frightened.”
“I assumed as much.”
“If he hurts you, I may strike him.”
“With what?”
“A ledger.”
“That seems appropriate.”
“It has weight.”
Lottie laughed again, and Delly’s arms tightened.
When at last they drew apart, the sky had deepened toward purple, and the church windows had gone dark. Delly wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand, then looked faintly offended tears had happened to her at all.
Lottie handed her a handkerchief.
“Thank you,” Delly muttered.
“You are welcome.”
They walked back toward the meeting hall together. By the time they reached the side door, the lamps inside had been lit. The lending table sat just where Lottie had left it. The ledger lay open, the ink dry. A few books waited to be reshelved.
Everything looked ordinary.
That was the strangest part of a fight. A heart could split open and mend itself crookedly, and a room would still contain chairs, shelves, and dust in the corners.
Delly crossed to the ledger and closed it.
Then she looked at Lottie. “Tell me about him.”
Lottie paused.
“Not the safe version,” Delly said. “The true one.”
The words settled gently between them.
Lottie unfolded Cecil’s drawing and laid it on the table.
Together, the sisters bent over the plan for the library beside the schoolhouse.
Lottie showed her the front windows, the lending desk, the stove, the shelves.
She showed her the corner where he had written C.
Peterson and told her how he had given her the name.
Delly listened. Really listened.
It felt so new Lottie had to stop twice and swallow.
When she finished, Delly touched one finger to the drawing, not over his name but near the desk.
“He placed you in the light,” she said.
Lottie looked down at the little square marked lending desk. Afternoon light would fall there. She had noticed it before, but not in those words.
“Yes,” she said softly. “He did.”
A sound came from the porch.
Both sisters looked toward the door.
For a moment, Lottie thought she saw the faint movement of a shadow beyond the lamplight. Then the porch board creaked, and footsteps retreated down the side steps.
“Someone was there,” Delly said.
Lottie crossed to the door and looked out. The yard lay empty. The path toward Main Street was dim. Farther off, where the road bent toward the camp, a man’s figure might have moved between the trees.
Or perhaps it was only dusk and her own hopeful heart making shapes where there were none.
“Who was it?” Delly asked.
“I don’t know.”
Lottie stood in the doorway a moment longer, listening.
No voice called back.
No one returned.
At last, she closed the door and came back to the table. The drawing still lay between them, the little library waiting in pencil and hope. Delly rested her hand near Lottie’s.
“If it was him,” Delly said carefully, “what would you want him to have heard?”
Lottie looked down at the plan, the shelves, the windows and at the small, careful C. before his surname.
“The truth,” she said.
Her sister nodded once.
Lottie folded the drawing and held it close.
She hoped the truth would not frighten him away.
She was learning love could not be made safe by hiding it.