Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Henry
September 5th, 2013
The asphalt glimmers in the late afternoon sunlight, causing me to squint against oncoming traffic. I rap my fingers on the peeling leather steering wheel, half because it’s hot and resting my hands for too long leaves them scalded; half because Delilah’s anxiety is making the air too thin to breathe.
“I could fry an egg on the nervous tension in here.” I lick my finger and hold it up in the air. “I mean, it really is palpable.”
Delilah’s brow furrows. “That makes zero sense.”
“Neither does you being nervous. You’re going to kick ass tonight.”
“You’re obligated to say that because you’re my father.” Her shoulders sag, and her eyes search my profile like my expression might tell a different story than my words. “What if I don’t kick ass, Dad? What if I suck?”
I click my tongue and offer her a shrug. “We’ll sell you to a convent.”
That earns a throaty groan. At least her leg has stopped bouncing .
The classic rock station that plays in the background succumbs to static. We both wince. I reach forward, spinning the dial to mute it. “I’m serious, sweet pea. You’ve got this. And I’ll be there to cheer you on the whole time, in case you forget how amazing you are.”
She smiles softly, letting her head fall against the seat. She’s petite for her age, still growing into her lean limbs and delicate frame. But there’s a spark in her eyes that never existed in mine, something I’m not even sure she knows she has yet. I’m grateful for its presence. For the hope it gives me that she’ll be a fighter in this life rather than a mere observer.
“Why isn’t Mom coming?”
Her words cut through me. My throat grows as dry as the brittle grass turning brown along the shoulder of the road. Whoever called it Alabama the Beautiful didn’t stick around to see everything die off at the end of summer, long before fall sweeps in to paint the world in a palette of oranges and reds. Still, I love it.
Still, I don’t know how to answer my daughter.
I roll my bottom lip between my teeth, nibbling on the truth. Or what I suppose it is. I know what Kimberly said. The noise of a crowd in the gymnasium drives her crazy. Nothing, not even her daughter’s first volleyball game, is worth that suffering in her opinion. But a part of me suspects that it’s something else. She’s never really cared for the ancillary parts of parenting. The parent-teacher conferences, the field days, the award ceremonies. The doctor’s appointments and driver’s permit tests. And while I love that it’s time I get to share with Delilah, I know it’d mean the world to her if her mother showed up for once.
It’d mean the world to me, too.
For years I assumed that what we lacked in a relationship before our marriage could be built during it. And damn it if I haven’t tried. It seems like the more I reach, the more she retreats. I feel so helpless to fix it, both for myself and our daughter.
I sigh, swiping a hand over my face. There’s a tractor holding up traffic at the one intersection in town, and I take advantage of it to turn and look at Delilah. She’s growing so fast, becoming an adult before my very eyes. It’s still my job to protect her, though. I want to hold on to her innocence a little bit longer, even if she doesn’t.
“She gets those migraines, you know. The noise in the gym can be a bit too much for her.”
Delilah’s lips flatline, and her stare hardens. “I’m not stupid, Dad.”
I arch a brow. “I never said you were.”
“But you’re acting like I am.” She crosses her arms with a huff. “Why can’t you just say that Mom doesn’t want to spend time with you?”
“With me?” I splay a hand over my heart. My calloused thumb finds the opening of my button-down and scrapes against my skin. I grimace, telling myself it’s because of the sensation rather than Delilah’s words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, the alternative is that she doesn’t want to spend time with me”—she pauses, lifting an eyebrow—“and that would suck. So I’m hoping it’s you.”
I’m momentarily stunned and a little bit out of my depth. Sure, Kimberly and I don’t always get along. What couple does? But I’d hoped we were doing a bit better at keeping that under wraps. I don’t know why I assumed—or at least hoped—our daughter was blind to the tension. Now I feel stripped bare and wholly unprepared, like an unqualified survivalist on that show Naked and Afraid.
And I am afraid. Afraid that Delilah will base her self-worth on her mom’s and my issues. Afraid I’ll fail her in this way, among so many others.
We finally roll through the intersection, silence unraveling around us like spilled thread.
“She likes to spend time with you.” I pause, choosing my words carefully, then add, “And with me. She just…prefers to do it in ways that she enjoys.”
“And sports isn’t one of them?”
I shake my head. “Sports isn’t one of them.”
She quirks a brow. “Or music?”
I wince. The sun-bleached red brick of the school appears on my right, and I flick the blinker on while clearing my throat. “Or music.”
Thoughts I’ve kept buried for so long come bubbling up, filling my head with pressure. I tell myself that’s why Kimberly never wanted Delilah to take lessons. Why she’d fill the house with angry sighs whenever our daughter would play around on my keyboard while I strummed the guitar. Maybe she really didn’t see how it could be a career for Delilah, or maybe she just doesn’t like music as a hobby. Deep down, though, I suspect the real reason is that I love it, and therefore our daughter can’t.
Is this really love? I wonder. Worrying the person you’re with resents all your passions, solely because they’re yours?
I shake my head, but the thought won’t come loose.
I grab a spot near the front of the recently repainted lot. All the spaces are outlined in a blinding shade of white. I turn away from it, blinking back the moisture in my eyes caused by the glare. Delilah’s watching me, gaze guarded. She doesn’t say a word when I wipe my eyes.
“You’re gonna do great today. And I’ll film it all so your mom can watch it later. With the volume down, of course.” I wink. The move is rusty. Forced.
She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. That same nervous energy from before crackles through the air, bringing my pulse up a couple notches.
It’s the weirdest part about having a kid. The part that took me the longest to get used to. When they hurt, you feel like you’re bleeding out. When they’re happy, you’re on top of the world. Right now Delilah is anxious. That makes me terrified.
I rest a hand on her jittery knee and squeeze. “What can I do to help, Delilah?”
She peeks up at me, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m just glad you’re here. That’s all.” She turns to glance out the window, swiping a hand over her cheek where she thinks I can’t see. She’s a lot like me in that way. “Don’t call me Delilah, okay? No matter how old I get, I’m ‘sweet pea’ to you. Promise?”
A fist closes around my heart and squeezes. Still I manage to force the words out. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
She nods. “Cool.” There’s a chill in the air when she opens her door, letting herself out into the September evening. Fall begins here, in the cool evening hours as the sun dips low. By late October it’ll encroach on the heat of day, making the air bearable once more.
“I’ll see you inside?”
I nod. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
She smiles. A real one this time, with shiny teeth and that lopsided tug on her lips that I love. Then she’s gone, jogging toward a group of her teammates who are making their way into the largest building on the school campus where the locker rooms and gym are housed. I huff a laugh, mostly to release some of the tightness in my chest, and run a hand through my hair.
So often I feel completely out of my depth with her. Like I’m screwing everything up. But at least she knows she can count on me to show up. To cheer her on no matter what.
I pull myself from the car, simultaneously weighed down and completely hollowed out. I’m wondering how that can be when my footsteps on the pavement are interrupted by a lilting voice drifting up from behind.
“How’s our girl feeling?”
I turn my head and find Lucy jogging up the sidewalk to meet me, Truett hot on her heels. There’s a bouquet of flowers in his hand, bursting with color. He ducks his head when he catches me noticing them, a blush rising on his cheeks.
“Nervous,” I say, eyeing the flowers. “But I’m sure those will make her feel better.”
“Oh, I just…” Truett glances up at me quickly. Shrugs. “You know.”
I chuckle. “Eloquently put.” His normally bronzed face turns an even deeper shade of scarlet. I clap his shoulder, catching his gaze when it rises. “She’ll love them.”
He smiles, braces flashing. It’s gone as quickly as it came, replaced with an expression of practiced disinterest. He may think he’s stealthy, but I see the way he looks at my daughter lately. I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised. Delilah, however, seems absolutely clueless.
Lucy sighs. “Oh, to be fifteen again.”
My gaze finds hers, a smile quirking my lips, but it quickly falls flat. “What happened to your eye?”
Delicate fingers flutter to the purple bruise at her temple. She untucks her blonde hair from her ear, but it does nothing to hide the gash splitting the bruise in two.
“Newest calf was a bit squirrelly.” She shrugs, breaking eye contact with me in favor of the chipped polish on her fingernail. “Caught me with a hoof. It’ll heal in no time.”
Truett’s jaw ticks, but he doesn’t say a word. Something in his slumped shoulders, his guarded gray eyes, sets me on edge. I force myself to swallow, then nudge Lucy’s elbow with mine.
“Are you sure?—”
“How’s Delilah doing with her serve?” she interjects. Her hands fill the pockets of her cardigan, and she strides forward, not waiting for Truett and me to follow. “I know she was nervous about getting it over the net.”
“She does fine in practice; she’s just afraid she’ll fuck it up in front of a crowd,” Tru mumbles. His mother glances back at him with a warning in her eyes, and he manages to look sheepish. “Sorry, screw it up.”
Lucy snorts, our momentary tension forgotten. “Watch it, kiddo.”
“I’m, like, fifteen, Mom. Not a kid anymore.”
Now it’s my turn to snort, loosening some of the uneasiness in my chest. I hook an arm around his shoulder, keeping his pace as we trail behind Lucy. “Your mom and I thought that, too, back when we were fifteen.”
Lucy’s steps lose their cadence, slipping into something haphazard and wandering. We catch up to her easily, and when I step into her orbit, her gaze finds mine. This time her eyes are painted with a sheen of tears that she quickly blinks away. I can’t help but stare at the bruise even as her gaze begs me not to.
“Maybe you’ll be better at it than we were,” she whispers, then clears her throat. Shakes her head.
“Better at what?” Tru asks.
A ghost of a smile passes over her lips. I wonder if I really saw it or merely wished it were there.
“Being fifteen.” She juts her chin toward the flowers. “And in love.”
The noise he makes is pure teen horror. “I’m not in love with Delilah. Gross.” He holds the flowers out to his mother. “You give her these. It was your idea anyway.”
Her hands haven’t fully closed around the stems before he’s off, jogging toward the gym doors so he can enter on his own, with no association to the discarded bouquet .
“Do you remember those days?” Lucy muses, gaze following her son.
I hum an answer. My steps falter, then stop. She does the same, turning to me with a question tugging at her eyebrows. “Everything okay?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, only releasing it when I’m sure I can be calm. “Was it really a calf, Lucy?”
She goes completely still. It reminds me of squirrels in the middle of the road. They see your car barreling toward them, danger so clearly imminent, and yet they freeze. Unable to fight. Or run. To do anything to protect themselves.
Lucy’s not like that, right? She’d fight. She’d run.
She’d ask for help.
I’m telling myself that even as she starts shaking her head, chin wobbling with the effort to press her lips together around all the things she will not say.
“Just a calf.” Her head tilts. “I got in the way. My fault.”
I reach for her on instinct. “Luc?—”
She lifts the flowers to block my outstretched hand. “Gotta get these to Delilah. See you inside?”
She walks away, carrying her secrets with her. It takes everything in me to follow her into that gym instead of driving right back to the farm where Waylon no doubt sits in his big La-Z-Boy, sipping a beer, not an ounce of guilt in his mind over the bruise on Lucy’s face that I can’t help but believe he caused.
Not only does Delilah’s serve make it over the net, but her team wins their very first game. Joy splits her face into a burst of pearly teeth like twin rows of stars. Truett races to the gym floor and sweeps her into his arms. For a split second her delight becomes my euphoria, and then Lucy and I look away to give our kids a moment.
On the surface, I’m the picture of normalcy. In the back of my mind, I’m reeling. Considering the possibilities.
Maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe it was a calf. Delilah witnessed a birth one time. She said it was a hectic affair. I have no doubt someone could get a black eye, or worse, in the middle of so much chaos.
But Truett’s body language when Lucy mentioned the injury? Her own stillness when she dodged the question? I can’t shake it. Can’t get out of my own head long enough to even try.
Delilah joins her teammates for ice cream after the game to celebrate their victory. I ride home in silence, never bothering to search for a better station with less static. I can’t even bear to roll down the window and let the night flood in and drown out my thoughts. Once I’m free of the cluster of traffic near the school, it’s just me and the occasional truck passing in the oncoming lane. There are no streetlamps in Fly Hollow, so the world passes by in darkness save for the few fireflies who haven’t given up on summer quite yet.
When I get home, Kimberly is curled up on the couch beneath a pile of tufted blankets, sipping wine and chatting on the phone. My foot hits the same old floorboard she’s always begging me to fix, and she glances up sharply. I don’t know what she sees on my face, but she mutters, “I’ve gotta go, Mom,” and hangs up the phone. “How was the game?”
I can’t find it in me to so much as grunt in response. Instead I pluck at the buttons of my shirt, exposing my chest and then my abdomen and finally letting it fall from my shoulders on the way to the bathroom. I open the door, flick on the light, and toss the shirt into the corner.
“Excuse me?” Kimberly calls out. “I asked you a question. What’s wrong with you? ”
I hear but can’t see her wineglass land on the side table, then her soft footsteps pad across the hardwood until she’s standing outside the bathroom door. She doesn’t so much as glance downward when I drop my jeans and underwear to the ground.
Her arms cross over her chest. “You storm in here like something bit you and don’t even say hello?”
The water squeals through the old pipes. When it finally rushes from the faucet, I pull the knob to enable the shower. Kimberly stands in the doorway, looking unimpressed.
I sigh, my shoulders sagging. My thoughts are all over the place. None of them make any sense. And somehow, despite her being the one person I should, no part of me wants to confide in Kimberly.
“Did Delilah lose?” She shrugs, looking unsurprised. “I told you, she?—”
“She did great. Their team won.” I peel the curtain back and step into the flow of water. When the curtain is closed, cutting me off from Kimberly, I relax for the first time since I saw Lucy’s face. The bruise.
“Then what’s the problem?”
I push my hand through my hair, dampening it to the roots. My scalp screams when I pull, but the pain is a distraction. A welcome diversion from the truths I’m trying so desperately to believe are fabrications.
Waylon might have hurt Lucy. Kimberly probably can’t stand me. I’m deeply unhappy in my marriage.
Only one of these things can be said aloud. So I say it, just to let some of the pressure out of my chest.
“I think Waylon hit Lucy.”
Silence. Then the door shuts, and for a moment I think she’s walked away. The faint whisper of clothing falling to the floor restarts my heart, though, and then the curtain is pulled back, revealing a naked Kimberly .
She steps into the shower and pushes me backward, clearing a space for herself beneath the warm spray of water. I stand there, shivering from the cold or anger one, as she tips her head back to dampen her hair.
It’s been a long time since Kimberly and I showered together. I let my gaze rove the soft swells and sweeping valleys of her body. She’s beautiful. Always has been. There is no lack of want in my body for her, as evidenced by my swelling dick. It’s her that never wants to be intimate. Either because she’s tired from work or too full or simply not interested. I can’t remember the last time we slept together, and for a moment it’s all I can think about.
“What makes you think he hit her?” She doesn’t open her eyes as she speaks. The column of her throat works when she swallows stray droplets that fell into her parted lips. I look away, willing myself to focus, even as that dormant need surges to the forefront of my mind.
“She has a bruise on her face, right beside her eye.” I brush my fingertips over Kimberly’s temple, right where Lucy’s skin was mottled and swollen. “She said it was from a calf, but I just don’t know. Everything about her body language was off.”
Kimberly’s eyes flash open, and she finally lifts her head, letting our gazes meet. “Why were you even with her?”
My brow furrows. “That’s what you’re concerned about? From that whole statement, the one thing you wanna ask me about is why I was with our friend to see the giant bruise on her face. ” I wipe my face with a damp palm, trying to maintain my calm. “She brought Truett to the game to support our daughter, for Christ’s sake.”
She snakes her arms around my waist, pulling me close. Her breasts press into my rib cage. My dick is tucked against her soft stomach. I swallow hard and look away from her heated gaze.
Her finger plucks the cord of my exposed collarbone. “She’s not our friend. Her son is Delilah’s friend. She is our neighbor.” She shrugs, and it shifts her breasts over my skin. I fight against the warring voices in my brain. One that wants so badly to take what his wife is offering, the other who knows she’s only doing so out of misplaced jealousy. Or something worse, like an actual disdain for Lucy’s well-being. “Since when are you so attuned to Lucy Parker’s body language that you would know if she’s lying? If she said it was a calf, it was a calf.”
Jealousy it is, then.
“I just have this feeling.” I shake my head. “I can’t explain it.”
“How come you never have these kinds of feelings about me?”
Now I’m frustrated and confused. “What are you talking about?”
She steps into me, and I move backward. We repeat this until my back is flush against the cold porcelain tile, and her body is aligned with mine. “You’re never this concerned about me. Never give a shit that I’m upset or I’m unhappy or I’m stuck in this miserably redundant life, but you’re all up in arms over Lucy Parker’s imagined abusive husband.” Her hips retreat from mine, and her hand closes around my dick, squeezing one long stroke as she locks eyes with me. “If you care so much, why don’t you fuck her then?”
The fight leaves me. I slump against the tile, muscles screaming at the cold seeping into them, and shake my head. Her eyes are dark and turbulent, like the river after a heavy rain. I thread one hand into her hair and hold her there, gentle in every way that her touch is not.
“Miserably redundant life, huh? Is that all we are to you?”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t react. The fire goes on burning beneath her skin even as it dies out in mine. I go limp in her closed fist, and she drops me like I’ve insulted her.
I press on, finding my voice for once after so many years of letting her speak to me like this. I can’t stand it. Can’t stand the idea that on the other side of the pasture, Lucy is taking the same treatment from Waylon. Telling herself that because she chose him, she deserves what she gets.
It’s what I’ve been telling myself for too long.
“You say these things to me like there will be no consequences, Kimberly. You tear me down. You tear our daughter down.” I place my hands lightly on her shoulders and push her back, giving myself space to breathe. “How long am I supposed to take that until I break? How long do you expect me to pay penance to you for what happened when we were kids? For upending both of our lives, mind you. You’re not the only one who had to give up everything. Who lost something. But we gained our daughter, and while that has always been worth it to me, you’ve made it more than clear that it’s not to you.”
Her eyes widen and her jaw clenches. “How dare you?—”
“Do you think she doesn’t notice?” I keep my gaze level with hers, even when she tries to look anywhere but at me. “How do you think she felt tonight, when she looked up and her mom wasn’t there to see her finally serve the ball over the net? When her team won and she saw all their moms cheering them on, but hers was nowhere to be seen? All because you couldn’t stand a little noise. ”
Her lips part and then close. The vein in her forehead pulses. Her cheeks are hollow, jaw working, as she decides which bullet to fire my way.
I’m surprised, I’ll admit, when it comes out as a whisper.
“If it wasn’t for Delilah, do you honestly think we’d be married?” Her eyes dart between mine as she sucks in a tight breath and squares her shoulders. “Do you think in a million years we’d have chosen one another if we hadn’t been forced to do so?”
I blink. My stomach knots itself, sending acid stinging up my throat. She doesn’t waver even as I do. Doesn’t back down when all I want to do is cower from a truth so obvious, so heartbreaking that I’ve never allowed myself to think it, let alone say it aloud.
“I didn’t think so.” She cuts off the water, not bothering to ask if I’m done. She is, and that’s all that matters. She rips open the curtain, snatches her towel from the rack, and covers her body quickly like this is a locker room and I’m a stranger rather than her husband. When she turns to look at me, a droplet of water spills over her cheek. I could almost convince myself it was a tear if I couldn’t see its track all the way from her hairline glistening in the dull bathroom light.
“Delilah is the reason we’re together. And I’ll stay with you as long as she’s here. But when she’s not? When she goes off to college to start her life?” She jams a finger into her breastbone, right where her heart should be. “I get to start mine, too. Do you understand?”
I expect the heartbreak, and it does come. Fear and sickness turn over in my gut. Anxiety, too. An overwhelming sense of failure. It all crests over me like waves, crashing and building and crashing again.
What I don’t expect is the buoy of relief, floating on the surface when the tide slows. It’s out in the distance, too far to swim to right now, but I see it. I cling to the knowledge that it’s there.
My nod is a jittery, broken thing. “I understand completely.”
Surprisingly, the words are clear, even when nothing else is.