Fixing Delilah (3 page)
“Come on in,” Mom says, holding the door. “I haven’t looked at the rest of the place, but the kitchen’s dreadfully the same.” Her laugh is forced and uncomfortable—an olive sucked through a straw.
Inside, my aunt glides along the perimeter of the kitchen, one hand running over the countertops and curtains and one in her pocket. Behind her, two ants march out from under the stove to investigate a sticky-looking stain, completely unaffected by us and my grandmother’s death and everything that happened before.
“Oh, sis,” Rachel says. “How did we get—”
Bzzzz.
“That’s mine,” Mom says, digging through her purse.
“But I—”
“Hang on, Rach.”
“Claire?”
Mom nods but holds up an index finger to put her sister on pause. She wraps up quickly, but that doesn’t earn her any points with Aunt Rachel, who’s steaming against the counter with her arms folded over her chest.
“Rachel, I told you last night,” Mom says, pulling out her earpiece and sashaying back into the conversation like we’re milling around the hors d’oeuvres table at a cocktail party. “If anything important comes up at the office, I have to make myself available.”
“Burying your dead mother isn’t important?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“I can ask someone else to help if it’s too difficult to manage your schedule,” Rachel says.
“Manage my schedule? Look, I realize that you can come and go wherever the wind blows, but my work is a little more—”
“Important, right? Because catering for movie crews isn’t important? People need to eat, Claire.”
“I was going to say structured.”
“Structured? You don’t know anything
about
my work. You’ve never even been on a set, so how—”
“Let’s not do this right now.” Mom grabs her purse, digging into the front pocket and producing the small tin where she keeps her Xanax. “We have a lot to sort through tonight. I have to finish unpacking and do a preliminary walk-through… call the funeral director… her friends…” She grabs a glass from the cupboard, fills it with tap water, and chases down a little white pill. “I haven’t even picked up groceries.”
“I’ll go,” Rachel says. “Need anything specific? Milk? Toilet paper? Compassion, maybe? I’ll get a bunch. I probably have a coupon. You know how we
unstructured
people are about our coupons.”
“I’m going with her,” I say. Both of them look at me like they forgot I was in the room, and before Mom can object, Aunt Rachel takes my hand and leads us out through the kitchen door.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel says as we reverse down the long driveway and onto Maple Terrace. “I promised myself I wouldn’t let my sister upset me today, and I blew it in five minutes. The tarot cards told me to prepare for conflict. Why didn’t I see it coming?”
“That’s just Mom’s way. I think it’s the assertiveness training she gets at work. ‘Close the deal’ and all that stuff.” I make air quotes around the deal phrase with my fingers.
“That bad, huh?” Rachel asks.
I shrug. “Pretty much.”
“Here.” She fishes a miniature spray bottle from the glove box and gives it a few rigorous pumps. “Frankincense and orange oil,” she says. “To increase happiness and peace.”
“Perfect. When we get back, could you, like, spray that directly
on
her?”
“If you think it’ll help, Del. If you think it’ll help.”
As Rachel navigates Red Falls’ “bustling” commercial hub, a few kids on bikes slow to check us out, waving as if we’re a parade float throwing candy. A woman in a purple apron chats with coffee-drinkers as she sweeps the sidewalk in front of a funky-looking café called Luna’s. The view of the sky over Main Street, sapphire blue, is interrupted only by a single banner suspended from Sweet Thing Chocolatier on the left side of the road to Bender’s Hardware on the right, announcing with many exclamation points (!!!) and Random Capitalizations:
Red Falls’ 50
th
Annual Fourth of July Parade
And Sugarbush Festival!!!
July 4th!!
Featuring Log rolling, Pony rides,
Maple Sugar candy, Maple Cream, Maple fudge, and
our WORLD famous Maple Drizzlers!!!!
We turn into the lot at Crasner’s, which has since my last visit expanded from a humble general store into a bona fide Food Dynasty, minus the burned-out
d
and
Dy
on the neon sign. As Rachel settles on a parking spot, I ask the question that’s weighed me down since we arrived in Vermont, made heavier now by my recollection of Sugarbush Festivals past.
“Rachel, what happened that day at Papa’s funeral?”
Rachel turns off the truck and unbuckles her seat belt, staring at the
CRASNER’S FOO NASTY
sign until her eyes go blank, her hands curled in her lap like dried leaves.
“Every day you wake up and think, we’ll fix things tomorrow,” she says, still staring at the sign. “Or the next day. Or maybe the next. But now… there won’t
be
a next day. Mom’s… she’s just…
gone
. Like
that
.” She snaps her fingers.
“I’m sorry. I thought—”
“I have this memory of shopping here for school supplies,” she says, turning the silver bangles around her wrist. “Your mom and I always swapped bags on the way out to the car to see who got more loot.”
I try to picture Mom and Rachel as kids, digging through bags of pencil cases and folders and erasers and Elmer’s glue, but there’s someone missing from the story. We don’t talk about her often, my other aunt. I’ve never even called her
Aunt
Stephanie. Dead at nineteen from cardiac arrest, she didn’t live long enough to come into the title. And though Mom gave me her youngest sister’s middle name as my first, by the time I was old enough to ask questions, she’d buried the entire history of it with
I’m sorry, Del… I really don’t want to talk about it.
I want to ask Rachel about Stephanie now, but I don’t get much further than the
S
.
“Sss… hard to imagine Mom as a little girl,” I say instead.
“Claire
lived
for back-to-school time. She was very methodical about it. She’d spread everything out on the bed and organize it into categories. Then she had this whole special way to load up her backpack.”
“You should’ve seen her this morning,” I say. “Notice all the boxes and matching luggage?”
“Yep.”
“She brought pantsuits, Rachel.”
“Pantsuits? Are you serious?”
“I wouldn’t kid about something like pantsuits.”
Rachel shakes her head. “It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long, Del.”
“Just barely,” I say, remembering Mom’s face when she picked me up at Blush yesterday. “Things at home aren’t exactly splendid.”
Rachel shifts in her seat to face me. “Okay, I’m totally ambushing you here. What’s going on with you? Your mom told me last night you’ve been getting into some trouble.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “You and Mom talk like once a year.
Now
she decides to be chatty?”
“She’s worried about you, Delilah.”
I put my sunglasses on top of my head and look out the passenger window at two men in cutoff flannel shirts having a spitting contest on the curb.
“She worries about all the wrong things,” I say, more to the guys outside than to Rachel. “I’m fine.”
“Right. I was on the phone with her last night when she discovered you’d snuck out, presumably with some dude.”
“Finn,” I say, “is not some dude.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Not exactly. We just kind of… it’s nothing, really.”
“I get it.” Rachel’s hand turns my face away from the window. “Boyfriend. Dude. Nothing really. Please tell me that you’re at least being…
safe
?”
I think about waiting in the black space of the street corner for Finn, who’s always late, and the way he drops me off for the walk back to my house alone. I recall the spin of the tires on the pavement last night as he swerved to stay on the road after sliding his hand up my shirt before we got to the woods. I feel the bark of the tree outside my bedroom window scraping my fingers as I pulled myself back up to the second floor.
Safe
?
“God, Rachel. Yes, we’re safe. I’m not stupid, despite what my mother thinks.”
“She knows you’re not stupid, Del. Which is why she says your behavior lately doesn’t make any sense.”
“Great. Now you sound like
her
.” I put my sunglasses back on and turn away again. The spit champs are gone. “I thought you were on my side.”
“There aren’t
any
sides,” she says. “I just want you to be okay. I’m worried about you, too.”
“Then be straight with me. What happened back then? I was young, but I remember you guys arguing with Nana, and then Mom packed us up and we left. I wasn’t even allowed to
talk
about Red Falls after that. It’s like Mom wanted everything… erased. And now we’re back here eight years later and no one is saying anything.”
Rachel taps her fingers on the steering wheel, but she doesn’t offer any answers. “The three of us need to sit down and talk about things, hon. And we will. I promise. I’m not trying to put you off. But for now, let’s just get the groceries so we can get back to the house and settle in. It’s our first day together in years, and it’s not going to be easy on anyone—especially your mom.”
“I guess.”
“Can you do me a favor?” she asks. “Promise me you’ll hang in there a little longer?”
I take her outstretched hand. “All right, Rach. I promise.”
“Good. Now let’s go find the bakery case and see if they still make those delicious maple walnut muffins.”
Rachel hits a bell on the counter and smiles as a woman in a white paper hat emerges from behind a row of giant ovens.
“Good afternoon, ladies. What can I get for you today?” she asks as she carries out a tray of golden buns. “Just took out a fresh batch of… of… Rachel
Hannaford
? And… oh my
God
!”
She drops the fresh batch of Rachel-Hannaford-and-oh-my-God.
Her hands cover her mouth.
And she shakes her head, staring at me with wide, watery eyes as if I’m a ghost.
“For a second it’s like I was looking right at her,” she tells my aunt.
“Claire?” Rachel asks.
“No. Stephie.”
“I can’t believe you’re almost seventeen,” Megan the Baker says, taking her break with us in the bakery department’s small eating area. “I used to change your diapers.”
“Really?” I manage a weak smile, wondering what’s in those fresh-baked buns to make a total stranger think such an announcement is okay.
“Del,” Rachel says, “why don’t you go find some snacks for the house? I want to catch up with Megan a little.” She pushes the cart toward me. I wheel over to the junk food aisle without her, trying not to look offended.
As I check out the cookies and potato chips and snack cakes, I can’t shake the feeling that everyone in this town is watching me. Like if there was a record playing, it would’ve scratched and skipped the second I walked through the door, and everyone would just wait for me to make some big dramatic announcement, hands on their guns just in case.
This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.
When Stephanie died, she was just a few years older than I am now. I probably
do
look a lot like her, but I’ve never seen any pictures—not even at my grandparents’ house. Just the one Mom keeps tucked away in her nightstand drawer—the three sisters holding hands and jumping off a dock into the lake. You can’t even see their faces.
As I reach the end of the aisle, I peek at the bakery department to check on Megan and Rachel. Their hands move quickly as they talk, landing on each other’s shoulders like small, pink birds. Their faces are sad and serious and when Megan puts her arms around my aunt, I see her face again and I finally remember it.
When we reunite a few minutes later, Megan ambushes me with a bear hug, smothering me against her bread-and-flour bosom.
I hug her back.
“Mom and I will stop by the house tomorrow,” she says, handing Rachel a box of pastries. “Most of us heard the news yesterday, and now that you’re in town, I’m sure you’ll get visitors. Actually, here—better take a few more pastries. On the house.” She loads up another bakery box with an assortment from beneath the glass case and hands it over, kissing us each on the cheek one more time.
“I remember her,” I tell my aunt as she takes over the cart and leads us to the produce. “She was always at the lake with us.”
“She loved hanging out with you.”
“How do we know her?”
Rachel looks back toward the bakery. Behind the pastry case, Megan blots her eyes with the edge of her apron, the white paper hat drooping on one side over her forehead. “Megan was Stephanie’s best friend.”
“Whoa.”
Rachel nods, pushing the cart toward the fresh vegetables and steering us into the section with the eggplants.
“Aunt Rachel? I don’t mean to be… I mean, I know it’s really hard to talk about because she died so young, but… how come we don’t… there aren’t any…” I don’t know how to ask, so I just leave it there, half-said.
“You know, hon, after Stephie died, we
never
really talked about her,” she says, her hands tight around the cart handle. “There’s a lot of pain there. Still. I guess we feel like we failed her. Like maybe if we were home instead of away at college, we could’ve done something to fix her. Something my parents and the doctors and her boyfriend missed. Sometimes I think I don’t have the
right
to talk about her. Like at the end, I didn’t know her well enough to say anything. So much of her life became secret. She spent all of her time with her boyfriend, and when she was home, her nose was buried in her diary. I swear that diary was her best friend, even more than Megan.”
