Fixing Delilah

  “It was great. Patrick is teaching me how to kayak.”

  “How’s your knee?” She leans forward to take a look.

  “It’s nothing. So what were you and Rachel fighting about earlier?”

  I watch the lines of her face change as she leans back in the swing and looks out over the driveway. “What do you mean? When?”

  “Today. Before I left.”

  Mom shakes her head. “Nothing. I told you. Just legal stuff with the will.”

  “Sounded like you were arguing.”

  “She said something that upset me.”

  “Was it about what happened eight years ago?”

  Mom turns to face me, her fingers white around her iced tea glass. “Del, you are so hung up on this,” she says. “I understand it was hard for you when we left here, and maybe I should’ve handled it differently, but you need to hear me on this. There’s no big mystery here. Families fight. They tear each other apart. Sometimes there aren’t any happy endings or logical explanations and we just have to accept that and move on. Sometimes it really is that simple.”

  “But I know you’re keeping something from me,” I say, pushing away my own guilt about keeping Steph’s diary hidden.

  Mom covers my hand with hers, but it’s cold and firm. “Delilah, really. There’s no need to dig up the past. Just focus on getting your own stuff back on track. That’s what I need you to do right now. That’s what we all need to do.”

  She pushes off from the swing and heads for the kitchen, back to her desk and her laptop, before I can press further. I follow her in and sit at the kitchen table, looking over the odd lot of my grandmother’s things.

  Let it go, Delilah. We just can’t go back there again. That’s what Mom said to me every time I asked about Nana after that fight. Every time I packed my suitcases for another summer in Red Falls and cried as she silently unpacked them. Eventually, I stopped packing. I stopped missing Nana and Little Ricky and the cardinal and the fireflies around the lake. I stopped asking. I stopped wondering. And I let Nana and Papa and the whole sleepy town of Red Falls fade into the long Hannaford history of Things We Just Don’t Talk About.

  As I stare at the back of Mom’s head, hands smoothing her hair as she replaces the cell phone earpiece, I begin to think I had it all wrong. Mom is right. Families fight. Maybe it really is that simple. And maybe I should stop digging for a truth that’s been shattered and shoved so deep into the earth by so many different hands that no one even remembers where the pieces are buried.

  Mom lets out a long, slow breath over her desk and all the air in the room changes, electrified like the air before a storm. She clears her throat and I wait for the lights to flicker; for the power to surge and pop and fizzle and throw us into days of darkness.

  But nothing happens.

  “Hey,” she says into the earpiece. “It’s me. Thanks for sending that e-mail. The project files are on a disc in my office. Should be four still images and the video. Right.”

  I turn back to the trinkets on the table.

  “Moo,” I whisper to the cow. She doesn’t answer back.

  Chapter sixteen

  “One large house blend and one iced chocolate hazelnut latte, extra whip,” Luna announces. “These are on the house.”

  “Thanks, Luna.” I take my drink from the coffee bar, grateful Mom and Aunt Rachel have another estate meeting tonight. In the apocalypse of last week’s overheard and then promptly dismissed Casey conversation, we’ve managed to avoid any more direct hits. Out of guilt or distraction or genuine second chances, Mom has loosened the restrictions on my free time, the two of us reverting easily to our ships passing in the night routine. Tonight, I’m grateful to be out, away from the awkward silence that permeates the walls of the house. Away from the pages of the diary, still calling from my dresser drawer. Away from the urn and the ashes of my grandmother and her departed dog. Away from the past, if only for an hour.

  Across the café, I look at Patrick, clipping the ends of the new strings on his guitar, and Luna, asking me to take home the leftover scones. I think about Emily, open and free and completely without expectation. And Megan, showing up almost every day to help Aunt Rachel. The people I’ve met in Red Falls, thrown into my life by the weird and tragic circumstances of this summer… they know how crazy the Hannafords are, and still, they don’t judge. They don’t demand. They don’t assume. They’re just… there. Wanting to know us. Wanting to be with us. There’s a word for these people. Sometimes I think I’m on the edge of some great understanding, looking up at all the answers I just can’t reach, like apples too high in the tree. But tonight, I stretch my fingers toward the sky, and I think I have the answer. The word.

  Friends.

  “Do you mind if we hang out a little longer?” Patrick asks Luna from the stage, strumming a few chords on the new strings. Luna’s already turned off the OPEN sign—Patrick and I are the only ones left. “I’m working on a new song and I don’t quite have it,” he says.

  “Stay as long as you want,” she says. “Just lock up when you go.”

  The coffee shop falls silent when she leaves, save for the low hum of the refrigerator and the buzz of the overhead lights. In the absence of the usual crowds, everything takes on a new life, a new intensity. The burnt-chocolate smell of coffee infusing the air. The silver moon and stars hanging overhead, spinning softly, reflecting flashes of light. And Patrick’s eyes, clear and intense as he works on his music. Here. Now. Just the two of us. Alone.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asks.

  “Friends.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  “Back home? No, I really don’t. It’s funny. I have these people there. You might call them friends. I always did. We hung out together, went to the same parties, that kind of thing. Always something to do on the weekends. But things changed this year, and now that I’ve been away for a few weeks, calling them friends… it doesn’t feel right anymore. Like they were just there to pass the time. They haven’t earned the right to be called friends. Does that make any sense?”

  “Perfect.” Patrick nods. “I went through that stuff last year with an old friend from school in New York. We didn’t have a fight or anything, but junior year, it just felt off between us. We started hanging out in different crowds, and the few times we got together, it didn’t fit anymore. It sucked, too, because he used to be a really a cool guy.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Eh, we grew apart. Went our separate ways. I’d run into him sometimes, and we were friendly. But we didn’t jam on the weekends anymore or meet up after school for a bike ride.”

  “Were you sad?”

  “I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn’t exist anymore. That the person I missed didn’t exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they wouldn’t all day long, but that never works.”

  “Nope. I’ve tried it.”

  “And friends,” he says, “I mean real, true friends… I used to think certain people in my life were the real deal. That we’d stay tight forever. Now, the older I get, I keep coming back to something my dad said: In your entire life, you can probably count your true friends on one hand. Maybe even on one finger. Those are the friends you need to cherish, and I wouldn’t trade one of them for a hundred of the other kind. I’d rather be completely alone than with a bunch of people who aren’t real. People who are just passing time.”

  “I’m starting to see that,” I say, thinking of all the acquaintances that have passed through my life, and all those who might still come and go. But when Patrick smiles at me, the sadness of it leaves my shoulders and for now, everything is fine.

  “So check this out,” he says, ducking behind the stage. He dims the café lights and flips on a set of round, colored stage lights that shine up from the front and sides of the platform to illuminate the main event.

  “Luna had these installed last weekend. What a differen
ce, huh? It’s a small place, so the sound fills out pretty well without cranking the amps. The tough part is when the crowd is distracted. It doesn’t happen often, but it sucks trying to sing over that—not just because it’s hard to hear, but because you know no one’s listening. The lights should help focus their attention. Then I just have to work harder to make people care.”

  “Patrick, I’ve heard you sing. How could they not care?”

  “Not everyone who comes to Luna’s on gig nights is here to see me. Some people are actually more interested in the coffee. Or the scones. Or in hitting on Emily.”

  “Oh, I didn’t say I wasn’t here to hit on Em,” I say. “Just that hitting on Em and enjoying your music aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  “Then I’m glad we had this little chat. I’ll have to let Em know I’m stepping up my game. She’s tough competition, especially in the looks department—way cuter than me.”

  I laugh with my head down to hide the fact that my face is probably completely pink. I mean, Em is cute. And awesome and hilarious and sweet. So why isn’t he into her like that? Is he?

  “Don’t you have to practice something?” I ask. “Let’s hear it.”

  “All right, Hannaford. You win. Come here.” He motions for me to sit in front of him and passes me his guitar pick, using his fingers bare against the strings. Our knees touch; his Martin guitar and the rising tide of music all that’s between us.

  When Patrick sings, his eyes close and his face goes simultaneously intent and content, like he’s taking a long, beautiful journey but has to concentrate very hard on the path. It’s just the two of us, alone on the stage, and even through his unpolished practice lyrics, his voice rolls over my skin and gives me goose bumps. The currents of the melody carry me away from all of life’s disappointments and hidden things, and I’m left with only wonderment and possibility, endless and pure. I don’t even realize my eyes are closed until the music stops, and in the soft echo of the last note, a kiss lands and melts against my lips like a snowflake, cool and amazing and completely unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Patrick pulls me closer, and the silver heart on my necklace clinks soft like a raindrop against his guitar strings.

  Our kiss deepens, Patrick finding his way past my lips. My racing mind slows, fear and worries fade as I fall headlong into it, feeling and tasting and inhaling every bit of it, just me and him and the world outside holding its breath, waiting for us to finish, waiting to see what happens, waiting to see if I remember how to walk after this.

  But when Patrick shifts to slide his guitar out from between us, the spell breaks. I realize how close we are now, too close, no-air-left-in-the-room close, nothing to keep him from getting any nearer to the real me.

  “Sorry,” I blurt out. “I, um… I should go. I need to go do this, um, this thing. It’s just that I told my mom that I’d help her later and I really should go now.”

  “Are you sure she can’t wait a few minutes?” Patrick asks. He’s smiling, but his eyes hover on disappointment.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Come here.”

  “No—I mean, yes, I’m sure she can’t wait.” I stand to dust off my shorts and put some much-needed distance between us before he convinces me to stay. “You know my mother.”

  “You okay, Del? I hope I didn’t… I’m… are you—”

  “No, I’m good, I’m fine. I love the song. Very Bob Dylan.” If my words were footsteps, I’d have tripped over them and broken both legs by now. “I just remembered the thing with Mom, that’s all. Bad timing.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ll walk you home,” Patrick says. “Let me just pack this up and—”

  “That’s okay. I’m fine. I need to go before she freaks out. I almost totally forgot and now I’m kind of late. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” I don’t let Patrick answer or catch me in the net of his confused gaze before I’m through the door, the summer-sticky air condensing instantly on my skin. Outside, it takes a second for me to realize that I’m just standing here, shivering despite the humidity.

  It’s one foot in front of the other, Delilah, remember?

  Chapter seventeen

  Later, certain that Mom, Rachel, Patrick, and the rest of Red Falls is asleep, I tiptoe down the stairs and out the side door on bare feet, skipping the creaky third step. I walk down the street with Stephanie’s diary, away from Nana’s house, past Patrick’s house, all the way to the other end of the road. Under Maple Terrace’s only street lamp, I stretch my arms out and pretend that the light is a force field, illuminating me like a star-angel to keep the dark things out. When it’s everyone-else-is-in-bed quiet like this, the Vermont summer crickets outnumber me, surround me, getting louder and louder and louder with each breath until they’re all part of the heartbeat in my ears, the same soft thud, the same hum, the same low buzz of everything all at once that keeps the world spinning on its axis.

  Sometimes I wonder if my whole life will pass by this way: me waiting in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone else to make it happen. Something new or different or crazy and amazing. I’ve been there for so long, letting everyone else figure it out for me, floating along without much direction or conscious thought. Reacting. Attention-seeking, Mom calls it. Impulsive. Reckless.

  I think about Finn and all those times at the creek. I think about Patrick. I think about Stephanie and Rachel and Mom and my dead newspaper dad and it squeezes my insides. It makes me want to leave, to run, to get on a plane with a little black notebook and wander in and out of cities and villages and people’s homes until I find out exactly how my father felt that day in Tuksar, looking down the barrel, pen pressed to paper, fate in the hands of a boy who wasn’t even old enough to grow a mustache.

  I sit on the sidewalk beneath the light and open the diary over my knees.

  Dear Diary,

  It’s four a.m. and I’ve been awake for two days, my mind buzzing, my cells buzzing, everything around me buzzing. Mom is driving me INSANE and I need to leave. I need to get out of this town. I need to go somewhere. Anywhere. Else.

  C promised me that he would take me away from here. That we could go soon and far and never look back. And when he said I promise you, I promise you, Stephie, you can have the whole world if you want it… I kissed him and I knew that he MEANT it and I told him that I would love him with everything I had in me until the very end of everything, and I meant it, too, and the old man selling popcorn from a cart on the wooden path near the shore smiled when he saw us kiss.

  So how much longer? How much longer until we can walk the streets of some new place with new faces and see them smiling just to see us so in love??

  —Steph

  Back home, when people see me with Finn, they don’t smile. They stare. And I get all wood-elf-princess-warrior like the first time I was with him, walking out of the woods at a creek party with leaves in my hair and one shoe missing and everyone whispering. Finn never asked me about secrets and mothers and the nature of friendship. He didn’t care. Being with him was about one thing. And I was fearless with him. Crazed. Alive. And a little bit Oh yeah? Say it. I fucking dare you.

  I bet Thomas Devlin was like that. It got him killed, but at least he felt something. I can tell from his stories—always from faraway places, always fast and breathtaking, words spilling out on the page like ninjas, sneaking up on the rest of us for the stealth attack. Was that his legacy for me? My genetic inheritance? Crazed. Alive. And a little bit…

  When I got home from that creek party after the first time with Finn, I found a renegade pine branch stuck in my hair. I saved it in a shoe box under my bed so that I’d never forget that moment; that instant when Finn looked at me across the bonfire, nodded almost imperceptibly toward the woods, and raised a single, questioning eyebrow.

  Shall we?

  Yes, let’s.

  But that isn’t love—not the kind Aunt Stephanie had with Casey
. What I have with Finn is more like what my parents had, which is surreal and gross to consider, but true. I’m not in love with him. I’m in love with the way he erases things. That’s why I saved the pine branch. I don’t remember that night out of longing or any sort of dreamy hope-chest wishes. I remember it to forget.

  But now, when I try to lose my mind in the fog again, Patrick’s voice cuts through it, singing with his eyes closed. Instead of graying and vanishing, my thoughts multiply, intensify, run together like tributaries in a stream, meandering and braiding and ending up always in the same inevitable river—that kiss.

  I close the diary and take a deep breath, holding the late-night Vermont air in my lungs as the crickets continue their low hum and I think about my aunt and wonder if she was okay while she lived and then… then I sing softly the words of Patrick’s songs, the ones I remember, over and over, rubbing my thumb on his guitar pick, safe in my sweatshirt pocket.

  Forgetting is no longer an option.

  Chapter eighteen

  “Tomorrow’s the Fourth,” Mom says, pouring a cup of coffee and plugging in her cell phone charger.

  “Is it?” Last year, I spent the Fourth at Seven Mile Creek, all of us piled on blankets and chairs in the woods while Mom was on business in Chicago. We couldn’t even see the fireworks. No one cared.

  “You guys should go to the Sugarbush Festival,” Mom says. “I’m sure they still do the carnival—remember? You’d eat too much cotton candy and get a stomachache on the Ferris wheel. Patrick always got stuck next to you.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “It’s true. And he stayed by your side, even when you were throwing up. Poor kid.”

  A tremor passes just below the surface of my skin as I think about last night. Don’t worry, Mom. I think he’s over it.

  “I remember that one,” Jack calls from the sunroom. I didn’t even realize he was here. “We had to throw out his T-shirt.”