DELLA
Della pulled into her dirt driveway in the twenty-year-old Honda Prelude her father had given her eighteen years ago on the eve of her high school graduation. She lived with her husband and six-year-old daughter on the corner of Radcliffe and Smith Street, three blocks north of Calhoun in the middle of the peninsula. Their place was the first floor of a rundown single house that leaned a good fifteen degrees to the left from the wear and tear of more than one hundred years of heat, humidity, and flooding from the storms that hit at high tide. The house was painted a reddish purple that must have been a fun and flamboyant choice in the late’70s. But today the place looked like a rotting plum, the dirty strips of paint peeling off in jagged strips across the clapboards. They had bought the house with Della’s portion of Nana’s inheritance in hopes that the neighborhood was on its way up, but eight years later she could still spot the guy who sold pot to the college kids on the northwest corner leaning against the Cash and Carry convenience store with a bulge beneath the left side of his baggy jean jacket. Though she had never seen a gun, she’d heard a shot more than once in the middle of the night, echoing down the corridors of the disheveled streets of her neighborhood.
When she opened the front door, the steamy air from her un-air-conditioned house smothered her. The thermometer read ninety-four degrees just inside the door. She took a slow, hot breath as if she was pacing herself for an hour in a sauna. A muffled laughter came from behind the closed door of her daughter’s room—the one place in the house where they had broken down and bought a window unit.
Peter and their daughter, Cozy, were playing a game. They had built a tent by draping a fitted sheet over her bedposts, and they had brought in food from the kitchen and sticks from the backyard to simulate a campout. Peter, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, was wearing the gorilla mask he had bought last Halloween. He was crouched in a make-believe bush behind the bed. Cozy squealed with joy. She loved the element of surprise—that the gorilla was hiding, waiting to lurch at her when the moment was right.
Through the window, Della saw the heap of scrap metal and the blowtorch and face mask, resting on top of a headless shrimp who squatted slightly, his front legs playing a copper cello. Peter was a metal sculptor whose medium was crunched copper treated with a blue-green patina. The shrimp had sort of become his signature—he had a knack for giving each crustacean a kind of human personality just in the way they curled their tails or positioned their bulbous eyes. But he’d been known to sculpt frogs, sea turtles, palmetto bugs, mosquitoes, pelicans, and herons as well. In fact, the South Carolina Aquarium had two of his creations greeting every tourist who walked in the door, a six-foot toad holding a lantern and a ten-foot sea turtle in mid-flap with what almost seemed like a smile at the bottom of his round, prehistoric skull.
You could also see his work at the Children’s Museum in Columbia and the Governor’s School for the Arts in Greenville, and even farther afoot at the Bronx Botanical Gardens and the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University. But commissions had been dwindling for the last couple of years. Art and books were the last expenses folks with means considered incurring when the economy turned south, and Peter and Della were both feeling the beginning of the recession. They had always scraped by more or less with the meager advances from Della’s publisher, her occasional teaching gigs, the periodic grants, and the sculpture commissions that seemed to always materialize just when it looked like one of them would have to forsake their craft and start selling insurance or something.
Della had suffered a change of heart about their lifestyle ever since Cozy was born. A woman can change when she has a child. Her whole notion of what life ought to be can be altered. The conventions and lifestyles she used to disdain become the ones she desires most. Oh, she wanted so much for her child. Not necessarily material things, but the rudimentary basics of a decent life—safety, comfort, a clean home, and a solid education. A woman can read one of those desperate-housewife novels like Revolutionary Road and say, “What is April’s problem? Does she know how lucky she is to have a husband who brings home a decent paycheck? What’s so evil about being a salesman? What’s so philosophically wrong about making a steady living?” Della, even though she would have never predicted it, was becoming one of those women.
Then Peter lunged at Cozy, and she gave the requisite shriek before he hurled her onto the bed, where she bounced and shouted with delight. He lifted his mask so that the gorilla was face-up on the top of his head. “How’s Lish?”
Della turned the window unit up a notch and said over its mechanical drone, “They’re trying to stop the contractions. We may have to go over to Legare Street and stay with the kids.”
“Why not bring them here?” Peter lifted his large hands, palms up as if he was making an offering.
Della was frequently taken aback by how fantastic-looking Peter was: six-five and absolutely chiseled with broad shoulders, a sharp jaw line, a tan that accentuated it all, and pale green eyes beneath dark, bushy brows. Once at a cocktail party, a flamboyant art dealer told her she’d married an Adonis. She’d blushed and nodded. But what was even stranger than Peter’s Greek-god looks and their ability to stun her, even now after eight years of marriage, was her lack of desire for him—her utter lack of passion or attraction in the face of the undisputable fact that he was an eyeful.
Della could hardly stand the deep hum of the air-conditioning unit, but she walked over to it and let the cool air lift her hair off of her neck as her daughter came over and leaned in toward her. She rubbed Cozy’s back as the sun caught the golden crown of her small, perfectly round head. Della turned back to her husband. “We can’t bring them here because we have one bathroom and it’s under construction, and our backyard is full of shards of metal and electrical wires and rusted nails.”
Cozy turned to him and added, “And we don’t have Rosetta who cooks and cleans, right, Mama?” Della nodded.
“All right. All right.” Peter held out the heel of his right hand. “Don’t you two gang up on me now.”
Cozy grabbed the gorilla mask and put it on. “Me hungry,” she called, then she ran back toward her mother, and all Della could see was a blur of black fur, tan little arms, and the flap of a yellow sun dress with white polka dots.
“I’ve got you, Mama!”
Then Della picked her up and spun her around and gently dropped her on the unmade bed where she kissed each pad of her soft little fingers. She gazed into her daughter’s deep brown eyes. Next week she’d start first grade at The Pinckney School for Girls, an old and prestigious single-gender school where Della, her mother, and her grandmother had graduated from. The public schools in their district were failing, and while they tried for the magnet option, they received the last number in the lottery; they never even had the opportunity to test. The Pinckney School tuition far exceeded their budget, so Della had put her writing career on hold to serve as a full-time teacher in the middle school in order to make the payments.
“How would you like to spend the night with Andrew and Mary Jane?” Cozy’s eyes widened and she tossed back her golden hair and sat up straight. She cupped Della’s face in her delicate hands. “I would love it, Mama!”
Peter wrapped his arms around his wife and child. “Let’s get packing, girls.”
At the hospital Della spotted Drew in the hall, chuckling with two other doctors. They looked familiar and the closer she got, she realized that they were the infectious-disease fellows who rented the carriage house at 18 Legare. There was Rob, a stubby guy who started an herb garden beside Nana’s old loquat tree, and Melanie, a towering blonde who could almost give Anne a run for her money in the height department.
“Things must not be too bad.” Anne intercepted Della in the hallway. She nodded toward Drew and took a deep breath. “I mean, if he has time to shoot the breeze with his apprentices.”
“True.” Della reached up high and put her arm around her cousin.
Drew seemed to catch them out of the corner of his eye. He stepped away from the fellows and turned to them.
“What’s the status, Dr. Sublime?” Della said.
“We’re in a ‘wait and see’ mode.” He raked his fingers through the thick curls of his salt-and-pepper hair. “They’re going to stop the contractions long enough to do an amnio to gauge lung development. If it comes back strong, we may deliver as early as tomorrow night.”
“How’s she doing?” Anne whispered.
“A little anxious.” He rubbed his stubbled chin. “You know how she likes to plan these things out.”
“We know.” Della grinned. “Maybe her next column in the paper can be ‘Expect the Unexpected.’” They all chuckled, then she knocked his elbow. “Peter and I would be happy to stay with the kids tonight, and we’ll get the nursery ready.”
“That would be great, Della.” Drew rubbed his hands together. “Rosetta’s with them now, and she’ll be back first thing in the morning to take over.”
Della nodded and looked at the closed door where someone had scrawled the name Sutton with a black Sharpie.
“Can we see her?” Anne said.
When they entered, Lish sat up without fully taking her eye away from the baby’s heartbeat on the screen. She was sitting on top of the bed in a hospital gown, and Della noticed—as she did every time she saw Lish’s bare leg— the scar that ran down her shin from the time she fell off The Battery rail and into the oyster beds.
Della and Anne took their places on either side of her bed and Lish patted both of their knees as if to reassure them. “Drew give you the update?”
“Yeah,” Anne said.
“Not exactly what I had planned for today.” She turned to Della. “You okay to keep the kids?”
“We’re already packed and Cozy’s about to do back-flips, she’s so excited.”
Lish reached for a notebook on her bedside table and handed it to Della. “Here’s the bedtime routine and the church schedule as well as their day camp that starts on Monday in case I’m here for a while. Rosetta will get their outfits ready.”
Della showed the thorough notes to Anne. “Are you believing this?”
Anne turned to Lish. “Put me to work, too, okay?”
Lish scanned her list.
“I’ve got tomorrow off.” Anne gently pulled the notebook from Lish’s hands. “Give me an assignment.”
She quickly read the list and handed it back to Lish. “I’ll make the trip to Babies R Us. How hard can it be to pick out a car seat and a few pacifiers?”
“You don’t mind?” Lish leaned forward and picked at her plastic hospital bracelet.
Anne nodded emphatically. “I can handle it. And I can do more. So call me when you think of something else.”
“Thank you.” Lish smiled. “I will.”
Della bit at the tip of her index finger. “So what are the doctors saying?”
Lish tucked a strand of her thick brown hair behind her ears. “If all goes well for forty-eight hours, then I can go back home and stay on bed rest for a week or so. If the contractions continue, they may have to deliver early.”
“Well, you’re in good hands,” Drew said as he entered the room. He stood at the foot of the bed and crossed his arms. “As far as I can tell, our biggest problem is settling on a name.”
“Here.” Lish handed them a list of girl names. “We’ve picked the boy name, but we don’t have one for a girl, and I just heard the nurse slip and say, ‘How’s she doing?’ when she examined the monitor.”
“Oh.” Anne took the list and glanced at the names. “You just want an opinion?”
Lish nodded. “Yeah, I’m just not drawn to one the way I usually am.” Della looked over Anne’s shoulder. The list read:
Emma Louise Sutton
Jane Brumley Sutton
Cecilia Elizabeth Sutton
“They’re all beautiful,” Anne said. She handed the list to Della. “I couldn’t possibly choose—”
“Cecilia.” Della nodded her pointed chin once. “How can you not hear that name and think of dancing at two a.m. at the frat house of your choice with Paul Simon’s voice belting through the speakers, ‘Ce-cil-ia, you’re breaking my heart. You’re shaking my confidence lately . . .’ It’s a completely upbeat name.”
They all chuckled and Della leaned in to peck her cousin on the forehead. She sensed Lish’s desire to have more time to flesh out her list. “We’ll take care of everything!” Della took Anne by the arm. “Just rest and tell Cecilia to take a chill pill.”
On the way to the parking garage, a voice called behind them, “Della? Anne? Y’all wait up!”
Della turned to see a tall, thin, bearded man in tortoiseshell glasses and a white physician’s coat walking toward them. “I think that’s Todd,” Anne said. “Todd Jervey.” He pressed a button on his key chain and one of those snappy little BMW convertibles lit up and beeped behind him.
“Della!” He waved his arm and slowed down when he got close. He stretched up and kissed Anne on the cheek and then leaned down and did the same to Della before stepping back to take her in. Della was in the thin gauzy white sundress she wore when the temperatures topped ninety degrees and her gold designer gladiator sandals care of Jodie at Goodwill.
“You look fantastic,” he said. “How are you?”
“All right,” she said. “Welcome back to town.”
“It’s great to see you.” He grinned and shook his head as if he was trying to fight off a chill. “I’ve read your novels. All four of them. My mom sent me the first one, then I tracked down the others.”
“Good for you,” she said. “You’re in a very small fan club. You and twenty of my closest family and friends.”
“Not true,” Anne interrupted. “She’s been nominated for an award, and thousands of people have read her books.”
He grimaced. “Your voice is unmistakable, and your descriptions are dead on. They really bring me back to Charleston. Kind of make me homesick, even.”
Della grinned. “Well, good. We need a decent shrink around here.”
“So you’ve settled down. Have a child, right? I read that in your bio.”
“Yes. A daughter. Cozy.”
He smiled. “After your grandmother. Nice.”
Della scanned his left hand. No ring in sight. He always wanted a boatload of kids.
“You?”
“Nah,” he said. “This medical research thing has kind of sucked me in for the last ten years.” He bit his lip, then readjusted his glasses. “So what are you two doing here?”
“Lish is in the hospital.”
“What for?” The lines formed above his fair forehead.
“She’s pregnant, and she started going into labor this morning.”
“How far along is she?”
“Seven and a half months,” Della said.
“Mmm.” He narrowed his eyes and nodded. “I’ll check in on her.”
“No need,” Della said. “Drew’s got her surrounded by the top doctors in the state. But she’d probably love to see you.”
He smiled and nodded. He leaned forward as if to give a good-bye kiss, but he stopped and took a side step toward the elevator.
“Well,” he said, “I’m glad I ran into you two. It’s been too long.”
Anne grinned and waved. “Take care, Todd.”
Della nodded and before she decided on what to say, he had turned and was heading toward the exit.
A sharp rush of brisk central air-conditioning greeted Della and her family as they walked through the front door of 18 Legare Street and into the grand home of her childhood. It must have cost a fortune to cool down the three-story home with its tall ceilings and wide, creaky floorboards.
Installing the central air system was only the beginning of the changes the Suttons had made to the place, and Della couldn’t help but be taken aback when she discovered each new attempt to modernize the old home in which her grandmother had raised her. Last year it was the skylights and the hot tub on the third floor, this year it was the refurbished kitchen—the large stainless steel appliances and dark granite countertops whose surface shimmered like asphalt on a hot day.
The oven and fridge seemed like they took up too much room in the long, narrow galley kitchen where Della still pictured Nana beating eggs, frying fish, and canning loquats by the screened door. How many hours had Della and her cousins harvested the Japanese plums for Nana? They’d play a game called “Who’s he gonna be?” where they’d twist the stem and count how many times it took for the loquat to release. With each twist, they ran down the alphabet. A, B, C, D and wherever it finally popped, that would be the initial of the man they would marry. Once they thought of a boy’s name with the corresponding letter, they’d paint a vivid word picture of a beautiful life with the lucky boy that involved many children, a swimming pool, a trampoline, and some sort of red or white sports car.
Della sniffed the air and closed her eyes. The one thing the Doctors Sublime couldn’t get rid of was the unmistakable smell of the old house. Despite the refinished floors and the fresh coats of paint and the new furniture their pricey decorator had brought in, the house still retained the faint scent of mothballs, mud, mold, and what Della could only describe as history. Age. Like Papa’s pillow on a hot summer day when she snuck up to his nook on the third floor and lay down to read a book before he came home from work.
Now she took a look at Peter and Cozy and had to laugh. They looked like three hobos from significantly north of Broad Street with their mismatched bags full of clothes and toiletries: a dusty tennis bag meant to hold a racket and balls, an old canvas boat bag of Nana’s that she used to pack Della’s girlhood picnics in, a My Little Pony backpack, and soaps and toothbrushes in plastic Food Lion sacks.
Cozy opened wide her arms. “Wow, it feels good in here.”
Andrew ran out from the kitchen with his face smattered with ketchup. He nearly toppled Cozy over with his big hug.
“You’re spending the night!” he said.
“Yep,” she said, grinning back at her parents. “I am.”
After Rosetta served a delicious Cuban meal of seasoned pork tenderloin, fried plantains, beans and rice, and a tomato salad, Peter took the kids in the back garden where they played hide-and-seek, climbed the loquat tree, ate the plums, and had a pit-spitting contest just like Della and her cousins had done when she was a child. Then she hosed them off one by one on the piazza and sent them to their rooms to put on their pajamas. Mary Jane was having a hard time going to sleep after Peter read them Paddington at the Circus three times. When Della went to tuck her in, she whispered, “My mommy lies down with me sometimes.”
Della grinned and wiped a strand of hair out of her mouth. “Does she?” she said. Then she lay down beside her and pulled the little girl close, relishing the crisp, clean, all-cotton sheets and the cool air from the vent above as it quietly poured down on them.
An hour later Peter gently woke her by massaging her shoulders. Her neck was stiff from squeezing into Mary Jane’s little bed. When she stepped into the lighted hallway, she saw that he had two small fluted cordial glasses of Madeira on the window sill he must have poured from the wet bar in Drew and Lish’s bedroom. He offered her one and nodded toward the third-floor piazza.
Della rubbed her eyes, accepted the glass, and followed him up another flight of stairs onto the porch where she leaned against the rail, surveying the familiar rooftops, chimneys, and gardens of their neighbors. The after-dinner drink was thick and sweet and tasted almost chilled from the cool house. “Mmm,” she said. “Thanks.”
He came quietly up behind her and softly kissed her earlobe. His stubble tickled her neck. “Wanna fool around?”
In the historic beauty and new creature comforts of her grandmother’s refurbished home, Della felt the contrast between her life and her cousin’s. On paper she had what she thought she always wanted—an artist husband who loved her and their child. A truly great man. An inspired and devoted one. And a magnificent-looking guy to boot.
But this eking out a life as a writer and an artist was getting to her. She thought it would be romantic and meaningful and exhilarating, but it had actually turned out to be the opposite. She’d be thirty-eight in a few weeks, and she wanted more children, a house full. And she envisioned her brood attending above-average schools and dwelling in a clean, safe place with bedrooms like Mary Jane’s—coordinated sheets and pillows, Madame Alexander dolls, and that crisp, cool air preserving it all.
Peter, on the other hand, could live this way forever. He loved their life. Their home. The way they made their little living. From the moment she met him, he had not changed. She was the one who had. She didn’t set out to, but it happened, and she couldn’t reverse it now.
When he pecked her shoulder, she froze. He let out a deep breath and cleared his throat. “Worried about your cousin?”
She fibbed with a nod and a “Mmm-hmm.” Della used to tell Peter exactly what was on her mind. He used to be her confidante until she started to wish for another life for her daughter. Now what was on her mind would wound him. Maybe for good. And she couldn’t stop the resentment or the fantasy of what could have been had she not broken things off with Todd to pursue a degree in creative writing. Had she not eyed Peter a year later across the Wells Gallery at the “art walk” while he shook hands with art collectors and posed for pictures for the style section of the paper beneath the beak of one of his enormous copper pelicans. She’d walked right up to the artist and flashed the broad smile that had cost Nana and Papa thousands of dollars at the orthodontist’s to perfect. “Hi,” she’d said, cocking her head. She had eyed the pelican and then the tall handsome man. “Stupefying.”
He had grinned and given her a quick once-over. “Now that’s an adjective you don’t hear every day.”
Now as she felt her husband’s warm breath on the back of her neck, she couldn’t help but think of Todd Jervey, stable and as predictable as the tide. And could she admit it to herself? Yes, financially sound. Why was that such a bad thing to want? It was wrong to think this way. It was dangerous. But it was difficult to stop.
Peter squeezed her shoulders. “Drew called while you were napping and said everything looks good. He predicts she’ll be home tomorrow.” He gently kissed the crown of her head and stepped back. Della looked out into the night. She was sure there were stars to be seen above, but the humidity kept the sky a kind of thick ash gray.
“I woke up,” a groggy little voice behind them called. Della turned to see Mary Jane standing at the top of the stairs in her monogrammed nightgown, rubbing her eyes.
“Coming,” Della handed Peter her half-empty glass and walked Mary Jane down to the second floor, relieved to curl up beside the little girl beneath her pink striped sheets for the rest of the night.