DELLA
Della stared at a wall of car seats in aisle five of Babies R Us in a North Charleston strip mall. Anne had called earlier that morning and said that she had to stand in for a Sunday bell ringer who was sick.
“No problem. I’ll go,” she’d said to Anne, though in truth she feared she might have an out-and-out breakdown winding her way through the aisles of a baby superstore where all those infants would beam at her from the boxes of merchandise, their Gerber-like faces so perfectly round and sweet.
Della decided not to read about all the bells and whistles of the car seats. She simply bought the most expensive one, which was beige and remarkably bulky, grabbed three different brands of pacifiers, and headed to the checkout without looking one single baby picture (or real-life baby, for that matter) in the eye.
Peter had given his blessing for her to make a morning of it, so she stopped in Starbucks to crank out a chapter of her novel. The manuscript was due to her editor in four short months, and once she started teaching full time, she would rarely have more than thirty minutes in one sitting to work on it. She bought a venti Frappuccino and settled in with her laptop.
It was kind of nice to be off the peninsula on a Sunday. The bells, which Anne described as jubilant, always made Della sad somehow. Sometimes she would even put on Peter’s old Walkman with the Springsteen cassette (stuck there for years) to tune them out. Last week she’d spent a good twenty minutes stomping around the house, screaming, “Born in the U-S-A!” until Cozy walked by with her fingers in her ears.
Just then the guy behind the counter called out, “Is there a Della Limehouse here?” She saw him clutching the receiver to his chest. She blushed, partly because now all of Starbucks knew that she didn’t own a cell phone, and partly because she’d told the man at the counter that her name was Felicia when she ordered her coffee. (She was trying to get into her character’s mind, so she thought she’d try her name out.) She ran over, grabbed the receiver, and pressed her finger to her other ear to block out the jazz music. “Hello?”
“Something’s gone wrong with Lish and the baby,” Peter said from the other end of the line.
“What do you mean?”
“Drew’s beeper went off a few minutes ago. He ran to the car saying something about a crash Caesarian.”
Della could hear Andrew and Cozy squealing in the background. “How many weeks is she?” Peter whispered.
“Thirty-two.”
Now Della let out a deep breath and her stomach turned. She looked out to her car where the fancy car seat rested against her passenger side window.
“I haven’t said anything to the kids,” he said. “You better call Anne and get to the hospital.”
When Della arrived on the fifth floor of MUSC, she found Anne sitting next to Phil Rainey, the head priest from St. Michael’s. They were both still in their vestments, holding hands in a prayer. Drew was in full scrubs and a face mask, pacing in front of the doors of the operating room.
Anne looked up and reached out to grab Della’s hand. “They won’t let him in.”
Della looked at Father Rainey, who used to come to her nana’s house and deliver Communion when Papa was having a tough Sunday. He had given Della her first Communion when she was ten, and he had married her and Peter on a a mild October evening nine years ago. His wife had even sewn Della a tiny, beautiful embroidered day gown when Cozy was born. That had meant a lot to Della. It was something Nana would have done had she been alive. She christened Cozy in it after much pressure from Anne, Lish, and Peter’s folks. Then she tucked the gown away in the bottom drawer of an old bureau, and she had not looked at it (or darkened the door of church) since. She had nothing against this kind, older man. But she did have a bone or two to pick with God.
Lish and Drew were active at the old affluent church of her childhood, and Anne, who inherited Nana’s unwavering faith, had served for a decade as a bell ringer. It wasn’t so much that Della blamed God for her current struggles. (She knew she only had herself to blame for her adult life.) But she did have a lot of questions about her childhood.
In the same way that she couldn’t bear to go to Babies R Us, she couldn’t bear St. Michael’s. She could hardly abide the sight of the beautiful, well-heeled families dressed to the nines and kissing one another on the cheek during the passing of the Peace. Those families seemed whole and content in a way that broke Della’s heart each time she laid eyes on one. She’d had to turn away from Lish’s kitchen window this very morning, even as a couple of these families strolled by on their way to worship as the bells rang out their forlorn toll.
She knew she was both self-centered and pitiful. And she didn’t actually want the church families to be ugly and unhealthy, did she? No, no, no. These were the thoughts that ricocheted around the walls of her mind on Sunday mornings as the bells pealed from the top of the steeple in her exceedingly North of Broad life.
“Good to see you, Della,” Father Rainey said. “I’m sorry it’s under these uncertain circumstances.”
Della nodded. “Me too.” She took a seat by Anne and tapped her foot so fast and furious that Anne had to reach out, hold her knee, and ask, “Trying to wear a hole through the floor?”
Finally, Lish’s young obstetrician walked out of the operating room and lifted his mask above the Phish do-rag he had over his head. There was a swath of dried blood on the back side of his forearm, a spot he must have missed when he scrubbed his arms moments before. Della dragged Anne over toward Drew. The doctor nodded and put his hand firmly on Drew’s shoulder. “Congratulations, Dr. Sutton. You have a new daughter and one hell of a survivor for a wife.”
Drew let out a deep breath and nodded. He looked to Della and Anne and grinned. “Thanks be to God!” Anne clapped her hands together and bounced on the balls of her long feet. Father Rainey shuffled over and patted Drew on the back. “Yes, indeed, son!”
“The pediatrician will meet with you shortly, Dr. Sutton,” the OB said. “The baby is well, but she’ll need to be on a breathing machine for the next few days or so until her lungs are fully developed. And we’re going to have to observe Lish for several hours. She should be waking up any time now.”
Drew stepped back as the baby came out in a warming crib with thin tubes of oxygen stuffed in each tiny nostril. Her pinkish hands were no larger than a benniseed wafer, but they were perfect as a doll baby’s, each with their own little rounded fingernail. Anne gasped and Della swallowed her tears and cheered as two nurses rolled the infant down the hall toward the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Drew walked alongside his infant daughter, his hand clutching the edge of the plastic bassinet.
Della and Anne stood in the hallway as they rolled Lish over to the observation room. Her cousin looked as though she was sound asleep, but her fingers were swollen and her ankles and toes were streaked with dried blood. The two women took a seat by her gurney at the nurse’s invitation and sat for several minutes watching Lish’s chest rise and fall.
Della should call Peter to let him know that he was an uncle again, but she couldn’t move. Neither she nor Anne could stop studying their closest relative and friend who never failed to possess a kind of valor and grace no matter how gritty or challenging the circumstances. While Della and Lish were born a few months apart and (with the exception of grad school) they had always lived less than a ten-minute walk from one another, Della felt as though they inhabited different universes. One of the hardest things about her current struggles was that they were further evidence of what she had suspected since they were adolescents planning their lives beneath Nana’s loquat tree—that Lish’s life was on a trajectory out of her reach. One she was either incapable of possessing or simply didn’t deserve, for a reason she couldn’t or wouldn’t ever know.
“What are you thinking about, Del?” Della turned and realized Anne must have been studying her for a while.
Anne reached out and touched her clenched hands.
Della had written some love poems for a therapist friend who was trying to woo a woman in his yoga class, and he’d given her five free sessions where she’d tried to work out some of what was stirring inside of her. “You know the other day my therapist made me tell him about what it was like for me when your daddy died.”
Anne shook her head. Della and Lish were in second grade and Anne was only in first when Nana delivered the news during a summer swimming lesson at the YMCA.
“I can’t remember a worse day.” Anne bit her lip.
Della nodded. “I remember the visitation, standing in front of the casket. When Nana and Papa entered the room, I ran over and asked Nana to hold me. I wanted to be in her arms so bad.”
“She was everyone’s favorite,” Anne said.
“Yeah.” Della felt her ears redden and she tapped the floor again. “Anyway, Lish pulled me back and held me tight. ‘Let Nana and Papa see their son,’ she’d said. ‘You stand here with me.’ ”
Della looked back at Anne, who was studying her intently. She bit the inside of her cheek and added, “Lish was always showing me things like that—even on the day her own father was being laid to rest—things that I’d never thought of. You know?”
Anne gave Della a sympathetic smile. She just didn’t seem to have the anger or grief that surrounded Della like the humidity itself, thick and stifling. Anne must have made peace with it a long time ago, Della thought.
Yes, Lish had her act together, Della thought, gazing at her cousin with a kind of wonder and curiosity. Lish’s eyes fluttered for a moment before she settled back into her sleep. Her cousin was bright, conscientious, organized, and coolheaded. She knew when to keep her mouth shut, what to keep personal. While Della was usually complaining about her marriage, Lish rarely uttered a negative word about Drew. Was this discretion or satisfaction? Either way, it created a sense of otherworldliness about their marriage. As if it existed on a plane far beyond Della’s.
The truth was, Lish had had her choice of men to marry, and she’d chosen wisely. And now her body had produced three perfect, beautiful children, to whom she was dedicated to loving, teaching, wiping, and feeding day after day.
Della thought back to the sad day of her uncle’s funeral. She had wept more than her cousins combined, and Lish had comforted her, giving her a piece of Dentyne from Nana’s purse.
Drew came in just as Lish began to stir. He rubbed her hair out of her eyes and softly kissed her forehead.
“You did good, baby,” he said. She opened her eyes and rubbed her neck. “How’s the baby?”
“In the NICU, breathing strong. She looks like a Cecilia to me.” Della smiled. She was earnestly happy for Lish and relieved that all had gone well. She loved her cousin deeply despite her inability to stop comparing their lives. She would do anything for her, and she knew the reverse was true.
“Hey, Anne, Del.” Lish looked their way. “I didn’t see y’all there.”
Anne stood and walked over to her sister’s side. “We’re here.” She took her hand. “Congratulations.”
Peter jumped on the Doctors Sublimes’ king-size bed with Andrew, Cozy, and Mary Jane while Della hung the freshly washed and pressed infant day gowns in the nursery. After Della stuffed the last little diaper into the drawer of the changing table, she walked into the master bedroom and leaned against the bedpost. “I’ve got good news, gang! Mama and the baby are coming home this afternoon.”
“Hooray!” Mary Jane said, falling into Peter’s brawny arms. He lifted her upside down and spun her around the room, chanting, “Mama’s coming home! Mama’s coming home!” before he gently tossed her in the center of the bed. Andrew cheered, then took off his pajama top and made the crude sound Peter taught him where you cup your hand in the opposite underarm and pump like a chicken.
“Stop that, man.” Peter chuckled. “Your mama won’t invite us back if she sees you doing that. Let’s save that for when you’re with the guys—your dad or me.”
Andrew allowed himself two more pumps, his two flawless rows of white, square teeth showing in his full-out laugh.
“Why’d you teach him that, Daddy?” Cozy’s hands were on her hips.
He pinched her rosy cheek. “Ah, come on, pumpkin. Loosen up and maybe I’ll show you how.”
Cozy looked at her mama and rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she said.
Peter packed the clothes as Della bathed Mary Jane and Andrew and put them in matching blue gingham sailor outfits—a dress for her and a shorts suit for him. She settled them in front of an episode of Curious George while she continued to straighten up the house.
This used to be Della’s home, the one she shared with Nana and Papa. She had spent every summer here until the ninth grade when Nana persuaded her father to let her move in for good and attend The Pinckney School for Girls. Her father agreed; nothing could persuade him more than education, and he was weary of getting in the middle of the fights between Della and her stepmother.
As for her mother, she was off living the life of a beatnik. Had been ever since Della was in grade school. She secured small fellowships and grants to teach or write all over the world, but the truth was, she spent much of her time experimenting with drugs and searching for a mate who could fund her habits.
When Della’s mother was a senior in high school, she’d spent a year in Paris studying art history before attending college. A group of Columbia University students took her to an inn on the Left Bank that later became known as the Beat Hotel, a haven for young American expatriate painters, writers, and musicians. She met Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs that year, and she became particularly close to a young beat, Gregory Corso, who helped get her first poem published in City Lights. She was now known as one of the few female voices of the time. It sounded implausible, a Charleston girl from South of Broad on the tail end of the beatnik movement. But that’s precisely where she ended up thanks to a little bit of talent, a perspective that was particularly gothic, a spirit of adventure, and something that one could argue is even more potent than the aforementioned three: physical beauty. Not unlike Della, Kate Brumley knew how to woo a man. She was in control of her feminine charms, and she never hesitated to use them to her advantage.
Now Della stood at the large doorway that led to the front piazza and garden. She could recall waiting there for hours for her mother to come for a visit, every six months or so. She’d count raindrops, count cars, count mosquitoes and how many she slapped at as they attempted to nip her arms and legs. Usually her mother was several hours late. Occasionally she didn’t show at all and would phone in the evening, having missed her train or flight. “I can’t make it right now,” she’d tell Nana. “Could Della come up to see me in a few weeks?”
Then Nana would bring two cups of hot tea—Della’s was mostly milk and sugar—out to the front piazza and place them on the wicker side table. She’d pat a place next to her on the joggling board and hand her granddaughter the china cup with the blue Italian scenes of a bridge and a woman carrying a basket of fruit on her hip.
“Something’s come up with your mama,” Nana would say. The little girl would sip the milky sweetness and relax into her grandmother’s soft side. Nana would gently scratch her arms and shoulders with the ends of her fingernails until Della had little goose bumps on each. They’d stay this way for an hour or so, Nana rubbing her back as Della listened to the cacophony of city sounds—cars, trucks, mourning doves, crickets, and restless fenced-in dogs that seemed to chant, “She’s not coming. She’s not coming this time.”
She understood now that Nana was her true mother. She was there for her, and she offered a stable, genteel way of life. Nana provided everything for Della. Love, presence, even financial support. She knew her dad had sent a check each month, but Nana paid the tuition at The Pinckney School, purchased the fine wardrobe, procured the piano lessons, and hosted the grand debutant ball at Hibernian Hall for all three of her granddaughters.
Della wished she could rest against Nana on the joggling board right now. She had more ahead of her than she could manage—a full-time teaching job and a December deadline for her fifth novel, and she was only eighty pages in. The summer was racing by, and she knew there wouldn’t be any time to write when school started. Worst of all, her heart ached for a second child. She’d be thirty-eight next month, and she knew her biological clock was ticking. She and Peter had talked about having two or three, but how? How could they manage and provide?
Suddenly, Mary Jane shrieked and then wailed. Della ran in to see if she was all right.
“Andrew pushed me!” Mary Jane’s cheeks were red and streaked with tears.
Della looked to Cozy, who nodded to confirm the accusation.
Then Peter ran in. He heard the cry all the way from the driveway where he was tying Cozy’s bicycle to the top of the old Prelude.
“C’mon, Andrew.” Peter led him by the shoulders. “Into your room for a while.”
As the Doctors Sublime drove up in their Volvo SUV, Della waved and called to the children. She saw Lish in the back seat retying a bow on the sleeve of Baby Cecilia’s day gown. Drew helped Lish out of the car and gently pulled the baby carrier out. Lish turned toward the piazza and took a deep breath as Andrew and Mary Jane ran toward her. Cozy stayed on the piazza and leaned into Della, who rubbed her back up and down until the goose bumps formed.
“Hold me, Mommy!” Mary Jane lifted up her pudgy little arms to Lish.
“No,” Drew said. “Mommy can’t hold you for a few weeks, remember? She has a boo-boo that will get worse if she lifts anything heavier than the baby.”
Lish bent down and pulled Mary Jane to her and then Andrew. “It’s good to be home. I missed you both so much.”
Della could see tears brimming in Lish’s eyes as she took each of her children by the hand and walked toward her. “How can I ever thank you, Del?”
“Don’t even.” Della flapped her hand and kissed Lish on the cheek. “Rosetta’s got lunch ready, and we’re going to get on out of your hair. Call me when you need a break, and we’ll come pick up the two little monsters.” She pulled back and looked Lish in the eye. “Enjoy this sweet homecoming.”
Lish nodded and Peter shook Drew’s hand before Cozy jumped on his back and they walked toward the car. As Della waited for Peter to check the bicycle, she watched Lish and Drew and their three beautiful children go into their magnificent home, where the table was set and a warm quiche Lorraine and fresh fruit salad were waiting for them on the dining room table.
When they drove up to their home on Radcliffe Street, Della noticed the weeds in the front yard and an unruly vine that had wound its way around the railing of the front steps. A random cat with a severed left ear lounged in the sun at the edge of the rusted screen door. The feline stretched when she saw them pull into the drive and then she slunk down the stairs and beneath the house as they headed toward the door.
Inside it was sweltering hot. Like walking through pudding or the inside of a giant oven. They all ran to Cozy’s room, slammed the door, and turned on the window unit.
“Isn’t it great to be home?” Peter grinned, reached for Della’s waist, and pulled her close.
“Yeah!” Cozy shouted as she fell back on the graying sheets of her bed. They were Della’s childhood sheets. The ones she slept on when she was growing up on Legare Street. When Nana died, she’d intercepted a bag of bedding and towels Lish was packing up for Goodwill. “We could use those,” she’d said.
Now Della literally bit her tongue as a lump formed in the back of her throat. She wanted to grab her child and run back to Legare Street.
She stepped away from Peter.
“Well,” he said. “That shrimp trio is waiting on me out there. I guess I better get back to work.”
Cozy tugged on her mother’s shorts. “Tell me a Binklemeyer story, Mama.” The Binklemeyers were a family Cozy and Della made up a few months ago. They lived in a town called Someplace Small, and Peachy and the kids, Burl and Bernice, walked to the ice cream store and rode their bikes down winding dirt roads that led to the forest where the occasional bobcat and even wild boar had been spotted. Burl had a lisp that made him a little self-conscious, and Bernice, while younger, often acted like a know-it-all (which grated on Burl’s nerves). But all in all they got along pretty well and went on all sorts of jaunts that ranged from the amusing to the harrowing, including a romp through the peach fields, a climb up the local water tower, and a swing on a rope their grandfather had tied to the biggest tree on the edge of a nearby river.
Della nodded, and they curled up together and began their ritual. Cozy started with a line ripe with conflict like “The Day Bernice Lost Her Two-Dollar Bill” and Della worked to fill in a story with Cozy guiding her with a giggle or a “No, no, no. I was imagining something like this . . .” The story could go on for nights, and if it was really good they would act it out after it was finished.
“Okay,” Della said, pulling her close. “Start us off.”
Cozy nuzzled up to Della and nestled in the crook of her neck. She twirled her mother’s thin golden hair around her fingers and squinted her eyes. “Burl Finds a Stray Pup in the Woods.”
Della chuckled. Cozy had been wanting a real live pet ever since Andrew got a Boykin Spaniel last Christmas. She had sat and rubbed the dog’s back whenever she’d had a chance over the last few days, and Della had overheard her asking Andrew if she could take him home for a spend-the-night party.
“I don’t think so,” she’d interceded. “You’ll get a pet one of these days.”
“When?”
“When we have a bigger yard.”
Cozy had put her hands on her lips and shaken her head. Well, if she couldn’t have her pet now, she’d give it to Burl and Bernice and watch them enjoy him in their safe and peachy world.
“Okay,” Della said. “Burl was looking for insects for his science project one autumn afternoon when he heard a whimper coming from the bottom of the hollowed-out tree beyond the gates of the peach field.”
Cozy inhaled and tried to suppress a grin. She gave a nod as if to say, “Go on.”
That night when the house cooled down and Cozy fell asleep, Della sat at the kitchen table writing. After a dinner of frozen pizza, Peter had gone back out to work on his sculpture. They’d already spent the commission money on materials, a new set of tires for the Prelude, and three school uniforms for Cozy. Della could hear the faint scratching sound of a palmetto bug scurrying across the clean dishes that were drying on the rack in the sink, and she wondered how much it would cost to get someone to come and spray.
Her novel was based on a true story about a Latin teacher who was stalked by one of her students, a teenage boy who lived around the corner from her. The woman sympathized with the strange and lonely young boy who was a social outcast, but she would soon learn that he was more dangerous than she had ever suspected.
This manuscript was Della’s second attempt to write a plot-driven novel with commercial appeal in hopes of “earning out” her advance and actually receiving a steady royalty check. She had tried this with the last novel when she wrote about a Charleston socialite who had an affair with her husband’s ne’er-do-well brother, but it became more about the ne’er-do-well and his guilt over betraying his brother. His introspection and his childhood flashbacks took over the book, and Publishers Weekly had called it “character-driven and contemplative.” Words her MFA professors would have applauded but not exactly the ones that stimulate sales. She knew reviews like that might seal her fate as a mid-list author, unable to make a living writing.
Peter came in shirtless with his blue jeans resting low on his hips. Sweat dripped down his neck and across his strapping chest. If she described his body in one of her books, her editor would say, “Yeah, right. Make him more realistic.” He had worked construction to put himself through the Savannah School of Art and Design, and he couldn’t have a better build.
He poured two glasses of water from the kitchen sink and put one by her side. The pipes were warm and the heat from the water clouded the tops of the glasses.
“Hey,” he said. “How’s it coming?”
She hit Save and looked up. “Okay.”
He cleared his throat and talked through his plan to transport the shrimp he was sculpting for a new seafood restaurant in Asheville. They should be ready by the end of next week. His father, a shrimp boat captain in McClellanville, had an extra-long flatbed truck and was usually happy to lend it with enough advance notice.
“The café’s going to put me up at the Grove Park Inn.” He softly clinked his glass against hers. “I was thinking maybe we could drop Cozy off at your dad’s and make a night of it. Maybe go out to dinner, come back to the room, enjoy the mountain air, and see if the five-star springs on the bed work.”
She shifted in her seat. The back of her thighs stuck to the Formica chair. She shrugged her shoulder. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
He took a look around the kitchen, wiped his forehead, and turned back to her. He watched her for several seconds as she typed.
“What’s going on, Del?” He leaned in close and she could see a drop of sweat dripping off of his nose. “You’ve been pouting most of the summer. And you haven’t exactly warmed up to me more than once or twice.”
She exhaled and shook her head. What should she tell him? Either the truth or another lie to get him off her back for a moment.
“I don’t know,” she said. Their windows were open, and she heard two men shouting in the distance; she couldn’t tell if there was anger or elation in their tone.
“I think you do know.” He stroked her hand. His fingers were long and his joints were prominent. There were protruding veins on the tops of his tanned hands that worked their way all the way up to his elbow. “You need to talk to me, baby.”
She rested her pointed chin in her small hand.
“Is it the job? It’s going to be too tough to teach full time and make your deadlines?” He looked around the kitchen. “I don’t see why we can’t move out to Mount Pleasant to a decent public school district. Or even homeschool. My buddy, Tyler, and his wife are doing that, and their kids are already speaking Spanish fluently. They know all about ancient history, and they take these terrific field trips to archaeological digs and stuff.”
“No.” She scowled, then swallowed hard. “If we’re going to give Cozy a decent shot, she needs an exceptional education. Plus, she’s an only child. Only child plus home-school equals socially awkward adult. We’ve got to do right by her.”
“We’re doing right by her,” he said. “We’re here for her. We love her. What’s more important than that?”
Della shook her head.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s brainstorm. See if we can figure something else out.”
“I want another baby.” She pursed her lips. “How are we gonna figure that out?”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “Della, things are tough right now. We’re in a recession. Let’s give it a year or two and see where we are.”
“I’m running out of time, Peter.”
“You’re thirty-seven.”
“I’ll be thirty-eight in August. The risks go up significantly after that. Also, it’s not as easy to get pregnant.”
“We’ll give it a good try.” He leaned in to her and nuzzled his damp forehead against hers. He smelled like salt and burnt copper. “Hey, I’ve got a thought. We can start practicing now.”
She pulled away and looked at the computer screen. Then she started to type again as a car with a booming bass zoomed by.
He downed his water and cleared his throat. He watched her until she looked up at him.
“Things have been tough for too long now, and I’m tired of waiting,” she said. “I feel like we’ve been waiting for our careers to take off since before we were married. I’ve stepped out and taken on work that wasn’t ideal. What about you? I think we need to face reality.”
Peter pulled on his fingers until his knuckles popped. “Della, I love what I do.” He rubbed his bleary eyes and met her gaze. “You used to love what I do too. What do you suggest? That I start selling insurance? That I get my real estate license? That I try to get into med school with an art degree? What?”
“Insurance,” she said and her voice gained strength. “Insurance would be dandy, Peter. My friend Michelle’s husband sells life insurance, and they live in a roach-free house with air conditioning. They go to the dentist every six months. They take vacations where you buy a new bathing suit and get on an airplane. They drive a car that was bought after 1989!”
She took a sip of her water and slammed it down. “They have three children who they clothe and feed and educate. They have a backyard in a decent neighborhood, and a jungle gym and a dog and a membership to a swimming pool!”
He turned away from her and looked out at the window. “So that’s what you want now?”
She held her head in her hands and didn’t answer. Yes, she thought. That’s what I want now. The nuclear family life. Heck, it could be at the end of a cul-de-sac in a cookie-cutter suburb. She didn’t care! Why had she abhorred that life before? What a holier-than-thou artiste she had been before she had a child! How shortsighted. How unrealistic. How lacking in pragmatism. She was sick of it. Her life. Sick to death of it.
When she thought he was asleep, she climbed into bed next to him.
He was in his boxers, face up in the bed. It was too hot for sheets.
She lay quietly down and rolled away on her side.
“I don’t understand it, Della.” His face was outlined by the street light pouring through the open window and the sheen of perspiration.
“Mmm?” She turned back slightly.
He propped his head on his elbow. “Why it is that you suddenly act as though you’ve been gypped?”
He waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. He sat up, slid on his shorts and flip-flops, and walked steadily out of the room and onto the back porch, where he flicked on the light and started to work again.
She closed her eyes, too tired to call him back, too confused to deny his supposition. She heard the scrape of his crimper against the copper. It formed a steady rhythm above the sounds of the city on a humid summer night—a horn in the distance, muffled voices, the click of a rusty bicycle chain as a stranger pedaled along the crumbling sidewalk.
In minutes, she was asleep.