DELLA
November 25, 2008
“Where’s Mr. Pickles, Mama?” Cozy asked. She was eagerly packing her overnight bag with her favorite pajamas and her toothbrush and her stuffed lobster that reminded her of one of her daddy’s sculptures.
Cozy was becoming a good reader, and she couldn’t wait to show her grandfather. She was only going for three nights, but she’d packed four of The Magic Tree House books she checked out at the library and one of the Frog and Toad books that she had read ten times over the last twenty-four hours.
It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and tomorrow Della would drive Cozy halfway to the upstate, where she’d meet her Pop Pop and her step-grandmother, who simply liked to be called Sue, and they’d head on back to Pop Pop’s house at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains where they’d build a fire and roast marshmallows right in the living room.
Della came in with Mr. Pickles, the well-worn blanket Cozy had slept with since she was an infant. Over the last couple of years, Della had patched up two of the blanket’s rips with Nana’s old sewing machine. One of the patches looked like Pac Man or the main character of Shel Silverstein’s story The Missing Piece. The other one looked like a pickle—a rectangle with two rounded edges at the top left side of the blanket.
“Do you think you’re getting a little old for Mr. Pickles?” Della tossed the blanket to Cozy, who embraced it, found the pickle-shaped spot, and rubbed it against her cheek.
“Never!”
Della had reservations about sending Cozy to her dad’s for the holiday. She’d had some tough run-ins with her stepmother growing up, but Sue seemed to have mellowed over the years, and Della’s daddy, a gentle (if not timid) soul, was absolutely crazy about Cozy. This would be the second year Cozy had begged to let her go. Last year Della agreed, because she had been desperate to have a little time to meet her book deadline. And it all went well. This year, she planned to meet Todd Jervey at The Woodlands, a fivestar inn tucked away in the forest outside of Summerville where they would consummate what had started with a lunch date at Blend a few months ago. Peter would be working double shifts at the carriage company. This was a busy tourism week in Charleston, and Della had told him she’d received a scholarship to a writer’s retreat where she could finish the final chapters of her novel, which was due December 1st.
“Okay,” he’d said last week when she spelled out the plan. “After work on Thanksgiving, I guess I’ll drive over to see my parents in McClellanville.” He shook his head and looked at Cozy. “Man, what a lonely holiday.”
His words had bothered Cozy so much that on Sunday she set the table with her parents’ wedding china and begged Della to cook a turkey breast. Thankfully, Della found one on special at the Piggly Wiggly, and she baked it and made some rice and gravy, and they ate when Peter came home around eight that evening.
“See, Daddy,” Cozy had said. “We’re just having our dinner early. That’s all.”
Lish’s Thanksgiving invitation to Della’s family had been retracted a couple of weeks ago. After a parent at school told Della what had happened in church, Della went by 18 Legare the very next afternoon to see about her cousin. Just as she was pulling up, Drew intercepted her in the driveway and nearly kept her out.
“Della,” he said. “I know you mean well, but Lish needs some time to herself right now. She’s making strides every day, and the more rest she has, the better.”
“I haven’t seen her in almost two months.” Della crossed her thin arms and looked him fiercely in the eye. “She’s my family, Drew. Can’t I lay eyes on her?”
Just then Mary Jane and Andrew had come barreling out of the house. They’d run up to Della and squeezed her tight. She had lifted both of them up in her arms and spun them around.
“Where’s Cozy?” Andrew said. He peered behind her toward her old car.
“She’s on a play date with one of her classmates.” She brushed a thick dark curl out of Andrew’s eye. “I have to pick her up in a little while. I just came by to check in on your mama.” She bent down and rested her hands on her knees so that she was eye to eye with her nephew. “How’s she doing?”
Andrew shrugged. “She’s fine.” Drew came up behind him and grabbed his shoulder.
Mary Jane tugged at Della’s hand. “Did you know we’re moving, Cousin Del?”
“No,” she said, looking back to Drew.
Mary Jane grinned, happy to be the one to divulge the big news. “Yes, we’re moving to Atlanta, Georgia . . . right, Daddy?”
Della squinted her eyes. She knew Lish didn’t want to move. She tried not to sound devastated. “When?”
Just then she heard the screech of the big oak door. Lish walked out slowly with a half smile on her face. “Hi, Della,” she said before clutching the rail and moving slowly down the steps, one pale bare foot at a time.
Della went to her cousin and embraced her. Her hair smelled like something sweet and clean, like a ripe apple, and her face was made up even though she was still in her nightgown. “I’m glad to see you.”
Della pulled back and searched her cousin’s eyes. They seemed more dull than usual, or maybe it was serene. She couldn’t quite place the look.
“Come in,” Lish said. “Have some tea.”
The house was immaculate except for a small corner of the room where Andrew was building something narrow and tall with a zillion little Lego pieces. The air smelled of roasting chicken and Febreze and that old musty house stench.
Lish wore a subdued smile as she watched the children play with the Legos. Mary Jane was trying to feed one of the small black blocks to her Madame Alexander doll, the one dressed up like Little Red Riding Hood, while Andrew added another layer to his tower.
Within minutes Rosetta brought Della a cup of hot tea on a tray with a bowl full of sugar and a pitcher of cream. Drew sat down on the ottoman opposite them and showed Della the article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about his MUSC research team moving to the CDC.
Della studied Lish, who maintained her dull smile and nodded her head. She turned to Della for a moment. “Isn’t it exciting?” she said.
Della took a sip of tea. It was hot, and she winced. “Yes.” She put the teacup back in its delicate saucer. “And very unexpected.”
Lish raised her eyebrows as the baby began to cry somewhere upstairs. “We’ll be back in a few years. Right, Drew?”
He laced his hands together and nodded. “Yep. We just couldn’t pass this opportunity up.”
Della watched Rosetta carry a bottle upstairs. She repositioned herself on the couch and addressed Lish. “When will you go?”
“I have to be there December first,” Drew said. He reached for the article and put it on the bookshelf. “Lish and the kids will come in the spring.”
Della looked at Lish, who now seemed weary as she studied her fingers with her eyes half open. She tilted her head slowly to the side as if what Drew said was something she needed to ponder in order to accomplish. She swallowed hard and looked at him. “That’s right.”
They sat there and made small talk for twenty minutes or so before Della stood and said, “Well, I’ve got to pick Cozy up. Will you walk me to my car, Lish?”
Drew cleared his throat, and Lish slowly stood and followed Della to the car.
When they made it down the stairs and out into the driveway, Della turned to her, squeezed her hand, and said, “Are you really okay?”
Lish nodded. Her eyes seemed clouded. Like an invisible film was over them. She looked beyond Della at something in the street. “It’s taken longer than I thought, but I’m getting there.”
Then she turned back to Della with the faintest glint in her eye. “These pills make me feel sluggish. That’s the tough part.” She nodded as if she was listening to a reassuring voice in her mind. “But I’ll get to taper off of them soon.”
Della hugged Lish and put her lips to her ear. “You get in touch with me if you need anything, okay?” She squeezed her even tighter. “I’m here for you like always.”
Lish pulled back carefully, but she held onto Della’s arms as if she needed them for balance. Then she looked down at her bare feet. “I don’t think I can manage Thanksgiving this year.” She looked back up to Della. “Would it be too awful if I took back the invitation?”
Della chuckled. “No, of course not. Don’t give it a second thought.” She patted her cousin’s arm and waited for her to say more. They stood this way for several minutes, with Lish steadying herself by holding on tight to Della’s arms. When Drew walked out on the piazza and started to pace, Della leaned in again and kissed Lish’s cheek. “We’ll talk more soon.”
Then she let go of her arms, climbed in her old car, and drove out of the driveway wondering how she could see Lish again, in private. She would wait until Drew moved in a few weeks. Then she’d be able to get the full scoop and assess her cousin’s condition.
When she turned onto Meeting Street and spotted a bell ringer in vestments heading into St. Michael’s for practice, she was overcome by a sense of grief. She missed Anne (though Della was the very one who had pushed her to go), and now Lish was leaving in a few short months. There would be no more Saturday get-togethers with their tightknit threesome, no more walks along the beach, no more Nana’s house or the loquat tree to remember their shared childhood. Her cousins were her best friends. They kept her on track. They were like sisters and mothers all rolled into one, and now they both seemed very far way. It was a sad and awful realization (their absence in her daily life), and it would take a long time for her to get over this painful change.
That was three weeks ago, and Della had e-mailed and called Lish every few days with no response. (She was counting down the days until Drew took off so she could have a real conversation with her.) Truth was, she had enough on her plate right now. She was ready to seal this deal with Todd and get her life on a new path.
She worried about Peter, but she knew this was best for him. He loathed driving the carriages, and she saw on his bureau the other day a schedule for an electrical engineering course he had signed up for at Trident Technical College. And his father, a big, lovable salty dog from McClellanville, had invited him to work with him on the shrimp boat next summer.
“I’m open,” Della had heard Peter say. “We’ve got to find a way to bring in more income, Dad.”
An incident last week reaffirmed Della’s decision to solidify her new relationship with Todd. It had to do with a school field trip they had to tell Cozy they couldn’t afford. The Pinckney School’s science teacher was coordinating an optional (but strongly encouraged) “Sea Turtle Camp” at Kiawah Island during the first weekend in December. It involved spending two nights at the swanky beach-front inn, a tour of the sea turtle hospital, and a private viewing of a release of a fully rehabilitated sea turtle into the ocean.
Nearly all of Cozy’s classmates had signed up. It cost $550 and there was no way they could swing it. Della dreaded having to tell her daughter. She had tried to find a way to make it work, but Peter said, “We can’t, Della. We can hardly make the mortgage payment this month. Let me talk to her.”
Della stood in the doorway of Cozy’s room as Peter walked over to where the little girl was on her belly on her bed reading Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia.
“Sweetheart.” Peter took a seat on her bed.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Mama and I need to talk to you about something.”
She sat up, put the “I can read now!” bookmark the school librarian had given her in the center of the book and placed it on her pillow.
“Okay.” She rubbed her eyes.
“It’s about the turtle camp.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. Her eyes widened. “Miss Jackson is organizing it. Most of my class has already signed up.”
He stroked his broad chin, then reached out to hold her hand. “The thing is, Cozy, we’re not going to be able to send you this year.”
The little girl looked to Della, who had said, “We’ll see,” when she brought home the brochure in her homework folder a month ago.
She looked down at her book and rubbed her fingers over the plastic shield the library slides on all of their hard-covers. Then she nodded. “Okay.”
Peter swallowed, tilted his head, and examined her. He peered out of her window into the dark street and squinted his eyes.
“Hey, but I’ve got an idea.” He looked to Della and winked as Cozy lifted her head.
“What?” the little girl said.
“You remember Daddy’s old johnboat?”
“The one in the shed?” She started to bounce gently on the bed.
“Yeah.” He patted her knee. “That’s the one.”
She nodded and wrinkled her brow. “It’s got a hole in it.”
“Yeah, but I think I can patch it up with a little fancy metal work.” He put his forehead next to hers. “What do you say I take the day off next Saturday, and you and me and your mama take a boat ride over to Capers Island? We’ll do a little fishing and look for porpoises. Heck, maybe we’ll see a sea turtle on our way.”
She lifted her little eyebrows, smiled, and looked at Della.
“Yeah!” she said. She turned to him. “Can we pack a picnic?”
“Sure we can.” He grinned and turned to his wife. He swept his hand across his forehead as if to say Whew as Cozy stood up and started jumping on the bed.
“Can we bring some fried chicken, Daddy?”
“Yep.” He stood on the little bed and bounced with her. “And some chips and soda!”
“Grape soda?” She grabbed his hands, and they jumped together in time.
“Any flavor you want,” he said.
She squeezed his waist. “That sounds great, Daddy!”
Della smiled. How easy it was to persuade her little girl at age six. But it might not be so good for her the Monday after the turtle camp when all the girls talked about their experiences and watched the slide show in the lower school courtyard. And it certainly wouldn’t be this easy as Cozy grew up and continued to go to play dates in magnificent homes where housekeepers, cooks, and full-time nannies brought in as much in a week as either she or Peter. It wouldn’t be near as easy then.
As Della and Cozy drove to the halfway spot just south of Columbia on Interstate 26, Cozy drew on her sketch pad with her colored pencils while Della worried about the “check engine” light that lit up on her dashboard as soon as they hit the highway. Before she had a chance to fret too much, Cozy said, “How about a Binklemeyer story?” Della nodded as the engine icon faded in and out. They told a long and winding Burl and Bernice Binklemeyer story that started with the line “Burl and Bernice Visit Their Crazy Uncle on His Farm in Illinois.”
It began with a flight to Chicago that Bernice nearly missed because she refused to board the connecting flight after she discovered that her lucky marble had disappeared from the little zipper pocket on the inside of her carry-on bag.
She’d had it when they ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A in the airport food court, and she didn’t want to leave Charlotte International until she found it. Cozy’s eyes widened from the back seat when Della described how Burl had to grab Bernice by the back of her sweatshirt and drag her onto the airplane, kicking and screaming.
Then Cozy squealed with joy when the flight attendant helped Bernice double-check her carry-on bag only to discover that there was a small hole in the little zipper pocket and the marble was actually sitting on top of Bernice’s carefully folded purple-and-pink-striped underwear.
“That was a close one!” Cozy said as they puttered down the highway. The engine of the old Honda rumbled when it exceeded sixty miles an hour, and Della had had to tell the story at such a loud volume that her throat now ached.
She looked in the rearview mirror at her daughter and smiled. She thought of her own father driving her down the very same highway to meet Nana. How she could hardly sit still on the trip and how when she saw her Nana’s white Cadillac parked at the edge of the filling station, her heart would beat wildly inside the little cage of her chest, and she knew that for the next several days she would be held and sung to and walked around the High Battery as the soft, thick harbor air lifted her thin golden hair off of her cheeks.
Della’s childhood had been a sad and frustrating one, with the exception of her time with Nana in Charleston. From an early age, she’d had a vision of what a family was supposed to be, and she knew that hers wasn’t it. Every time her mama had come to see her, she thought she could persuade her to stay. Secretly, she had hoped her mama would be sorry and her daddy would be, too, and that they might somehow come together and form the kind of family Della read about in her favorite childhood books—the Browns from the Paddington series, the Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie, the Quimbys from the Ramona books, and the Johansens from Number the Stars.
Now as she pulled off the exit, she watched Cozy scanning the parking lot of the McDonald’s until she spotted her Pop Pop and Sue sitting in their burgundy Toyota Prius. Pop Pop started to wave and Sue let out a tight grin as Della’s old Honda came rumbling to a stop.
“Let me out! Let me out!” Cozy called, and as soon as Della opened the door, Cozy bounded into her Pop Pop’s arms. “I can read now!” she said. “I brought four books, and I can read them all to you while we roast marshmallows.”
He held her tight and rocked her back and forth. “That sounds great, pumpkin.”
Sue gave Della the once-over, then looked at the old car. “That thing is a wonder, isn’t it? Who’d have thought it would still be running after twenty years?”
“Hi, Sue,” Della said. She squinted her eyes and noted her stepmother’s ever-widening midsection paunch. “You look great.”
Sue cocked her head and crossed her arms. Just before she sent a sharp comment back, Cozy leapt into her arms and she softened a little. She returned Cozy’s embrace, then let her gently down before straightening out her pressed oxford blouse.
Della’s daddy kissed her on her forehead. “How are you doing, sweetie?”
He didn’t ask her about her writing. It was a subject they steered clear of around Sue, who was still angry about Della’s first book, a coming-of-age novel featuring a grumpy stepmother as one of the primary antagonists. Even Della had to admit (only to herself, of course) that the character did bear a striking resemblance.
“I’m all right.” She tousled Cozy’s hair. “I’m going to miss this little girl, though. We’re never apart for three whole nights, are we?”
Cozy flapped her away. “Oh, Mama, we were last year, remember?”
Della smiled. She tapped her finger on her chin as if to look back in time. “I guess you’re right.” She leaned over and kissed her daughter on the forehead. “We were, and I survived, somehow.”
Cozy giggled and hugged her mama.
“Well, we’ll see you Saturday?” her father said. “Same place, same time?” He took Cozy by the hand, and she dragged him toward the car.
“Yeah,” Della said. She handed Sue the suitcase and Mr. Pickles and the stuffed lobster.
“Be a good girl,” she called to Cozy, who was already being buckled into the back seat of her Pop Pop’s car.
“Have you heard of The Magic Tree House series?” she heard her daughter ask.
When Della got home, she packed her own overnight bag, including a black silk dress she’d had since college and a faux silk nightie she bought at Target last week. Tonight she would clean the house and wash the linens, and then in the morning she’d head to the library where she’d pound out the last chapter of her book before meeting Todd at The Woodlands in the afternoon.
She was at the point where she had no idea if her book was any good or not. Her chapters were getting longer as she had to tie up so many loose ends, and she didn’t even get to some of the places she’d hoped to go after the murder— the courtroom, the prison, the congressional floor where they would introduce new legislation regarding stalking and law enforcement-to-victim notification before a stalker was released from prison. The story had a lot of potential, but she just couldn’t flesh it all out and make her deadline. It looked like it would end with the inevitable murder in the last chapter—a pretty morose conclusion, even by her standards.
When Peter came home in his Confederate uniform, his walkie talkie still clipped on the outside of his right pocket, he asked, “Coz get off all right?”
“Yeah,” she said. He examined her suitcase in the hall. “And where are you off to?”
Didn’t she tell him this? She took a deep breath. “A writing retreat, remember? I’m going to finish the book there.”
He nodded. “We can afford that?”
“It’s free.” Her voice was flat, even spiteful. She didn’t like how she talked to him, but it was hard for her to stop herself. “I applied and was accepted, remember?” She raised her eyebrow, turned back to the bathroom, and poured the Food Lion version of Comet into the rusting toilet bowl.
He took off his cap and tossed it on the kitchen table. “I’m beat.” He pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and deposited it beside his cap. “Take what you need for your trip.”
Then he grabbed a beer and headed out to the back steps, where he surveyed the backyard and shed. He’d been patching up the johnboat for days now. He walked over to it, lifted the tarp off of the rust hole, and lit his blowtorch.
As she scrubbed the grime off of the old toilet bowl, she thought back to her conversation with Todd a few weeks ago.
“Are you sure about this?” he’d said. They were at Kudu Coffee House, looking at the room choices of The Woodlands online. They had only managed to see each other for small chunks of time since they’d reconnected. Both of their schedules were crowded. They’d managed a lunch break here and a walk around the Med U. there, but that was it. This would be the first time they would be alone together for several hours at a time, not to mention a whole night.
He had turned to her. She knew he wasn’t asking about the accommodations. He was asking about their going away together. It was a big step. One you couldn’t take back.
She had felt as if she was on autopilot. The decision had been made months ago, and there was no need to rethink it again. Her child was in need, her biological clock was ticking, and she and Peter were barely scraping by. She gently tapped his foot with her own, studied the rim of his glasses before looking him in the eye. “Very,” she had said. He had leaned forward and discreetly squeezed her knee one quick time.
As she finished her last chapter, she didn’t have the sense of relief she usually had at the close of a novel. The book didn’t feel right in so many ways, but she had no time (not to mention any idea) of how to change it. She headed out of the library parking lot, into the Honda, and out to The Woodlands. Todd, who was on his way back from a group home in rural Georgia where he was conducting one of his research studies, would meet her there.
As she drove down I-26 and then through Summerville, she thought of the last time she’d made a trip out to The Woodlands. It was the weekend that Todd proposed to her more than a decade ago. They’d had dinner at the award-winning restaurant in the inn and then on a walk through the back gardens, he’d gotten down on his knee and opened a small, black velvet box containing a large sapphire flanked by two diamonds set in platinum.
She had felt like an actress in a play that day. She had gasped, cupped her hand around her mouth, and presented her left hand just like she had seen so many other women do in movies and television shows and even in a few cheesy beach reads she’d succumbed to during her teenage summers.
“Yes,” she’d said, and as he slid the ring on her finger, a bee stung her ankle. “Ouch!” She jumped back and reached toward her sandal. She’d mistaken the sting for a bad omen. Looking back now, she chuckled at her immaturity. It was just a bee sting. Why did she have to analyze everything so much?
Of course, she would never say that she regretted marrying Peter. Too much good had come out of their union. And they had given it their all; it just wasn’t enough. They had tried to make it, and the world seemed stacked against them. It was that simple.
Now as she drove slowly down the winding roads and then the dirt path that cut through the pine trees toward the inn, she spotted Todd’s car—the sporty BMW convertible at the edge of The Woodlands’ circular driveway. There was a space right next to him, and she pulled into it and cut off the engine.
She glanced up at the grand house and was surprised to see him, his back turned to her. He was perched on the railing of the upstairs porch of the suite they had picked out together. He was looking out over the back garden as he pinched the crystal stem of a full glass of red wine.
Now she examined him, his tall, thin frame repositioning itself on the railing, his strawberry blondish/gray hair and his freckled neck with the crisscross of wrinkles from age and sun exposure now forming across it. He adjusted his posture as if his mother has just scolded him and breathed slowly in and out. Then he brought the glass of wine to his lips.
Della’s palms were sweaty and her heart was beating fast. She watched a young couple come out of the front door hand in hand and noticed a churning in the pit of her stomach. The couple slid into their sleek car and drove off.
Now Della examined her dank palms and rubbed them on the side of her blue jean skirt. Was she nervous? Guilty? Fearful? Yes, she thought. All of the above. It was like the moment before she and her cousins dared one another to jump off of the highest limb of the loquat tree in Nana’s backyard. Something in her said, Don’t think, just do it, and she knew this was what she should do now. Don’t think, just put one foot in front of the other and walk up to that suite, and in no time you’ll land on the soft ground of Nana’s garden without a scratch.
She reached into her back seat and pulled out her suitcase. Below it, she noticed a crumpled piece of paper from Cozy’s sketch pad. She reached for it, opened it up, and took in what her daughter had drawn on the way to meet her grandfather.
It was a picture of Cozy and Peter and Della in the patched-up johnboat, holding hands, with a sea turtle and several small fish swimming in the water beneath the boat. There were clouds, a couple of pelicans, and a bright yellow heart directly above the boat with rays of light surrounding it as if the heart was the sun. On the back of the picture she had written, “Famly bote tip by Cozy Limehouse.”
Della looked at the words and then back at the picture. In it, she had a brick-red smile shaped like a crescent moon that took up most of her face. And so did Peter. This was how Cozy saw her parents, or how she wanted to see them anyway. And there was Cozy herself, right in between her mom and dad with a pink round O for a mouth and a bubble above her that read, “Look! A trtle!”
Della didn’t know how long she stared at the wide smiles on her face and Peter’s, her heart racing, her palms sweating.
Suddenly she felt a gentle squeeze on her shoulder and then a light peck at her neck. She turned around and looked up at Todd. She folded the picture over.
“You okay?” He smiled gently down on her.
“No.” She shook her head. She tucked the paper in the outside pocket of her suitcase and looked up to him. “I can’t do this, Todd.”
He studied her face for whole seconds. Then he squinted his eyes and let out a muffled groan, and she knew that he fully comprehended what she was saying. “Not again, Della.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve had this thing all wrong.” She leaned back against the car and crossed her arms. “This isn’t what I want, and it’s not what’s best for my family. Or for you, for that matter.”
He took a step back and bit his lip. Whole minutes passed as he kicked at the gravel between their cars. When he looked up, he said, “I don’t like it.” He inhaled and exhaled deeply. “But I can’t fully understand what it’s like to be in your shoes.”
She blew a loose strand of hair out of her eyes, rubbed her sweaty palms together. “It wasn’t right the first time, and it’s not right this time.” She took a deep breath. “It will happen for you, Todd. I know it will.” He crossed his arms and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe.”
Then she slipped back into the Honda, smirking at the squeaky sound it made when she sat down. She quickly put the car in reverse and puttered out of the gravelly driveway, leaving dust and her old beau and the five-star inn behind.
It didn’t take long for her to find a parking place on the outskirts of the downtown market just off Hassell Street. She jumped out of the car and raced over the cobblestones with just her keys in her hand until she reached the center of the market, where she immediately spotted Peter sitting in an empty carriage in front of the basket weavers, waiting for his turn to load up.
He didn’t notice Della coming up behind his carriage as he lifted the cap off of his head and wiped his sweaty brow with his forearm. He looked around and nodded at the passersby. Then he leaned forward to straighten the reins.
“Welcome aboard,” he said without turning around as he reached out his hand.
She put her hand in his and let him pull her up onto the carriage, where she took her seat beside him as he slowly turned around.
“Hey.” He scratched his chin. “What are you doing here?”
She seized his strong, wide, calloused hands and looked into his dark eyes as the carriage in front of him loaded up and pulled out into North Market Street.
“I haven’t been gypped.” She felt the lump in her throat rising. “I haven’t been gypped at all, Peter.” She tried to hold back the tears. “But you have.”
He watched the wetness form in her eyes.
She swallowed. “I’ve gypped you countless times, and you know it.” She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. “I don’t deserve you, but I honestly want to make this work. And I can start by treating you the way you deserve to be treated.” She leaned back and took a deep breath. “I hope you’ll let me make it up to you, Peter.”
A half grin formed across his face. Then his eyes softened, and he pulled her close with all of his might. She squeezed his broad chest and rested her head in the nook of his neck. He smelled like Peter—a combination of metal, perspiration, and sunscreen. It was the smell of her husband. The man she loved. The man she had married and promised to honor.
She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Thank you.”
He reached up and rubbed her cheek with his warm hand. “It’s been tough on you, Della. I know it’s been tough. But we’re going to get through this rough spot. We’re going to make it, and we’re going to add to our brood and do the best we can for them. I promise.”
He pulled her to him. “Stick with me, okay? Trust me.”
She cherished the feel of him in her arms. She nodded into his chest. “I will.”
He lifted up her face and kissed her until some older gentleman ambling by tapped the side of the carriage and said, “Take that gal for her own private tour.”
“Great idea, sir,” Peter said. He lifted the reins of his horse and pulled out, heading into North Market and turning left on Church Street.
Della stood up beside him, and he put his arm tightly around her hips. Then he took a right onto Cumberland and a left onto Meeting Street and guided the horse by The Wells Gallery, where they had met for the first time, and then up Queen Street and down King to the High Battery where he had leaned in to kiss her the very next night after watching the reflection of the moonlight on the harbor. They took a left on East Bay Street and another left on Broad and drove right by St. Michael’s Episcopal Church at the center of the city, where they’d exchanged their vows on a temperate October afternoon more than nine years ago as the old bells pealed and the sun blazed a reddish pink before setting behind the steeples and slanted chimneys and slate rooftops of the Holy City they loved.