Pulling on the jeans Annabelle had bought me felt downright delicious, if I was going to be honest. It had been so long since I’d actually had a brand-spanking-new pair that I almost didn’t know what to do with myself, and I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would be able to tell just how special I was feeling. I knew it was ridiculous, but it didn’t make it any less true. Now that I’d finally made the decision to wear them and enjoy them, the jeans were giving me a little bit of a confidence boost.
Which, now that I thought about it, had been precisely what Annabelle had intended when she’d purchased them for me. I just had to make that feeling last, once I walked through the door and out into the real world again. Not that I thought that any amount of new clothes could fix what was wrong with me; but I kind of viewed it as an outward step toward what I wanted to accomplish with the bigger part of me, the part of me that so very greatly needed to be reclaimed and redeemed. The part of me that I had to believe could still be pulled from the wreckage.
I finished dressing carefully, taking a moment to appreciate the fact that everything was fresh and new, with none of my old associations attached. I had a clean slate with these clothes, a chance to make new memories in them. Memories that I hoped would become the beginning of my story back to real, true, full life.
Where I would go from here really was up to me.
“Dellie, your cousin’s here!” I heard Grandpa yell at me from down the hall, and I smiled, shaking my head. Some things would never change, I thought. But I was glad of that, in this case. Hopefully, seeing my cousin now, after all this time, would be another marker of me regaining my identity and trying to repair some of the relationships I had allowed to lapse.
I’d called Olivia a few days before, finally doing something I should have done much sooner, right when I’d found out about Grammie and George. It had been too much of a shock at first, though. And even after I’d had a chance to process it all and discuss it with my sister and mom, I hadn’t been sure that it was my place to be the one to tell her, assuming that she’d been as unaware of the whole thing as I had been. According to Uncle Luke, though, Olivia and her brother had a head start on the information. Which now gave me the freedom to talk about it with her, to see if she’d felt as blindsided as I had been.
Had the circumstances been different, I might have been angry about the fact that I’d been kept in the dark, when my cousins had known the story. Admittedly, part of me still felt a little resentment when I’d found out, but the larger part of me understood the reasoning behind it all. Grammie had told them herself—Olivia, at least—at a time in Olivia’s life when she was recovering from a broken heart. She’d wanted her to know how much she understood being hurt and that she wasn’t alone. She had wanted to help her heal.
“Be there in a minute!” I yelled back, taking one last look in the mirror before I left the room to reestablish my connection with my cousin, the girl who had once spent countless hours with me catching lightning bugs and making rings, who’d raided the cookie jar with me on so many summer visits, who’d ridden the carousel with me and been my cohort as we licked bowls and beaters clean of batter when Grammie was finished with a cake. The girl who was now a woman, a single mother who’d been through trials that had made her stronger, inspiring to me in ways that I knew she wasn’t even aware of.
I hoped that I would be able to express that to her now, seeing her again, face-to-face for the first time in a decade.
The phone conversation itself had been a long time in coming. We’d kept loose contact on Facebook, but our once tightly knit relationship had gone the way of so many family associations as we got older and found our places in the world. The many miles between us, distance-wise, didn’t help things, either; but I regretted now not trying harder to maintain our easy friendship. And, admittedly, Olivia was another person in my life that I was hiding from, another person that I was afraid of allowing to see just how little I resembled the Dellie she used to know.
I walked down the hall, taking a deep breath and hoping I was ready for this. True, that phone call had gone a long way, but we were still so out of sync with one another after all this time. I didn’t expect to pick up where we’d left off—once so close—but I did hope that this would be a starting point. And that I could ask for her forgiveness, as well, for not being here at a time when I should have been.
Now she was here, more than halfway through my month-long visit, having driven down from Richmond once she finally had a break in her already overly jammed schedule of juggling work and college courses and single-motherhood. Hopefully it wasn’t an effort she would regret.
I poked my head into the kitchen, no doubt looking tentative. What would she think when she saw me? Would this meeting be awkward, or warm and easy? I could only hope that it would go well, that we would have a chance to talk about things and establish a new connection that would last past this visit.
“Dellie?” Her voice was the same as it had always been, just a bit more mature, bearing telltale traces of her Virginia roots. A voice I had grown up knowing, a voice I hoped would become familiar once again.
“Hi, Olivia!” I said back, wondering if the smile on my face would communicate warmth or reflect the worry I was feeling. I stepped fully into the kitchen and moved forward to embrace her, bridging the gap in between us with each step I took.
“It’s been too long, Dellie!” she exclaimed, wrapping me into a hug. “Much, much too long!”
“It has,” I agreed, squeezing her with emphasis. “I’m so glad I came, though. And I’m so glad you could come down for a visit while I’m here. I was really wanting to see you—I just wasn’t sure it was going to be possible, with everything you’ve got going on.”
“No, no, I thought it was important. We have so much catching up to do, don’t we?” Olivia said, taking a step back to look at me, her eyes searching mine. I took the opportunity to study her as well, noting the changes of the past few years. Her face had matured, of course; but she still had the warm, sweet smile of her childhood, dark blue eyes that twinkled when she laughed, and a thick curtain of dark blonde hair that fell to her jawline. She and I were just about the same height, but her body was wholesome and capable-looking where mine was frail. She was gorgeous, and I hoped that it was something she could see, every time she looked in the mirror.
I nodded. Yes, we certainly did have a lot to catch up on. Not the least of which was how we had both responded to finding out what had happened, once upon a time so long ago.
Grandpa stood watching us, a smile on his face at his girls, back together after so much time apart. “So what are you two planning to do this afternoon?” he asked, still smiling.
Fortunately, we’d made a plan during our phone call, one that would grant us freedom to talk without worrying that Grandpa would overhear us, one that would give us a little bit of privacy and some real time to visit and catch up.
“Nothing big. We’re going to go get some lunch and talk,” Olivia replied, casting a warm smile in his direction. “We were thinking it might be nice to just go wander around downtown and find something that looks good. Any suggestions?” she asked Grandpa.
He thought for a moment. “I can’t rightly say, girls. I don’t really get out much that way to eat, but I’ve heard there’s a cafe there that has some good sandwiches. And there’s a seafood restaurant or two, of course, right on the waterfront.”
Olivia and I both nodded. “Well, we’ll find something, I’m sure,” I said, trying to move things along a little. More than anything, I just wanted to have some time to talk, away from curious ears and prying eyes. Not that I thought Grandpa was nosy or anything, but having a private place to relax into conversation would do us both good.
“You ready, then?” Olivia asked me, reaching for the purse and keys she’d deposited on the kitchen table sometime after her arrival.
“Are you sure you don’t mind us leaving you, Grandpa?” I asked, suddenly feeling somewhat guilty at our abandonment of him, especially since Olivia had only been here for a few minutes.
“Not at all!” he boomed back, wrapping a reassuring arm around me and squeezing. “The two of you haven’t seen each other in a long time. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about, and you don’t need your old grandpa tagging along.” He smiled broadly to let us know he was only teasing. “I’m just happy you get to have a chance to visit—everybody’s always so busy all the time. And besides, I’ve been needing to wash the deck, and this is the perfect time to do it. You two go on and have a nice time, okay?” he said with another squeeze.
I kissed him quickly on the cheek and patted my hand on his solid chest. “Okay. If you’re sure. And don’t worry,” I said with a smile of my own, flicking a glance at Olivia as I spoke, “We’ll do our very best to behave. Wouldn’t want you to have to bail us out of the clink or anything like that, would we?”
His laughter was full-bodied and loud, and I could feel it under the hand I had resting on his chest. “No, we wouldn’t want that. Now scoot, you two!” he said, returning my kiss and releasing me with a gentle push toward the door.
“Okay, okay,” I said over my shoulder with a giggle. “Just let me go back to the bedroom and get my purse, and we’ll be out of your hair.” I turned and made a quick dash, returning after only a minute to follow Olivia out the door after we both gave Grandpa one more farewell hug and kiss.