16

AFTER A NIGHT IN A HOTEL in Loris, South Carolina, Ella was surprised at how excited she was to see her great-aunt Delilah. How had she gone this long without meeting her? Ella picked at the continental breakfast in the lobby of the hotel, which was just as well since it was mostly all carbohydrates with a bowlful of overripe bananas for the health-conscious.

Finally it was time to drive over to The Pines Health & Rehabilitation. Ella was afraid it would be one of those sad nursing homes where the smell of disinfectant couldn’t quite overcome the odor of desperation. She was pleasantly surprised when they pulled up in front of what looked like a plantation house with white columns out front and wide verandas leading out to paved paths through azalea and camellia beds. The camellias were blooming and it all looked so very Southern. Ella almost expected a woman to sweep out the front door in hoop skirts and a broad-brimmed straw hat.

Instead, there was a woman in street clothes to greet them from the front office and orderlies in scrubs moving among the gray-haired residents with their wheelchairs and walkers. And the place smelled like baby powder. Ella smiled, glad that Delilah lived in such a pleasant environment.

Holly, the woman who’d greeted Ella and Aunt Sadie at the door, led them through the facility while pointing out features along the way. They passed the dining hall, a day room with half-finished puzzles and game tables, a courtyard with roses, and a chapel. As they approached Room 117, laughter bubbled out into the hall. Ella caught herself grinning—it was such a happy sound she couldn’t help herself. Just then a stream of little girls in Brownie uniforms poured through the door, splitting and ebbing around them with giggles and chatter. A woman with brown hair in a ponytail, wearing a vest with a name badge and pins, was obviously trying to wrangle the group.

“Girls, line up a minute,” she called over the din.

Little bodies formed two lines as though this were a regular request, although their obedience did little to quiet the hall.

“Phew. Sorry about that. We didn’t mean to overwhelm y’all. Are you here to see Miss Delilah?”

“We are. She’s not too worn out for visitors, is she?” Sadie stood up a little straighter.

“I’ve never seen her ‘worn out,’ and as best I can tell, visitors give her energy. It’s as if the children fill her tank.” She laughed. “Though goodness knows they empty mine.” She turned a stern eye on a tussle in the middle of the far line. “Lovell, you leave Maddie alone.” She returned her attention to their little group. “Lovell is Delilah’s great-grandniece—she always gets a little sassy when we come over here.”

Ella looked at Lovell with interest. A pretty child with light hair and sparkling blue eyes, she did appear to be a handful. Ella calculated her relation to the child and settled on cousins of the third or fourth order. The leader wished them a good visit and moved to the head of the lines to march her cackling crowd toward the front entrance. They left a happy feeling in their wake.

Ella had some idea that her great-aunt would be a wizened old woman with snowy hair. She’d seen pictures of a young Delilah who looked sophisticated with her dark hair and beautiful clothes. She had the feeling Delilah would be a bit proper, the sort of woman who knew which fork or spoon to use no matter how many surrounded her dinner plate.

Then Ella saw her aunt and stifled a gasp. The woman in the rocking chair near a sunny window looked, well, her looks were contradictory. The hands folded in her lap over a brightly colored fleece blanket were knobby and veined. And her face was wrinkled, though not as much as Ella would have expected for a woman well into her nineties. But her hair. It was still as dark as it was in any of the photos Ella had seen, shiny and recently styled. It was thinner—she could see the scalp through a crown of hair—but otherwise it appeared much the same as it had in those photos from fifty years ago.

Delilah opened her arms wide. “Sadie—Holly told me you were coming, but I hardly believed it could be true. I’d say you look just the same, even though it’s been . . . what, forty years? Oh, my dear, time will have its way with us.”

Sadie laughed and leaned into Delilah’s arms. “I seem to remember Robert saying it was better than the alternative.”

“Yes indeed,” Delilah said with a chuckle. “That man had an answer for everything.”

Ella was surprised at the strength of Delilah’s voice and how clear her mind appeared to be. They pulled chairs over and settled in for a chat. It was a small room, but comfortable with the bed in one corner of the living space, a bathroom, and even a kitchenette.

Ella was content to soak up the conversation as her aunts reminisced. It was fun to hear a new perspective on everything from her grandparents’ romance to Sadie’s growing-up years. She especially enjoyed a story about Sadie curing a child’s earache with fermented grape juice.

“You weren’t much more than five years old and you had more sense than the rest of us put together,” Delilah laughed. “Of course, you made an awful mess and you caught me out with wine in the house.”

Ella felt like she was part of a larger story than she had realized. Maybe she’d been so focused on the places that contained her history that she’d lost sight of the people who lived there. She decided she’d be more intentional about asking questions and unearthing stories about her family. It might even inspire some new quilt designs, like a group of women in juice-stained aprons laughing together. The image captured her imagination, and she almost missed it when Sadie finally asked Delilah the questions she’d come to ask.

“Delilah, do you know anything about my biological father?”

The older woman turned serious and tapped the arm of her chair. “You mean the man who . . . ?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you want to know?” Delilah looked at her niece with clear, expectant eyes.

“Mother tried to tell me once, but I refused to listen. It felt like I was betraying Papa. But now that she’s . . . sick, I’m afraid I may never know. If nothing else, I’d like to learn my medical history. Mother obviously has some issues—what if my father did, too?”

Delilah shrugged one shoulder. “Seems likely we’ll all go to our graves not knowing a great deal.”

Ella stifled a laugh. Delilah was sassy.

Sadie pursed her lips. “Yes, well, that may be true. Still, I’d like to find out if at all possible.”

“And then what?” asked Delilah.

It was Sadie’s turn to shrug. “Then I’ll know,” she said with a defiant tilt of her chin. “I’ll be able to make more informed decisions about my health.”

Delilah laughed. “Oh, you always were a stubborn little thing, and I shouldn’t push you so. Especially since I don’t have any notion who your father is.”

Ella thought she could see Sadie getting smaller right before her eyes.

“I think my sister—your grandmother Charlotte—had some idea, but she never confided in me and I didn’t try to find out. I always supposed that was Perla’s business.”

Sadie visibly stiffened. “Perhaps. But since I share this man’s genetic material, I think it might be a little bit my business, too.”

Delilah reached over and patted Sadie on the knee. “Then I hope you find out. And I pray it will be a blessing when you do.”

Sadie relaxed. “Thank you.”

Delilah smiled, and Ella realized she was wearing red lipstick that looked surprisingly good on a woman her age. “Now, I want to know more about my great-grandniece.” She turned those sharp eyes on Ella. “Do you have a young man?”

Ella jiggled her knee, wishing Aunt Sadie were still the one on the spot. “Um, not really. There was someone for a while, but he . . . wasn’t a good match.” Suddenly she wanted to tell Delilah all about Mark—his dishonesty, his anger that bordered on violence, the time he’d left bruises on her arm. “I thought he was the one, but now I’m afraid . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Delilah watched her with complete calm while Aunt Sadie looked alarmed. Ella was afraid she’d tell her mom everything.

Delilah wagged a gnarled finger at her. “It’s a hard thing to see the dream you’ve put all your faith in disappear like the morning mist. You might even feel like it’s your fault somehow.” She squinted at Ella. “You might be afraid to try again.”

Ella’s mouth dropped open. “I . . . well, I don’t want to get it so horribly wrong ever again.”

A tear tracked Ella’s cheek. Aunt Sadie leaned over to wrap a strong arm around her shoulders.

“My dear, getting things wrong is nothing more than one of the steps on the way to getting them right. All you’ve done is learn a valuable lesson that many a woman has paid a much dearer price for. You’ve simply eliminated an inferior candidate. Good for you.” Delilah fiddled with the edge of the blanket over her legs, a half smile curving her red lips. “Now, if you find one that’s not fickle or foolish, you snatch him up. Men are prone to develop an attachment to whatever’s in front of them.”

Ella then surprised herself by bringing up Seth. “There’s another guy—Seth—who seems really great, but I don’t know if he’s even interested. And I think our pastor, who’s really very nice, is interested.” She paused. “And of course, I’m not getting any younger and I’d like to have children.”

“A woman after my own heart,” Delilah said. “I wanted children more than anything.”

Ella’s curiosity swelled. “But you didn’t have any.”

“Nary a one in the usual way. But God has sent me more children than I can count. That child whose ears Sadie cured was half raised by Robert and me. And when we moved here, there were all the nieces and nephews and now I have a Brownie troop to help wrangle.” She leaned her head back against the chair. “Oh yes, God has surely blessed me with children.”

“It’s not really the same, though, is it?”

“No, it’s probably better. Anything God gives you is sure to be better than what you thought you wanted in the first place.” She leaned toward Ella. “What do you want?”

“I . . . I thought I wanted to get married and be an artist living on the farm, hanging out with my family and bringing attention to traditional crafts and their roots in the Appalachian Mountains.” Ella flushed—that sounded a little egotistical, even to her own ears. “Now I guess I want to—” she paused, feeling tears threatening to surface again—“I want to help take care of Gran as long as she needs it. And if I do fall in love, I want it to be with the right man, for the right reason.”

Delilah nodded. “Those are all good things. But I didn’t hear anything about God in there.” She laid a blue-veined hand on Ella’s knee. “You get to the place where you want whatever the Lord wants and you’ll find you have more than you ever dreamed. My years with Robert, that store, the children, the family He poured into my life . . . oh my. I could never have dreamt something that good.”

Ella felt frustrated. She wasn’t sure she understood what Delilah was saying, but it sounded lovely.

Delilah smiled as though she recognized Ella’s struggle. “Have faith, my dear. God is nothing if not patient.”