by Packer, Vin
What had happened between them? Nobody knew the answer; only the facts. Delia Benjamin had called off the wedding two days after she gave the print order for the invitations. She had gone North, run off with a rich New Yorker named Maurice Granger, who had divorced her after three and a half years. She didn’t even come home for the judge’s funeral in 1952. Nobody referred to her as Dee any more, certainly not as Benny either. She had broken Jack Chadwick’s heart into a million sore pieces. People said her two names now—Delia Benjamin—when they spoke of her. She was a bad taste in their mouths, a nervous memory.
That evening in Porter Drugs so many years later, the memory was revitalized. Those few who saw Jack Chadwick wave at Delia Benjamin, saw her walk back and stand talking at the booth, Chad standing chivalrously beside her in the aisle, while Cass stayed seated, regarding her with a certain placid resignation—those few would ultimately describe the scene to the rest, in widely varying ways; but all would agree on one thing: Delia Benjamin was back in town, and the first person she was seen talking with was Jack Chadwick. It was a situation that bore watching.
When Dee got back in the car, her mother said, “So you did get two packs after all. That’s just like you, not to heed anything I say. Well, the North didn’t change you in that respect.”
Dee watched the rain-riddled streets with a steady profile.
“Who was the young man opened the door for you, Delia? Looked almost like Judson Forsythe.”
“I don’t know who he was,” she answered. “I didn’t know him.”
“See anyone you did know?”
Dee waited until she had touched the match’s flame to her cigarette, drew in and let the smoke out slowly. “Chad was there,” she said. “and Cass. I said hi to them for a second.”
Mrs. Benjamin turned right at the Wheel and headed up
Clock Hill. After a moment she said, “How did he seem to take it?”
Flo Benjamin was a woman who understood everyone’s life but her own, and very probably never actually considered the fact that she had one. When Dee was younger, Poppy Belden, or Jud—and even Chad, like all her other friends, would say: “I wish my mom was like yours. You can tell her anything. She’s so interested!” And Dee would think of how difficult it was to confide in her mother, to hold her attention. Until she understood that Mrs. Benjamin simply could not concentrate on anything pertaining to herself or the judge or Dee, because what other families did and thought was twice as fascinating. She saw her husband, her daughter and herself, through their eyes.
When Dee married Maury, it was as though Dee had ceased to exist. She was a letter, and an occasional voice on long-distance; but to Mrs. Benjamin she was unreal, because Mrs. Benjamin didn’t really know Maury, nor anyone who did know him; and after their marriage, few people in Bastrop talked about Delia to Flo Benjamin’s face. So she found it difficult to have any opinion of her daughter, any solid basis on which to think of her, save for random thoughts she could not always focus, dutiful thoughts which required a certain strained concentration and were never prolonged; and reminiscences, which were the easiest of all, for they involved other people: Gay Porter’s saying, “Dee and Jack certainly are smitten, Flo. Do you think it’s still innocent?” Or Poppy Belden saying: “Dee looked so pretty at the dance the other night, Mrs. Benjamin. Everyone and his brother were after her.” Or Jack himself saying—on that day—”I’m empty without her. I’m a shell, Mrs. Benjamin. And I still don’t know why she did it.”
Now Delia was home again, and in Mrs. Benjamin’s eyes rose like a Phoenix from the ashes, for they had met after all these years. People had seen them meet and people would have something to say about it. Mrs. Benjamin, in turn, would have something definite to think about the prodigal. People would come up to Flo Benjamin and mention Dee again in some way, however subtle. She was back and Bastrop would talk about her to Flo’s face now.
Dee knew this and should have anticipated the way in which her mother would frame the question. Not “how did you feel?” “What did it seem like to you, Delia?” But “How did he seem to take it?”
Dee said, “You mean was he surprised? I guess he was. We both were.”
“No, I mean, how did he seem?”
“You mean did his face turn red, break out in a sweat? Did his hands shake? Knees tremble? I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mama. He was pleasant, calm, and quite poised.” Dee knocked the ashes off her cigarette. “Why shouldn’t he be? He’s married to Cass, and he loves Cass. It’s over between us, been over a long time. Over, Mama, and forgotten.”
At that precise moment Senior Porter was in the telephone booth in the back of the drugstore, listening to his wife’s reaction to the news.
Gay Porter was saying: “Don’t think for a moment Jack Chadwick ever forgot Delia Benjamin, or her him! Those kind of passion romances are never over, mark my word. At least we can thank God our Troy never got himself into anything like that, even though Poppy wasn’t our choice for him. He still married with his head and heart and not because he was under some kind of spell like they were. I used to tell Flo myself I didn’t think it was as innocent as she fooled herself into believing, never was and still isn’t. Don’t care how many years have passed. Notice that Maury didn’t keep her long either; even he must have known he got second-hand goods. No, I’m not saying things I don’t know, Senior. I’m just saying there’s some reason Delia Benjamin is back in Bastrop, and I’d be curious to know.” Mrs. Porter gave a high giggle. “Law, right during Music Emphasis Month too—with Flo elected Terpsichore and all!”
• • •
In the rain the Benjamin car stopped at the top of Clock Hill. Dee looked through the window at the big, square, three-story red brick house, surrounded by huge boxwoods. It seemed incredible that she would enter there and not find the judge; seemed incredible that she would be alone in that house with her mother.
Almost as though Flo Benjamin had the same thought, she asked with a certain glum finality to her tone, “Ready?”—though she was really thinking: Jack must have felt something—opening the door on her side.
“Ready,” Dee sighed.
The question she had asked herself earlier that evening was no longer vaguely framed, nor answered with some random lines from some forgotten poem. As she went through the wrought-iron gate and entered the yard, it sat in her mind like a yellow-eyed cat leering out from the dark: Why did I come back? What did I come back to Bastrop for?
Mrs. Benjamin, clutching her raincoat around her large body, skipping puddles on her way to the porch steps behind Dee, said, “Everyone said he never loved Cassandra Beggsom; said at the time he was only marrying her out of pity.”
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This edition published by
Prologue Books
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Text Copyright © 1955 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
Cover Art, Design, and Layout Copyright © 2012 by F+W Media, Inc.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
eISBN 10: 1-4405-3697-X
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3697-7
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