by Jolene Perry
FOR GRANDMA
A woman is soft
Hard
The inbetween
The thing that saves
holds
binds
loves without question
teases without hesitation
Smiles without worry
and winks with reckless abandon
I miss you.
Twelve
Delia
The railroad tracks had been our meeting grounds since I could remember. It was a bit of a walk for both of us, but the stream that went under the tracks also led into the lake, and Tobin and I spent a lot of time in that lake together. It’s also the fastest way to get to town aside from walking alongside the road. I walked up the gravel mound the tracks rested on and started balance-walking on the rails.
“Your hand in mine.” Tobin would tease, and we’d try to walk on the rails holding hands, but I know Eamon died on these tracks, and suddenly my legs feel weak. Eamon may have died along here somewhere, but this is also when I knew I’d lost my grandma.
My grandma, the democrat. The woman who fought with Dad for me when Mom didn’t, which was often. The woman who loved Tobin like one of her own.
***
I stumbled on the railroad tracks, knowing it was the fastest way to Tobin, but not being able to see through my tears. Our phone conversation had been short. Just long enough for him to know my dad was gone, my mom was asleep, and my grandma just died. My legs ran out of strength, and I just sat on the tracks and waited.
Gram had been the first person in my family I brought Tobin to meet. She’d loved him immediately.
“You may be young, Delia, but you hold on to that boy. He has the kind of heart you don’t see in a man very often,” she’d said seriously.
I’d laughed, but I knew exactly what she meant. I’d felt it too.
“I bet you two will make love with the same passion you fight with.” She snickered.
Tobin and I hadn’t gone all the way then, and my cheeks flushed hot. “I can’t believe you just said that Grandma.”
She’d winked and patted my back. That simple memory, pulled me into another round of agony over losing the only person in my family who understood me.
I heard his feet running toward me. Fast. Tobin never hesitated when he knew it was important.
“Delia.” His arms came around me where I was crumpled on the ground.
I shook in sobs that I couldn’t control. Didn’t even try to control. My Grandma was my sanity. My safe place. My haven from my parents. She wasn’t allowed to die.
He kissed my head and whispered that he’d take care of me. That he wouldn’t leave my side until I was okay. His arms held me as tight as I needed them to. Tight enough to keep me together.
We heard the low rumble long before the train came around the bend in the tracks. Tobin stood up, keeping me in his arms. He lifted me like I was nothing and carried me home. No complaints.
He sat with me for two days. He stayed at my house holding me, even though it had to be miserable for him to be there. It was the first time he told me he loved me, and there was no way that I couldn’t believe him. Not then. Not in that moment. Not even now.
***
It’s so much harder being here than I thought it would be.
Instead of continuing to walk, I sit and pull out my phone. I have emails and messages stacked up so high I don’t know where to start.
The thing is, now that I’m back home, I don’t care about the fundraiser, I never cared about the signatures, and I wonder if I care what they think of me. Mercedes said that in an election year they always lose a few friends. I wondered how you can lose a friend, but isn’t that exactly what I’ve done in Crawford?
Kelly, Rachel, and I used to be tight. Really tight. But lately, anything to do with Crawford just hurt too much, and I’d been spending too much time trying to fit in there the way I’d fit in here.
I start typing an automated reply to my email, sort of amazed I even know how to do that.
Delia Gentry is unavailable due to the sudden loss of a close friend. She will begin returning phone calls and emails in…
How long could I get away with? Forever? I laugh.
…two weeks. Thank you, Delia Gentry
I open the text messaging on my phone, pick almost everyone I know from D.C. out of my contacts list, and type in the same thing.
My thumb actually shakes as it hovers over the send button. This is for real. I’m taking two weeks off from being Delia from D.C. The release of weight off my shoulders feels incredible. Amazing. Like I could fly.
I hit send, and shove the phone back in my pocket. It feels good. Such a silly thing for me to stress over—telling people I need time. And not even to their face. But still, I never say no. I dig in and do.
Now that it’s done, and I’m free for a while, I take huge juvenile skips a short ways on the tracks just because I’m alone, and I can do whatever I want. My laughter fills the air around me, and I’m in disbelief that I didn’t want to come home before now.
The low rumble of a train sends me leaping off the tracks, and another fit of laughter hits me. And then I want to puke as the train flies by. Eamon. Stupid ass. I bet that boy died playing chicken, not whatever BS story that was probably fed to my parents. There was talk that it was suicide. Never. Eamon would never do that. I don’t know what exactly happened out on the tracks, but I know that for certain. He’d never leave his family—his brother, on purpose.
My heart breaks a little for Tobin, but I am so thankful that he wasn’t there with his brother that night. There was no limit to what those boys would do for each other, there’s no way Tobin would have stood by and watched his brother get hit, he may have very well sacrificed himself trying to save Eamon. I shudder thinking about losing Tobin, really losing him. And just that fast I feel like once again, maybe I shouldn’t have come.
“Del-yuh!” Kelly shrieks as her laughter peels through the air. “Come ‘ere!!”
“Delia!” Rachel’s behind her, and they’re holding one another like they need the support to stand up.
I laugh as I head their way. The air is practically flammable from all of the alcohol.
This situation isn’t likely to end well.
I trip on the rocks a bit as I jog to where they’re half-stumbling over each other.
“Delia.” Rachel grabs my shoulders and puts our foreheads together. The smell of cheap whiskey burns my nose, and I try not to laugh. “I was such a bitch at the diner. I mean, seriously. Prom?”
“Rachel.” I’m giggling as I put my hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay.”
“She’s had too much to drink,” Kelly’s shaking in laughter.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Oh.” Rachel sighs before sitting directly in the middle of the tracks, letting her long, skinny legs stretch out in front of her. “It hurts.” She punches herself in the chest. “I miss Eamon.”
I glance at Kelly hoping for more explanation.
Kelly holds a hand next to her mouth like she’s about to tell me a big secret, and we lean toward each other. There’s a faint smell of beer on Kelly, but she looks to be pretty sober – at least she’s standing upright and leaning toward me without any problem.
“Rachel. You’re in rare form tonight.” I shake my head, but am also a bit jealous of their freedom.
“Rachel’s pretty sure she was the last one who was…uh…with Eamon before he died,” Kelly tries to explain.
“But you were always such a good girl!” My eyes flash to Rachel, who might be gaining back a tiny bit of her sobriety. She’s swaying a little less anyway as she sits on the tracks. I can’t believe she’d sleep with Eamon. To say he had a reputation was putting it mildly. You’d get treated like a queen for the night, but he never made any secret that he didn’t do relationships. With Eamon, you got what you got. He wasn’t an asshole about it either. Just upfront.
“I heard from Leslie
that there were just pieces of him left.” She makes a sweeping gesture with her hand toward the forest.
Pieces. Yeah. That sounds more like what I thought when I heard the press version of the story. There’s a bigger mess behind a lot of what ends up in the paper. Or the paper prints a big mess when there’s nothing going on at all.
I feel bad for the girls, but mostly I ache for Tobin.
“Think you could help me get her home?” Kelly asks.
“Yeah. Sure.” The smile relaxes through my neck, into my shoulders, and spreads something warm through me.
Happiness, I guess.
Being needed.
Belonging.
“I’ll help you get her home.”
THERE ONCE WAS A GIRL
There once was a girl with two faces.
Two hearts
Two lives
But the more she lived in the pretend life
The more it became her real one
And the less she thought about her real life
The more it became her pretend one
Her heels towered her to the sky,
and her bare feet anchored her to the ground.
The problem is that she didn’t know where she actually lived – in the clouds, or on the earth
Reality had escaped with the space between the two girls.
Thirteen
Tobin
I guess I should stop drinking. The last thing my parents need is me showing up to Eamon’s funeral drunk. I take one last long pull from the bottle and then toss it into the pile along the tracks with the rest of them.
This was our spot, me and D. I check my watch. By now, she’s probably snuggled in with the boyfriend. Bet they take off for home tomorrow. The look on that douche bag boyfriend’s face told me he didn’t show up here to leave empty handed. I run my finger along the smooth velvet of that stupid black box. Almost a smaller version of what my brother is lying in right now. Both containing lifeless, cold things.
My heart strains with the enormous feeling of loss. The box croaks as I open it and stare at that pathetic looking row of diamonds. Every time I look at the ring, I’m forced to remember what I thought my future would look like. No more. I’ve got to forget this girl. I snap it shut once last time and toss it as hard as I can into the darkness. Just how Eamon taught me to throw a baseball when I was a kid. Keep your elbow above your shoulder. Don’t smother the ball. Throw in a low arc, Tobin.
It’s done.
When Delia and I were together, we used take the back road into the woods and I’d park my truck near the tracks. We’d lie in the bed of the truck and watch the trains. Now I’m sitting on the tailgate alone and all I see is Eamon. The tracks start to vibrate and I close my eyes. The rumble reverberates from one end of the track to the other. How the hell could he not hear it? It’s close now. I can feel the vibration within me. The train lets out a loud whistle and the wind kicks up.
My truck shakes as it finally passes and then, just like that, it’s quiet again. The only noise is the faint sound of the radio on in the cab of my truck. Zydeco. My lips curl into an involuntary smile. I let myself give into the memory. It’s better than sitting here wondering where each part of my brother ended up. With each scrape of the rubboard, I’m closer and closer to that night.
***
“Come on, Delia,” I whispered as loudly as the silent night would allow.
Delia hovered half-in, half-out of her bedroom window. She surveyed the ground for the fiftieth time.
“What if I get caught?” she asked. She bit her bottom lip and checked the ground again.
“You sure as shit will if we spend any more time hanging outside like this. I’ve got you baby, trust me,” I said.
She finally relented and slipped out the window. It wasn’t that far of a drop, but for Delia Gentry, who had never broken her daddy’s curfew before, it probably felt like leaping off the top of the town water tower.
I caught her, just like I promised her I would.
“You ready?” I asked, clutching her hand.
“I’m a little nervous,” she said. She tugged on the tips of her bangs.
“Don’t be, they’ll love you,” I assured her. I didn’t dare tell her how completely over-dressed she was for a crawfish boil. But she looked freaking gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to dance with her.
“Well, no shit!” Eamon yelled from across the old farm. “I thought you were lying when you said you were bringing Miss Priss!”
Delia’s eyes widened, and her cheeks went red.
“He means that in the nicest way possible.” I leaned in and whispered in her ear. She didn’t relax, and her grip on my bicep stayed tight. Eamon was already lit, but was chugging a plastic cup of beer.
“You want a drink, darlin’?” He offered Delia his cup. She gave a sharp, quick shake of her head.
“Come on, I’ll get you something,” I said, leading her away. Maybe it was a mistake bringing her here.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. I motioned to the piles of crawfish that filled an entire pirot.
Delia whispered something that at first, I didn’t hear. And then when I finally realized what she said, I couldn’t believe.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” I asked incredulously.
“I said, I’ve actually never had crawfish.” Her eyes darted to each end of the room and back.
It was like something in a movie where the city guy comes into the bar and the music stops. Half the place stopped dancing and turned around to stare. If she wasn’t embarrassed before, she sure as shit was now. I felt terrible.
Of course Eamon reappeared.
“Sweetheart, how have you lived in this fine State your entire life, and you have never had crawfish?” Eamon shook his head. “And your daddy claims to represent us.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t know how to eat it.”
Eamon wrapped his arm around her and led her to a table. He scooped three massive mounds of crawfish onto the red plastic table cloth and nodded at Delia to sit down. She looked at me in a way that screamed, “do something,” but in this case, I couldn’t. There was no way I was going to let her go that night without at least trying it.
“All right, so here’s what you wanna do,” Eamon picked up a large red shell, and Delia reluctantly followed suit. “You gotta hold it on both sides of the tail, twist and snap. Now with your thumbs, peel that shell away from the widest part of the tail just like a shrimp.”
“I’ve never eaten shrimp,” Delia said.
Eamon dropped the crawfish and stared at me. “You’re killing me, both of you,” he said.
“Come on, Eamon, move it along,” I said.
“All right, holding the tail, pull out the meat.” He popped the tiny morsel into his mouth and moved on to the next shell.
Delia wasn’t so impressed. She held the minuscule piece of meat in between her fingers.
“That’s it?” she asked with a smile. “All that work for this?”
I laughed. Eamon shook his head.
“You know what the problem is? You need beer,” Eamon said.
That was the first night she met everyone. Traive, Leslie, Nelson, all of them took pride in introducing her to something new, knowing that she was special and wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
Eamon walked away and Delia stood to follow him. I caught her arm just as she passed me and leaned in, my nose buried in her thick hair.
“Get your sexy ass over here and dance with me.” I growled into her ear.
I don’t think I’ve ever danced so much in my life as I did that night. I’d barely had anything to drink, but I was drunk off the feeling of Delia close to me and the smell of the jasmine oil that she dabbed on her neck and wrists—
***
Jasmine oil.
I swear to God I can smell it in the air right now.
I hop down off of the tailgate and start walking. Now that I’m standing upright, I realize just
how much I’ve had to drink. I glance over my shoulder at the pile of empty bottles. Shit. This close to the tracks, I have a hard time keeping Eamon away. Was this what happened? Was he totally shit faced? No, Traive said he’d only had a beer or two.
