Delta Belles

by Penelope J. Stokes

  “Merry Christmas,” he said, his voice low and tentative.

  Before she could respond, Lauren and Ted pushed in after him, their arms full of brightly wrapped packages. “Gramma!” Ted called. “We’re here!”

  Lacy’s mother came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron. “Come on in,” she said. “I was just taking out the last of the pies. Pumpkin, of course—Teddy’s favorite.” She glanced at Lacy. “Where’d you get off to?” she asked. “I was talking to you, and then I turned around and you were gone.”

  “Putting presents under the tree,” Lacy muttered. As she moved to get up, Trip held out a hand to help her. Their fingers touched and their eyes met. The bottom dropped out of Lacy’s stomach. “I’ll—I’ll come help,” she said, pushing her mother back toward the kitchen.

  “There’s nothing to do right now,” Mama said. “The turkey’s got another hour to go, and the dressing has to bake. Let’s all sit down.”

  Ted looked around. “Where’s Grampa?”

  “He’s holed up in the bedroom, wrapping my gift.” She laughed. “Always did put it off till the last minute. Why don’t you go help him, Teddy? Don’t know how he figured on doing it himself, with only one good hand.”

  Ted went off in search of his grandfather while the adults moved into the living room. Lauren and Trip sat on the couch, and Lacy took the chair adjacent to them. Lauren reached out for Trip’s hand. His head whipped toward her, and she smiled at him.

  “So,” Lauren said when they were settled. “We haven’t had a chance to catch up since Dad got home from the hospital. Tell us about Kansas City, Lace.”

  The next hour or so they filled with small talk—Lacy’s teaching, her friendship with Alison Rowe, the story of Alison’s husband being killed in Vietnam. Lauren told family stories, mostly about Ted. And Trip, reluctantly dragged into the conversation, related a few tales about his law practice and odd clients he had represented. “One woman,” he said, “wanted to sue her husband for having an affair. She didn’t want to divorce him, just to get control of all their finances—” He broke off suddenly and flushed as Lauren pinched the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger.

  By the time dinner was ready, they had exhausted the supply of readily available superficialities. Conversation around the table centered mostly on the food—why fresh turkey tasted so much better than frozen, what recipe Lacy used for her corn casserole. Lacy watched as her mother cut her father’s food into manageable bites. Although it pained her to see her father’s helplessness with a knife and fork, she found herself warmed by the obvious love between the two of them. Her mother did not seem the least bit repulsed by the drooping muscles on one side of her husband’s face or his inability to feed himself without dribbling. On the contrary, she gazed at him with conspicuous adoration, as if he were the handsomest, most vital man on the face of the earth.

  She thought Lauren had noticed too, but she kept her eyes averted from her sister and Trip.

  At last the uncomfortable meal was over. Lacy volunteered to do the dishes and for a blessed thirty minutes had the kitchen to herself But when the call came to open presents, she had no choice but to rejoin the family in the living room.

  “Teddys going to play Santa Claus,” her mother announced when Lacy had settled herself on the rug at her fathers feet.

  The tradition hadn’t changed since childhood. Each present was delivered individually, and everyone watched while it was opened, uttering oohs and ahhs of approval. Lacy had bought generic gifts—a silk scarf for Lauren, a pair of gloves for Trip, a regulation NFL football for Ted. This last gift was a big hit, as was Ted’s for her—a paperweight of bright red marble, in the shape of an apple with a bronze stem and leaf attached.

  “Oh, Ted, it’s beautiful,” she said quite honestly as she held it up. “You couldn’t have gotten me anything I’d like more.”

  Her nephew, rather pleased with himself, grinned and turned almost as red as the apple’s shiny surface. “I picked it out myself.”

  “Well, thank you.” She went to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  By midafternoon, after a second slice of pie, everyone was full and sleepy, and Lacy felt she could make her exit without offending anyone. She gathered up her gifts, said good-bye to the family, and headed for the door.

  Ted caught up with her on the porch. “I’m glad you’re back, Aunt Lacy,” he murmured self-consciously as he hugged her. “I hope you’ll stay.”

  THROUGH THE WINDOW over the sink Lauren could see out into the backyard all the way to the koi pond, where once again Trip sat motionless in a slant of winter sunshine with his head bowed and his hands clasped between his knees.

  In this attitude of absolute stillness, he could have been praying, could have been a saint in meditation. He looked a bit like Rodin’s sculpture of The Thinker —clothed, of course, and less muscular, but equally lost in the depths of his soul. Perhaps this was her husbands version of prayer, watching the fish gliding under the dark water, listening to his own breath and heartbeat.

  She wondered what he heard inside himself in moments like this. Did he, like Lauren herself, question how they got to this point in their lives? Did he regret, as she did, the convolution of guilt and duty and good intentions that had left them, fifteen years down the road, stuck in an unhappy partnership and bound by promises that should never have been made?

  Those years had changed Lauren more than she could have imagined. She felt old and wrung out, depleted. And now Lacy was back, still young and slim and looking like she had when they were in college.

  Trip had noticed. Lauren could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tension that gripped him every time he came within a dozen yards of her sister. Well, if that was what he wanted—what Lacy wanted—she wouldn’t fight this time.

  The game was over. She was too tired to play again.

  Besides, she had won once, and look where it had gotten her.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  EPIPHANY

  JANUARY 1984

  It didn’t take long to clean a house as small as Lacy s. She had already vacuumed twice and now was dusting everything for the second time. She couldn’t seem to sit still for more than a minute.

  Nerves. It was just nerves.

  She went to the pantry and stowed the dust rag. Wiped down the kitchen counter again. Paced around the tiny living room, fluffing up the sofa pillows.

  A blustery January rain beat against the windows. In an attempt to dispel the chill and gloom, Lacy bent to turn on the gas logs in the small fireplace, and when she stood up again she found herself staring into the mirror over the mantel. The person who stared back at her was no woman at all, but an agitated schoolgirl anticipating a first date. She looked young and frightened and out of control.

  “Get a grip,” she muttered to herself.

  But no grip was forthcoming. She glanced at the clock. In thirty minutes he would be here, assuming he was as punctual as he used to be. Half an hour, and Lacy would be sitting face to face—alone—with the only man she had ever loved, the man who fifteen years ago had jilted her in favor of her twin.

  On the mantel in front of her stood the last of the Christmas decorations, a small crèche consisting of Mary and Joseph, the Baby Jesus in the manger, two sheep, a shepherd, and a single Wise Man riding on his camel. The set had belonged to their family. She and Lauren used to take turns—one reading from the Bible and the other walking the figurines into place as the familiar story was told. They had fought about it every year, Lauren always insisting that it was her turn to move the pieces. For several years the argument had escalated, resulting in the loss of one shepherd and two Wise Men, until their mother started putting a note into the box each year before stowing it away with the rest of the decorations.

  In her haste to pack up the tree and ornaments, Lacy had forgotten the ceramic figures, and now she picked up the Wise Man and considered him.

  Where, she wondered, did wisdom come from? Was it writt
en in the stars, or upon the human heart? Was it simply knowledge, an understanding that had its source in human experience? Or more than that, the gift of some higher power? Lacy didn’t know, although at this moment she desperately wished she could find the wellspring and tap into it. With Trip arriving in thirty minutes, she could use all the help she could get.

  A determined rapping on the front door startled her, and the figurine slipped from her fingers and crashed to the hearth below. It cracked cleanly in two, just at the saddle where the Wise Man joined his camel. Flustered, she bent down and scooped up the pieces.

  He was early. Very early. Lacy took a deep breath and exhaled in a vain attempt to still the pounding of her heart, then went to the door and opened it.

  Lacy’s knees nearly gave way beneath her. It wasn’t Trip.

  For a moment she stared at her twin, uncomprehending. Again she marveled at the differences between them, at the haggard circles under Lauren’s eyes, at her brittle, too-blonde hair.

  Instinctively Lacy reached up to touch her own hair and realized she still held the Wise Man and his camel in her hands.

  “May I come in?” Lauren said at last. Her voice sounded brittle as well, as if it too had been overbleached.

  Lacy’s eyes darted to the clock.

  “I won’t take much of your time.”

  Lacy nodded and stepped aside as her sister passed through the narrow foyer and went on into the living room.

  “The house looks nice,” she said. “Cozy.”

  “What are you doing here, Lauren?” The question came out more snappish than Lacy had intended, but she had neither the time nor the patience for games or small talk.

  “I’m here to …” Lauren shrugged and sat down on the couch. “I don’t know. To see you, I guess. To talk to you.”

  “Why now?”

  “Trip’s left me.”

  Lacy pretended this was news to her. “Really?”

  “Really. He stuck it out fifteen years, so maybe I should be grateful. But losing him is … well, let’s just say it’s the first time I understand what I put you through. I didn’t take the time to understand before. Too busy trying to hold things together, I guess. Now I know how awful it feels to be abandoned, to be alone.”

  “No kidding.” Lacy crossed her arms.

  Lauren raked her hands through her hair. “Look, Lace, I’m not doing this very well. I’ve made so many mistakes and let them go on far too long. Trip’s leaving woke me up a little. I can’t change what’s happened between us. Believe me, if I could, I would. But you’re my sister. That should count for something.”

  “It should have.”

  “What do you want from me?” Lauren said with an edge of panic in her voice. “What can I do to make things better?”

  Suddenly exhausted, Lacy sank into the armchair next to the sofa. Without realizing it, she had been gripping the two halves of the broken figurine, and the sharp edges had cut into her palms. She laid the pieces on the coffee table next to Ted’s marble apple and surveyed the pinpricks of blood.

  “The truth,” she said. “I want the truth.”

  “All right.” Lauren squeezed her eyes shut. “It happened that spring break, when Trip came home with you. We made love.”

  “You made love,” Lacy repeated mechanically.

  “I seduced him,” Lauren amended. “I was jealous, and unaccustomed to coming in second. It was stupid. A moment of sheer madness.”

  “But you had what’s-his-name. Why on earth would you be jealous?”

  Lauren shook her head impatiently. “What I had with Steve Treadwell was nothing compared to what you had with Trip. Steve never loved me, and I never loved him. We hung out together, had fun, had sex. But as soon as I saw you and Trip together, I knew that I had settled for a whole lot less than I really wanted.”

  “So you decided to go after Trip.”

  “Not consciously. It just—”

  “Don’t say it,” Lacy warned. “Don’t say it just happened.”

  Lauren sighed. “You’re right. I made it happen. I don’t know why. I felt terrible about it afterward.”

  “And yet you got married.”

  “He did it out of guilt, out of some perverted sense of honor. There was the baby to consider—”

  “Ah yes, the baby.” Lacy didn’t comment on her nephews questionable parentage. She wanted to see if Lauren would come clean with that piece of the story as well.

  “As it turned out, Ted wasn’t Trip’s child,” Lauren admitted, much to her own credit. “But I didn’t know that at the time. I thought he was Trip’s; we both did. It only became obvious … afterward. And by that time it was too late.” She picked at a loose thread on the arm of her sweater. “Trip thought he was doing the right thing.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I think Trip is trying to get his life back. I don’t blame him, really. He never loved me. It was always you, Lace.”

  Lacy felt a peculiar sort of trembling in her stomach. “He said that?”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  A strange metamorphosis had been taking place while Lacy listened to Lauren’s confession. Time dropped away from her sister’s face, a rewinding of the years. Lacy could see—almost—the mirror image of herself, as she had seen it since childhood. Their shared life, mangled by circumstance, certainly, and shadowed by pain, but still bound with cords that could not be broken. Her sister. Her twin.

  Lauren got to her feet. “I need to go.”

  Lacy opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again. Forgiveness, Mamie Witherspoon had said, was both a decision and a process. A chasm created over fifteen years couldn’t be bridged in a single moment, but the reconstruction could begin. Here. Now.

  But the moment passed. Lauren did not ask forgiveness, and Lacy did not offer it. Instead, she stood and followed Lauren to the door. One final question churned within her, hovering there, demanding an answer. “Do you—do you love him?”

  Lauren ducked her head, but not quickly enough. Lacy could see the tears that had sprung instantly to her eyes.

  “Yes,” she said after a moment. “I didn’t realize how much until he left, until I was faced with the prospect of losing him forever. But yes, I do love him. More than I ever imagined.”

  TRIP, WHEN HE ARRIVED, looked soft and eager—the old Trip, her Trip, the one who had made her feel loved and special.

  The sensation was intoxicating. Lacy s eyes drank him in, the first oasis in a long and lonely desert. She wanted to take his hand and run away with him, to make a mad dash toward a future she had long ago given up on. This time he would be completely hers, heart and soul. She wanted him to quit talking and simply hold her.

  But he would not shut up.

  Trip, like Lauren, obviously felt the need to unburden himself, to confess and seek absolution—or, at the very least, amnesty—for the sins of the past. The guilty never realize, she mused, what baggage they transfer to the innocent because of their own need for relief.

  Still, she listened as he rambled on, circling around his shame like a vulture homing in on its prey. His was much the same story as Lauren’s—one mistake compounded by a lifetime of others. But his tale differed from his wife’s by two notable exceptions. For one thing, Trip did not lay blame on Lauren for seducing him. Nor did he mention the fact that Ted was not his son.

  These omissions caused Lacy’s heart to swell with pride and love. Trip Jenkins was, despite all that had happened, an honorable and ethical man who did not shift responsibility or try to weasel out of his own guilt.

  “I am sorry, Lacy,” he concluded. “Sorry I let my hormones get out of control. Sorry I hurt you. Sorry for so many things.”

  Lacy regarded him, letting her eyes roam over his handsome features. He was more mature now, but still intensely attractive, and she found herself having difficulty focusing on what he was saying.

  She could see it in his eyes, read it in his body language, the way he leaned toward her. All sh
e had to do was say yes, and her dreams would come true.

  Better late than never.

  “I kept thinking that if I just tried hard enough, I could make it work,” he went on. “I had made this mess, and I had to deal with it. And I wanted to be a good father to Ted. But with each year, each month, each day that passes, I feel more and more trapped.” He paused and looked at her intently. “Lacy, do you know anything about koi?”

  She frowned. “The fish?”

  Trip nodded. “We have three of them in a pond I built in the backyard. It’s a beautiful pond, a shady glen with a rock waterfall and a couple of lily pads. I spend a lot of time there; it’s my only place of solitude.”

  “It sounds nice.”

  “It is.” He exhaled heavily. “Anyway, koi will only get as big as their surroundings will allow. They’ll stop growing if their pond is too small. And that’s me. For years I have been swimming in claustrophobic circles, trapped in silent misery, trying to atone for my sins. I want out. I want to be free.”

  Lacy’s heart raced as she heard his confession. Her dreams would come true, after all. And what sweet revenge, for him to leave Lauren and come to her. She could almost taste it….

  But Trip wasn’t finished. “I never stopped thinking about you, Lacy. Look at you—you’re exactly the same. It’s amazing. You haven’t changed a bit since we were in college. It’s like these years never happened.”

  The dream spinning out in her mind snapped to an abrupt halt and fell to earth.

  She hadn’t changed since college, he said. In his mind, she had simply been waiting for him, caught in time and unable to move. Holding the torch aloft, keeping the flame alive. Praying someday he’d return.

  And perhaps he was right. Maybe that’s what she had done. The thought sickened her, but she tried to face it squarely, honestly. She recalled the angry years, and more recently, the empty ones.

  “I’m not asking for an answer,” he said. “Or any kind of commitment. I just want to know if we can go back to where we used to be. Start over, try again. Have a second chance.”