Read Online Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler - Free Book Online Page B

thinking my grandmother was miserable or bitter when I used to visit her, but those words, cruel and sad, come to me now as I remember the red cardinal. She was so flustered by it, so unimpressed that Jack set it free, so tired of hearing the story and how it made us all smile.
    Papa always laughed. He taught Ricky and me how to play checkers and backgammon, told us adventure stories about his travels through Asia during the Vietnam War, and read the comics with me every Sunday over breakfast. I remember feeling cared for by Nana—she cooked for us, gave me a bedroom with toys and a lace canopy princess bed, sent Christmas presents, drank tea late at night with Mom and Rachel—but now that I think about it, she didn’t smile. Her laugh? If she had one, I don’t recall the music of it. And some days she’d go to her room after breakfast and stay there for two or three days, coming out only for the bathroom and to get the food Papa left on a tray outside the door.
    Did I know she was hurting, even if I couldn’t name it? Did I feel it, like when you can tell it’s going to rain because the leaves get all shaky and silvery and your bones creak and you just know it’s coming? Patrick said that Nana died of a heart attack, but I wonder how much of her life she could have saved—how much of our family history could’ve been rerouted—if only she’d been happy. If only she could’ve laughed the way Papa did when I told him my made-up stories, even after the death of their youngest daughter.
    And just like my recollection in the bedroom yesterday, I realize now that the shock of losing Stephanie must have done that to her. It took away her laugh. Her joy. Her ability to know happiness.
    “You okay?” Patrick stops the chase, his hand on my shoulder as he catches his breath.
    “I don’t know why she didn’t try to get in touch with me. I hadn’t really thought of it that way until just this second. If your only grandchild is taken away from you because of some family fight, wouldn’t you at least try to call her? Or send birthday cards or letters or something?”
    “I wish I knew, Del. I have no idea.”
    As my aunt sorts through her mother’s food and my mother buzzes around her desk inside, I remember the sad things about my grandmother and sit down in the grass to catch my breath with a boy with whom I’ve only just reunited. He was once my very best summer friend, and in the space between our lives, he’s grown and changed as I have—separate, away, strangers who are still connected by some weird cosmic rubber band, stretched apart for nearly a decade only to be snapped back together in this moment on Red Falls Lake.
    “Hey, baby. Don’t be sad.” Patrick puts his arm around me and pulls me close to him, my mouth near the skin of his neck. I feel like I should resist, but he’s so warm and solid and real, like a memory that hasn’t yet faded—one that I visit over and over when I’m scared or alone. It’s the first time since Finn that I’ve been this close to a guy. It’s funny to smell someone different. Different soap, different shampoo, different skin. His hand brushes my ear as he moves to squeeze my shoulder, and a shiver rattles its way on through. “She’s still here with you, Delilah.”
    “Do you know what happened that day?” I ask him. “I mean, after Papa’s funeral? Did your parents ever say anything about the fight after we left?”
    Patrick shakes his head. “No one talked about it in front of me. I asked them when you were coming back. They said they didn’t know. My mom tried to call your mom and Rachel, but they wouldn’t tell anyone what happened, and of course your grandmother wasn’t talking about it. Eventually, my mom stopped calling. I asked about you every summer for years after. They kept telling me it was a family situation. That it wasn’t our business.”
    “But your dad’s been here the whole time. He worked for her. She must have said something about