The Truth About Delilah Blue (16 page)

“Just the local public school,” said Elisabeth as she set the kettle on the stovetop. “That’s just Kieran’s way of expressing herself, right Kiki?”

The girl ignored her, opening up the pantry and pulling out three yellow mugs that she set on the table. She pried the lid off a striped ceramic jar and plunked tea bags in two of the mugs. Then, making little clicking sounds with her tongue, she took a carton of milk from the fridge and filled the third mug. After setting the carton in the middle of the table, she sat and stared at it. Quickly, she looked at Lila. “Do you take milk in your tea?”

“Yes.”

“My mummy does too.”

Lila couldn’t help herself. Having Elisabeth back was still so fresh. “
Our
.”

Kieran scrunched her nose.

“Our mummy. She’s my mother too.”

The moment Elisabeth sat down the kettle whistled, so Lila got up, wrapped a tea towel around the hot metal, carried it to the table, and filled two of the mugs with hot water.

Kieran jumped up to pour the milk, then held up the milk carton and waggled it back and forth. “Empty.”

Elisabeth said. “All right. Just be sure to rinse it out a few times. There’s nothing worse than the smell of old milk.”

Kieran dragged her stool to the sink. Just as she started to climb up, Elisabeth stopped her. “Just a minute, young lady. Finish that glass of milk so I know you didn’t empty the carton on purpose.”

Reluctantly, Kieran climbed down and drained the glass in one gulp, then went back to rinsing her carton, careful not to soak her shirtsleeves. After emptying it of water, she set it on the counter. “Will you play hide-and-seek with me, Delilah?”

“Umm…” Lila looked to her mother for assistance. The last thing she wanted was to waste precious mother-daughter moments playing with Kieran. But Elisabeth just laughed. “Kiki loves her hide-and-seek.”

“Okay,” said Lila, sipping from her tea. “You hide, I count.”

“Promise you won’t forget to come look for me? Mummy always forgets.”

“Cross my heart. Now go. One. Two. Three…”

When Kieran left the room, Elisabeth’s eyes flashed with the wiliness of a teenager whose parents had just left for an out-of-town weekend, and she nodded for Lila to follow her into the living room with her teacup. She wandered over to the open window and perched herself on the sill, setting down her cup, striking a match, and holding it to the end of a cigarette. Lila watch the tip burn red as Elisabeth inhaled deeply. “I never get a minute to myself.” She exhaled out into the afternoon air. “I’m not complaining. I never complain, not after what I’ve been through.”

Lila adored the moment. She and her mother, coconspirators, sharing confessions in the soft afternoon breeze. She reached for Elisabeth’s cigarettes and raised one brow.

“You smoke?” Elisabeth’s expression was one more of pleasure than surprise.

“Only on special occasions.”

Her mother grinned, holding the match while her daughter sucked on the filter. Lila blew clumsy smoke rings through the screen, watching them break apart, hover unsteadily a moment, then vanish.

“Remember my sister? Your auntie Kathleen? And her sons, Jeremy and Clayton?”

Lila nodded.

“They’ve emailed letters for you. I think those kids missed you almost as much as I did. They’re all planning to come out here in a couple of months. We’ll have a bit of a reunion. Grandma, of course, is gone. But my brother Trevor and his new wife will come. And one of my aunts. You’re finally going to have family.”

“Wow.”

“My one wish was that my mother would live to see you again. But I like to think she’s looking down now, cheering and waving.” Elisabeth hugged one knee to her chest, her bare foot propped on the ledge revealing toes painted a sultry red. The inside ledge was blackened with small burn marks. “Actually, knowing Mum, she’d be waving to the police, pointing out the way to your father’s house.”

A hornet landed on the screen and, feelers searching, crawled over to the edge where the dirty aluminum frame met the mortar surrounding the window. After feeling his way along the edge, he located a slender gap and tucked himself inside. Moments later, two smaller hornets emerged and flew away. When Victor and Lila had moved into the cabin, there’d been a huge wasp nest under the eaves.

They’d discovered it only when wasps started flying out of one corner where the wall didn’t quite meet the ceiling. Victor had come home with four cans of insect spray and, come dusk, when he figured they’d all be inside the nest, Victor emptied them into the attic. The chemical stench had been so bad, they’d had to camp on the back deck for two nights.

“Aw, baby. I can see I’ve upset you.” Elisabeth slid off the sill and took Lila’s shoulders in her arms, pulling her tight. “Forgive me. But I believe in justice.”

“It’s not enough to have me back? I mean, you won in the end. You’re the good guy; he’s, well…He’s not looking so good these days.”

“Okay. No more of that talk, I promise. We’ll deal with it when you’re ready. You will be ready, won’t you?”

Lila shrugged. “Soon.”

“I’m beginning to think I’m ready to confront him. Face-to-face.”

Like the police being called, this was inevitable. And no matter how much Lila didn’t want to be there when it happened, she would be. With the tension of twelve years to ratchet up the emotions, anything could happen. The only way she could guarantee no bloodshed would be to park herself squarely between her parents with milk and cookies.

“Can you arrange it?’

Here was Elisabeth needing her. Just like at the restaurant when her mother asked her to watch Kieran. Lila rolled this request around in her mouth a bit, savored the precious metal taste of it, before answering. Here was Lila, the remover of robes, the wrecker of cars, the doodler of boots. Queenlike, she need only pick a date, pass it around amongst potential attendees, and all would be there. If she
cared to, she could moderate. Set a few ground rules. Dad sits here, in his recliner by the window. Mum sits in the good dining-room chair, the only one whose seat bottom doesn’t have any runs in it. Soft music—from
The Big Chill
soundtrack—should thump all sexy and reminiscent from the old speakers. It would be cinematic, this meeting of the parents. Rife with tension, but quirky and adorable at the same time.

Because of her artistic manipulation, because of her understanding that great stories had even greater resolutions with problems being solved, but not too solved, the confrontation would end with a glorious meal. Characters on the floor, barefoot, arms draped over knees in front of dirty plates and uncorked bottles of Shiraz. Laughing through tears. No one would mind the paper cups they drank from, or that Lila was underage—only that this crazy family had found a new way to be.

“Yes,” Lila said with a sniff. “I can arrange it.”

Kieran stomped into the room, tiny fists pressed into her sides, a look of fury on her face. She pointed at Lila. “This Delilah Blue person forgot all about me.”

Lila jumped up. “I’m sorry! Let’s try again.”

“No.”

“This time I’ll stay focused, I swear.” She turned back to Elisabeth. “Do you mind…Mum?”

Elisabeth’s face broke into a smile so wide she began to cry. She took a moment to fan her face and sigh before saying, “Oh, Delilah Blue. You’ve just given me the gift of a lifetime.”

Lila grinned, turned to follow Kieran into the kitchen. Kieran checked to make sure her sister was behind her before turning her nose in the air. “It’s too late to play now.
I have to make my lunch for school and finish with my milk carton.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?”

“Amanda Iaello.” Kieran shook out any remaining drips and wrapped her carton in the tea towel. “This was very hard to find.”

“What?”

She held it up for Lila to see. The girl on the milk carton. “Missing: Amanda Iaello. Age: eleven. Height: five-footone. Weight: ninety-six pounds. Last seen wearing a yellow dress and sneakers.” She looked up at Lila. “There are only two milk companies in California that still put kids on cartons, so we have to shop at certain stores.”

Lila looked at Elisabeth, who had just padded into the room. “She’s keeping that?”

Her mother shrugged. “Show Delilah your friends, Kiki.”

Kieran motioned for her sister to follow. The room itself was nothing special. Pale green walls with a vinyl blind. Worn-out carpeting. Sprayed stucco ceiling. No baseboards to speak of. Single bed dressed with sheets undoubtedly made of 100 percent cotton, and two rows of stuffed animals. But on the wall beside the bed was a huge corkboard nearly covered in the faces of missing children cut from milk cartons. Out of four rows of faces, some smiling, some not, two were x-ed out.

Michael William Lee.

Christiana del Toro.

Steff Johnston.

Lindie Suzanne Wyatt-Kress. X.

Joanna Vicenze.

Marsha Elena Jane Gillott.

Frederick and Jackson Burroughs.

Delilah Blue Lovett. X.

It was the most heartbreaking display imaginable for a child. Lila sat on the foot of the bed and stared at the wall.

“Jesus, Kieran. Look at them all.”

“Forty-three. Minus two.”

“Lindie was found too?”

Kieran nodded sadly.

“Alive?”

The child turned away to adjust the blind. “No.”

“Why do you do this, Kieran?”

She ignored the question and climbed across her plush toys to point to an empty spot on the board. “This is where I’m going to put Amanda.”

Lila reached out and poked her sister playfully in the side. “Ever think of collecting stamps instead?”

The child looked at her as if she’d suggested sleeping on the roof. “What would I want with a bunch of stupid stamps?”

S
EPTEMBER
16, 1996

It was just over a week after Delilah drank the backwash at the cowboy bar back in Toronto. The house was strangely quiet, nothing but the dryer whirring and ticking from her mother’s studio at the back of the house. She began to wonder if racing down the street ahead of the other kids after school had been such a good idea. She despised being alone in the house, especially today. Something creaked in the next room.

“Mum?” she whispered, hardly daring to breathe. She reached for a fire poker, held it up like a sword, and tiptoed toward the kitchen. “Mummy?”

Footsteps. Then a sharp clatter, followed by Elisabeth rounding the corner and nearly tripping over her. “My word, you scared me to death!” shrieked her mother, clutching her chest. “What are you doing, sneaking around with a fire poker? Planning to murder someone?”

“No. I was just…
”

“You should feel my heart pounding.
”

“It was Stranger Danger Day at school.
”

“Ah.” Elisabeth pried the poker out of Delilah’s hand and set it back against the fireplace. “I can see they frightened you kids to pieces.”

Delilah rubbed soot on her jeans.

“Well? What did they tell you?”

She held the pamphlet behind her back. It had been big news at school, but here? She wasn’t sure. “Last week they made us all do drawings of strangers,” she padded into the kitchen behind her mother and pulled a chocolate cookie out of the tin on the counter. Perching herself on her knees on top of a red vinyl chair, she bit into her cookie, sending crumbs chattering across the table. “It was for this art contest. The best drawing wins and gets on the cover of the stranger booklet. Today they passed out the books and guess whose drawing was on the cover?”

“Whose?” said Elisabeth, eying her daughter with a sly smile.

“Mine!” Delilah held up her winning cover art: an exquisitely detailed rendering of a green monster in a trench coat. Crimped hairs sprung from sinewy legs, polyps and moles decorated sausage fingers, claws stabbed through the toes of great black galoshes. His nose resembled a tent unwisely perched on
top of a precipice, and all four coat pockets bulged with gadgetry an ill-intended stranger might consider fundamental: candy, skipping rope, squirming puppies, smiling princess dolls. Skulking behind the monster was an unmarked van, its side door yawning open like a hungry mouth.

“This is wonderful. They actually picked your drawing?”

“Yup.”

“And the teacher didn’t help you with it?”

“Nope. Not one bit. I gave my stranger regular ears because Mr. Meade said strangers might look like everyday people.” Delilah held her breath as her mother studied it. It was her best drawing ever, she was fairly certain. When Mrs. Bonet, the principal, made the announcement that she’d won, she’d said the winner was “South Toronto Public School’s premier artist, Delilah Lovett.”

“You really are a very talented girl. I hope you told them your mother is an artist?”

“Um.” She scratched the side of her nose. Her mother didn’t actually sell her work. Delilah wasn’t sure it qualified as a job. “I don’t know. I might have forgot.”

Elisabeth jerked back, staring at her daughter as if she no longer recognized her. “It would have been the first thing out of my mouth if I were you. Shows you come by your talent honestly. Plus I would think you’d be proud.”

“I am. I’m going to tell them tomorrow.”

“No. Don’t. Telling them tomorrow would be weird. Like I told you to say it.”

“You didn’t. I’ll say you didn’t.”

“That would be worse.”

“Do you like it?” It didn’t really matter what a second grader thought, or the principal. The only opinion she really cared about was the one she was about to hear.

“Let’s see.” Elisabeth sat beside her daughter at the kitchen table where a cup of tea and a cigarette awaited. “Your artwork is certainly advanced. Adult even.” She took a thoughtful drag, blew the smoke toward the open window beside her, then pointed toward the outside of the monster’s calves. “But if you look at this, the peroneus longus muscle here, there are slight flaws.”

Delilah felt the smile slide off her face. No one at school had mentioned flaws.

“You see how you’ve shaded the outside edge of the muscle? That’s fine—you’re learning how to make things round, how to give them dimension. But your figure has one foot flexed. One day, when you know more about the body’s structure, you’ll understand that this muscle here should be bulging because it’s at work—it’s actually pulling the foot upward. We need our shading to reflect this effort. But you don’t need to worry about that yet.” She turned to her daughter, who hid clenched fists. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Did I upset you?”

“No.”

Elisabeth rubbed her arm. “It’s called constructive criticism, sweetie. That’s when someone gives you an honest evaluation. One you can really learn from. And that’s far more valuable than empty praise, believe me. You’re old enough to understand, aren’t you?”

Delilah nodded, watching as her mother opened up the booklet and began flipping through the pages, sipping her tea and commenting on various bits of stranger advice. Asking questions. Delilah wasn’t really listening, busy as she was chewing on the inside of her cheek and swallowing the blood pooling on her tongue, wondering how on earth a mother could know so much about monster muscles. And whether it wasn’t just a little bit possible for monster muscles to behave differently from human muscles.

Delilah swung her feet from the kitchen chair, letting them hit the table legs in the same beat as the ticktock of the wall clock above her mother’s head.

“There’s some decent advice in this booklet,” said Elisabeth. “Most of it is over the top, but it does say we should come up with a secret code for you, one that only we know. So if anyone tries to pick you up from school, you’ll know you’re only allowed to go if they know your code.”

“I don’t get it,” said Delilah.

Elisabeth reached behind her to the windowsill and stubbed out her cigarette, waving the smoke out the window. “Like if I were to send a friend to pick you up, you’d know it was okay to leave with that person if she had your secret code. It would mean I gave it to her. Should we pick one? Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Okay.” Delilah glanced around the room.

“Cookie.”

“Too boring.”

“How about windowsill? Or clock?”

Elisabeth pulled Delilah onto her lap. “I think it should be more special. More distinctive.” She tapped the calendar hanging beside the phone. It was a glossy, oversize calendar featuring French Impressionist paintings. September’s masterpiece was Paul Cézanne’s
Three Bathers,
depicting a group of female nudes in a landscape the artist painted in 1875. “Cézanne,” said Elisabeth. “No, let’s make it two artists. My two favorites. Your secret code will be Monet and Cézanne.”

Delilah slid off Elisabeth’s lap and crinkled her nose, unsure. “Monie and Cézanne?”

“Mon-et and Cézanne.” She stood up and dumped her tea in the sink. “So we’re all set then. Delilah Blue Lovett, what is your top secret code?”

Delilah snatched up her stranger booklet and, holding it under the table, tore off the cover and crinkled it into a ball.

“Sweetheart, what’s your secret code?
”

She stuffed the crumpled drawing under her leg
.

“Monie and Cézanne.
”

Elisabeth laughed and ran her hand over her daughter’s forehead. “That’s okay. You’ll get it with a little practice.” She pulled a pizza from the freezer and set it on the counter with a clunk. “Just remember—don’t tell a soul, not even your father. Monet and Cézanne will be our little secret. It’ll keep you where you belong. With me.”