Keep You (34 page)

**

              Jo visited Melinda the next three days. She brought her heaping armfuls of flowers, not caring if Tam knew who they were from, a tiny box of Godiva chocolates that made her smile, and pictures. So many pictures. The old Walker family albums, so she could see Mike and Jordie and her, and Tam with them, through the years. Jo even brought the treasured shoebox from the back of her closet that held the few photos of her with Tam, shots they’d asked passersby to take of them, and her stupid photo booth strips.

             
Melinda tried to defend her ex-husband and it became apparent that she was not just soft-hearted, but a little bit blind, a little naïve, too gentle for how harsh the world really was. There were mental gaps Jo suspected weren’t the result of chemo, but that had always been there.

             
Her love for her son, though, was radiant. She was proud beyond words of Tam, and pain flickered in her eyes because she realized he wasn’t proud of her.

             
On the fifth day, Jamie came back to the treatment lab at work and told Jo she had a phone call, and gave her a little squeeze on the shoulder. Maria Sylva was on the phone: Melinda Wales had passed. Peacefully. In her sleep. Her tattered body had finally released her.

             
Jo thanked her, hung up, went back to work feeling like a boulder sat where her stomach had been. She called her mother as she walked to her car and they traded choked-up half sentences about what they needed to do.

             
Then she went to see Delta.

27

Now

              Jo had only ever been inside a home like the Brooks’ via
House Hunters
. As the housekeeper – holy shit, they had a
housekeeper
– led her through a kitchen the size of a football stadium, tricked out in every stainless steel appliance imaginable, she kept thinking about Melinda Wales’s blue eyes. About the softness in Mike’s voice when she’d eavesdropped on him and Delta. She told herself that you could go years without knowing the whole story. The real truth. And that created an odd sort of conviction in her as she followed the housekeeper’s pointing finger down a short flight of brick steps and across a brick patio toward a copper-roofed, white gazebo that was nestled in under a grove of trees and surrounded by shade-loving flowers and ferns.

             
The Brooks’ backyard was an enchanted forest. The mother and child abstract sculpture thrust its arms between the branches of a red bud. Willows guarded a koi pond dotted with lilies.
Southern Living
could have spent hours wandering through the perennial beds along the fence, snapping pictures. At the center of it all, her dark head bent over an open book, sunlight filtering through the latticework pillars of the gazebo and falling in bold shafts across the simple blue dress she wore, Delta was stunning, even without trying to be.

             
Jo followed the pea gravel path to the gazebo, knowing her arrival was heralded by the crunch of her shoes over the little stones, but not surprised that Delta didn’t acknowledge her, not even when she’d taken a seat on the circular bench opposite her. Jo glanced up at the back of the monstrous white house, and then at the daughter it had spawned.

             
“What are you reading?”

             
The cover of the book tilted up toward her:
Emma
by Jane Austen. How ironically appropriate.

             
“I had you pegged as more of a teen lit vampire fan.”

             
The book snapped shut, a little puff of air whirling Delta’s hair around her shoulders. She lifted her dark eyes up to meet Jo and they were brimming with a silent warning. “I hate those kinds of books,” her voice had icicles dripping from it. “What’s so romantic about being a monster?”

             
Jo knew she walked a tightrope here; one false move, and she’d fall. Delta would boot her ass out and she wouldn’t get another shot at this. She tipped her head in concession. “My thoughts exactly.”

             
Delta picked up her regal nose and regarded her down the length of it, eyes narrowing to slits. “Why are you here, Jo? I thought you’d be glad to get rid of me.”

             
Right to the chase, then. “I’ve spent the last four days visiting with a dying woman,” Jo said levelly. “She died today. Kinda put that whole ‘while there’s still time’ thing in perspective.”

             
“Meaning…?”

             
“Mike wanted to marry you.” Jo glanced down at the diamond that still glittered on the brunette’s finger and Delta tucked her hand beneath her leg. “And I’m guessing you wanted to marry him. Still do, or you’d have chucked that ring at his head.”

             
“So? What’s any of that to you?”

             
“My older brother Walt intentionally broke my heart. I don’t want to think that I’ve done anything to screw up Mike’s relationship, even if he is an asshole.”

             
Stone could have looked more lifelike than Delta while she processed the information. Finally, she blinked, sighed, and opened her book again. “It wasn’t your fault, so it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” It was a classic assurance that was also an invitation and a warning. There was a story there that Delta both wanted to be a martyr about, and didn’t want to share.

             
“Delta.”

             
Her dark eyes snapped up, brimming with
fuck you
.

             
“Why’d you call off the wedding?”

             
No answer.

             
“Well.” Jo got to her feet. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry if I caused all the trouble. I had no idea Tam would…well, I’m sorry. I don’t have any idea what it’s like to be you and I shouldn’t have passed judgment.”

             
She was halfway back toward the patio when she heard, “Jo,” and turned to see Delta sitting on the edge of the bench, book set aside. “Did Mike send you?” There was the slightest note of hope to her voice.

             
“No.” Her shoulders dropped. “I’m his least favorite, slutty sister who screwed his best friend right now.”

             
Delta put a nude, manicured fingernail between her teeth and it took some of the frostiness off her image. Made her seem human. “Then…why are you here?” It was the same question as before, but the tone was all different, a real inquiry this time, confusion pulling her sculpted brows together.

             
Jo was honest. “Because I wanna know why, after all that pomp and circumstance, you didn’t marry my brother.”

             
Her dark, probably fake lashes fluttered and the corners of her mouth tugged down hard as she looked up at the house. As far as Jo knew, neither of the parents were home. The housekeeper had said that Mr. Brooks was still at the office and Mrs. Brooks was at yoga class. Delta had given up her own place before the wedding, so here she was, back home with the folks. The anxiety that swept down over her eyes in shiny curtains was a surprise to Jo, as were the words the crept from between her lips.

             
“They’ve always hated him,” Delta said in a voice just above a whisper. “My parents never wanted me to be with Mike.”

             
Jo was overcome by the itchiness of being watched, and she hurried back to the gazebo, through its curtains of creeping vines, and slid onto the bench across from Delta. “What?” was the only question she could muster.

             
Delta nodded. “He was blue collar and they thought he was beneath me, they…” she blew out a shaky breath. “They’re idiots.”

             
“Mike blue collar?” Jo said with disbelief. Her brother with the khakis and Polos, the spit-shined shoes, the Beemer, his insistence on foreign beer. “No he’s not.”

             
“Yes.” Delta shook her head. “You don’t understand – he’s not like the guys I used to date. He’s…” She gave her a pleading look, like she wanted, needed, for someone to see in Mike what she saw. “He’s a man’s man, you know? He’s real. He’s sweet.” Her smile quivered, emotion stealing into her voice. “He puts up with all my family’s bullshit.”

             
Tears threatened, glimmering at her lashes. “I thought if we could pull off this prefect wedding, they’d be proud, they’d start seeing Mike the way I do.”

             
It might have been the week she’d had, but Jo suspected it was true sympathy welling up in her chest. “Delta,” she said gently. “Your parents have to be proud of you – the both of you. You guys have good jobs and nice cars and well, you look like friggin’ Miss America. Think how cute the babies would be.” She chuckled, meaning it as a joke, but fat tears slipped down Delta’s smooth cheeks and she shook her head.

             
“You don’t get it.”

             
Two weeks ago, she would have said she didn’t want to. But that was before Walter was the brother who had betrayed her. Before Melinda had asked her in a voice like crispy leaves to please take care of Tam.

             
“Then help me to.” Delta gave her a wary look as she dabbed at her eyes with the pad of her index finger. “I know we’re not friends, but I keep great secrets.”

             
That earned her a tiny smile. “Mike didn’t know about you and Tam.”

             
“That’s where the whole slutty sister thing comes into play.”

             
Delta nodded. Blew out a deep, deflating breath. “I, um, I was dating this boy in high school. Brody. He was the son of mom and dad’s friends – the Sullivans – and he was on the football team. Quarter back.”

             
Jo was forming a quick mental image of a lot of the jerks she’d gone to high school with. “Uh huh,” she prodded.

             
“We didn’t, you know, love each other, I know that now. But I wanted us to. I wanted it to be special.” Her breath caught with a little hitch. “When I got pregnant - ”

             
Jo stifled a gasp.

             
“ – I thought…well, you know what sixteen-year-old girls in that situation think.”

             
She didn’t, not really, because she hadn’t been sixteen and pregnant. There had been times, when Tam was buried deep inside her, every cell in her body screaming for him, when she’d wondered “what if.” What if the condom broke. What if they weren’t careful enough. What if she wound up pregnant. She’d never had any doubts about his reaction.

             
“But Brody,” Delta said, “and my parents…” she sniffled, pressed the back of her hand beneath her nose and talked around it, voice muffled. “Everyone wanted me to get it rid of it.”

             
“Oh, Delta,” Jo said before she could stop herself. Her eyes were burning again, a whole week’s worth of crying wanting to be let out at once.

             
“Brody was getting a football scholarship and Mom and Dad wanted me to go to UGA. They…they were embarrassed.” She took another rattled breath. “I had the abortion.”

             
A cicada started whining in the trees overhead. Birds chirped at one another. The sunlight turned Delta into the subject of a painting, pained and lovely.

             
“Does Mike know?” Jo asked.

             
She nodded. “He and Regina are the only ones I’ve ever told – well, and you now – and he took it like such a champ. You should have seen him.” A smile cut through her tears. “He was exactly everything I’d never been around. He was
normal
. He” -  more tears - “he was the settle down kind of guy and not a player.

             
“The first time he met my parents, he used the same fork for salad, dinner and dessert. He asked my dad what he thought about the Braves’ starting lineup. He complimented my mom’s cooking and about choked when she told him a chef had made it instead.” She shook her head. “He’s more like the rest of you than you think.”

             
It didn’t matter if that statement was true in Jo’s mind: it was in Delta’s. The simple knowledge that Delta was willingly marrying a Walker, rather than marrying him in spite of the fact, was comforting.

             
“I thought you hated all of us,” she admitted, and Delta’s eyes went saucer wide.

             
“No! I mean, I wish you’d all cooperate better” - and there was the princess - “I wanted my parents to be happy” - and the real person inside her - “but I don’t hate any of you.” She sighed. “I don’t really understand you, Jo, okay? You’re not like my friends.”