Summer Friends (31 page)
Authors: Holly Chamberlin
64
Delphine pulled her truck into her brother's driveway late Saturday morning. Joey was at work, but Cybel was home with Kitty.
“Thanks for letting me come along,” Maggie said as she climbed out of the passenger seat.
“Well, Kitty asked me about you. She wanted to know why you were staying in a hotel and not with me, since you're my friend. Like a sleepover.”
“What did you tell her?”
Delphine shrugged. “Something lame. But she also wanted to know if she could meet you before you go back home.”
Delphine knocked on the front door, and a moment later Cybel let them in. Delphine introduced Maggie to her sister-in-law.
“Kitty's in the living room,” Cybel said. “I'm letting her watch TV as a treat. Usually, she's not allowed to watch TV during the day. But now . . .”
Maggie touched Cybel's arm. “Yes,” she said gently.
Cybel smiled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I'll go get us something to drink. You can go on in.”
They found Kitty sitting on the couch, eyes glued to a cartoon on the television.
“Hey,” Delphine said. “What are you watching?”
“Johnny Test.”
“Is it good?”
Kitty shrugged. “It's okay. I like the dog.”
“I've brought my friend Maggie to meet you. Remember, you asked?”
Kitty looked away from the television and nodded. “Hi,” she said.
Maggie sat on the old armchair next to the couch. “Hey, Kitty. Wow, you look just like your aunt!”
“I know. Are you Aunt Delphine's best friend in the whole world?”
Maggie hesitated a moment before saying, “I think so.”
“Yes, Kitty,” Delphine said, “she is.”
“I have a best friend, too. Her name is Emily.”
“Oh?” Maggie smiled. “What's she like?”
Kitty smiled. “Awesome. She's not here right now, though. She went to visit her cousins in Montreal.”
“You must miss her.”
Kitty nodded. “Mm-hm. She sent me a postcard. And I'm making her a friendship bracelet for when she gets back.”
Maggie looked to Delphine, then back to Kitty. “You know, your aunt and I made each other friendship bracelets when we were kids.”
“Cool.” Kitty's eyes drifted back to the cartoon.
Cybel came in then with a tray of glasses. “I hope you like iced tea,” she said. “It's unsweetened, but I have sugar if you'd like.”
Maggie smiled. “Unsweetened is fine, thank you, Cybel.”
The women chatted about nothing in particular and avoided any mention of Kitty's illness. Joey was having difficulty getting payment from a new client of his small-appliance repair business. Patrice had heard that the family who had owned and operated one of the gift shops in town was thinking of selling to someone from New York. The news had cost her a sleepless night. Dave Jr. had a new girlfriend of whom Jackie didn't approve. She must be pretty horrid, Maggie thought, if not even Jackie, who liked everyone, disliked her. That or Jackie was just being an overprotective mother, something Maggie didn't know an awful lot about.
There was a lull in the chitchat and Maggie nodded toward Kitty. Her eyes were fixated on the screen, her mouth open. “I think we've lost her,” Maggie whispered.
“That's why we're usually pretty strict about letting her watch TV,” Cybel explained. “They really do get addicted. That's all some of the kids at my day care talk about, their favorite TV characters. It's depressing.”
Delphine and Maggie agreed. And then Delphine suggested they leave and let Cybel get back to whatever it was she had been doing when they'd arrived. “Cleaning the kitchen,” she said with a tired laugh. “Joey's a great husband, but he can't clean worth a lick.”
“Call me if you want some help,” Delphine offered. “I'm a whiz with a mop.”
They got back into the truck and drove toward Delphine's house.
“Kitty's a very nice little girl,” Maggie said.
Delphine nodded. “Joey and Cybel are good parents. I wish Norman was a bit more attentive to his little sister, but the age difference makes it hard. And with his own wife pregnant . . .”
“Maybe once the baby is born things will change,” Maggie suggested. “Kitty will have a new niece or nephew. Maybe she'll enjoy helping to take care of the baby.”
The thought made Delphine smile. Kitty surviving to be an aunt. Maybe it was a long shot, but she hoped not. She so hoped not.
“You know,” Maggie was saying now, “for a long time I thought I must have done something wrong or hurtful to you. And that was the reason why you didn't pursue our friendship after you came back here. But it wasn't about me at all, was it?”
“No,” Delphine replied promptly. But then she reconsidered. “Actually, yes. It was about you in the sense that you had come to represent for me a life I just couldn't live. I guess in a way it was painful to be around you. That sounds horrible, I know. Even when you came back, this summer, at first I didn't want you to be here. I was afraid ofâof having to remember everything. Afraid that maybe I had made the wrong choice after all, all those years ago, and that seeing you would make me realize it.”
“I had no idea my coming here this summer would be so monumental for you,” Maggie admitted. “And so monumental for me, too. I probably should have.” Maggie paused and then said, “Be honest with me, okay? After college, when you came back to Ogunquit, did you care at all about how I might be feeling? Did you ever think that I might be hurt by your walking away?”
Delphine sighed. “Honestly,” she said, “no. Or not much. I thought you were so strong, far stronger than me. I didn't think you would suffer just because I moved away.”
“You more than just moved away. It felt like you were abandoning me, and our friendship. I felt . . . devastated.”
“I never really wanted the friendship to end,” Delphine insisted. “That wasn't my goal.”
“Then why did you shut me out?” Maggie asked. “I'm not angry, really, not anymore. I just want to understand.”
“I was thinking only of what I needed to do to get myself away fromâfrom everything, without losing courage. I knew I had made the right decision in coming back to Ogunquit. I knew it. But it was hard. Sometimes, it was very hard.”
Maggie shook her head. “I wish I had known even that. It would have helped me to cope.”
“I was being selfish.”
“Yes. But sometimes a person needs to be selfish. I know that now, but back then I didn't quite understand it.”
Delphine pulled into her driveway and parked. “I have some wine,” she said when they had gone inside. “I know it's good because it's the same as what you brought that time, the sauvignon blanc. I made a mental note.”
“Yes, please,” Maggie said. “A glass of wine would be perfect right now.”
“We can sit on the porch if you'd like,” Delphine said, but Maggie had already gone back outside and settled in one of the wicker chairs. Delphine fetched the wine and glasses and returned a few minutes later. Melchior watched them through the window from his perch on the back of the couch.
Delphine opened the wine, poured them each a glass, and settled into her own chair with a sigh.
“Okay?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah. Just . . . tired.”
“You have reason to be.”
“Yes. You know, since myâwell, my breakdown on the living room floor the other day, I've been thinking about friendships. Friendships are habits, aren't they? At least, they become habits. And habits aren't neutral; they're either good or bad. I believe that our habit, this friendship, is a good habit. I didn't always understand that.”
“Our friendship is a habit of affection. A habit of love.”
“Yes. And no one chooses to break a habit of affection, do they? It sometimes just happens, for any variety of reasons, but a person doesn't just say, âHey, I think I'll not love this person anymore.' So I guess what I'm saying is that maybe all those years when we were out of touchâmy fault, I knowâI was still really your friend. Maybe the friendship wasn't dead, it was just . . . dormant. Maybe the love was still there, just . . . sleeping.”
Maggie smiled and took a sip of her wine. “You think too much and I don't think enough.”
Delphine smiled back. “Do we balance each other out?”
“I think that's yet to be seen.”
They sat in silence for a while. The air was clear, the humidity low. A hummingbird was feasting at the butterfly bush. Maggie thought she heard the lapping of waves in the distance but realized she might just be imagining that.
“I've also been thinking,” Delphine said after some time, “about what happened to me. Or what I let happen to me when I came back home. I realize now that as time went on I seemed to matter less for myself than I once had. What I wanted, the things I didn't have, the things I hadn't yet done . . . Everything grew less important. What was in front of meâduties to my family, the demands of daily lifeâall of that stuff seemed to step forward to obscure my view of myself somehow. Delphine Crandall got increasingly less bright and insistent until she was only a grey, shadowy person. I thought that meant I had grown up. Now, I'm not so sure.”
“Yes,” Maggie said carefully. “It can be hard to pay proper attention to yourself, to value yourself, when other people need and rely on you.”
“I became the person everyone needs. Sometimes, that's not such a great person to be.”
“I don't think I've ever really been that person. I've never had to sacrifice my selfhood for anyone. Oh, maybe to some extent when the children were small. But not now, not any longer. And Gregory . . . Well, I don't think that Gregory needs me, either. I'm not sure he ever has, aside from being someone he could have kids with, someone he could buy a big house with, someone he could travel with. I could probably be substituted with one of a thousand other women!”
“Please, Maggie,” Delphine said gently. “I don't think you should assume that Gregory doesn't love you for who you are as an individual. I don't think you should speak for him. Ask him what he feels.”
“I suppose you're right. But I think I might be afraid to hear what he has to say.”
Delphine smiled. “That is always a problem with communication, isn't it? Having to hear what the other person has to say.”
“Oh, yes,” Maggie agreed. “So, are you thinking that you might want to start paying some attention to yourself? Making sure that some of Delphine Crandall's needs are finally met?”
“Yes,” Delphine said after a moment. “I think so. I think that maybe I went too far in the direction of service. I think that I want to do more with my knitting. I think that I do good work and I want to share that with more people. I do want to travel a bit, though honestly, I don't even know where! And the whole thing with Harry . . .”
“The Harry Situation.”
“Yeah. I know now for sure that it's not right, not fair to me.”
“Good for you. It'll be hardâchange always isâbut I believe in you, Delphine. I always have.” Maggie paused for a moment. “Look,” she said then. “I know you don't like it when I try to give you things.”
Delphine smiled. “If by âthings' you mean money, well, yeah. But that's my issue. I do appreciate the good motives behind your offers. I do now, anyway.”
“Yes, well.” Maggie put down her wineglass and took a rectangular pale blue velvet box out of her bag. She handed it to Delphine.
“What's this?” Delphine asked.
“Open it.”
Delphine lifted the cover of the hinged velvet box to reveal the aquamarine necklace. “It's beautiful,” she said, looking back to Maggie. “But I don't understand.”
“It's your birthstone. Aquamarine.”
“But it's not my birthday.”
Maggie took a deep breath. And then she told Delphine about the necklace. She apologized for not having asked Delphine to stand up for her at her wedding. She apologized for not having given her the necklace all those years ago.
“You've been carrying this around for twenty-four years?” Delphine asked when Maggie had finished.
“Well, technically it's been in the back of my lingerie drawer.”
“That's why the box smells like perfume.”
“Chanel, actually.”
Delphine looked down again at the necklace and then smiled. “It doesn't exactly go with my T-shirt and jeans.”
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