“So . . . have a good night,” Claire said as Ruby headed toward a little silver Prius parked at the end of the street. Delilah wondered where they lived, what their house looked like.
“Yeah, you too.” She slipped her hands in her pockets and started walking backward, her eyes still on Claire.
The other woman opened her mouth once . . . twice . . . before finally asking, “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
Delilah stopped. “Tomorrow?”
“Astrid’s dinner? At your . . . at Isabel’s house.”
Delilah’s tiredness morphed into exhaustion. “Yeah. You’ll see me.”
Claire nodded and fiddled with her keys. “Good. Okay, then.”
“Okay, then.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Except neither woman moved. Delilah wasn’t going to budge; she knew that. She was enjoying this fidgeting, addled Claire. Especially since Delilah was ninety percent positive she was the cause of the addling.
“Mom!” Ruby called from the car.
“Coming!”
Claire looked at Delilah one more time before finally turning her back and speed-walking toward her kid. Delilah stood in the middle of the sidewalk, ice cream lickers angling around her, watching with a smile on her face until Claire drove out of sight.
Chapter Eight
DELILAH STOOD IN the driveway, Wisteria House rising up above her. It was dusk, the air a soft lavender, and it seemed like a few people were already here. She could not—would not—walk into that house with just Isabel and make small talk. Or, in Isabel’s true medium, passive-aggressive talk. She wasn’t even sure she could walk in there regardless, even with it full of other people.
Wisteria House had always been a confusing place for Delilah. On the one hand, she’d lived here with her father for two years, from ages eight to ten. She remembered that time, unlike the foggy, unformed pictures in her mind from her earlier childhood in Seattle. Her mother, dead by the time Delilah turned four, was just a shadow by now, a blur of curly hair and a soft hand on her cheek. But her father, Andrew, she remembered his face perfectly, his dark blue eyes, the way he laughed so loudly, from way deep down in his belly, always causing Delilah to laugh too, even if she didn’t get the joke. Wisteria House was his, built and named for his new family, for his daughter he never got to see grow up.
But Wisteria House was also theirs. Isabel’s. Astrid’s. After Andrew died, Isabel’s grief was heavy, a dark cloak over everything. She’d already lost her first husband to cancer—which was one reason she and Andrew had initially bonded: a shared grief over a horrible disease—and losing another so suddenly nearly killed her. Delilah remembered thinking, through her own sad haze, that Isabel might actually die of a broken heart and then she and Astrid would be left truly alone or maybe even sent away.
But Isabel survived, and as she slowly came back to life, Delilah kept waiting for the mother she needed. The parent. She waited for comfort and assurance. Hell, just a hand squeezing her shoulder in passing would’ve made her heart feel a little bit more at home in her own chest. Astrid sure as hell wasn’t going to give it. But it never came from Isabel either. The woman fed her. Provided her with school supplies. Made sure she did her homework. Bought her Christmas presents. Clothed her with designer labels that Astrid loved and Delilah never cared for, but that was it. Basic needs, leaving love out of the equation altogether. Granted, she wasn’t overly affectionate with Astrid either, but she was involved. Always asking about school projects, Astrid’s friends, going to every single track meet during high school and cheering loudly, pushing Astrid to be better, faster. That was a kind of care, wasn’t it? Astrid lapped up all that attention when they were younger, and then seemed to grow annoyed by it when they got to high school. Still, whenever Delilah sat next to Isabel on those metal bleachers, watching Astrid fly around a track with her blond ponytail flicking behind her, Delilah craved a question, any question, any push to greatness.
It never came. So when Delilah’s fingers curled around her high school diploma to polite, dispassionate applause, she knew it was time to leave for good.
Now, just like each of the few times she’d been back in the last twelve years, she looked up at the lovely Georgian brick exterior of Wisteria House and felt a low simmering panic just under each breath. She pressed her hands to her stomach and inhaled. She knew she had to go in, get through this just like she’d gotten through the brunch. She just needed a moment to prepare. But one moment turned into another, and she knew, any second, her phone would go off with Astrid screeching about professionalism and timeliness.