Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(13)
“Please don’t worry, Delia,” he said. “It will be alright.” He hesitated a moment then added, “I swear it will.”
Benjamin made a silent vow that carried the weight of one sworn with his hand on the Bible. From that day forward he would be everything Delia needed. He would see that she never went hungry, always had a home, and was loved more than any woman on earth.
With the heavy rain and back roads turning muddy, the drive took almost two hours. Grinder’s Corner was the sort of place you could pass through and never know you’d been there, so when Benjamin turned into the drive it came as a surprise to Delia.
“This is it?” she asked.
Benjamin nodded. With the dark of night hanging heavy over the land, the only thing to be seen was the lamplight coming from the house. He lifted his arm and pointed across her shoulder.
“Out there’s a full field of collards, and the back field…” He motioned out the front windshield, “…that’s filled with beets and parsnips.”
“Oh my,” Delia sighed sounding impressed.
“Yep,” he said proudly, “it’s gonna be a real good spring harvest.”
When he parked the car alongside the house Benjamin leaned across the seat and kissed Delia, not with passion but with the tenderness that had settled in his heart.
“Delia, honey,” he said, “you and that baby ain’t never gonna want for nothing. I swear.”
He climbed from the car, came around to Delia’s side, and lifted her into his arms. “I know we ain’t official yet, but since this is gonna be your new home I’m figuring to carry you across the threshold.”
That night Benjamin settled Delia in his bedroom, and he slept on the sofa. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary, but he wanted Otis and everyone in Grinder’s Corner to have the respect for Delia that her daddy had taken away.
The next day they drove into Bakerstown and were married by a justice of the peace. It was a simple ceremony with just the two of them and a secretary they’d never before seen serving as witness. Delia wore her pink dress with the lace collar, and when the justice pronounced them man and wife Benjamin slid her grandma’s gold wedding band on Delia’s finger. It was a bittersweet reminder of the family she’d left behind.
On the far edge of town they stopped at a roadside inn for lunch, then returned home. Benjamin changed into his overalls and headed out to the field.
That afternoon as Delia mixed up the batter for cornbread, she gazed out the kitchen window. For as far as she could see there was nothing but flat land with rows of green coming from the ground. In the distance there were tall pines but no streets, no stores, no lampposts, no people. Being married to Benjamin was something she’d wanted since the first time he’d held her in his arms, but now it seemed that all the happiness she’d envisioned had been replaced by a strange sense of loneliness. She’d imagined a honeymoon, maybe to a city where they’d spend the night in a hotel and dine in a fancy restaurant. She’d never dreamed that on the day of her wedding she’d be left alone in a strange house with chores to do.
Tears swelled in Delia’s eyes, and she brushed them back. The words of her father still echoed in her ear: “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it!”
Otis, who’d been over at Tommy Muller’s for the past two days, arrived home just as Delia was pulling a second pan of cornbread from the oven. The first cornbread, blackened to a crisp, had already disappeared into the garbage can.
“Well, now,” Otis said with a smile. “Looky what we got here.”
Delia wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing and crossed the room. “I’m Delia. Benjamin and me was married this morning.”
Otis grinned. “I ain’t the least surprised. That boy’s crazy in love with you.” He reached out and pulled Delia into his arms. “I’m real pleased to have you as part of our family.”
Delia smiled. “Thank you, sir, I’m pleased to be here.”
“Sir?” Otis let out a rolling belly laugh. “There ain’t no ‘sir’ here, jest call me Daddy Church.”
“Daddy Church sounds real good,” Delia said.
That evening when they sat down to supper the chicken was fried hard as a rock and the collard greens were swimming in vinegar, but no one complained. Benjamin said it was a fine meal and a real good effort, seeing as this was Delia’s first time cooking. There was no mention of a baby and there wouldn’t be for several months, not until after Delia’s stomach began to swell.
Time is a strange companion. Sometimes it steals from you the things you treasure and other times it acts as your staunchest ally, dulling memories of events and dates. So it was with Delia’s pregnancy. When the news that she was expecting a baby finally got out, the townspeople of Grinder’s Corner had already lost track of when she and Benjamin were married.
Although Grinder’s Corner was little more than a cluster of farms where poor whites and colored sharecroppers scratched a living from the land, it had a general store where people could buy candy bars and a few necessities. It had neither baby clothes nor bolts of fabric.
When Delia was ready to start making baby clothes, Benjamin took the entire seventeen dollars from his savings jar and suggested they go into Bakerstown.