Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(17)
Benjamin laughed. “’Course there’s the Jacksons; Will and Luella got a newborn what’s a boy, but they live on the far end of Cross Corner Road. That’s a good five miles.”
“Oh, please invite them. Five miles ain’t so far. Soon as Isaac starts walking around, he’s gonna need a friend to play with.”
The second Benjamin nodded yes Delia began asking what Luella was like. Was she young? Did she like to garden? Did they have other children?
For the next two weeks Delia busied herself with preparations for the party. She cleaned every corner of the house and painted the railing around the porch. After planting a row of begonias alongside the front steps, she raked the drive so it would be free of stones and soft enough for toddler-sized bare feet. The whole time she worked she sang or whistled. Twice Benjamin heard her humming a song they’d sung in her daddy’s church.
With the cleaning now finished Delia realized that she’d done a dozen different things to assure the grownups had a good time, but she’d made no preparations for all the children who would be coming. Isaac was still a baby and needed nothing more than a soft basket and warm bottle of milk but there were other kids, some just toddlers and some old as fourteen.
“Daddy Church,” she asked, “do you think you could build a swing for the kids to play on?”
He grinned. “Yep. Long as you ain’t wanting nothing fancy.”
Delia was going to say there was no rush since they had another three days until the party, but by then Otis had walked off leaving the bottom half of his coffee sitting on the table. Minutes later she heard him in the yard; he was sawing a piece of wood and whistling Dixie.
She had barely finished clearing the table before he was back.
“All done,” he said. “Wanna give it a try?”
Gathering Isaac into her arms, Delia followed Otis into the yard and climbed onto the swing. With Isaac in her lap she pushed herself back and forth. He squealed, and she laughed out loud.
“This is wonderful,” she said. “The kids are gonna love it!”
As Otis stood there watching, he thought back on the days when Benjamin was the baby in Lila’s arms. If he closed his eyes he could see the picture and feel the happiness he’d once felt. It was a sad thing to grow old and an even sadder thing to lose your sense of purpose. Otis lost his after Lila was gone, and with it went whatever happiness he’d known.
The odd thing about happiness is that it doesn’t make a big show of leaving. It just slips away silently. You continue moving through the days expecting it to be there, but it isn’t. Occasionally a look-alike pretender comes along and you think, Ah, my happiness is back again, then you realize it’s not. When real happiness finally returns, you’re certain of it.
Listening to Isaac’s squeals of delight, Otis gave a wide grin and settled into his newfound happiness. This one was no pretender.
The next day he began building a seesaw.
“What’s this?” Delia asked.
Otis, not a man given to sentimental gestures, mumbled, “A seesaw.”
“Oh, Daddy Church,” Delia sighed, “I can’t believe you’d go to all this work just for the party.”
“It ain’t jest for the party,” he said and kept hammering.
At that time Otis expected there’d be other babies. That Isaac would have sisters. And brothers. He’d imagine the future and could see the kitchen table surrounded by a circle of chairs. In each one there was a grandchild with a shiny bright smile.
But the future is a thing made of whisper-thin glass. The tiniest crack causes it to shatter and break into pieces. One moment you’re holding it in your hand, and seconds later it’s gone. Like happiness, it disappears before you realize it.
The day of the party dawned with a bright sun and gentle breeze. Delia declared it to be the finest weather God ever made. All morning she bustled from task to task, carrying Isaac in her right arm and setting out plates with her left.
At noontime the visitors started arriving. They came with cakes and pies and dishes of food. “Welcome to Grinder’s Corner,” the women said as they oohed and awed over Isaac. As Delia handed out dishes of potato salad and turnip greens, the women passed Isaac from one set of arms to the next. The whole while he gurgled and laughed, his little arms and legs spinning like pinwheels.
Until that day Isaac’s only food had been goat’s milk and mashed grits, but at the party he sucked the last bit of flavor from an almost bare rib bone and tasted bits of sweet potato pie.
“He’s after more ’n milk and grits,” Benjamin said, laughing. He poked his finger into a dish of cooked apples, let Isaac taste the sweet sauce, and then laughed again.
In all there were thirty-six people at the barbeque. Twenty-one of them were children, the youngest being Luella Jackson’s boy who was just six weeks, and the oldest Beulah’s girl, who’d be starting high school next year.
In the late afternoon when the babies slept and children played, the adults gathered in small groups. The women shared recipes and talked of visiting one another; the men spoke of crops and pay. Delia saw Benjamin sitting on the south edge of the grass so she went and sat next to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder. Threading her fingers through his, she lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it.