Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(18)

“Thank you,” she whispered and smiled.





In the days following the party, Delia began visiting back and forth with the women she’d met at the barbeque. Once she walked the full way to Luella Jackson’s house carrying Isaac in her arms. Benjamin volunteered to drive her there, but Delia shook her head.

“I like walking,” she said. “I like the feel of sun on my shoulders and the smell of growing things.”

A few weeks later Beulah came to visit with two of the babies and the teenage girl. They spent a full afternoon sitting on the porch, talking and laughing as they lingered over sweet cakes and lemonade.

That evening sitting across from Benjamin at the supper table, Delia said, “Now that I’ve come to know Grinder’s Corner, it’s not so different from Twin Pines after all.”

Benjamin smiled.





Letters





During that first year Delia wrote countless letters to her mama; some were answered, some were not. She also wrote four letters to her daddy, but each one of those was returned with a heavy-handed scroll saying “Return to Sender.” Delia recognized her daddy’s handwriting, and after the last one came back she stopped writing.

When Isaac was just a few months old, Delia took a picture of him and sent it to her mama. She told of the clever things he did and how although he had Benjamin’s features, he had her own coloring and frame. “He’s got eyes exactly like you, Mama,” she wrote, then slid the picture inside the envelope and sealed it.

That letter was answered the very next week. Mary claimed the picture was dear to her heart and that she was keeping it hidden inside her underwear drawer.

“I’ve been wanting to come for a visit,” the letter said, “but your daddy won’t hear of it. Every night I pray God will make him a more forgiving man, but so far those prayers haven’t been answered.”

Mary went on to say how much she loved Delia and wished her well.

“What happened, happened,” she wrote. “It may not be right, but it sure isn’t reason enough to turn your back on your own child. I can’t come to see you and Isaac, but that don’t stop me from loving you.”

There was a five-dollar bill tucked inside the envelope.





Through the years Delia and her mama sent letters back and forth on a regular basis. She sent pictures of Isaac with his first tooth, when he started walking, and then throwing a ball. There were a few pictures where Delia was sitting alongside of Isaac but only one where Isaac was sitting on his daddy’s lap.

Mary usually wrote back with gushing comments over the boy. “He’s such a handsome lad,” she’d write, “he’s got his granddaddy’s build.” She expressed amazement that Isaac was walking at just nine months. “Why, you were full into a year before you’d take a single step.”

But when Delia sent the picture of Isaac with his daddy, there was no answer for two months. When the letter finally came, it made no mention of the picture.

They say that given time all wounds will heal, anger will be forgotten, and sins forgiven, but that was not true of Delia’s daddy. He never forgave her and forbid Mary to speak her name.

“As far as I’m concerned, she’s dead,” he said and stuck to it.

Once when George’s cousin came from Baltimore for a visit, they were sitting at the supper table and the cousin asked how Delia was doing.

“She’s dead,” George answered and stuffed a chunk of pork chop in his mouth.

Mary gasped and clutched her hand to her heart as if the death had occurred that very second. “George, don’t…” She was going to say more, but the anger in George’s eyes and the hard way he chomped down on that piece of pork stopped her.

The cousin, sensing something was amiss, moved on to talking about baseball.





Just as time didn’t dull George Finch’s anger, it didn’t dull the hurt in Delia’s heart. When Mary’s letters came, she would sit on the porch reading and rereading every word. Each sentence was carefully constructed to say only certain things, but threaded through the words were feelings of fear and anger. After that first time there was never another mention of her daddy.

~

Delia and Benjamin hoped for more children, but it never happened and by the time Isaac turned three she had given up hoping.

“I can only assume this is another thing Daddy has wished on us,” she said.

Setting aside the sadness, she poured her love into Isaac and the life she and Benjamin were building together. She found a new kind of happiness in the small things that filled her days. Winters were long and sometimes harsh, but during those days Delia threaded her sewing machine and stitched patches for a quilt. The week after Isaac’s first birthday, she finished the first quilt and began stitching a second.

Keeping busy proved to be a way of forgetting her daddy’s words. When the cold of winter left, she planted a garden nearly as wide as the house. She grew the things they ate: sweet potatoes, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, beans, watermelons, and strawberries. As things ripened she carried them inside and began canning. Everywhere she went Isaac trailed behind her. Shortly after he began to talk, he started to learn the names of things she grew in the garden.

“Dat’s coo-cumer,” he’d say and point to a tomato.