The truth thudded into my brain. How could I have been so stupid? Because Delia had been so smart. Delia, who’d turned down every invitation from a man. Delia, in her prim, tight bun. Delia, going to morning Mass on Mondays. Doing her penance, no doubt. Doing battle against the world with nothing but God and a hairbrush.
I sank back on my heels as memory followed memory. That evening in the lobby of the theater, the trip to see Carousel.… Angela hadn’t had a headache. She knew Delia was her husband’s mistress. No wonder Angela had hated me.
Delia’s tears, her anger, the slap… was it all about her own heart’s agony?
And that very night… I’d seen Delia, in the bathtub, crying, her body white and rose, her breasts bobbing on the water, her red-gold hair like glittering seaweed on her shoulders. I’d turned away because I’d been embarrassed— Delia’s naked body was so beautiful, so womanly. So I’d turned away and forgotten what I’d seen.
Turning away. Wasn’t that what we did in my family?
I like your hair that way.
I’d like to see you in that black dress.
The way Nate looked at me, the way he’d held me when we danced… and the clothes! Dressing me the way he’d dressed her, most likely. He’d recognized the compact, of course. He hadn’t wanted to fix it, he’d wanted to take it. Maybe that’s why I’d felt he’d been here, maybe that’s what he was looking for.
Everything made sense, except for one thing.
Why had Delia disappeared?
Twenty-five
Providence, Rhode Island
September 1938
The first time I saw Nate Benedict was after the hurricane of ‘38, which Muddie, Jamie, and I spent in the bathtub, waiting for the roof to blow off. Nobody knew the storm was coming — people went on church picnics, they went to work, the children went to school — and when the rain and wind came, it was so ferocious that it didn’t take long before everyone in Rhode Island knew they were in trouble. Some of them didn’t know it until their houses were sailing away with them inside.
The rain was bad but Delia went to work anyway, because if she missed a day, she’d miss a paycheck. She left early so she wouldn’t be late. She was trapped downtown. In a burst of surprising piety, Da told us to pray. No phones were working, we’d lost electricity, and there was no going out of doors with trees slinging by in the wind. We were sure we were going to die, and it terrified and thrilled us.
People did die in the hurricane in Rhode Island, hundreds of them, drowned in their cars, struck by trees, swept straight out to sea, but after the skies cleared, Fox Point cheered up, for the hurricane meant jobs. Anyone who could hold a shovel had immediate work if he wanted it. It was tough going, cleaning out muck and dragging downed trees, and Da came home exhausted and slept in his clothes.
I was the only one who heard the quiet knocking that night, a week after the hurricane. I was lying awake, warming my feet against Jamie’s back as he slept at the bottom of the mattress.
Was that it, was that the start of it, the change in the family, a movement of knuckles on a door?
I stuck my head out of the closet and watched as Da greeted the stranger in a murmur. Da’s hair was matted with dust and stuck up in back, and he was in a white undershirt and work pants, his feet clownish in thick wool socks. A man stepped through the door, dressed in a gray suit spotted with rain. Men in suits didn’t come to our door, and I crept out to get a closer look.
They talked about the storm, of course, because everyone was still talking about it. I heard Da chuckle as he hurriedly tucked in his shirt. He quickly ushered the guest into the kitchen, past the shabby furniture, the blanket falling off the couch, and his boots caked with dirt sitting on a newspaper by the door.
I followed the murmurs and skidded next to the wall to listen. The whiskey bottle taken down from high in the cupboard, the chime of glasses — a rare event, so the man must be important. I wanted to hear his hurricane story; maybe he’d seen a drowned body, something to tell Jamie and