“I’m making a pie this morning,” Delia said. “I’ve been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at a neighbor’s.”
“That sounds cozy.”
She pushed her hair behind her ears, a gesture I remembered. She crossed to fill the kettle.
“You’ve got a right to hate me,” she said over the crash of water hitting metal. “I know that. But you came for answers, too. Wouldn’t it be easier if we were civil?”
She put the kettle on the stove and lit the burner with a match. She couldn’t light it the first time; her fingers were trembling. She struck another one and this time it worked. It was the tremble in her fingers more than her words that allowed me to sit down.
“Did you know he was coming last night?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Billy! Did you know he was coming to see you?” Was it only yesterday?
“What?”
“He was on the train, the Babylon train.” Delia’s face went white. “Billy was on…”
“He was killed.”
“Oh. Oh.” Delia said the word over and over in short exhalations of breath. “I went to church early this morning— we’ve lost several in the town. The funerals start on Saturday…. Billy.”
“Why was he coming to see you?” I asked.
The blast of the whistle from the kettle made us both jump. Delia hurried to the stove and took it off the burner. She carefully poured the water into the pot and warmed it, moving it around in her hands. Then she measured out tea and poured the rest of the water in. She did it slowly, as though she had to concentrate.
“He must have been… eighteen?”
“Nineteen. He enlisted in the army.”
“That poor, broken little boy.” Delia wiped her hands on a dish towel and brought the teapot to the table.
It was the word broken that did it. I started to cry again. The tears just leaked out, like air from a tire. I couldn’t seem to stop them. “He asked me to marry him a few days ago.”
She looked startled. “You and Billy…”
“You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t know.” She reached out instinctively to grab my hand, but I pulled away.
“I was with him just yesterday morning. Before he left he was upset. He said he just wanted the truth. That he had to stop the lies. Why would he come here?”
Delia looked down at her hands. “I’m not sure. I expect it has to do with his father.”
“I know you were his mistress, so don’t bother lying.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
I felt dizzy and sick, and though I’d been planning to refuse Delia’s tea, I took it. She had already added the cream and a half teaspoon of sugar. She knew just how I liked it. Funny how family is. You know how somebody takes their tea, but you have no idea about their heart.
“I’ve done my confession,” Delia said. “I’ve been forgiven. I’ve lived my penance.”
“Oh, good. I’m so happy to hear you’re square with God. Have a ball in heaven.”
She looked down and creased a napkin with her fingernail. “You’re old enough now to hear about it. You’re seventeen. I was about your age when I first met him.”
“At Buttonwoods Cove, in Warwick.”
It was like I hadn’t said anything. “Have you been in love yet? In love like you thought you would stop breathing when you saw him? Did you feel you were only truly in the world when you were with him?”
I didn’t answer, and I didn’t think Delia meant me to. “That’s how it was. Of course, we parted back then. Nate blamed Jimmy for it, but it was me. I knew I couldn’t marry him. I couldn’t fit into his world. Irish and Italians… we look down on each other, don’t we, for no reason at all, and I knew I’d be in the middle of that. So there was that, but there was also — I don’t know, fear. I didn’t know what he’d be. Bootlegging in Rhode Island… well, lots of people did it. Police looked the other way, the speakeasies were roaring, there was money to be made. But it started getting rougher, and I saw that Nate didn’t turn away from it like Jimmy did. So I told Nate to go away, and he did. I still think it was the right decision. You can’t save people, you know.”
“So how did you meet again?”
“The day of the hurricane. Do you remember, I was caught downtown? I ran into Benny — he was Nate by then. He saved my life that night. I don’t mean it