When I head into the house, my mom’s in the kitchen, drinking a glass of wine and using her laptop on the kitchen table, papers scattered around her.
“Any luck?” she asks.
In response, I just hold it up. She holds out her hand, and I walk over, put the ring into it.
“It’s pretty,” she says, turning it over, then handing it back. “Though I could have sworn I taught you boys not to throw diamond rings into the woods.”
I just laugh and walk over to the kitchen sink to wash it off.
“I’m sure we’d all be better off if we’d just listened to you,” I say.
“You’re teasing me, but you’re right,” she says.
We’re both quiet for a moment, and I can feel her watching me.
“Yes?” I ask.
“Just wondering what you’re planning on using it for now,” she says, an incredible casualness in her voice.
I shut off the water, dry my hands, dry the ring. Stick it in my pocket.
“Well, it’s an engagement ring,” I tease.
My mom sighs. She stands, comes over to me, takes my face in her hands.
“Seth,” she begins. “My favorite fourth-born child.”
“You say that to all your fourth-born children.”
“Don’t be a smartass,” she says, very calmly. “And Delilah is a lovely, vibrant, delightful person who I would be proud to have as a daughter-in-law someday, but that’s only going to happen if you do right by her now.”
I put one hand on my chest, over my heart.
“Mom, I promise not to fuck this up,” I tell her.
She nods once, then pulls me in for a big hug.
“Good luck,” she tells me.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Delilah
I knock again, just to be sure.
Still nothing, the inside of the townhouse perfectly quiet. He’s not here. I knew he wasn’t here the moment I drove up — no car, no lights — but I spent the last hour doing color touchups on Tinkerbell and practicing what I was going to say when he answered.
Except he’s not answering, because he’s not here, and this scrapbook feels like dead weight in my hands. Maybe this was a dumb idea. Maybe he’s out at a bar charming the panties off someone named Riley, and any minute now they’re going to pull up and want to know what I’m doing here. Yes, it’s six o’clock on a Monday night, but I don’t know Riley’s life.
I lean my forehead against his front door, cool in the early evening of almost-spring, and take a couple of breaths. To be honest, I didn’t plan for this: I thought I’d waltz up to his door, present this scrapbook, say my piece, and he’d stop being mad at me and we could work things out. At least, that’s what I was hoping for.
There’s an alternative, of course, where I pour my heart out and show him this book I made and he stands there in the doorway, shadowed like a Caravaggio painting, and tells me it’s still over. That some wounds won’t ever heal, some pasts can’t be mended, and could I please just leave him alone.
I could stick around and wait, but the thought of sitting on his front steps and getting more anxious by the minute is wildly unappealing.
It’s fine. I’ll come back tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll even call first. What an idea.
I drive home too fast, reckless with unspent energy. I blast Neko Case and sing along as loudly as I can with the windows cracked, the scrapbook riding shotgun.
A quarter mile from my house, I pass a big green truck going in the opposite direction. At the last moment, the driver lifts his fingers from the wheel in the universal small-town sign of I see we’re on the same road, how y’all doing?
“Wait,” I say, out loud, to myself. I glance in the rear view mirror, but it’s no help.
That was Levi.
Was that Levi?
I think that was Levi.
I turn down the music, look in my rear view mirror again, and pull into my driveway.
The tail lights of Seth’s Mustang glow in my high beams. My heartbeat doubles. Every nervous, terrified thought I’ve had today comes racing back and each one brings a friend.
And then, he appears. In the fading daylight he steps around the corner of my house, coming into the driveway from the back yard, and he stands there in my headlights: the angles of his face blown out and shadowless in the blinding light, hair askew. He raises one hand, shades his eyes, head turned slightly away. Like he’s ready to brace against whatever comes next.
I take a breath. I can hear the beating of my heart, fast but steady, and I can feel it thumping through every limb.
Then I grab the scrapbook, turn off the headlights, and get out of the car.
I don’t know why he’s here. He could tell me he never wants to see me again. He could tell me he just wants to fuck it out and that’s all. He could tell me something brand new that would break my heart all over again.
I’m giving him the chance to wreck me one more time, and I know it. I’ll survive. Sooner or later I might even get over it, but I’m not letting this end without finally putting my heart on the table and showing him where his name’s carved into it.
“Hey,” he says, as I walk up to him.
I swallow, hard. My palms are sweaty.
“Hey,” I answer. Then: “No scones?”
“Sorry,” he says, and smiles. He pushes one hand through his hair, a gesture I know so well I see it in my sleep. “But I did try to be less terrifying this time.”
If he were a bear, I’d be considerably less nervous right now.
“Thanks,” I say. The scrapbook is sweaty in my hands, and I look down at it, blood rushing through my ears. Courage. Courage.
I clear my throat. I try to remember the words I practiced.
“Seth,” I start. Thump. Thump. “Listen, I know we’ve fought a lot—”
That’s not it.
“There’s,” I start, not sure where that sentence is going. “This has been weird and hard…”
“Bird, I’m sorry,” he says, after I trail off.
Bird. My heart swells.
“Me too,” I say, palms still sweaty against the book I’m holding. “I’m so tired of getting in fights and trying out these stupid workarounds and —"
Behind him, the floodlights in my back yard flick on. It’s probably a squirrel, but I lean around Seth just to make sure it’s not —
There’s something back there.
I pause, frowning. It’s… a box? A wooden box?
A big, colorful wooden box?
“Is that yours?” I ask, all my nerves suddenly forgotten.
Seth sighs, smiles.
“Well, it’s yours now,” he says. “And I hope you like it, because I can’t imagine how I’m going to bribe Levi to bring his truck back so we can move it again.”
Seth holds out one elbow, and I loop my hand through it, mystified. He guides me through my back yard, and it doesn’t take long for it to reveal itself.
It’s a doghouse-sized castle, complete with turrets and a ramp that looks like a drawbridge. It’s painted in bright technicolor: the walls cerulean, the towers kelly green, the door magenta, the turrets a bright violet.