Looking away to swipe a tear away and clear my throat. “I’m still dating Caty. I don’t know if you remember meeting her?”
Ms. Delia narrows her eyes. “Yes, I remember. Nice girl. Tiny thing, right?”
I grin. “That’d be her.”
“She’s certainly gorgeous. And smart as a whip.”
“Yes ma’am. I’m lucky to have her.”
“Does she know that you’re only dating her to distract your father?”
I choke. “Ms. Delia!”
“What?” She asks incredulously. “I thought we had an understanding that our love is unconditional. So we can be honest with each other, right?”
“Well, of course, but?—”
“Linc, honey. Who knows how long I’ll be… Well,me? Sometimes when you’re here, there are things I want to tell you and talk about, but I can’t seem to move the words from my brain to my mouth. So while I have the chance, I want to make sure you know you have someone on your side. Someone who knows and loves and supports you no matter what. Even if I am a walking advertisement for dementia.”
“I know that…”
“Well, I need to know that you aren’t leading that lovely young woman astray. Because if you’re stringing her along, making her think?—”
“She knows,” I blurt out. “She knows, and she’s doing the same thing, for the same reasons.” My voice tapers off, and I stare at a yellow spot on a pothos for so long, I worry Ms. Delia has left the room.
But she’s sitting in the other chair, her cardigan rumpled and glasses hanging off a chain around her neck, watching me. When I turn back to her, a slow grin spreads across her face.
Diabolical woman.
“I thought that might be the case,” she says haughtily. “She had a vibe about her.”
My eyebrows press up my hairline.
“What?” she says, shrugging. “It’s called gaydar.”
I sputter and laugh when Ms. Delia throws back her head and cackles like she just told the funniest joke, and I’m the punchline. This old woman is something else.
When our laughter calms down, she gives me a gentle smile, and her voice softens. “Come here,” she says.
I get up from my seat and walk over to her. I try perching on the arm of the chair, but I’m worried I might break it, so instead I sink down onto the floor next to her and set my chin on the arm instead. She smiles and brushes some hair back from my forehead, gently combing my hair with her fingers. It’s so comforting that my eyes flutter shut, causing a tear to fall from each eye.
“I’ve never been a particularly religious woman, but since the day your parents brought you home, I’ve felt called to pull you in close and love you like you were my own. I sometimes wonder if there might have been forces in the universe that brought us together, because what we both needed at those times in our lives happened to coincide. That’s why you’re myLinc.And maybe that same force, God, or whatever you want to call it, brought me clarity today to tell you something very important.”
My eyes sting. I swallow hard and force myself to give her the respect of my full attention, eye contact and all, even though I seem to be hard-wired to turn away when I feel too much.
She sniffs. “Your father is an idiot.”
A bubble of laughter escapes me. It’s something she’s said a handful of times since I reached my teenage years and she wasn’t my full-time caregiver anymore. By then, I think she didn’t worry too much about whether she might get fired, or maybe she’d just gotten old enough to be fed up. She didn’t agree withthe way my father spoke to me, or his high expectations that I follow the exact path he laid out for me under the penalty of losing all his support. It was Ms. Delia who had me open separate savings and investment accounts with any allowances or gifts I was given over the years, in case he made good on his threats.
“I never liked that man. You couldn’t have paid me enough to stick around if it hadn’t been for your mother dropping you in my lap after the first nanny they hired quit three days in. Not because you weren’t the sweetest, most perfect cherub, but because she caught your father sniffing around the poor young thing, as if that was her fault. Luckily for me, I was already too old to be of any interest, and I happened to have some talent for settling you.” She smiles dreamily, her eyes bright with whatever memories are playing behind them.
She huffs. “Charles Xavior Beckett thought intimidation was a tenet of child rearing. He treated you like an employee, punished you for accomplishments any other parent would have praised you for, and made you feel inferior, so you’d never consider rising above him. I like to think I counteracted some of the damage that man could have done to an impressionable child, but there was only so much I could do and shield you from. Between wanting to keep you safe and losing my mind somewhere along the way, I never got to tell you one thing.”
A tear slips down my cheek before I can stop it, and she brushes it away with her thumb.
“You are perfect exactly as you are. And I’m not talking about all the trophies and straight-A’s and the bright, successful future you have ahead of you. I’m talking about who you are, and every part of you that makes you whole and happy.”
I cover my face with my hands, too raw to hold back the overwhelming emotions coursing through me.
