“Delphina, focus! You should eat your food, not stare at it.”
“But there is a pattern in things, Mrs. Wallace. Her apple has a star in the middle,” Delphina protested, pointing at Kim.
Kim rolled her eyes, tossed her silky straight blonde hair, and took another bite of the apple, its juice spraying across her white velour unicorn blouse. It was a small victory for the unkind gesture that Kim directed toward Delphina, the tallest soul in the class with the odd name, frizzy hair, and warm hands. Delphina longed to be like the others: tiny girls who had nice, simple names like Kim and Amy, girls who had cold hands to mark their delicateness when you linked hands to play Ring Around the Rosie. But she was Delphina, Deli as her parents sometimes called her, the girl who spent recess alone studying the trees while the others jumped rope to chants about love, marriage, and children.
Delphina returned to her study of the strawberry—seeds, delicately positioned, each one resting with an intention that quietly spoke of the order of the universe. Everything had an intention, a purpose, a pattern. The seagulls that flew in formation along the shoreline, with each bird departing the front of the line one-by-one to take up the end; the symmetrical markings on a blue jay’s wings; the blood that circulated through the body in an elaborate system of veins—how could anyone think of playing games or memorizing spelling lists when such amazing things existed?
“I’M SERIOUS, PATRICIA,” BENNY SAID, TAKING a sip of coffee and watching his wife flatten the sausage patties with the spatula. “Worried ’bout her.”
“Lord, Benny, the girl’s fine. Bea said it’s normal. Her kids get scared at night, too,” Patricia replied, jiggling the spatula underneath the sausage patties to flip them to the other side.
“Now don’t go tellin’ Bea our business! Whole damn block’ll know.”
“So what if she sneaks into our room late at night to sleep? Before too long, she won’t want anything to do with us. Might as well enjoy it.”
“Patricia, last night I found her at the foot of our bed in a ball. Weepin’ in her sleep with a hand grippin’ my ankle,” Benny said.
Delphina heard her momma rest the spatula on the countertop with a sigh. She hoped her momma believed him now. Perhaps she would finally think about it.
“What should we do?” she asked.
“I already done did somethin’. Stopped by the school on Monday.”
“Benny! Without me? And you didn’t even tell me!”
“Graveyard shift made it easier. Woke up around noon thinking’ ’bout it and decided then and there to talk to her teacher.”
Delphina’s stomach parachuted from the sky. She loved that her daddy wanted to help her—she wanted help, too. If only she could put her anxiety into words.
“What did she say?” Patricia asked, her chair screeching across the linoleum as she took a seat at the kitchenette table.
“That she’s a kind young lady, smart as a whip, always thinkin’ and askin’ questions.”
“And?”
“And … she’s a bit of a lost soul,” he replied. “At recess, she wanders around the yard rather than playin’ with the other kids. Has a collection in her desk of rocks, snail shells, things like that … things from the school yard.”
“She has those things on one of the shelves in her closet, too,” Patricia acquiesced in a soft voice, stirring in another Sweet’n Low.
“Teacher said Delphina says those things show her God is real and everything’ll be okay,” Benny said, the final word choking from his mouth.
Knowing her momma would soon call her for breakfast, Delphina tiptoed back to her room so she would be ready to sashay into the kitchen as if she had not heard a word. She walked into her closet to admire her collection, taking special care to line up the rock she had found yesterday. It was so gray it looked purple, and as she began to wonder how it came to be like that, she heard her momma calling her.
“Hey, Lil’ D,” her daddy greeted as she bounced into the room. He lifted her into his lap. “How’d ya sleep?”
“Okay, I guess,” Delphina lied, knowing full well she tossed and turned much of the night.
“Your momma and I were thinkin’ it might be nice to drive on down to Galveston Saturday. Weather’s good, and maybe we can stop and get ice cream at that fancy place on The Strand.”
Delphina squeezed her daddy, burying her head in his shoulder to hide her watering eyes. And although she doubted ice cream would do the trick, she hugged him so tightly he uttered, “Hey, Lil’ D, watch it there! Your daddy ain’t no spring chicken!”
THE DRIVE TO GALVESTON WAS quiet, marked as their time together usually was with all three of them lost in thought. It was not difficult to surmise her momma’s musings, seeing that she narrated her inner voice aloud every now and then while thumbing through magazines. Delphina knew she shared more of her daddy’s soul, even if it was only out of their shared reticence. He focused on the drive, window rolled down with his left hand resting on the top, and only breaking his concentration to turn over the Don Williams cassette. Delphina rolled down her window, too, enjoying how the wind whipped up her hair to tickle her face as they made their way to the Gulf of Mexico.
Delphina looked out to the horizon as her father maneuvered a parallel park along the seawall. Her view looked like a painting, intense cerulean meeting Spanish blue at the horizon. She thought of how her art teacher, Miss Levey, spoke of colors as a collection.
“There is a gradient of hues,” Miss Levey had said.
On that particular day, a boy in back moaned, “Blue is blue!” Delphina shushed him, charmed at the idea and wanting to learn the shades.
Miss Levey, undaunted and with a cryptic smile, retorted, “Hmmm? Blue is blue? Challenge accepted!”
Spanish, cerulean, indigo, navy, cobalt, periwinkle, sapphire, turquoise, sky: By the end of the next six weeks, Miss Levey’s room looked like a sanctuary for celestial objects; drawings and paintings covering every conceivable place on the wall. It left Delphina’s mind swirling, as she studied the colors she found and then sought their correlating spot on the wheel, demanding to know if they each had a unique name.
Delphina ran into the art room one day to find the walls bare, the sight like a punch to the stomach. Miss Levey, on a stepladder with a chalked azure Neptune in hand, turned to her at the door. Noting the shock in Delphina’s face, she smiled brightly with the proclamation, “It’s time for green!”
“C’mon, Deli! Now where’d your mind go?” her daddy teased, opening the car door and bringing Delphina back from her daydream.
“The horizon is beautiful. Cerulean meets Spanish!”
“And I see brown water on the shore. But I still love my Galveston,” her momma added as she gathered her oversized straw bag, loaded with towels and magazines, and headed down the stone stairs to the beach.
After nestling the lawn chairs and settling the blanket over their patch of sand, Benny said, “We’ll be right back, Patricia.” With a wink in his eye, he held his daughter’s hand and took her to the souvenir store on the seawall.
“Let’s buy you a tube. Then I can take you far out into the water,” her daddy suggested, pointing to whimsical tubes shaped like animals.
“What about a shovel and bucket set instead?” Her tone meek, she did not want to appear ungrateful, knowing money was tight. She set her gaze on the sifter, imagining how many discoveries would come into view as the granules of sand made their way back to earth.
“I say, let’s take ’em both!” Benny cheered, his eyes lit up in a rare moment of levity. “And I say we buy the Dolphin! Sounds like my Delphina!”
Benny and Delphina made their way into the water, waves lapping against their ankles before splashing on their legs, signaling it was time to lift her onto the Dolphin tube.
“I’m scared, Daddy!” Delphina cried, turning back to see her momma becoming smaller and smaller in the lawn chair on the sand.
“Be strong, Lil’ D,” he said, his voi
ce soothing and commanding all at once.
“It’s too rough!” Delphina protested.
“Just you wait an’ see,” he replied. And then pausing to look her square in the eye, “Trust me.”
As Benny shepherded her tube over the choppy waves, Delphina gripped the smiling dolphin’s head, praying for the time to pass. She opened her eyes a minute later to calm water lapping through the middle. It gave her the courage to raise her gaze to the horizon where the cerulean met the Spanish, the scent of new plastic a contrast to the drops of salt water dotted along her lip. Her heart settled in the understanding that she was past the rough waters and now part of the peace she admired from the seawall.
“There’s gonna be tough times, Delphina. And there’s an awful lot to get scared of in this world. But you’re part of somethin’ much bigger. And that part, well, that part is real good,” her daddy told her.
Delphina wondered what the seagulls flying above thought of her and her daddy—two souls floating in the Gulf, yearning to ebb back into the world from which they came.
That night after her bath, Delphina washed the shells she found along the shore. With her sun-kissed hands, she intentionally placed them among her other treasures. She pulled her pillow and blanket to the closet and fell asleep, taking delight in her shrine, illuminated in the soft glow of her nightlight.
CADMUS
Autumn 1982
“I NEED TO DANCE WITH my demons today, brown eyes,” Robert said as he entered the kitchen to find Cadmus pouring himself a cup of coffee. Cadmus did not turn around to face Robert but nodded his head in understanding. Silence filled the space between them, and Cadmus turned, wondering if Robert was still in the room.
“Want to join me?” Robert asked.
“Join you? You sure? You usually …”
“Yes, well, perhaps I need to get over the whole alone thing,” Robert interrupted. “Just be merciful in your judgment, please. Not all of us came from good stock.”
“Are you referencing the good stock that cut me from Doyle Lumber & Construction and continues to disown me because I am … what is it they say … a faggot?” Cadmus retorted in his most academic tone as he stirred cream into his coffee.
“Hell, you know mine fucked me over. But at least yours were decent enough to provide something for you to forge a goddamn life of your own! I thank the Good Lord every day for blessing me with a good mind, but there are days I’m still pissed I grew up getting beaten in that trailer park.” Quivering, Robert’s voice retreated to a whisper, “At least you have your name, as shitty as it really is.”
Cadmus quickly made his way around the kitchen table, never intending his cheeky response to be taken in such a way. He enveloped Robert in his arms. He had yet to meet a gay man who did not have demons, and despite Robert’s well-earned success, Cadmus knew that his husband felt like a fraud on bad days. Had Robert not been gay and not been so smart, he probably would exist as his father and brothers did—in and out of work and drinking at the local watering hole. People from the trailer park came in and out of Robert’s life. They were a revolving lot of stories, each person hoping that the latest trailer imprint would be the antidote for their restlessness.
“You better grab a jacket. I’m keeping the top down the entire time,” Robert said with a wink, breaking free from his husband’s arms as he turned to head to their bedroom to get ready for their drive. “The Pasadena air will be good for you … toughen you up.”
Cadmus had a general idea of where Robert went on his drives. Robert had taken him on a tour of the part of town where he grew up a few months after they began dating.
“I clean up pretty well. And I want you to see where I came from, need you to see it. Then, perhaps, you will understand why I am so damned determined to take action and do something.”
Cadmus had never been back after that first time. Once or twice per year, Robert would look at him with sorrowful eyes coated in a slight veil of tears, a signal that he needed time alone to indulge in a good cry and a few good shouts of furor, followed by quiet time to collect himself and draw upon the well of acceptance that he had so carefully nourished over the years. Robert demurred from Cadmus’ offers to join him, and while Cadmus never doubted his fidelity, he was usually left feeling somewhat bereft by the omission.
He asked Robert to drive down Harrisburg on his way east, turning onto Broadway and then Lawndale. They stopped at Lawndale Café for a late breakfast, knowing it had changed ownership but appreciating it the same nonetheless. They sopped runny eggs and grits with white bread, doing their best to look like chums rather than spouses. Cadmus casually gave Robert his last slice of bacon, knowing he had been eyeing it on his plate. Cadmus rarely allowed bacon in the house, because Robert’s family had a history of heart disease. No telling how much Robert would have weighed now had he not left his life in the trailer park.
Preservation instincts kicked in at certain times and places, which restrained Cadmus from his desire to reach for Robert’s hand. He waved his hand for the check before excusing himself to the men’s room, knowing he had to get hold of his emotions, his unresolved feelings over Ilona creeping into his heart. This day belonged to Robert; it was his day to reflect and mourn.
People often talked about giving others their time in the sun to enjoy the spotlight. Cadmus extended this thinking to suffering. Expressions of sympathy too often turned to the person expressing the feeling of consolation: well intended but denying the person in pain his right to self-expression. Both Cadmus and Robert knew how the day would end—an acceptance of how things came to be with a healthy dose of gratitude. What could have been was Robert never escaping the cycle of poverty in the trailer park and Cadmus doing a piss-poor job at the reins of Doyle Lumber & Construction, which would probably have gone out of business. What could have been was that they were born straight men, who may not have fallen so deeply in love with women as they had with one another. They could have lived a lie, hiding who they were to appease others, whether it was their family, society, or church. How life came to be was quite nice given the circumstances and the artificial rules of society.
As Cadmus washed his hands, turning the heavy, worn knobs, he wondered how this restaurant continued to pass inspection. The glimpses he caught of the kitchen when the doors swung open revealed a sea-green tile coated in film, prompting him to wonder if it had been cleaned since the day his grandparents died.
He had only seen his mother as a Doyle, at least in terms of status, thoughtfully made up and elegantly dressed, but she possessed a spark, an honest, humble way that drew others to her. He could imagine her donning an apron, taking orders, and checking on customers with the same grace she had held at social events.
Despite the conditions, there was still a charm to Lawndale, the ghosts of his family giving warmth through the scents of coffee and butter saturated into the walls. He offered a prayer to his grandparents, remembering how they suffered from strokes less than a year apart, most people attributing it to broken hearts over losing two children before their time. By the end of the sixties, Arianna had been the sole survivor of their Petrarkis strand. Cadmus had never been close to her. He knew his money made her uncomfortable, but his sexuality solidified the barrier.
It did not surprise Cadmus that he did not recognize the lady at the register, seeing that his visits to the café were few and far between. She must have been in her early twenties, raven-stained hair lacquered in wings. The anonymity proffered latitude for conversation, a chance to satisfy a curiosity. Robert went to start the car, while Cadmus stood in line at the register. When his turn came, he casually pointed to the framed black-and-white photograph of his grandfather and uncle, arms crossed with wide smiles, as if they had just conquered the world.
“Was that the original owner?” he asked, taking his wallet from his back pocket.
“Huh?” she said, turning away from him to see what he was pointing at. “Yeah. I think so. I don’t really know.”
&nb
sp; “Are the current owners here?” he continued, counting out the bills.
Clearly annoyed at this point, she replied, “Does it look like they are here? I mean, why would they come to this dump?”
Cadmus looked at her in disbelief. In the handful of exchanges he had initiated over the years, this one was certainly the wild card.
“No offense, mister. I just work here.” Cadmus nodded, taking the quarter that rolled down from the register to the change dish.
As Robert pulled his Mercedes away from the diner, Cadmus reflected on what his mother gave up in raising her children as Doyles, so engrossed in her marriage and children. It was not until after she died that Dear Ernestine confirmed the immense guilt Ilona carried for leaving his father that night, continuing to hold herself responsible for his death until it was her time. He did not realize her guilt overshadowed her anger over the affair. His mother had hopped right over that stage of the grieving process.
“She’s free now, Caddie … she’s free from it all … she’s with your daddy now,” he recalled Dear Ernestine weeping into his ear, squeezing him in a tight embrace at the funeral reception, both of them still in shock over her death, the visual image of her body splayed in the rose garden. Anchor, sanctuary, shackle: metaphors swirled through his mind regarding his mother and The Doyle House. She carried her suffering with grace and nobility for so much of her life. Waves of nausea rushed over him when he thought that he was the one who ultimately broke the fragile peace she had carefully assembled.
As they drove into Robert’s world, billows of smoke from the refineries clouded the zinc-colored sky. Cadmus looked over at his husband, hair ruffling with eyes zeroed in on the freeway as they continued east.
ROBERT TAUGHT CADMUS A GREAT many things during their first nine years together: love, connection, the power of choice, fighting to create your own narrative, all tenets for a more fulfilling life. On a more superficial level, or not, Cadmus thanked Robert for the introduction to The Carlyle, a place that exuded the romance and elegance his parents had shared during their early days together.
Drops of Cerulean: A Novel Page 23