Well Read, Then Dead(71)

            “It was so nice of you to come to Delia Batson’s funeral yesterday. A neighbor mentioned they’d seen you around her house now and again. Were you two close friends?”

            “Name ain’t Delia Batson. According to the preacher and the papers we got, her name is Mrs. Thomas Smallwood. Been her name for more than half a century.”





Chapter Twenty-three ||||||||||||||||||||


            I was stunned into complete silence. Behind me, Bridgy gulped loudly.

            Skully sagged against his pillows, visibly relieved he could finally talk about his lifelong secret. In stops and starts, he told us the story we’d heard from Augusta when she recollected Delia’s mystery man.

            Skully’s eyes brightened as he told us how they met, fell in love, and when her father objected to their romance, the two young lovers ran away and got married. His face clouded with anger when he talked about Delia’s father and brothers tracking them down and then dragging her back to the Everglades.

            “I wanted to fight for her right then and there in that boardinghouse over to Homestead, but Delia was a gentle soul. She patted my cheek, told me not to fret. Said she’d go home for a while and someday . . .” He looked past us, staring without focus, perhaps at the clock on the wall, perhaps at memories from decades ago.

            “By the time her pappy died and her brothers cut her loose to make room for their wives, we was both too set in our ways for much changing. Still, I’d stop by of an evening whenever I was on the island. Have some supper. Fix whatever needed fixing. Kept an eye on her, I did.”

            “And no one knew you were married?”

            “Nobody’s business, ’cept ourn.”

            I couldn’t argue with that.

            “And,” I hesitated, “the night she died, were you, er, on the island?”

            He flinched as though I’d smacked him, and smacked him hard. Bridgy looped her hand around my wrist and gave a quick tug as if trying to pull my words back into my mouth.

            Skully’s shoulders slumped, and that faraway look recaptured his eyes. Finally he whispered as if only he could hear, “First time I saw her. Pretty slip of a girl, bright blue ribbon in her hair, chasing butterflies through a field, mile or so from town. I kept my eye out. When I got up the gumption to speak to her at a church social, well, I was took by her sweetness. But her family wasn’t havin’ it. All these years, I still see the girl with the ribbon in her hair.”

            He heaved a shallow sigh and then dragged his mind back to the present. “Lord spare me, I truly wish I was on island that night, but I was over to Matlacha costing out a dock rebuild.”

            My heart broke for his sadness. I reached out with the only words of comfort I had. “She wore the locket close to her heart until the day she died.”

            “Little gold locket? I etched a swamp lily on the front. We went shopping for a wedding ring, but she saw that locket and nothing else would do. Said a ring would only get in the way of washing and cleaning. So I bought her the locket. She carried a picture of me hid in her purse. She took it out and had the shopkeeper put it in the locket right then and there.”

            He closed his eyes and I thought perhaps he was drifting off to sleep, but I guess he was viewing his memories, because he said, “Delia was a fine woman. I was honored to know her.”

            “How did Bow wind up with you on the Point?”

            “That I do know. After I got word about Delia, I wanted to take a look at the house one last time. Bow was sitting in the sea grapes down along the bay side at the end of the street. Crying pitifully she was. ’Course she knows me, so she come to me right away. I took her, put her in my sack.”