"Hands," I repeated. I watched as she took her small hand and pressed it to the hand in the first sculpture, her fingers overlapping the rusted ones, the pale, smoothness of her skin contrasting with the dark, ragged metal. Then she glanced back at me and I did the same, pressing my hand to the one beside it.
I felt a shadow fall over us and looked up to see Wes coming back across the yard, with Delia beside him. Lucy turned her head and, seeing her mother, scrambled to her feet and darted across the grass, hurling herself at Delia's knees. Delia looked down at her, shaking her head, and pulled her fingers through Lucy's dark curls.
"What are you guys doing?" Wes asked me.
"She was showing me these," I told him, nodding toward the sculptures. "I never knew you made small ones."
"Just for a little while," he said, dismissively. "They never really caught on."
"So," I said, standing up, "is it time for potato duty?"
"Nope," Wes told me. "False alarm."
"Really?"
Delia pressed Lucy against her legs. "It's the strangest thing," she said, shaking her head. "Right as we're about to start boiling all those potatoes, I get this phone call from the client. Turns out that they don't want potato salad after all, that they'd rather do coleslaw and macaroni and cheese, which we have plenty of, instead."
"I tried to tell her," Wes said, "that this is a good thing."
"Of course it is," I told her. "Why wouldn't it be?"
She smoothed her hand over Lucy's head. "It's just… weird. I don't know. It makes me suspicious."
Wes just looked at her. "You know, sometimes things do go the way they're supposed to. It's not unheard of."
"It is for us," Delia said with a sigh. "Anyway, now we at least we have plenty of time to get ready. Which I guess, you know, is good." She still didn't sound convinced.
"Don't worry," Wes said, as we started back toward her house. "I'm sure disaster will strike any minute now."
Delia reached down, taking Lucy's hand. "Yeah," she said, seeming encouraged. "You're probably right."
As we packed for the job, though, things kept happening. Or, more accurately, not happening. Whereas we usually had to cram all the carts in and hope they'd fit, for some reason this time Delia had managed to organize the items in the coolers so economically that we were able to take one less, so everything went in easily, with even (gasp!) room left over. The best round serving platter, which had been missing for weeks, suddenly turned up in the garage, behind one of the freezers. And, most amazing of all, instead of racing down Sweetbud Road already late, we finished with time to spare and actually found ourselves having to kill time instead of scramble for it. It was a little weird, I had to admit.
Delia and I ended up on the front steps fanning ourselves, while Bert and Wes milled around the garage, packing the last few things. "So," she said, leaning back on her hands in an effort to get comfortable. "I heard you quit your job."
I glanced at Wes, who was passing by with a box of napkins. "Couldn't help it," he said. "It's just too good not to tell."
"Maybe you should tell my mom, then," I said, pulling my hair back behind my neck.
"No thanks," he said, before disappearing back into the garage.
"You really think she'll be mad?" Delia asked me. "From what you've said about that job, you were miserable there."
"I was," I said. "But to her, it's not about that. It's about the fact that I made a commitment."
"Ah."
"And that this job would look good on my transcript."
"I see."
"And," I finished, "it fits right in with what she wants me to be."
"Which is?"
I ran the fabric of my shirt between my thumb and forefinger, remembering our conversation that morning, as well as the one the night before. "Perfect," I said.
Delia shook her head. "Come on," she said, waving her hand as if brushing this very thought aside, "I'm sure she doesn't want that."
"Why wouldn't she?" I asked.
"Well, for starters, because it's impossible." She leaned back again, shifting her weight a little bit. "And secondly, because she's your mother. And mothers, of all people, are the least likely to care about such things."
"Yeah, right," I said glumly.
"I'm serious." She stretched her feet out in front of her, smoothing her hands over her belly. "I know something about this, okay? All I care about for Lucy, and Wes and Bert, is that they be happy. Healthy. And good people, you know? I'm not perfect, not by a long shot. So why would I expect them to be?"
"My mom's not like that," I told her, shaking my head.
"Okay," she said. "Then what is she like?"
I sat there for a second, considering this, surprised, as the seconds passed, that the answer didn't come more easily. "She works too much," I began, then stopped. "I mean, since my dad died she's had to carry the whole business. There's always so much to do, I worry about her. A lot."
Delia didn't say anything. I could feel her watching me.
"And I think she works so much because she can be in control of it, you know?" I said. She nodded. "It makes her feel, I don't know, safe."