Page 98 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

When the doctors told her that she needed around-the-clock palliative care, her one request was knowing exactly where her pills were, and how many of them she was supposed to take and when. This dying business was infantilizing enough as it was; she didn’t want to be at the mercy of Naaz for her pain management. She was a lovely girl, butsweet fancy Moses, sometimes her relentless cheeriness was like a screen door slamming in the wind.

Suyin had stopped by to make her a batch of terrible corn bread, which she pretended to adore. Last week, Della and Su had amicably ended their romance as they soared over Manhattan in an hourly rental helicopter she’d chartered (bucket list item number four completed!). Their breakup was both picturesque and unavoidable. Della was too tired to go on dates, and sometimes even too weak to sit up on the couch and watch their baking shows. But they maintained their friendship. Su loved to laugh and tell stories, and Della soaked it up. The days were so long now—she welcomed the company.

She needed Ricki’s company, too. But until today, she couldn’tface her. She hated that she’d iced Ricki out for days, but if she’d learned anything in her ninety-six years, it was that taking action before one was ready was unwise. When Ricki spun that yarn about Ezra, Felice, and the curse, she’d written it off as pure delirium. Clearly, Ricki had fallen hard for an unhinged man who’d sucked her into his fantasies. Wasn’t that what she’d always said her family experienced with her? Perhaps Ricki was as nutty as her family had always alleged.

But Della knew that wasn’t true. Ricki had flights of fancy, to be sure, but she was sane, sensible, reasonable. And she wasseriousabout being taken seriously, in life and in business. No person so red hot on being seen as capable would come up with a story so ludicrous. And yet it was ludicrous, of course. It was.

It isn’t, thought Della.You know you always heard whispers about Mama. How many schoolyard scrapes did you win, fighting the daughters of ladies who’d grown up with her?

Unholy conjure woman, they’d said.Loose morals. Born with a caul, hot from hell. Heard tell she put the roots on my mama, for letting her beau walk her to Broussard’s Dry Goods. Hexed my aunt for laughing at her burlap dress. Laid with any fella who paid her mind. Spent more time playin’ than prayin’. Be careful who you take a shine to, Della—might be your brother.

Whenever Della came home with scraped knees after defending Mama in another tussle, she’d beg Nana for the truth. But she would refuse to confirm or deny. Nana barely spoke two words about her gone-too-soon daughter. Instead, she’d thread her old rosary through her fingers, solemnly praying over the beads. Della always wondered what she was praying for. Felice’s soul? Della’s? Her own? Or maybe she was simply grieving.

As she grew into a teenager, Della tried to see it from her grandmother’s perspective. Nana was religious in the extreme, and the only man she’d ever loved had abandoned her before marriage,leaving their daughter a bastard. And when Felice grew up to be “fast”—and, by all accounts, a witch, no less—she ran off to pursue Harlem’s devilish delights, leaving behind a baby daughter. Yet another bastard baby for Nana to raise. Another failure in the eyes of the Lord. And then Felice’s suicide. The ultimate failure.

The Fabienne women were wired to be sad. Nana got the blues, the kind that kept her in bed for weeks at a time. Sounded like Felice was the same way. Made sense, because Della was, too. And the blues took forever to abate. Della was familiar with how… hopeless it felt to live in fear of your own emotions. Flattened by their strength.

Whatever emotional ailment she and Nana had, it sounded like Felice had it worse. But instead of sticking it out, she’d abandoned her daughter, left her alone to defend Felice’s honor and reckon for her alleged sins. The weight of Felice’s reputation was stifling, and because of it, Della’s childhood was miserable. And she wasn’t just angry about it. She hated Felice for it. It was a grudge she carried around with her every day.

Yes, Ricki’s story about Ezra’s curse was unreasonable. Crazy talk. But the truth was, Della had always felt that there was something explosive about Felice. The suspicion that those schoolyard rumors were true lurked in her mind: unproven but powerful. It was in Nana’s absolute refusal to discuss her daughter; the small-town stories turned into myths that outlived her mother’s short life; the mystery surrounding her suicide.

Della had lost seven babies to late-term miscarriages, and she could feel the emptiness in her womb long after they were gone. With each loss, she’d had to wonder: Had Nana felt it when Felice jumped off the roof? Had she felt that same eternal hollowness? Could a mother’s body perceive the loss, no matter how old her baby was, or how far away? Was it a messy, unwieldy grief, or asneat and clean as a bullet hole? And was it more harrowing to lose a child than to lose a mother too soon?

As far back as she could remember, Della had searched for her mom everywhere. In her friends’ mothers’ faces, in her teachers, in Ethel Waters’s movies. What would it have been like to know her scent, her laugh, her voice? The trajectory of her life would surely have been different. She may not have met Dr. Bennett at that Christmas church social when he was just a young college student visiting his cousins on the bayou. Della had gone to that damned social to spite the popular girls in town, who’d always said she was “witch spawn” and had no business stepping foot in the Lord’s house. If she’d known her mother—if she hadn’t had that chip on her shoulder—maybe she wouldn’t have been so hot on proving those wenches wrong.

But she’d never know. There was so much she didn’t know. Wasn’t that why she’d bought 225½ West 137th Street? To absorb Felice’s energy, try to understand her better, and hopefully get some answers?

And yet, she thought,when Ricki came to me with answers, I turned her away.

Della didn’t want to believe Ricki’s story, because it sounded like the truth.

There were a few short knocks on the door.

“Hiii! Ricki! Long time no see! What’s it been, five days? A week? And you must be Ezra…”

Naaz’s bell-like voice rang out throughout the house. Della’s stomach flip-flopped at the sound of his name. Before, Ezra was simply Ricki’s crush, fling, love, but now, if he was who he said he was, he was also the last person to see her mother alive.

She was propped up on pillows on her velvet chaise loungewhen Naaz came bounding into the living room. “Ms. Della, your visitors are here…”

Ricki entered the room, followed by Ezra. The moment she saw Della, she froze. Her bright smile fell and she stood there, caught in a stare of surprise.

Lord, thought Della,do I really look that peaked?

After a beat, she dropped Ezra’s hand and rushed over to her. Gently, Ricki pulled her tiny, stooped shoulders into an embrace. And then, with great effort, Della raised her arms and hugged her back.

“Ms. Della, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. I know you’re angry with me; I know everything I told you sounds insane. And I never wanted to hurt you. But I had to tell you. I couldn’t go… without telling you Ezra’s story, the curse, all of it. It wasn’t my place to speak to you about Felice. I shouldn’t have even said her name.”

She blurted this out, barely pausing to take a breath.

“It’s all right, baby. I know, I know.” Della quickly patted her on the back twice, signifying that the hug was over. Breathing was difficult, and Ricki was cutting off her air supply. With one final squeeze, Ricki stood back up. Her granddaughter looked lovely in a puff-sleeve maxidress that Della had made for herself fifty years before. The handmade hand-me-down had been her Christmas gift to Ricki, who’d been so touched when she’d opened it that she’d burst into tears.

“I’m sorry for being unreachable, sugar,” continued Della. “I just needed to sit with myself for a moment. You understand,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

Della peered past Ricki and saw that Ezra was standing across the room at a respectful distance. One hand jammed in his pocket, his expression unreadable. She hadn’t seen him since she andRicki inexplicably ran into him at a bodega a few weeks ago, and she could barely remember what he looked like. If Ricki hadn’t left so many messages and letters mentioning him, she wasn’t sure she’d remember him at all. Which was especially curious after seeing him. This was not a forgettable man. His was not a forgettable face.

Is it one worth dying over?she wondered.Mama thought so. But that isn’t fair, is it? Felice’s troubles started long before she met him.

Della was so lost in thought that she didn’t see Ezra was holding a bouquet of sunflowers and yellow roses until Naaz took them and went to find a vase. Della gestured at him to come join them.

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