The rest of dinner passed for Wes in a sort of fever. His mother asked about Delia's family, and Delia told her, truthfully as far as Wes knew, that they were in Toledo, Ohio, that her father sold insurance and her mother taught fourth grade and her two younger brothers were both wrestlers and both idiots. His mother asked about the pie, and Delia said it was brandied apple with a lattice top, made with butter, not lard, and gave Wes a look across the candles. His mother asked whether Delia found it difficult, being with a musician, all those late nights, and Delia said that she worked at a bakery and got up at four in the morning, so mostly they just waved at each other in the dark like ships, and his mother laughed until she had to wipe her eyes.
Wes ate turkey. He ate sweet potatoes. He ate a portion of lime Jell-O he would not have touched on any other day of his life, because it gave his hands something to do.
When the plates were cleared, his mother looked at the fire, which had sunk to a red glow, and said, "Wesley, would you bring in some more wood from the porch? It's stacked by the swing. And Delia, honey, go with him and keep him from falling on his face. I'll put the coffee on."
The porch was very cold after the dining room. The snow was coming down slow and thick now, big lazy flakes drifting through the cone of amber light, and the street beyond was silent and white and empty, every roof and hedge and mailbox rounded off and softened. The porch swing creaked on its chains in the wind. The firewood was stacked under the eave, split oak and maple, each log capped with a little ridge of snow.
Wes did not go to the woodpile. He turned around, and Delia was right there, close enough that he could see the snowflakes melting on her lashes, the faint shimmer of gloss on her lips, the gold chain belt rising and falling with her breath. They stood face to face in the porch light, their breath clouding and mingling between them.
"You were very convincing." His voice came out lower than he meant it to.
Delia considered him for a moment. Then she rose up a little on the toes of her tan boots and kissed him on the cheek, just above the line of his stubble. Her lips were warm. She smelled like cold air and cinnamon and something faintly floral underneath.
"Who said I was acting?" she said.
And she went back inside, and the storm door hissed shut behind her on its pneumatic arm, and Wes Callahan stood alone on his mother's porch with his hand pressed to his cheek and snow collecting on the shoulders of his leather jacket.