The Truth About Grace

by Cassie Dandridge Selleck

  “Well then,” she said, her face lighting up ridiculously as she spoke. “We’ll just have to bring the mountain to Muhammed.”

  I scrunched my face into a tight grimace and tried to interpret her statement.

  “Well, really,” Ora said. “I’ve been wondering what to do with the rest of my estate. The scholarship program is funded for the next twenty years. Shawn and Rochelle have their own college accounts, which Patrice administers. We can do some kind of rehab center here. Grace can be our first resident. We’ll do family counseling, too. All of us, Shawn and Rochelle, especially. I won’t transfer the title immediately and that will take some pressure off Patrice. But the girls will still get the house when I’m gone.”

  And so a plan was hatched, an idea set into motion, without any clue if it was feasible, or if Muhammed would ever get well.

  9 – Grace

  I left the table while they were still making plans for my rehab center. It won’t surprise me if Miss Ora names it after me and thinks she’s done something good. I swear to God that woman would meddle with the devil. They all would, come to think of it, but Miss Ora takes the damn cake. It’s hard for me to be mad at her, same as it’s hard to be mad at my mama, but seriously, these people can just push me over the edge sometimes.

  I walked outside to get some air; it was getting a little hard to breathe. I heaved open the garage door and saw the chair sitting right where I left it. Miss Ora need to get a car, I’m just sayin’. Big ol’ empty space where a car ought to be, just sittin’ there beggin’ to be filled.

  I pulled and pushed and rolled that old chair right smack dab in the middle of it. There was still a box of old rags in a bucket under the workbench, so I pulled a few out, shook them hard and wiped down the chair as best I could. Then I sat down, leaned back onto the headrest and thought about what Aunt Tressa said. She’s right, I think. It’s possible she could walk out of here today and never see us again. If Miss Ora goes to prison… If Patrice cuts me out of my kids’ lives… If I go back to the street… Won’t take much to upset the apple cart, as Mama used to say. But I think that’s just dumb. This apple cart done spilt all over the street, and I can’t imagine any kind of counseling that’s gonna set it right again.

  But I’m go’n do the damn counseling anyway, even if it’s only to shut them the hell up. I know I got a problem, but it ain’t one they’ll ever understand.

  You know what that boy did to me? It’s one of the few things I remember clear as if it happened yesterday. He had me down on the ground – this was after he done his business – he was holdin’ me down by my arms. I was cryin’ still, but not screamin’, ’cause he covered my mouth and nose when I screamed and I couldn’t breathe. He told me to shut the hell up and he’d let me go, so I shut up. I’m six damn years old, and I sucked up my tears, choked ’em down my throat, and stared up at him. He just looked at me then…didn’t say nothin’ at all for the longest time. So I said, “I’m quiet. You go’n let me up?” He didn’t answer. He just spit in my face and started laughin’. That’s the one thing I won’t never forget. That boy spittin’ in my face like I was the dirt I was layin’ in. What rehab go’n do to fix that? That’s what I wanna know.

  10 – Patrice

  After our meeting, Miss Ora went upstairs to rest. Aunt Tressa and I cleaned up and chatted over another cup of coffee. Neither of us was in a hurry to get anywhere, though I did have an appointment later in the day. Aunt Tressa asked how I was holding up and it was all I could do to keep it together just long enough to answer the question.

  “Overwhelmed,” I said.

  “You have every reason to be,” she said. “Every reason in the world.”

  “The thing is, whether Skipper Kornegay deserved it or not, it is a horrible thought that our sweet, kind brother, who never so much as raised his voice at us in anger, took another boy’s life.”

  “I wish I had known him,” Aunt Tressa said.

  I nodded. “I wish you had, too. He was…” I couldn’t go on. The lump in my throat was a boulder. I took a sip of coffee trying to wash it down. “He was amazing,” I finished.

  “I believe that,” she said. “Makes me all the more distressed that I didn’t know my sister, either.”

  I laughed. “Mama was something else. I think you would have liked her, but she was closed off sometimes. Hard to read. Knowing her, I think she would have been half impressed and half intimidated by you.”

  “Really?” Aunt Tressa stared out the kitchen window for a moment. Her eyes were half-closed and she had almost, but not quite, a smile on her face. I’d seen that same look on my mother’s face more times than I could count. “I wonder why.”

  I laughed then. “Same reason she kept reminding me not to get too full of myself. She was proud, but I have a hunch she just felt left behind sometimes.”

  “What about Gracie?” she asked. “What was she like before all this?”

  “Oh, gosh,” I said, “she was the funniest kid. Everybody loved Gracie.”

  “When did it start going wrong for her, then? Was she okay after Marcus died? How’d she take his death?”

  I took a deep breath and thought about that. I shook my head and frowned. “I don’t actually remember a lot about that time. Not about Gracie, anyway. I was so busy at school and with my own grief. Grace stayed here with Miss Ora and Mama in the afternoons and I’d ride my bike home after cheerleading practice. I was almost done with college by the time it really started going bad.”

  “I’m curious to know if Grace ever talked about the rape at all. Seems odd that you never had a clue.”

  “Yeah, and that bothers me a lot now, knowing what Grace went through, and the awfulness of our mother’s lie. I remember the nightmares because they happened all the time. She would say “that white-haired boy was after me” and I remember at one point assuming she meant Skipper. He was the only white-headed boy I knew. But that’s as far as it went for me. I never connected the two of them physically because I never knew she was hurt.”

  “But she had nightmares a lot?” Aunt Tressa asked.

  “Lord, yes,” I said. “She used to wake up screaming bloody murder and Mama would rock her and tell her it was just a dream. I can hear her now. ‘Just a dream, child, just a dream.’ How could she do that?”

  Aunt Tressa didn’t respond and we sat in silence for a moment

  “Know what else is crazy?” I said. “He was a year behind me at school. I’d known him since fifth grade, when our schools were first integrated. He was a bully and everyone knew it, and yet it was still a big deal when he died. We had prayer meetings for him at the flagpole, and an entire assembly was dedicated to his memory. We planted a tree outside the front gates of the school and had fundraisers to pay for the plaque we laid in the ground at its base. I personally bought ribbon to cover the tree in blue bows because someone said it was his favorite color. The crazy thing is, even kids who couldn’t stand him were all a sudden acting like he was a hero, and all he did was die. And my mama knew this was going on and never stopped me from participating. Again, all I can ask is: How could she do that?”

  “Maybe she was just doing the only thing she knew how to do,” Aunt Tressa said, “which is just sad to me. I can’t even imagine thinking the only option you had was to suffer in silence.”

  “I think that’s what she expected us all to do,” I said, but I think I was mostly talking about Grace.

  11 – Grace

  I found Aunt Tressa and Sister sitting at the kitchen table when I finally went back in. “You got time to run me home to get some clothes? I need to get out of these ’fore they walk away by themselves.”

  “I do,” she said, “but we’ll have to be quick. I have to be in court at three.”

  So, we made plans to meet her back here tonight for supper. Apparently Miss Ora invited them all, though I don’t know who she thinks is gonna cook, ’cause I have my limits in that department.

  On the ride over, Sister was pretty q
uiet. I’m used to gettin’ the silent treatment from her. Sometimes it’s ’cause she’s mad. Other times it’s just she don’t know what to say, I guess.

  “So what’s your court case about?” I asked when the silence got to me.

  “What?” Patrice looked sideways at me.

  “This afternoon…what’s the case about?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Just a VOP and a DUI plea. Nothing big.”

  “What he do to violate?” I asked.

  She hesitated a second before she spoke, like she was going to say something else and changed her mind. “Failed a drug test,” she said.

  “You’re lyin’,” I said and turned away from her in my seat.

  “Why would I lie about that?” she asked.

  “Can you just stop? Why do you do that?” I leaned my head against the cool glass of the passenger window.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, “but he is on parole for drugs. He didn’t show up for counseling two weeks in a row. I’m figuring Judge Milford will send him back. She’s hardline on those things.”

  I’m so tired of this. Everything she says is aimed at fixing me, warning me, scaring me. And she wonders why I roll my eyes at her all the time. It’s just stupid how she does.

  “If you’re trying to scare me, Sister, it isn’t working. First of all, I’m not on drugs. You can go grab a drug test right now and I’ll pass it. And second of all, I’m not afraid of going back to jail, so you can just stop. You think you and Miss Ora any better than prison guards? Think again. It’s all bars and busts and behave yourself, Grace. No damn difference, trust me.”

  Patrice pulled into the tiny dirt driveway at Mama’s old house. “Need some help getting your stuff?”

  “No thanks, don’t put yourself out on my account,” I said and got out of the car.

  I was folding underwear and stacking them into a corner of Mama’s old brown suitcase when Patrice appeared in my bedroom door. I almost said Mama’s bedroom.

  “Grace,” she leaned against the door jam, “I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?” I asked, not contradicting her – just wondering which apology I was about to get.

  “For everything,” she said.

  “Well, that covers a lot,” I smiled, but I’m not sure I actually thought it was funny.

  “Mostly for assuming the worst all the time, although I have to say, you can’t always blame me. It’s not like I don’t have history directing my thoughts.”

  “That’s not an apology, Sister.” I grabbed several t-shirts from the shelf in the closet and threw them in beside my underwear. I had no pajamas like Aunt Tressa put me in last night. I’ve got sweat pants and t-shirts and usually I just sleep in the shirts. Wonder how that’s gonna fly on Main Street.

  “Then let me ask you this,” Patrice said, straightening the shirts I just put in. “Do you think I owe you one?”

  I looked up at her then. I’m so tired of fighting.

  “I’m not asking for an apology, Sister. You offered it.”

  “Yeah, I did,” she said, “and I meant it. I’m sorry for what you have been through. I’m sorry Mama lied to you. I’m sorry you think I’m a prison guard, because that is not what I intend.”

  I shook my head, “I know, I know…that was mean.”

  “I want to help you, Gracie. But I’m not sure how to do that.”

  “You are helping me,” I said, and I meant it. Hell, I’d be awful not to think that. She’s raising my kids.

  “I’m certainly trying to. I’m doing the best I can, but…”

  Here it comes. If she’s waiting for me to say “but, what?” she go’n wait a good long while. “You wanna take this on out to the car?” I zipped up the suitcase and handed it to her. “I’m gonna grab my hang-up clothes and I’ll be right out.”

  “That’s okay,” Patrice said, a big ol’ smug-ass smile on her face, like she caught me tryin’ to do something. “I’ll walk out with you.”

  My eyes gonna roll out my head one of these days. She think she know so much.

  “Suit yourself,” I said.

  “How long you think you’ll be staying with Miss Ora?” Sister asked.

  I shrugged. “Who knows? She say she just want company, but I’m not so sure. I ain’t nobody’s maid.”

  Sister frowned. “I don’t think she means that, but really, it won’t hurt you to help her a little.”

  “She go’n fall down those stairs one of these days, way she moves. She need to switch rooms with me or something. I’ll help her do that, but I’m tellin’ you now, I’m not there to wait on her hand and foot like Mama did.”

  “No one expects you to, Grace.”

  That’s Sister for you. That is one loaded statement right there. She wrong to think I don’t know what she means.

  12 – Patrice

  We didn’t speak all the way back to Miss Ora’s. I dropped her off in front of the house and watched her go up the sidewalk with an armload of clothes and a beat-up old suitcase. As irritated as I was, I smiled at her trying to make it look like it wasn’t a struggle to get into the house without dropping something. Funny how something so insignificant can remind you how much you love someone.

  And then there it was again, that fleeting thought that Mama would be so happy to see her coming up that walk. How many times did she pray for Gracie to come home? And here she is now – but Mama is gone.

  My sister barely made it home in time for the funeral but did not see Mama before she died. We looked for her the entire two weeks Mama lay in a coma in the hospital; we kept her on life-support while we called everyone we thought might know where Grace was. Her ex-boyfriend-slash-pimp-slash-drug dealer had been in prison for several years with a rap sheet a mile long. It should have included sex trafficking, if you ask me. Gracie was only sixteen when she took off with him. He was twenty-eight, if my math is right. I went out to the prison to see if he might know where we should start looking for her. He refused to see me, which didn’t surprise me at all.

  I stopped in to see Eddie while I was at the prison. As a Public Defender, I’m out there a lot. I asked the warden to arrange for a private reception area and she did. Of course, a guard stood nearby. I hugged him tightly. He was so thin I could feel his bones through the scratchy wool sweater he wore over his orange prison-issued scrubs. He smiled up at me, his toothless grin as endearing as ever.

  “You look good.” I smiled and dropped my briefcase onto the table, pulling out two chairs so they faced each other.

  “How’s your mama doin’?” Those were the first words out of his mouth. I teared up immediately.

  “Not good, Eddie,” I removed my purse from my arm and hung it on the back of the chair. “She had a stroke a few days ago.”

  “No ma’am,” Eddie said, a flat rebuttal.

  “Miss Ora found her. She hasn’t been awake since.”

  “No ma’am… No ma’am…” he repeated and dropped into one of the chairs.

  He took his head in his hands and rocked it back and forth.

  “We’ve been looking for Gracie, but we can’t find her. The doctors want to take Mama off life-support…”

  “She go’n die?” Eddie’s head snapped up, his face streaked dark with tears.

  I nodded and sat down at the table. I put my head down on my arms and wept for the first time since I called the ambulance to retrieve her from our little house on Rambo Street. We cried together. He kept saying he wanted to see her, and I told him they wouldn’t let him go unless she was family.

  “But she is fam’bly,” he said. “She the onliest fam’bly I got here.”

  “I know, Eddie, but that doesn’t count. I’m sorry,” I said.

  I wish I had known then that my mama actually was his daughter. It’s hard to believe he didn’t tell me himself. The lengths that man went to trying to protect us…

  I did not return to the prison until after we buried Mama. I feel guilty about that now. At the time, I was tied up with grief and obligat
ion. Shawn and Rochelle had always lived with her, and Grace was in no shape to care for them. I moved the kids in with me, and there were legal issues with everything.

  I let Grace move into Mama’s place and convinced her to go to rehab down at Lifeways, but she was clearly unfit to parent her children. Mama gave her so many chances to prove she could, but she always failed miserably. One of the times Grace came back home, Mama was so convinced she was clean that she took the kids out of daycare and let Grace keep them during the summer while she worked for Miss Ora. I stopped by one afternoon to drop off Rochelle’s medicine from the pharmacy – she’d had an ear infection and the doctor called in a different antibiotic.

  When I got to the house, Grace was sitting at the kitchen table with two people I didn’t recognize. She swept the remnants of whatever they were doing up into her t-shirt and headed for the back of the house before it hit me what was going on. I asked where the kids were, because I didn’t see them in the house. Mind you…Shawn was only seven and Rochelle just four, and all Grace could say was “They prob’ly down at the neighbor’s house.”

  I didn’t even give Mama an option that time. I enrolled them back at the daycare center and took it upon myself to make sure they were dropped off and picked up every single day. Grace was gone again shortly after. Mama said under her breath, “Idle hands the devil’s work.” That was one of her favorites. I got the impression she was blaming me for Grace’s leaving, as if taking away her babysitting job left her with nothing to do.

  Grace is still childlike in many ways. It’s like she has never matured past sixteen, like she is a myopic teenager whose only concern is getting what she wants. She listens to no one. When she wants to do better, she does better. When she wants to use, she uses. I cannot change her, and I know this. All I can do is let it play out and try, try, try to limit the collateral damage.