The Truth About Grace

by Cassie Dandridge Selleck

  I expected to hear that Miss Ora’d had a heart attack. In fact, I asked specifically for the cardiac unit and was told she was in the I.C.U. That was another unpleasant experience, explaining to the charge nurse that we were as close to next-of-kin as anyone would get. She wasn’t having any of that, though. We were about to give up and go home when one of her care nurses came out and said, “I think she’s trying to wake up. She keeps saying something. Sounds like grace, but I don’t know what she wants.”

  “That’s me,” Grace said. “I’m Grace.”

  So the charge nurse went in and asked Miss Ora herself. We got in to see her with the admonition that we could only stay five minutes. Her speech was garbled, but I could understand most of what she said. She wanted water and Grace helped her take a sip through a straw. I was on her left side and she reached for my hand. She never moved her right hand, though, and the right side of her face seemed frozen. I knew a stroke when I saw one.

  I told her Aunt Tressa was coming down, but it would be good if we could clear it with the hospital that we were authorized to visit. She nodded and squeezed my hand.

  “Shur-ro-geh,” she lifted my hand an inch or so and shook it. “You.”

  “I’m your medical surrogate?” I asked.

  “Yep,” she said. Her grin was lopsided and I laughed.

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “You weh-come.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I felt a jolt like an electric current when the exhale was long and full. I was just about to call for the nurse when I noticed her monitor was still beeping softly in rhythm. I looked again and could see her chest rise and fall. She had only gone back to sleep.

  Grace kissed her cheek and we tiptoed from the room. I stopped at the desk and told the nurse what Miss Ora had said.

  “I don’t know if the medical surrogate form is on file here, but I’m certain it would be on file with her regular doctor and cardiologist, so I’ll check with them in the morning.” I felt grateful for all the times I took her to the doctor’s office. At least I knew now where to go.

  Grace spent the night with me but insisted on staying at the hospital the next day. She took two books with her and spent the entire day in the ICU waiting room, visiting for five minutes every hour. I stopped by at noon with the medical surrogate papers and was treated like family from then on. I met with the doctors that afternoon and they explained that Mrs. Beckworth was currently able to adequately communicate with them and that they didn’t need any particular assistance from me at the time. They assured me they would keep me informed of her care and progress.

  The next day, they moved her from the ICU to a regular room and began making plans for a rehab facility when she was sufficiently recovered, which they said could be up to a week.

  I didn’t change the bus schedule for Rochelle and Shawn. I figured it was just as safe and less confusing if they continued to go to Miss Ora’s every day. It’s not like they need a babysitter, but they’ll be out of school for summer soon. I worry what will happen if Miss Ora never comes home. She’s on the mend now, but the doctor warned me it’s entirely possible she could suffer another stroke. The underlying problem, a condition called Atrial Fibrillation, wasn’t going anywhere. It could happen any time. I need to be prepared for anything.

  Aunt Tressa arrived that afternoon. She remembered far more than I did about Miss Ora’s legal planning. At this point, we needed to let her personal attorney know and that was it as far as I could tell. Aunt Tressa had arranged to stay a few days, which bought us some time figuring out what to do about Grace. I keep reminding myself what Kamilah said. It isn’t my job to keep her off drugs, just to allow for consequences. It’s just that the consequences are more than I can bear right now and, besides, Grace has been doing so well. She just passed her first drug screen and I’d really like to keep it that way.

  39 – Grace

  I know Patrice don’t understand why I want to be down here at the hospital all day. There’s somethin’ in me. Pride I guess. I don’t want her to know how hard it is not to use. I been going to AA meetings every single day. There’s a couple of churches that have ’em on a regular basis, and I just found out there’s one meets right here in the hospital, by the chapel. I can’t stand the thought of bein’ alone. Miss Ora and I been doin’ good together. Settling in as the oddest of couples, but we make each other laugh, and that can’t be a bad thing.

  Miss Ora the only link I got left to Mama. I feel guilty all the time, if I let myself think about it. All that time I didn’t spend with my mother weighs on me – like that time Mama let us go to the beach one day with some neighbors. It was just me and the twins, ’cause Marcus was already gone and Patrice was at college. I was the littlest, so they dug a trench and buried me up to my neck in the sand. It was cool at first – they’d dug deep enough to wrap me in wet sand, and it was a hot summer day. Then they ran down to the water to wash all the sand off their arms and legs and left me with just my head sticking up and the sun beatin’ down. I hollered for ’em to get me out, but the sound of the waves and all the other children playin’ must’ve drowned out my cries. The more I struggled the heavier and hotter I felt until I’d have done anything to get outta there. That’s how it is with grief. It is so strong, so heavy, that you sweat with the need of something to take you out of it, get it off you so you can breathe again. And dope is like a wave that washes the sand away and leaves you floating in cool, clear water. I gotta find another way to the water or I’m gonna suffocate.

  I’ll tell you one thing that’s the God’s honest truth. If they make me stay home one day by myself, I’ll use that money in the cabinet. I can’t let that happen. I gotta set myself up for success. I gotta change what I can change.

  40 – Patrice

  Back in college, I learned to duck when Cheryl had one of her big ideas. One time it involved a prank on her sorority sisters by my traditionally black club. I remember thinking this could go very, very wrong. But it ended up bringing the leaders of both clubs to friendships that continue to this day.

  So when I got a call yesterday, my first thought was that Cheryl had taken matters into her own hands, like her mother always did. She was like a bulldozer – a handy piece of equipment to have in the right hands. Potentially destructive if not.

  The call was from Rebecca Yager, a girl we’d grown up with and knew well – Cheryl because Rebecca is white, and I because she is Jewish and suffered some of the same torment I did in elementary school. I was going into the fourth grade when our school board initiated a “trial” desegregation in our county. Marcus and I were both at the top of our class, two years apart. The way the trial worked was that each school would get two or three black children that first year. Brothers and sisters were often sent together, which is what happened to us. I entered the fourth grade and Marcus the sixth at Skiles Elementary School, an otherwise all-white school, in the fall of 1968.

  No one could have prepared us for what happened that year, but Mama did try. Daddy was still alive then and working at the citrus plant on the night shift. They bused us across town to the new school. We were the last to get on and the first to get off that bus every day, which was a miracle when I think of it now. I remember the first day – Mama walking us up the long front walk to meet the principal. She was a compact, forbidding looking woman with a beehive hairdo that made her seem taller than she was. She sat us down and told us she was glad we were there and that she expected us to love the school. I remember Marcus made a funny noise when she said that, and Mama elbowed him. I was kind of excited to do something new. Marcus was furious. He didn’t want to be there at all. He wanted to be back at his own school with his own friends. In my profound naivety, I looked at it like an adventure and it was, though not always in a good way. Of course, when I look back on it now, I am in awe of the courage it took my mother to leave us at a school where we would be tolerated at best, and Lord only knew at worst.

  Miss DeAngelo talked to Mama for a
bit and asked if she had any questions or concerns. I’ll never forget the one question Mama asked her, “How you go’n keep my children safe?” That’s when it hit me, I guess.

  “Mama?” I said, looking up in alarm.

  She put her hand on my arm. Her white glove glowed against the dark of my skin.

  “Shhhh, child,” she whispered.

  Miss DeAngelo looked Mama straight in the eye and said, “Mrs. Lowery, I know you don’t know me, but I hope you’ll trust me when I say this. I’m determined to make this work. I believe this is the right thing – for our schools and for our country – and I will do everything in my power, not just to keep them safe, but to make this a good experience for them. You have my word.”

  Then she turned to us and told us she would be checking on us all the time, but if we had any problems at all, we should tell our teachers. If they didn’t handle it, she said, we should come straight to her office as soon as we could and she would take care of everything. This included, she was careful to add, any name-calling or threats or physical violence.

  “What’s violence mean?” I asked.

  “If anyone hurts you,” she said.

  Later that day, I looked up the word in my new teacher’s fat red dictionary. It sat right on the corner of her wide wooden desk, like a beacon to my language-loving soul. She asked me why I was looking it up and I remember telling her I just didn’t like it when I didn’t know how to spell a word or know what it meant. She smiled at me then, and her face transformed.

  “Patrice Lowery,” she said, “I think you and I are going to be good friends.”

  And that was the end of my fear, if not my struggles. I did have to go see Miss DeAngelo a few times, mostly for minor slights, but I also learned to take up for myself. Rebecca Yager was the one to thank for that.

  The thing was, the first time a kid called me a name, I wasn’t even sure he knew it was wrong. He used the word like it was just another noun. There’s the water fountain. There’s the pencil sharpener. There’s the nigger.

  Rebecca leapt from her chair and slapped the boy right across the face.

  “What’d ya do that for?”

  “I’ll do worse if you ever call her that again,” she said.

  “I don’t think he meant anything by it,” I offered lamely. Is it any wonder I became a defense attorney?

  She wheeled on me like she was going to slap me, too, and I flinched.

  “Oh, don’t be stupid, I’m not going to hit you.” She leaned in close then, placing both palms flat on my desk. “You can’t give these jerks an inch, kid. You ride bus 38, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I sit halfway back…fourth seat on the left. I’ll save you a spot today.”

  I took that as an order of sorts and I sat with her every single day that year, though I soon realized she didn’t actually have to “save” me a seat. No one ever sat with her. I never figured out if it was because she was Jewish or because everyone was terrified of her. She’d just as soon smack someone as look at them, and she never got in trouble for it, either. Far as I could tell, no one ever told on her. Not the boy slapped on my behalf, or the girl whose foot she stomped for trying to warn her that someone was trying to “Jew her down.” Our class got schooled in political correctness before it was a popular term. Corporal punishment was part of her lesson plan.

  We ended up in a different class the next year, and completely different schedules once we hit high school. I still knew her, but we didn’t run in the same crowds. The last thing Rebecca Yager would be was a cheerleader like me. She was on the debate team and served two years as president of the National Honor Society. She was the only girl I knew who wore corduroy blazers and loafers with bright copper coins tucked into the penny slots.

  When she called, she said she’d learned about some irregularities in the case of the Pecan Man and was looking for more information for a story she was writing. I did my best to find out where she’d gotten the lead in the first place, but she never gave it away. Not even a pronoun slip. I agreed to meet with her at Miss Ora’s house that evening after I picked up Grace from the hospital. It’s Gracie’s story. It’s best if she’s the one who tells it.

  41 – Grace

  When I first heard about a reporter wantin’ to write my story, I was sure it was Cheryl’s doin’ and I didn’t want any part of it. She swore to me, though – and I think I believe her – that she was not the one who called this Rebecca girl. I ain’t all that excited about the whole world knowin’ my business, but on the other hand, I’m tired of hidin’. Tired of everything but the truth bein’ told around me and about me.

  I decided right off the bat I was gonna own up to everything I did. It’s like I have a chance to start over. Not just a do-over though. It’s a rewrite. Start from the beginning and tell the truth, even the things I did wrong.

  The other day at an AA meeting somebody said, “If I will not take responsibility, I cannot take control.” I thought to myself, that’s the truest thing I ever heard. All this time I been blaming everybody else, when wasn’t nobody gonna step in and fix my life for me, even if they did screw it up. I’m tired of not having control over my life, my body, my story. It’s time to change the thinking that keeps me from changing.

  They moved Miss Ora from intensive care to a regular room today, so I can stay in there with her. I brought one of her favorite books and read to her for a little bit. She loves Ferrol Sams. We’re on The Whisper of the River right now, but that’s the second one. I swear sometimes it makes me laugh right out loud.

  She still can’t talk right, but I’m gettin’ to where I can understand her okay. She don’t need much, but she’s askin’ can she get her hair done. The nurse brought me some dry shampoo in a spray can and I did my best to make it look right, but I don’t know what to do with hair that fine. It flattens out in the back and don’t hold any curl at all at the top. Miss Ora always gone to the beauty parlor once a week where they wash it and set it and it stays lookin’ the same ‘til she goes again next week. I told her I’d call her hairdresser and see can she come by after work one day.

  Then I told her about the reporter and she looked at me all worried-like.

  “Patrice and Cheryl know her from high school. They said she’d do a good job,” I tried to console her.

  “Izzat what you wan’?” She has to work hard to make her mouth do right. I feel bad makin’ her talk, but the nurse said it was good for her to try.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m all right with it. Almost feels like it’s settin’ me free in a way. I know – that just sounds weird. I can’t really explain it.”

  She reached for my hand. “I geh it. I prou’ of you, Gracie.”

  I figured now was as good a time as any, so I took a deep breath and let it out.

  “You wouldn’t be proud of me if you knew what I did, Miss Ora.”

  She looked at me for a minute. I thought she might cry, but she didn’t.

  “You wan’ teh’ me?” She squeezed my hand. “Ih okay, you teh’ me.”

  I felt so ashamed, I knew I had to just spit it out or I’d never tell.

  “You know that money you had in the pantry?”

  Her eyes got dark and she shook her head side to side.

  “In the baking powder jar. It’s a big ol’ wad of Ben Franklins.”

  She looked confused, but then I could see a wave of memory wash across her face.

  “I forgah’ aw abou’... Wwwwal…my husban’…he call it ma’ money.”

  “Mad money?”

  “Yeah. He say he puh’ sumpin’ in it ev’ time he make me mad. Say he go’n take me somewheh’ to spen’ it someday.”

  “That was a lot of money. You musta stayed mad at him.”

  “Noooo…” she laughed. “Jus’ a joke. I teh’ you abou’ him someday.”

  “Where was he gonna take you?”

  “He say Ha-why-ee, buh’ I nev’ wan’ fly, so we nev’ go.” She laughed a little, then her fa
ce got serious again. “How you know abou’ money?”

  “I found it, Miss Ora. I spent some of it. On drugs. And I’m telling you now because I want to get better. I want to do better, Miss Ora. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

  She shook her head back and forth. “I not worry abou’ money, Grace. I worry abou’ you.”

  “I worry about me, too, Miss Ora.”

  I scooted my chair closer to her bed and laid my head on the mattress by her shoulder. She held my hand in her good hand, patting it every now and then until we both fell asleep. We were still asleep when Sister stopped by to take me home.

  42– Patrice

  There are some people in this world you love to hate, and some you hate to love. Rebecca is one of the latter for me. I remember her as brash and opinionated, and always raging against perceived injustices. As a child, I loathed the sound of her voice, tinny and sharp-edged, but I secretly applauded her bravado.

  After she told me she was researching a story about Eddie, I did some research and found some articles she had written. Her work is well-crafted, her stories compelling.

  On the ride home from the hospital, I warned Grace about my old friend.

  “I think she’ll do a good job,” I said. “But I’m not sure at all that you’ll actually like her. She’s a little hard to take sometimes.”

  “I don’t care if I like her or not, long as she gets the story right.”

  “I trust her, if that helps.”

  Grace didn’t say anything for a few minutes. She just stared out the car window and picked absently at the cuticle on her thumb. When we pulled into the driveway, she got out of the car and walked straight to the back door. By the time I made it through the back porch and into the kitchen, she had a small tin canister in her hand.