His Saving Grace

by Lyn Cote

  Jack felt his father’s attention on him. Warm in the face, he refused to look up.

  “I was hoping you’d be here, son. I really need to make a date to talk with you about business—stat.”

  So, that’s why you came here. Maybe you think Mom will pressure me for you? Jack glanced up. “My partner, Tom, who negotiates all our deals, is gone on a two-week vacation. I’ll have him get back to you when he returns.”

  His dad frowned. “This can’t wait that long.”

  Jack shrugged.

  “Jack,” his mom coaxed.

  “Okay,” Jack said to placate her, “call me again Monday morning.”

  “Great. I’ve got to go.” His dad glanced at the gold Rolex on his wrist. “I’m golfing at the club today with two city aldermen and the chief surgeon from Northwestern Hospital. Sandy, call me if your condition worsens, okay?”

  “Okay. ’Bye, Cliff.” She waved.

  The door closed and he was gone.

  Jack sucked in acid words, his usual reaction to his dad. Two city aldermen and a chief surgeon—we are impressed, Dad. Jack chewed his crunchy wheat cereal as though chewing out his dad. Pretense. All show. And this visit was all about what his dad needed, not his mother’s condition.

  His mother cocked her head toward him. “What’s this about Cliff wanting LIT to do a job for him?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Your father’s money spends just like any other,” Sandy said with a rueful smile.

  Jack didn’t reply.

  “Jack, your father and I’ve been divorced for years now. I’ve forgiven him. It’s time you made peace with him and went on with your life.”

  “I am going on with my life. There’s nothing wrong with my life.”

  His mom shook her head. “Son, holding in anger will only make you miserable. ‘Forgive us as we forgive others,’ remember?”

  Later that day, long after lunch and the second coat of paint, the scent of latex hung in the stuffy air that wrapped around Gracie. She shuffled down the back steps to the cooler, shadowy basement laundry room and plopped the paint trays, brushes and rollers into the oversize laundry sink.

  She swiped the perspiration off her face with the hem of her damp T-shirt and then started running cool water over the first brush, riffling the bristles with her fingers, working out the paint. Where are you, Annie? Why aren’t you home yet?

  As if in reply, she heard the back door open and footsteps running up the rear staircase to the apartment upstairs. They sounded too heavy to be Annie’s, but why would Troy be home this early in the afternoon? Usually when he had to work Saturdays, he worked late.

  She concentrated on cleaning the brushes under the faucet. I should call Sandy and see how she’s doing today. But Jack’s probably there.

  Thoughts from yesterday bombarded Gracie. Jack’s image wouldn’t give in and vanish. She worked harder on the brushes, trying to blot Jack from her mind and idly listening to the squeals of the twins as their granddad sprayed them with cold water outside in the backyard. It was cooler in the basement, but Gracie thought she just might go outside herself and get a refreshing spray—

  Footsteps stormed down the back steps. “Gracie!” Troy, her brother-in-law, roared. “Gracie!”

  The outrage in his voice jolted her. She dropped the roller and raced up the basement stairs. She met Troy at the top. “What is it?”

  “I found this—” Troy’s voice shook as he pushed a sheet of Annie’s stationery at her.

  Gracie took the page and looked down. She read the brief note once, twice. “I can’t believe it!”

  On Monday morning, at his desk, Jack tried Gracie’s number one more time. Busy. Still busy. He’d come in to work, intending to find Tom’s itinerary with Gracie’s help. Instead, he’d found an empty office and only a brief message from Gracie on his answering machine: “Jack, I’m sorry I won’t be in today. Family emergency.”

  What did that mean? Gracie never took personal days. She lived with her dad, a widower, and her sister and her family lived upstairs, he recalled vaguely.

  “Gracie, I need you today,” Jack complained to the empty office.

  The office phone rang. Jack let the answering machine pick up. He waited.

  “Hi, this is Cliff Lassater again. I need to set up a lunch appointment for this week. This situation can’t be put on hold. Jack, please call me back ASAP.” His dad’s tone had sharpened several notches since Saturday.

  Ignoring the unwelcome message, Jack glanced around the office that he’d already sorted through twice looking for Tom’s vacation itinerary. If he didn’t get busy with another project, his mother would “guilt” him into doing this job for his dad.

  He didn’t trust his dad’s motives. He couldn’t. But his mom had already mentioned her hope that he would help out his father. “Jack, why don’t you show your father what you can do?” she’d asked. “Be big about it.”

  “I’m not interested in impressing my father,” Jack said now, under his breath.

  In a burst of frustration, he headed out, snapping the lock on the LIT door behind him. In his pocket, he had Gracie’s home address. He’d find out what was keeping her away from the office and tying up the phone all morning. Is everything going haywire?

  After an aggravatingly slow traffic-filled drive from downtown to a north-side neighborhood, he pulled over and parked in front of the white vinyl-sided two-flat. After checking Gracie’s address again, he climbed out. He locked the car, opened the chain-link gate and walked up to the glossy kelly-green front door. He pressed the doorbell, heard it trilling inside and waited. Now that he’d arrived, uncertainty gripped him. What had kept Gracie home? Maybe he should mind his own business.

  To get his bearings, he glanced around at the older neighborhood of neat two-flats and a few single-family Victorian houses. At the corner started a block-long commercial area with a local grocer, a drugstore, a laundry and dry cleaner, an obviously ethnic Polska Café, and across the street from the stores, a large redbrick church, St. Wenceslas.

  Through the windowed door, he eyed the roomy foyer that had three doors—one directly opposite him to the flight of stairs to the second story, one to his right to an enclosed porch, and just behind that one, a door that led traditionally to the first-floor apartment.

  That door opened. Gracie looked out at him. “Jack?”

  Her shocked tone made him feel awkward. He’d never before invaded Gracie’s private life. “I’m sorry, but I need some information—” He stopped.

  Gracie didn’t look like herself at all. Her short dark wavy hair was uncombed and she had dark circles under her eyes. And her blouse was wrinkled as though she’d slept in it.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Gracie gaped at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Aunt Gracie, Aunt Gracie!” Children’s voices came from inside. “Who’s here?”

  Sighing, Gracie turned and motioned Jack to follow her into the first-floor flat. “This is my boss, Mr. Lassater. Jack, these are my nephews, Austin and Andy.”

  After nodding at the boys, he scanned the room, which looked comfortable rather than designer-magazine fashionable. He liked the bright colors—yellow, blue and white.

  “Boys,” Gracie said, “you can go back outside—”

  “No, we don’t wanna,” Andy whined. Both boys latched on to her arms.

  “Okay, then,” Gracie soothed. “How about I put on a video?”

  The two little boys stared up at her.

  “Come on, guys,” Gracie coaxed them. “I’ll put it in for you and then Jack and I will just be in the kitchen. He probably wants me to help him with something about work.”

  “You’re not goin’ to work today, are ya?” Andy asked, sounding worried.

  “No, I told you I’m staying here with you. I won’t leave. Don’t worry.” Gracie looked to Jack and indicated a doorway at the far end of the large living-dining room. “Go through there and have a seat at
the kitchen table, Jack. I’ll be right with you.”

  Jack did what he was told. But he didn’t like the feeling of “bad news coming” that he was getting.

  Chapter Three

  Exhausted from a very restless sleep, Gracie plopped down in the chair across from Jack in the red and white kitchen. Her shoulders ached from lifting the twins, rolling on paint. From tension. She had plenty of that.

  “What’s wrong? Is it about business, or your mother?”

  “What’s wrong here?” Jack countered. “You look awful.”

  Gracie’s eyes widened. “I must look awful if you noticed it. But I asked you first.”

  He propped one elbow on the table. He covered the lower half of his handsome face with his hand, a gesture she’d come to know, one she would miss when she left. Still hiding, Jack?

  Happy cartoon voices floated in from the living room. Leaning back, she waited. Why did I try to hurry him? Jack thinks only in numbers, integers, logarithms, and about kludges and crackers. She shut her scratchy, warm eyes.

  She knew she should just go ahead and quit. She couldn’t believe this was happening. What had gotten into Annie? Dear God, please, what are we going to do?

  “What’s got you all upset?” Jack asked.

  Gracie stared down at her hands and saw that her knuckles were white. “My kid sister, Annie, has left her husband.” As she voiced these words, anger sizzled through her.

  “Your sister left her kids?” His tone condemned Annie.

  Gracie felt her temper flare. “This isn’t all Annie’s fault. She’s just so young.”

  Even though the cheery music from the video played on, without warning, the twins appeared in the doorway. Gracie looked into their down-turned faces.

  “What is it, guys?”

  “When’s Mommy coming home?” Austin whined.

  “Don’t worry. Your mommy will be back before you know it.”

  Her nephews stared at her, looking unconvinced, and then wandered back to the video. Two little lost souls.

  Dear Lord, put Your arms around them. I don’t know how to keep this from wounding them deeply.

  And then she wondered angrily, Annie, what were you thinking?

  “Please, we have to be careful what we say in front of the twins,” she said in a quiet voice. “I want to minimize the effect of this on them.”

  “Sorry.” He’d lowered his voice, too. “How long have your sister and her husband been having problems?”

  “They weren’t having problems,” Gracie snapped.

  “Then, why did she leave?” Jack looked puzzled.

  Gracie frowned and stared at the tabletop.

  Gracie’s expression and her hesitance told Jack that she didn’t like talking about her sister in this way. “Better just tell me, Gracie,” Jack said.

  She looked at him then, a tear in one eye.

  Oh, Gracie. Concern for her welled up inside him, warming him, surprising him with its force.

  “My sister is really smart. She won all kinds of scholarships. We were so proud,” Gracie admitted, then paused. “But she decided to marry right after high school.”

  Jack nodded, encouraging her to go on.

  “She’d planned to go to college anyway. But she had the twins right away and then decided to postpone getting a degree until they were old enough for preschool—”

  “You mean, about now?”

  She pursed her lips. “Yes, but now, her husband, Troy, wants her to have another baby, finish their family, and then go to college when all three are in school.”

  “Sounds like he reneged on their deal.” The same thing had happened to his mom. His dad had reneged on their deal. Why was that so common?

  “Yes, but Annie shouldn’t just leave,” Gracie insisted. “She should stay and work it out with her husband.”

  Jack nodded. “Yes, but—”

  The twins appeared beside them. “Video’s over,” one announced, and climbed into Gracie’s lap.

  When the other little guy climbed up on Jack uninvited, he was surprised. Jack couldn’t remember ever having a small child in his lap. It was a strange feeling. Jack clamped an arm around the kid’s middle, securing him in place.

  The kid put small hands on Jack’s arm, and across from Jack, his brother’s expression was pinched. The urge to protect these little ones claimed Jack. Poor kids. Jack suddenly recalled Mr. Pulaski calling him over to rake leaves the day his dad had packed up and left home.

  Jack shoved his chair back, nearly upsetting it. But he set the boy on his feet with care. “How about we walk Andy and Austin to that grocery store down the block? You guys can each pick out a candy bar.” Jack stood there, surprised at himself.

  Obviously tempted by this bribe, the twins wavered. “Can we get one for our mommy?” one bargained.

  “And Aunt Gracie?” the other added.

  “Sure—” Jack heard himself say. “A king-size one for Aunt…Gracie, one for each of you, and one for everyone else in your family.”

  Gracie flashed him a startled look. But she smiled, too.

  He felt blessed by it. With a nod to her, Jack moved forward and shepherded the boys ahead of him.

  The kitchen phone rang and Gracie stopped to get it.

  Jack waited in the living room with the boys, who held on to his hands and twisted them back and forth.

  Standing in the doorway, Gracie made a face and covered the receiver with her hand. “It’s Annie’s mother-in-law. Can you go ahead and I’ll catch up with you?”

  “Sure,” Jack said with bravado, “I think I can handle buying candy bars.”

  “Boys, be sure to hold Jack’s hands when you cross the street!” Gracie called after them.

  Jack let the boys lead him down the front steps. The sensation of such small hands in his again reinforced the desire to protect these little ones.

  “Do we really get king-size ones?” one of the twins asked, giving him a questioning look.

  “Which one are you?” Jack asked, trying to get his bearings.

  “I’m Austin. I got a mole on my ear.” The kid pointed to a small brown spot on his earlobe.

  “And I don’t got one. So you know I’m Andy.” The other twin pointed to his naked earlobe.

  “Okay. I got it. Austin has the mole. Andy is mole-less. And yes, you can get king-size ones.”

  They bobbed their heads up and down like puppets.

  Realizing he was nearly dragging the boys along, Jack shortened his stride and then stopped at the corner.

  Austin hung on Jack’s hand, tugging and stretching as far as he could away from Jack. “Aunt Gracie works for you?”

  “That’s right.” Jack watched at the corner for a break in traffic.

  “You are real smart. Grampa says so.” Andy imitated his brother, pulling on Jack’s other arm.

  Feeling like a tent with the twins as the pegs, Jack ignored this comment. “Come on. It’s clear.”

  Clear, Lord, that I thought I had a problem. But these little guys are the ones who need Your help. They shouldn’t suffer because their mom has left them. It’s not right.

  Later, after the king-size candy bar run and an hour after a grilled-cheese sandwich lunch, Gracie brought the twins out into the backyard. Still at her heels, Jack hadn’t mentioned leaving, and, weakened by Annie’s desertion, she’d let him stay. I should have told him to go. I should just turn in my resignation. But she couldn’t. This is just all too much, Lord.

  Jack made a whoosh sound as he thrust each twin’s swing forward in turn. The boys squealed and kicked their feet. “Higher! Higher!”

  Gracie realized that Jack—who usually didn’t appear aware of humans around him—had helped her today in distracting the twins from the disappearance of their mother. His unforeseen thoughtfulness choked her up and lowered her mood even more. Why does Jack have to be so sweet when I’m going to quit?

  “I should go now.” Jack turned to her as if he’d overheard her thoughts. “I need to
check the answering machine at the office in case some client has called with a problem.”

  “It’s time for these guys to take a nap anyway,” she said, ignoring the droop in her spirits. With Jack here, she hadn’t felt so turned upside-down. I’m all mixed up today, Lord. I want him gone, I want him here.

  “I don’t wanna nap,” Austin complained.

  “Me neither,” Andy agreed. “We’re not babies.”

  “I’ll put on your favorite video and you can just lie on our couch,” Gracie said. “After you rest for an hour, I’ll take you to the park. Okay?”

  “Yay!” the twins yelled in unison, and practically jumped from the flying swings.

  Soon the boys were lying on the couch, breathing evenly. Gracie insisted Jack finish his iced tea from lunch before he left. Another confused delay tactic.

  From the refrigerator, she handed him the chilled half-filled glass. In the distance, a church carillon marked time with a melody and chimed the hour, three p.m. A cartoon voice sang softly in the living room again. The seat of the kitchen chair felt hard under her. Every sensation swelled, seeming magnified. With her forefinger, she traced a bead of moisture on the outside of her frosty glass of tea.

  Jack felt like he’d been trapped in a time warp. Today hadn’t gone anything like he’d expected.

  “I’m sorry to have taken up your time,” Gracie said.

  “That doesn’t matter,” he muttered. My mom matters. What’s happening here matters.

  Gracie looked into his eyes. “I’ve never heard you say that before.” She paused. “You never told me why you came.”

  Gracie leaned toward him—or had he leaned toward her? What could he say? I wanted to be too busy to do that job for my dad sounded too weird. He drained his glass and stood up. “It was nothing. I’d better go.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” Gracie said, standing also.

  He followed her through the living room, where the twins already slumbered. Their faces had relaxed in sleep, looking trouble-free yet more vulnerable. Jack took a deep breath as he slowed and glanced at Gracie. She gave her nephews a loving glance filled with concern.