Grace Above All (Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage)

by Jane St. Anthony

  “What about Grace?” Chuck asked, casting a frown at her as he walked slowly to the counter. “Why doesn’t she have to do anything?”

  “How do you do that?” Grace retorted. “Make your nose look like a pig’s?”

  Chuck began to move toward her. Dad said something to him in a low voice. Chuck took the knife from Dad and began chopping onions.

  Grace imagined that Dad had whispered, “Put a mouse turd under the potatoes on her plate.” More likely, it was, “Be bigger than that,” or “You’re the only one who can let her get to you.” Dad knew how to elevate the wronged person and deflate the aggressor.

  “I’ll set the table,” Grace said as an apology to Dad. No one had set the table all week.

  “Oh, Daddy, you’re making hamburgers,” Beth exclaimed happily, entering from the front yard, where she and Pinky had been playing.

  “It smells so good,” said Pinky, who followed Beth into the cabin. “I’m hungry.”

  This is what a real family is like, Grace thought: people making food and planning to eat it. There was no Beth crying about a lost puppy. No Polly blinking back tears because Bernadette didn’t have candles for the pyramid of Hostess Twinkies that she called a birthday cake. No Pinky worrying about who would sew his elf costume for the school play. A nice parent gave chores to little kids. Little kids liked to be helpful. But they didn’t like to be their own parents.

  “Those onions could wake up the dead,” Bernadette said, emerging from a short nap in her room. “I swear someone stuffed them up my nose.”

  Grace watched Polly at her potato-peeling station and wondered if she had forgiven Bernadette for leaving her behind at Gunda’s. Bernadette had really outdone herself that day.

  “Mom, why don’t you ever do this?” Polly asked, her peeler held like a question mark in the air.

  “Do what? Stink up the house?”

  “Bernadette, you know that you want those onions with your burger,” Dad said jokingly, without looking up.

  “Why, Mom?” Polly continued, as if Dad hadn’t spoken. “Why does Dad cook and you don’t?”

  Chuck turned from the chopping block to stare at Polly. The little kids watched Bernadette, who lit a cigarette and inhaled sharply, as if preparing a response in her lungs.

  Dad scooped up more ground meat as he looked at Polly.

  “Your mother hates cooking,” he said, as if Bernadette weren’t in the room. “I can’t make her like it. Period.”

  “That’s not a very good answer,” Polly said quietly.

  “Bernadette, what do you have to say?” said Dad. “Anything to tell the kids?”

  “Guilty as charged,” she said through her exhalation.

  “She made me a sandwich for lunch yesterday,” Beth told everyone.

  “Redeemed!” Dad said, although he didn’t look as happy as his voice sounded. “Let’s hurry up and get this dinner on the table.”

  17

  “Mom is a little, you know, better today,” Polly said to Grace as they sat on the beach on Sunday afternoon.

  “She’s been awake all day, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I guess so.”

  Bernadette sat on a lawn chair in the cabin’s front yard. Pinky and Beth, playing old maid on the grass near her, chattered brightly, their voices stirring the air.

  “She got dressed in the morning, too,” said Polly.

  “We shouldn’t count on it happening again.”

  “Do you think it’s because Dad is here?”

  Grace tipped her face back. The sun seemed to be blessing her. Or maybe she felt lighthearted because she wasn’t making someone’s lunch. “She never acts any different when he’s at home,” she said. “Maybe she actually misses him.”

  “Do you know what I thought you would say, Grace?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t expect a miracle.”

  “I’m surprised I didn’t say that, Polly. Very good line.”

  The girls looked at the lake. In the distance, a boat bobbed on the water. Dad and Frankie’s dad and grandpa had gone back out after dropping Pinky off with his catch. At the end of the dock, Frankie and Chuck held their fishing poles as they talked, periodically attempting to push each other into the water. They had fished in Grandpa Ernest’s boat with the dads before anyone else was up.

  Grace felt Polly’s eyes on her. “What is it, Pol?” she said, lowering herself back onto the beach towel. She hated it when Polly got serious on her. Polly had no protective shell.

  “Do you ever think that Mom shouldn’t have had kids?”

  “Polly, that’s no way for a Catholic to talk.”

  “Maybe she could have been something else.”

  “What? A kindergarten teacher?”

  “Grace, don’t make fun of me,” Polly said. “Not a teacher. Mom likes to joke with people, sleep during the day.” She paused. “Maybe she should have been a bartender instead of a mother.”

  Grace opened her eyes. “I’ll give you that one, Polly.”

  Late in the afternoon, Grace and Frankie took the walk they had planned earlier in the day.

  “Your dad is a really nice guy,” Frankie said, as they turned onto the road and headed in the opposite direction from their first walk.

  “He is.”

  “He agreed with Grandpa that we should all come up here together next year. Everybody.”

  “Your mom and brother, too?”

  “Sure.”

  Bernadette and Frankie’s mom in neighboring cabins? Even though she couldn’t imagine Frankie’s mother, Grace excised that situation from her mind immediately.

  They joined hands and swung them loosely.

  “We’re all eating together tonight, but you know that,” Grace said.

  “Right. I always liked coming to the cabin. It was always great, no matter who else from my family was along. But this is so much better, having your family here and doing stuff all the time.” He stopped walking. “But you, here, it’s just, you know, over the top.”

  Their hands stopped swinging as they looked at each other, grasshoppers and cicadas creating the only conversation. Then a faint noise grew louder. They turned in the direction of the footsteps.

  Pinky panted behind them, his face pinker than ever with exertion. “Dad said that I could walk with you if I could catch you.” He stopped running and walked bent at the waist, his arms wagging in front of him, while he caught his breath.

  “What about the rest of your gang?” Frankie said, winking at Grace. “Didn’t they want to come, too?”

  “No, just me. Where are we going?”

  Frankie moved away from Grace to let Pinky in between them. Then Grace and Frankie, without a word, each took one of Pinky’s hands and, on the count of three, lifted him as they walked and swung him back and forth as he screamed with delight.

  Part of Grace wanted to pound Pinky into the ground. But the larger part couldn’t help laughing because Pinky, oblivious to romance, had never looked more alive with joy.

  18

  After supper, everyone stayed on the beach. Groups formed, broke apart, and re-formed. Grace and Frankie were a popular splinter group, as at least one of the little kids always followed them. Dad was a popular attraction as well.

  “Things will settle down when your dad goes,” Frankie told Grace. “We still have almost a whole week.”

  On Monday morning, Dad walked through the main room with his suitcase. His heavy footsteps, in tandem with the sunlight that probed Grace’s eyelids, woke her up. Dad leaned over Chuck’s bed and said a few words. Grace sat up before Dad reached her. She followed him outside, where the air was the same temperature as her skin. The birds trilled about how happy they were to be birds. Polly sat in her pajamas on the hood of the car. Grace trailed Dad to the trunk. He was wearing a suit.

  “You’re driving straight to work from here?” she asked.

  Dad made a show of slowly lifting his watch to eye level. “Looks as if my vacation end
s”—he paused—“right about now.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to go. Everything is better when you’re here.”

  “Next year, we’ll plan this better. I’ll be here for the whole time.”

  Polly slid down from the hood and plodded to the back of the car, stopping in front of Dad. She looked like a beagle—sad-eyed and droopy—who needed a pat on the head.

  “Grace, I want you to do something for me while you’re here,” Dad said, rubbing the top of Polly’s head.

  “Sure, what?”

  “Remember that your sister is not the enemy.”

  Grace rolled her eyes.

  “What goes around comes around,” Dad continued.

  “I don’t need her,” Polly said in a sad voice.

  “You do, and you will,” Dad said. He turned to face Grace. “You’ll need her, too, Gracie.”

  Grace didn’t detect anything funny or veiled in his words or face. He was serious. “The others,” he continued, “you’ll need them, too, now and as you get older. They’re your base.”

  The thought of an adult Chuck disturbed Grace.

  Polly sniffled, a prelude to sobs. To her credit, she didn’t blurt out a litany of crimes committed against her by Grace.

  “You’ll be okay, Polly,” Dad said, giving her a rocking hug. “I miss you, too.”

  How could Dad stand Polly, so easily defeated, so weak? Maybe he felt sorry for her because he had a soft spot for the underdog. Maybe he felt sorry for her because she would never be as strong as Grace.

  “I love you, Pol,” said Dad. “I’ll see you soon.

  “Love you, too, Gracie,” he said as he hugged her. “That Frankie seems like a nice kid.” He lowered himself into the driver’s seat. “Here’s my nickel’s worth of advice. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want us to know about.”

  Grace’s blush rushed up from her neck as she thought of Dad’s eyes on her hand in Frankie’s. She promised herself to forget what Dad had just said. It was worse than Bernadette flinging a half-empty box of sanitary napkins on Grace’s bed when she was eleven and didn’t know what they were.

  “Right,” she said. “See you soon.”

  “Love you girls. Chin up, Polly,” he said to her, holding her hand through the car window for a moment.

  Polly lapped it up like the little puppy that she was, breaking into a smile with her lips pressed together to keep from grinning. No wonder she was so vulnerable, Grace thought, out there in the world with ticker tape on her face broadcasting her thoughts.

  Dad turned the key in the ignition with one hand and saluted the girls with the other. As the car rolled off the dirt patch next to the station wagon, Dad waved goodbye. Grace and Polly watched the car until it disappeared in the distance. Grace looked back at the empty spot where the car had been. Beyond it, in front of his cabin, Frankie stood looking at her.

  19

  Grace’s stomach did a flip.

  “Hey, Grace.”

  “Hi, Frankie.” Grace wore the summer pajamas that her grandma, Dad’s mom, had made. The pajamas covered everything that a bathing suit covered, but Grace felt strange outside in them. Was it the white eyelet trim or the pajamas themselves?

  “What are you doing today?” he said. “We don’t have a plan yet.”

  “You and your dad?”

  “No, us.” Frankie walked across his mowed lawn to the bramble along the side of Grace’s cabin. “Hi, Polly.”

  “Hi,” Polly replied, drying her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Do you want to go to town with Grandpa and me?” he asked Grace.

  “Sure, when?”

  “Chuck and I were supposed to go fishing this morning, if he gets up, and then my dad and I are going to get some stuff done around the cabin. So, after lunch?”

  Polly made a gravelly noise in her throat as she looked at Grace. Grace stared at her, hoping she would disappear. Polly’s next noise was raspier.

  “Polly, have you been eating pebbles?” Grace said.

  “You heard Dad,” Polly said in a hiss. “Take me, too.”

  Grace looked at Frankie, who had turned to examine the front of his cabin. “Dad didn’t mean that you’re supposed to shadow me at all times,” Grace said in a low voice.

  “He said you should stick with me.”

  “When the time is right. You aren’t supposed to be a leech,” Grace whispered, annoyance rising in her chest. “You need to watch the kids when I’m not here,” she added, trying to strike a mature tone.

  “I do not,” Polly mouthed, hands on her hipbones.

  Frankie turned back to face Grace and Polly.

  “Maybe this isn’t a good day for Grace to go with me,” he said.

  “It’s a great day for me,” Grace said, battling the acid creeping into her voice.

  “I guess Polly could come, too,” he said, as if testing the thought out loud.

  “See?” Polly said to Grace.

  “You have to watch Pinky and Beth. You can’t come with us.”

  “I suppose if you both come, the other kids could come, too,” said Frankie.

  Desperation gripped Grace. “We won’t all fit in your car.”

  Frankie’s eyes moved upward as if a seating chart was lodged in his forehead. “I think we can,” he said.

  “Stay here,” said Grace. “I’ll check with Bernadette.”

  Grace quietly went inside the cabin, making sure that the screen door didn’t bounce. She couldn’t get rid of Polly today, but she could block the others from coming along on the outing. Chuck snored softly on his bed. As Grace took hold of his ear, Chuck’s eyes opened.

  “You’re volunteering to play with the little kids so they don’t want to go to town with me,” she whispered.

  Chuck blinked several times. His expression shifted from startled to defiant. “Don’t have to,” he said.

  Grace grasped his ear more firmly. “There’s five dollars in it for you if you don’t give me any lip, starting this second. I drop one dollar from the deal for every word you say.”

  Chuck nodded, the side of his face rubbing the pillow.

  “As soon as Pinky and Beth get up, tell them that you’re all going on a hike or something this afternoon, just the three of you,” Grace said. Maybe she was too desperate. Five dollars was almost half of her money, saved with effort from the occasional dollar tucked in a birthday card or from mowing a lawn or babysitting.

  “Up you go,” she said to Chuck, releasing his ear. “Three dollars when I leave, the rest when I come back.”

  Now sitting, Chuck scowled. “What should I do with the kids?”

  “I told you. Take them on a hike. Pick flowers. Or fish from Frankie’s dock. Make a sand city. Just keep them busy.”

  “You’re going to town?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Polly?”

  “She’s coming with us.”

  “What if I want to go, too?”

  “This isn’t about you. It’s a bribe. Take it. Who else is offering you five dollars?”

  “All right. But just this once,” he said, frowning. “Next time, I want more money.”

  “Next time?” said Grace. “I hope I never have to make another deal with you.”

  20

  The hours dragged with Dad gone and the long wait for Frankie. Did he have a specific time in mind when he said “after lunch”?

  At eleven-thirty, Grace put cereal and milk on the table for the second time that day. She didn’t feel up to making a mound of sandwiches. Leaning out the door, she yelled to Pinky and Beth, who were playing tic-tac-toe in the sand on the beach while Polly watched.

  “You, too, Polly,” she called, torn between duty and resentment.

  At the table, Beth spoke softly as Grace leaned over to pour milk on her little sister’s cereal. “We’re going to play with Chuckie after lunch,” she said.

  “That’s great. What are you going to do?”

  “We’re going fishing,” P
inky said, glowing with excitement. “In a boat.”

  “Then we’re going to clean the fish,” added Beth. “I mean, Chuckie cleans the fish. We watch him so that we can learn how to do it.” She looked as pleased as if she had just decapitated them herself.

  “You’ve never rowed anything before this summer,” Grace said to Chuck, who was trying to juggle two rubber balls. “Are you sure you should take them out? What if it’s windy?”

  Chuck picked up the balls from the floor and moved over to Grace. In a conspiratorial voice, he said, “I’m tying the boat up to the dock with a lot of slack.”

  “Make sure they wear life jackets and T-shirts so they don’t fry in the sun.” Grace had to get the last word in. But Chuck had considered safety. She didn’t have to feel so guilty about leaving them.

  At noon, Frankie knocked on the cabin door. Bernadette was reading a magazine on the porch.

  “Hi, Frankie, which one are you here for?” she said.

  “Grace and Polly. We’re going to town with my grandpa.”

  “Grace,” Bernadette called. “No one asked me.”

  “Chuck’s going to watch the kids,” Grace said, her voice carrying through the window. She patted her pockets to make sure that her comb and remaining money were there.

  “Chuck?” Bernadette asked loudly. “Chuck who?”

  “C’mon, Ma,” Chuck yelled. “I’m the oldest.”

  Bernadette turned to look at Frankie through the screen door. “How are you getting there?”

  “My grandpa will drive us.”

  “Bagley or Ravensville?”

  “Just Bagley.”

  “I thought you kids could walk there.”

  Frankie paused. “My grandpa is driving because he wants to find some old friend in town. He said that we could walk around and get a cone and stuff while he visits.”

  “Let’s go,” Grace said to Polly with a murderous look. She wanted to escape. Why was Bernadette interrogating Frankie? Was that her idea of conversation?

  “Bye, kids,” Grace said.

  Grace walked quickly to the car, opened the back door, and reached for Frankie’s hand to pull him in with her. It was a bold move, but necessary. “Get in front,” she mouthed to Polly, who had run around to the other back door, which was mercifully locked.