Stolen Grace

by Arianne Richmonde

  Knickerless girls shouldn’t climb trees!

  She missed her dad. She missed him a lot. Maybe he would come and join them. Ruth said she was “working on it.”

  Because of her dad being English, Grace knew all about knickers and thought the word knickers was much funnier than panties. It made her giggle. And now they were in a place called KNICKER AGUA. It was beautiful, too, even if it did have a silly name.

  After Ruth dropped them off and carried on to the airport, Grace and Lucho got another car to the beach. And that was where she was now. It was called The Boom because of the great surf. The sand wasn’t black like in El Salvador. The sand here was goldenish. The waves were enormous, and she had never seen Lucho with such a big grin. SHE wouldn’t let him bring his surfboard on the journey. She said it would draw too much attention. But how could a surfboard draw? SHE forced him to sell it in El Salvador but promised to buy him a new one when they arrived in Knicker Agua.

  So the day they arrived at The Boom, Lucho bought a board from another surfer. He said the new one was lighter and better than the last. He was contentisimo, he said.

  And Grace was contentisima because she could do anything she wanted now.

  Every morning she woke up and felt her mattress. It was dry! No pee-pee. She wished she could show HER the clean, dry bed to prove that she wasn’t a baby. She and Lucho had been at The Boom for five whole days and nights. She had counted the days. And every single morning Grace felt the bed after she woke up, just to be sure, and it was as dry as a freshly laundered towel. Five nights of dry bed. Not even a trickle!

  They lived in a secret little cabin deep in the woods, just next to the beach. Lucho was renting it from another surfer for eight dollars a day. Grace thought it was the most perfect house in the world. Well, not as perfect as Crowheart or her Granddaddy’s house in Saginaw where she spent last Christmas, but almost as good. It had three single beds, wooden, like the beds in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. There were three chairs and a table, too.

  Outside in the garden was a solar shower hanging from a tree behind a screened area, a few steps down from the porch. It looked over to a wild garden dripping with banana, avocado and mango trees. The toilet was a wooden seat around a hole that dropped a long way down. Grace wondered what happened to her poop and she soon found out. A hairy hog lived nearby and would come to their garden for visits. He’d wait patiently down below and get excited when he heard anybody approaching the toilet. If she just did a wee-wee, he grunted crossly. Lucho joked and said that her poop was like caviar to the pig. She didn’t know what caviar was but it was obviously delicious.

  At least the hog thought so.

  Every day before sunset, Lucho surfed, and Grace listened to music and played games on his iPod. Lucho knew about the secret pen. He never said a word about it to Ruth, and luckily, Ruth had never looked inside Carrot.

  Every night so far, Grace and Lucho ate next door with the caretaker of the cabin. She cooked for them. Her name was Angela. Grace thought she had cheeks like rosy red apples, the kind Snow White was offered by the Evil Stepmother. Except Angela was very kind.

  Then, after dinner, Lucho would tuck Grace up in bed and tell her a story. Not a story from a book but an invented, Lucho story. Some were funny and some were scary, but if he told her a scary one, he would give her a big hug and wait until she fell asleep.

  She didn’t understand every word because, of course, his stories were only Spanish, but she didn’t care. She loved Story-Time. Not as much as her Real Mom’s Story-Time, but almost.

  Grace wondered if Ruth was going to come and see them in three weeks. She’d said she needed a break from being a mommy. Maybe Ruth was leaving her with Lucho forever, and she wouldn’t come back from Rio. If that was true, she wouldn’t have any mom at all.

  She’d have to wait, she thought, until she got to Heaven. Her Real Mom would sing to her:

  “Row, row, row your boat

  Gently down the stream . . .

  Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

  Life is but a dream.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Sylvia

  “I’m in Rio.”

  “What?” Sylvia pressed the phone closer to her ear. Just hearing Tommy’s voice made her heart flutter—a hummingbird above a flower.

  “I’m in Rio,” Tommy repeated. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t call or e-mail earlier, darling.” His voice sounded tired, and distant.

  Sylvia’s voice was shaky. “I’ve been beside myself with worry. What happened?”

  “I got really sick. Food poisoning, or dodgy water. I ended up in some filthy little dive in San Pedro Sula in Honduras. I was literally too weak to talk, to see a doctor. Nobody spoke English there. I tried to get someone to get a message to you, but my Spanish is pretty unintelligible, they couldn’t understand what the hell I was saying.”

  Sylvia felt sick just hearing about it. The thought of losing Tommy and Grace was terrifying. “That’s it. I’m coming out. I’m booking a flight for tomorrow. My new passport has arrived so I’m good to go. At least I speak schoolgirl Spanish. At least I know what Ruth looks like.” Sylvia thought this could happen, Tommy practically dying and she sitting there helpless, with no way of even knowing. Or Tommy ending up being munched by a crocodile in the Amazon somewhere.

  “NO! Don’t be silly. Stay where you are.” His voice was urgent.

  “But Tommy, this is insane! What if you get ill again? What am I supposed to do in Saginaw all alone, being so useless?”

  “You’re not being useless, you’ve been amazing with all these forums and stuff, speaking with the FBI, helping them with the photofit of Ruth, getting it all out there on the web. What if a lead came in and we were both incommunicado here? It’s good you’re home, Sylvia darling. Let me handle things down here. You’ve done all you can do already. I know it’s hard, but just to give your mind a few minutes rest from all this. Try and relax a little.”

  “What is wrong with you? You think that’s even possible with Grace gone? Why don’t you want me with you? We used to be a team! What is with all this Indiana Jones macho crap, you trying to do everything on your own?”

  She could hear him sigh. “Because darling, I just don’t see the point. I’m thinking of what’s best for you. For Grace.”

  “No you are not. You think I’ll be a burden, that’s what! Just because I’ve never backpacked before and you think I’m some prissy princess who can’t handle traveling on a chicken bus. Well thank you so much! How do you think I feel? I swear to God when you act like this we may as well be divorced.” Sylvia sucked in a lungful of air. Oh no, that came out wrong. She didn’t mean it. But she couldn’t take it back now—the words were already out there, the gale that was in her mouth had let loose. She said that awful D word. “What were you doing in Honduras?” she asked, praying he might not have taken on board what she just said.

  “I got a tip-off from the Lonely Planet forum. Somebody thought they saw them.”

  “How come I missed that? I’ve been reading all the posts.”

  “I got a text message on my cell.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I tracked them down, the mother and child. Only problem was . . . it wasn’t Grace. It was this woman whose ex-boyfriend was Peruvian and she was white. From San Diego.”

  Sylvia sighed. “Well, I guess that’s good that people are at least on the alert. So disappointing, though. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through that emotional roller coaster the last few days—thinking I’d found Grace and then running up against empty. Maybe next time we’ll get lucky. So now what?”

  “Exactly, Sylvia, that’s my point. It is an emotional roller coaster. Maybe yes, maybe no. I don’t want to put you through all that. Please stay home.”

  “Stop locking me out Tommy!”

  “I’m not locking you out. I’m trying to protect you. How d’you think I feel with all this pressure about Grace, plus if I had to worry about you getting sick and stuff,
on top of it all? The one comfort I have is knowing that you’re safe at home in America.” Sylvia could hear him groan with exasperation. As if he were the only one to be feeling that way. “Look,” he continued, “I got another tip. From someone anonymous, posted on the Lonely Planet forum. They said they’d seen a white woman with olive skin, brown hair, about five-foot-six with a dark girl, five or six years old who looks just like Grace. Identical, the message read. They’re here in Rio, apparently. I even have the name of the hotel where they were last seen.”

  “Where?”

  “The Copacabana.”

  “Rio would make total sense. Ruth told me that she grew up in Brazil; speaks Portuguese like a native Brazilian.” Sylvia could just see Ruth swanning about in the Copacabana Palace, one of the flashiest hotels in the world, with her inheritance money paying for it all. “Okay, great, Tommy. This is so hopeful. I’ll meet you tomorrow or as soon as I can get there. I’ll get packed right now. What do I need, a lightweight backpack? How big? Should I bring a mosquito net in case we end up in a jungle somewhere?”

  “Darling, let me check it out first. It could be another wild goose chase. Listen, my battery’s about to run out. I’ll call you later, okay? I’m on my way to the hotel now.”

  The line went dead. Sylvia held the old dial telephone receiver in her hands. Not even the weight of it could steady her trembling hand which was quivering in uncontrollable spasms. She put the receiver on its cradle and tucked her knees up to her chest, holding her arms around herself to stop herself shaking. The sofa-that-saved-her-life felt comforting, at least, but could not calm the bubbling rage she felt coursing through her body. How dare Tommy try and control her like this!

  She made up her mind. That was it. She was going online now to buy her ticket and tomorrow morning, as early as she could, she’d get a backpack. Or maybe even buy one at the airport, itself. She’d catch the first available plane.

  She’d show her husband what she was made of.

  Damn right she would.

  CHAPTER 27

  Tommy

  Tommy walked along the paved sidewalk of possibly the most famous beachfront promenade in the world, its black and white wave motif beneath him in a dizzying geometric pattern. As if by design, a matching soccer ball—also black and white—and kicked up by a barefooted boy, rolled in front of him. Tommy sent it spinning back into the air. As he turned with his back to the ocean, he saw the grand facade of Rio’s Copacabana Palace rising before him like a massive wedding cake, sparkling between the water and the green hills behind.

  In every direction there were joggers, street vendors, cyclists, body-builders, and people playing a game that looked like a cross between soccer and volleyball. There were surfers, swimmers and body-beautifuls in bikinis as thin as dental floss.

  Tommy stopped at a stall and bought a fresh T-shirt which he changed into on the spot, but he still felt dirty, like a smelly old hippy with his stained rucksack and smutty, unshaven face. He crossed over the road to the hotel and made his way to the entrance. He wished he had the budget for a hotel like this but at a minimum of $820 a night, he was out of his backpacking league. Anyway, staying here would eat at his conscience—he’d been harrowed by guilt since his arrival in Rio, just knowing that he was one of the lucky ones.

  He wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand and took in the cool white of the Mediterranean-style edifice, set off by a cloudless cobalt-blue sky. Not far away there would be children in ghettos who sniffed glue, joined together in gangs to survive. Then they’d start to work for traffickers selling cocaine, anything to be able to feed themselves. Twelve-year-old girls would be already working as prostitutes, abusing themselves with self-inflicted abortions because the hospitals wouldn’t take them. Such a vicious circle. He’d heard that these children were periodically rounded up by police and shot. As if they were vermin. The idea that that could be Grace, or any child, shot shivers along his spine.

  What a surreal place. What a paradox. The uber-rich and the snot-poor, only blocks away from each other. This was the land of The Girl from Ipenema, the birth of the tanga, the butt implant. Once, Sylvia had read him an article from one of her fashion magazines which said that Rio had more plastic surgeons per head than anywhere in the world. This was the land of the impossibly glamorous.

  Tommy did not belong here.

  He entered the lobby with trepidation. Polished marble. Grand. He hadn’t imagined that Grace and Ruth would be in a place like this. So conspicuous and packed with tourists, maybe some of them even reading his Internet posts. Perhaps Ruth, being so obvious, was clever? An odd slant to things but possible to get away with. Or had Ruth simply been tempted by a splash of luxury? With all the money she now had, she could stay wherever she liked. Tommy couldn’t afford to book a room—he’d just have to hang around until they showed up.

  He pictured seeing Grace again and prayed that it would really happen. Running up to him and jumping into his arms. He could swing her around and then carry her on his shoulders. He knew she loved that, feeling like a giant, watching the world from a great height. He remembered how excited she’d got in London at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. She was on his shoulders, yelling at the Guards, who had stone-dead expressions on their faces, dressed in their special fur hats. She was bellowing at them through the black iron gates to try and make them smile. When he and Grace got back to where their car was parked, to their horror it had been towed away. Things had got tough since Tommy had last lived in London—double yellow lines, even red ones, everywhere. When they came across a policeman, Grace said in her assertive voice: “If you want a car, then don’t steal ours. You should buy your own!” She always was precocious, learned to talk and walk way ahead of other children her age. He suspected Grace had forgotten about that trip. Too young to remember. Time was different for a child.

  The ten days she’d been gone now would seem like twenty years to her.

  And for the first time in forever Tommy prayed to whoever was listening: God, Ganesh, Hanuman, Allah—the whole damn lot of them.

  “Please bring my little girl back to me,” he begged under his breath. “Please.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Sylvia

  Sylvia bought her ticket online. It wasn’t perfect; she’d have to change twice, first in Chicago and then again in São Paulo. The trip was going to take her twenty hours. She hadn’t even let Tommy know. She’d wait until she was just about to board the plane, that way he couldn’t try to dissuade her.

  Her words, those Divorce Words, ricocheted in her mind like a spiteful echo. Their lovemaking, just before he left, had her inside out, upside down. Thoughts had crossed her mind like, What’s the point of us carrying on if we can’t find Grace? But then he seduced her into falling in love with him again. She felt vulnerable, exposed like a window to dashing rain. She should have felt protected but she didn’t. Afterwards, after she dropped him at the airport and he had gone from sight, she felt weak. She wasn’t sure what he wanted. Was it real? Did he really love her? She couldn’t believe she was the light in his life—as he’d whispered to her after they’d both come—when she, she thought, had been so dark. Like a cavernous hole. Or was she the only one who sensed her darkness inside? She wondered how many other wives felt like this. That mistrust. The aching insecurity. The doubt that shoved its nose into their marriage like a pushy busybody on a mission to stir up trouble. His making love to her had just made her suspect him more, like an adulterer buying his wife flowers while he planned a weekend away with his secretary.

  She was in love with Tommy again and it hurt.

  She tried to picture how he was getting on and wondered if this time it really would turn out to be Ruth and Grace. Why would someone post an anonymous message on the bulletin board forum of the Lonely Planet? Surely someone would be proud to help out a desperate couple? An “anonymous” message could be tracked by the forum managers themselves. This one had been traced to Rio, itself, to an I
nternet café, but some people had multiple e-mail addresses—not much of a clue, and the person posting had never used the forum before.

  Sylvia wished she’d gotten herself down there sooner. Perhaps things would have gone more smoothly. Tommy had obviously been battling with Spanish. Now he’d have to contend with Portuguese.

  She went into the living room and looked in the travel section of her father’s little library. Her parents had been all over Europe, taken six months for their honeymoon—the dreamy honeymoon that had given birth to albums full of photos. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her father, LeRoy had already been born, poignantly not part of her father’s book of life memories.

  Sylvia browsed through the selection of books. There were quaint travel guides, dog-eared, loved, smiling out from the bookshelf, remembering the good times they had along the French Riviera, Rome, Barcelona, and the island of Majorca. Sylvia turned the pages of a Spanish phrase book. Latin American was a bit different from Castilian. She remembered from classes at school that in Spain they said coche for car but in South America they said carro. As for Portuguese, it seemed her parents hadn’t needed it. Still, she could brush up on her Spanish—just in case they ended up in neighboring countries.

  She sat down cross-legged on the carpeted floor and laughed at herself. Why always the floor? She used to do her homework here, books spread out, her body contorted into yoga-like positions that were easy enough for a nimble twelve-year-old, while she wrote essays and did her math. It used to drive her mother crazy that she would never sit at a desk. Here she was again, about to do a little Spanish revision. She’d got an A once—perhaps it would come back to her. It was such an expressive language and a subject she’d always hoped to re-visit, but she’d never happened to have the time. Or the will.

  But now she had the will alright.

  And how.