A Gift of Grace

by Cooper, Inglath

  Headlights arced up the gravel drive, his dad’s old Ford truck rumbling over the knoll just short of the house. Caleb’s parents lived on the other end of the farm in a house they had built ten years ago. Jeb Tucker stopped and got out, balancing a plate covered in Saran wrap.

  An older version of his only son, his hair had gone steel gray before Caleb had left home for college. Jeb had passed along the defined bone structure of his face as well as his wide, full mouth. Both father and son were heavily muscled from the daily routine of farm life. Like Jeb, Caleb favored Wranglers and Ropers. Dressy for both of them meant putting on their newest pair.

  He looked up at Caleb now, his jaw set. “Evenin’,” he said.

  “Dad.” Caleb nodded. Noah thumped his tail on the porch floor in greeting.

  “Your mother asked me to bring this over,” Jeb said.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “She thinks you’re not eating.”

  “Tell her I’m fine.”

  “Maybe you ought to tell her. She doesn’t listen to me too much anymore.” Jeb set the plate on the step, then lowered himself down beside it.

  Caleb didn’t miss the note of resignation in his father’s voice, and he realized how long it had been since he’d asked how they were doing. “You two okay?”

  Jeb looked out across the darkened yard. “No,” he said. “I can’t say we are.”

  Caleb let that settle and then asked, “This about me?”

  Jeb looked down at the step, traced a pattern across the wood and answered without looking up. “It’s about the fact that none of us has moved on—”

  Caleb erupted from his chair, his back to his father. “Don’t do this, Dad.”

  “Don’t you think it’s about time we talked about it, son?”

  “About what?” Caleb snapped back, swinging around. “The fact that I miss my wife so much that sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe for the pain of it?”

  Jeb shook his head. “I know you miss her, Caleb. God knows we all do. But the fact is you haven’t moved a step beyond the day she died. It’s like quicksand, and it’s pulling you down. It’s pulling us all down.”

  “That’s not fair, Dad.”

  “There’s not a damn thing about any of this that’s fair, Caleb,” Jeb said, anger in his voice now. “But you are still here. Still alive. Somehow, some way, you have got to move on.”

  “And what does that mean?” Caleb asked, forcing a level note to his voice. “Finding somebody else?”

  “Maybe,” Jeb said quietly. “Don’t you think that’s what she would want?”

  “I think she wanted the two of us to have a family, raise our kids, spoil our grandkids and grow old together. Those are the things I know she wanted.”

  Jeb started to say something, stopped, pressed his lips together, and then said, “That’s what we all wanted for the two of you.”

  “Yeah, well, we didn’t get that, did we?”

  “No, son. You didn’t.” He stared up at Caleb. “You’re a young man. You can still have a good life with someone.”

  “Don’t!” Caleb said. “Just don’t, okay?”

  A few moments of silence ticked past before Jeb stood, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “We’re going down to your aunt Betsy’s for the weekend. You can get us on the cell phone if you need us.”

  Caleb watched as his dad got in the truck and drove off, standing in the same spot long after the taillights had disappeared down the drive. The moon slipped higher in the sky. An owl hooted in a nearby tree, the sound stirring inside him a fresh swirl of loneliness.

  He flipped on the radio he kept on the porch for company. Static crackled in the air before the dial came into focus. He could only pick up the AM station out of D.C. after dark.

  Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto rose high and tender from the old radio. This music had been Laney’s. His only by association. She had thought it beautiful. To him, it had sounded like a foreign language, noise that he didn’t understand. But he found himself reaching for it now, his connection to her thinning like a frayed rope. The music was a medium through which he could still feel her, remember what it had been like to make love to her, her skin soft beneath his hands.

  He closed his eyes, leaned his head against the wicker rocker. He didn’t listen every night. He couldn’t. Only when he needed the music’s poignant emotion to remind him he could still feel. Because even if all he felt was sadness, at least that was something.

  He tried to focus on the picture he carried of her in his head, alarmed by its lack of clarity and the way it continued to dim like a photograph left too long in the light.

  A soft breeze stirred, and his nostrils suddenly filled with the sweet scent of her perfume.

  “Laney,” he said, his voice a hoarse plea.

  He felt her touch on his shoulders like the brush of a feather. He sat as still as stone, afraid a single movement would shatter the feeling like glass all around him. And then he heard it, the wrenching sound of her weeping.

  His heart twisted, felt suddenly too large for his chest. Tears streamed from his own eyes. He didn’t bother to wipe them away. “Laney,” he said. “Laney.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  JEB FOLLOWED THE GRAVEL ROAD that led back to the house he shared with his wife, the speedometer needle never reaching twenty. What was the point in hurrying?

  There had been a time when he couldn’t wait to get home every day. Couldn’t wait to see Catherine. It had been that way all through Caleb’s childhood. Even after Caleb had left home for college, Jeb and Catherine had known a renewal of sorts in their marriage. He’d come home some nights to find her at the door in a piece of lingerie that made his heart hit the wall of his chest, and they would make love on the kitchen’s old walnut table.

  Now, he couldn’t even remember the last time they had touched each other.

  He blinked hard as if he could shake the gray pall that reality settled over him. But it stayed where it was, so heavy there were times he thought he would simply disintegrate beneath it.

  He loved his wife, but somewhere in these last three years, he had lost her.

  He stopped the truck in the middle of the road, leaned forward with his forearms on the steering wheel, staring up at the night sky. If he could just turn the clock back, figure out how to have what they’d once had. He’d tried to talk Catherine into seeing someone, even both of them together, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d always been one to hold everything inside, a deal-with-it-herself kind of person. Only this was too big, too much. For either of them. And their marriage had bent to the will of their grief, of Caleb’s grief.

  With a weary heart, he straightened in the seat, pressed the accelerator on the crochety old truck and headed home.

  ON THURSDAY MORNING, Sophie drove the short distance from her house to the University of Virginia campus with her window cracked, letting in the flavor of the crisp morning. Spring was her favorite season; she loved the trees with their newborn leaves, the tulips popping up from their winter nest. To Sophie, the world felt more hopeful at this time of year, as if all things were possible.

  She stopped at Starbucks for her morning fix, then got back in the Volvo and turned the radio to NPR, only half listening to Terry Gross interview a newly published author. Her thoughts were on the day ahead and the details left to tie up for Grace’s birthday party. After her first class, Sophie planned to pick Grace up from day care and run a few errands, things she wouldn’t have time to do tomorrow.

  Her cell phone rang just as she pulled into the faculty parking lot.

  She glanced at caller ID, ran a hand through her hair and suppressed a groan. She could ignore it, but that would only prolong the inevitable.

  With a sigh, she hit the talk button. “Hi, Aunt Ruby.”

  “My goodness, you actually answered,” was the dry reply.

  “What’s up?” Sophie said, ignoring the barb behind the greeting.

  “Do I need a reason
to call and see how you’re doing?” she asked, her voice hoarse with forty years’ worth of cigarettes. “We haven’t heard from you in months. I thought something might be wrong.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Sophie said, not adding that it was these conversations that usually sent a perfectly fine day flying right off track.

  “How’s little Grace?”

  “She’s great.”

  “About to turn three, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, difficult as it is to believe.”

  “Are you doing a party for her?”

  “Nothing elaborate,” Sophie hedged.

  “Oh.” Ruby paused and then said, “I assume we aren’t invited.”

  “Aunt Ruby, it’s not that kind of thing. Just a few of her friends from preschool—”

  “Are you ashamed of us, Sophie?” she interrupted. “After everything we did for you?”

  Sophie let several beats of silence pass, reaching for calm. “Of course not.”

  “What else am I supposed to think?” Ruby said, her voice threaded with quiet hurt.

  Sophie started to protest, to say once and for all that she’d had enough of her aunt’s guilt trips, but stopped herself just short of it as she always did. Because Ruby was right about one thing. She and Uncle Roy had taken Sophie in when she’d had no one else in the world, and the only other option for her would have been a foster home.

  “It’s not a big deal, Aunt Ruby. I didn’t think you’d want to come. That’s all.”

  “You don’t have to justify your actions to me, Sophie. I mean, we hardly know the child.”

  Sophie dropped her head against the seat, massaging one temple where a subtle headache had begun to throb. “You know you have an open invitation to visit anytime.”

  Another stretch of silence. “Then maybe we’ll drive up for the party and bring her a present. When is it?”

  “Saturday afternoon at one,” Sophie said with resignation.

  “Nothing like advance notice,” Ruby said, sarcasm coating the words. “Anyway, we’ll be there. Don’t want that little girl to grow up not even knowing who we are.”

  Sophie bit her lip to keep from reminding her aunt she had never once invited Grace and her for a visit. “I have a class to get to, Aunt Ruby. We’ll see you on Saturday.”

  She clicked off the phone and then sat for a few moments thinking how odd the call had been, trying to remember the last time they had even talked. It wasn’t like her aunt to call her out of the blue. With Ruby, there was always a catch. Sophie felt sure this time would not be an exception.

  CALEB LIKED TO drive with his window rolled down; even on winter days, he’d turn the heater up full blast and let the outside in. This Thursday morning, he pulled into his parking space at the side entrance of Tucker Farm Supply, warm April sunshine pouring in. The store sat at the south end of Main Street in an old two-story brick building that had once been home to Miller Produce.

  Jeb had bought the building and started the business some twenty-five years ago, and Caleb had grown up working summers loading trucks and running the front register. It was a small business by most standards, but firmly rooted in the community with a following of loyal customers.

  Caleb got out of the truck, Noah leaping down behind him, tail wagging. Inside the store, Noah did a quick survey for Russell, an overweight tabby whose job it was to patrol the building for trespassing mice. Noah glimpsed Russell’s tail disappearing behind one of the display cases and spun out on the concrete floor.

  The cat made it to the fescue seed barrel with seconds to spare, already cleaning his front paw with a touch of arrogance by the time Noah slid to a stop in front of him.

  “Never gives up, does he?” Macy Stephens stood behind the old wood counter at the front of the store with a bottle of Pledge in one hand and a white cotton cleaning rag in the other. She spritzed the top of the counter, rubbing hard until the aged wood shone.

  Caleb shook his head. “One of these days, he’s gonna flatten some nice old lady who never saw him coming.”

  Macy smiled. “We all have our goals in life.”

  Caleb registered a hint of fresh-smelling perfume and the fact that Macy was wearing her hair down most days now instead of in the ponytail she used to keep it pulled back with. She had started working at the store part-time when she’d begun classes at the university. She was about to finish up this year and planned to teach elementary school in the fall.

  “The Spring Festival starts this weekend.” Macy added another squirt of furniture polish to the countertop, her gaze a few inches short of his.

  Caleb stepped behind the counter and reached for the box of receipts beneath the register. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Any interest in going?”

  Normally, Caleb would have answered with an automatic no, but something in her face made him reach for a softer note. “Lotta work to do this weekend.”

  “Oh,” she said, nodding.

  “You going?”

  “Thought I might.”

  “Sounds like good weather for it.”

  “Hope so.”

  “All right, then. I’ll be upstairs taking a look at the month’s statement.”

  “Okay,” she said and turned her back to him.

  In his office, Caleb pulled a chair up to the heavy oak desk by the window that looked out over the feed store’s main floor. He worked for a couple of hours, glancing over receipts, comparing margins on certain labels of feed they sold, dog food, cat food, grain for horses. Tucker Farm Supply wasn’t the kind of business that would ever make a man rich, but it was a comfortable living, a stable one. If there was anything Caleb appreciated now, it was stability. He clung to the things in his life that didn’t change, weeded out what did.

  The bell to the front door dinged several times while he worked, customers going in and out. It was almost noon when he stood and stretched just as the door jingled again. A woman came in with a little girl holding on to her hand. The child said something and the woman nodded. The little girl took off for the corner of the store, headed straight for the seed barrel where Noah and Russell were still maintaining their standoff.

  The woman stepped to the counter, said something to Macy. The child squatted beside Noah, rubbing his head. Noah’s attention, strangely enough, had been diverted from the cat. He sat with his nose in the air, his eyes closed in absolute appreciation of the child’s doting.

  Caleb turned away from the window, sat down at the desk a little too quickly so that the chair tipped back. The phone buzzed. “Yeah, Macy.”

  “Do you know if we’ve got any more of that hay in the shed out back?”

  “Few bales, I think.”

  “Dr. Owens wants to buy some.”

  Caleb peered over the window again at the woman by the register. He didn’t recall seeing her in the store before. “That’ll be fine.”

  “Eddie left for lunch a few minutes ago. Think you could help load it?”

  “Be right down.”

  He took the stairs two at a time, nodding at the woman as he passed the register and said, “Where you parked, ma’am?”

  “In front,” she said.

  “Mind pulling around back?”

  “No.”

  “It’ll be the first white shed.”

  “Okay.” She looked at Macy and added, “Is it all right if my daughter stays in here for a minute?”

  “Of course. Noah’s loving it. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “Be right back then,” the woman said, following Caleb out the door and then veering right to a dark blue Volvo station wagon parked near the front of the store.

  Caleb opened the shed, flicked on the light and tossed out three bales of orchard grass hay just as the woman backed toward the building.

  She got out of the car and smiled at him. “Oh, good. That’s exactly what I needed.”

  Her smile was open and friendly, as if she used it often. He eyed the car and said, “How many did you want?”

  “
Four or five would be great, but—”

  “Looks like two’s about all that’ll fit if you leave the tailgate open.”

  She worried a full lower lip with noticeably white teeth. “Oh. Well, I can come back for whatever doesn’t. Except I have a class this afternoon. What time do you close?”

  “Five o’clock,” he said.

  “I won’t be able to get back by then. Maybe I can come in the morning?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Where do you live?”

  “Ivy Run Road.”

  “I could drop them off for you. I was headed out on an errand, anyway.”

  Her face brightened. “That would be great. We’re having a birthday party, and I still have a thousand things to do—”

  “No problem,” he said. “Just give me the address.”

  “Actually, I have to run back by there on the way to school. Could you possibly go now?”

  “Sure. I’ll follow you over.”

  “Let me just run in and pay then.”

  Caleb nodded, tossing a couple more bales from the shed while she pulled her Volvo out front. He backed his truck up, loaded the hay, then headed inside to tell Macy he would be gone an hour or so.

  The woman and child stood by the register. Macy was looking at the little girl with that same odd expression on her face that he’d noticed when they’d first come in the store. The little girl clutched her mother’s hand, talking nonstop about the yellow dog and the big cat. Something about her rang out like an echo inside him. He frowned, then glanced at the woman, who smiled expectantly and said, “I really appreciate this.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Ten minutes later, they turned onto a paved driveway off tree-lined Ivy Run Road. Caleb backed in behind her. He got out and she met him at the truck. The little girl had already taken off around one side of the house.

  “Do you think we could put those in the backyard?” she asked, raising her voice above the rumble of the truck’s diesel engine.