Grace

by T. Greenwood

  She nodded. The heat from the vents was suddenly too strong. Too much. She felt queasy as she handed him the money.

  “You okay, ma’am?” Howard asked.

  “What’s that?” she asked, distracted. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  Outside, she was startled when the checker girl, Crystal, grabbed her arm. She started rambling on about not leaving her kids in the car. The girl had her hands on her hips, shaking her head at her like she was some sort of idiot. Why did this girl have it out for her? So she’d had a baby, lots of people have babies—that hardly made her an expert on parenting. And then she was yelling at her about her stealing stuff, about calling the cops.

  “What are you talking about?” Elsbeth said, her whole body shaking now. She hadn’t taken anything. She’d paid for the fluoride, the marshmallows.

  “You left your kid alone in the car and she’s freaking out,” she said, enunciating every word as if Elsbeth was retarded.

  “She’s not alone,” Elsbeth said, confused, shaking her head and rushing toward the car, where Gracy was red-faced and wailing, alone, in the backseat.

  The girl disappeared into the Walgreens.

  “Where’s Trevor?” she asked, unbuckling Gracy and scooping her up into her arms. Gracy kept crying as Elsbeth walked around the snowy parking lot, looking for Trevor. She looked out at the road, but couldn’t see him anywhere. He couldn’t have gotten far. Jesus. Her shoulder soaked with Gracy’s tears, she lowered Gracy back into her car seat and stroked her hair out of her eyes. “Honey, did Trevor say where he was going?”

  “With those boys,” she said. “Those boys with the mean faces.”

  “What boys, honey?”

  “I was scared, Mommy!” Gracy cried again.

  “Where did he go?”

  Gracy pointed toward the side of the Walgreens.

  “Over there?” Elsbeth asked.

  Gracy nodded.

  Elsbeth thought about leaving Gracy but knew that she’d just start screaming again. That girl would probably call the cops on her.

  “Okay,” she said. She got into the driver’s side and pulled the car slowly toward the end of the building, where that goddamned girl wouldn’t be able to see her through the window from her perch at the check-out.

  “Listen, I’m just going to look for Trevor, okay?” Then she remembered the marshmallows. She tore open the bag and handed it to Gracy. “Here you go, sweetie.”

  Gracy nodded and took the marshmallows from her.

  Elsbeth closed and locked the door and jogged down the walk alongside the store and then ducked behind the building. The Dumpsters were back there, and everything smelled of garbage. She gingerly stepped through an icy pile of slush and finally saw him. “Trevor?” He was sitting on the ground with his back against the wall, his face pressed into his knees.

  “Jesus Christ, Trevor,” Elsbeth said, both relieved and furious. “Your sister is alone in the car! What were you doing?”

  He didn’t look at her as she reached down and grabbed his arm. He just stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Why did you get out of the car?”

  She lifted his chin up with her finger, inspected his face. He looked okay. No bruises. It didn’t look like he’d been fighting again. He refused to look her in the eye.

  “What happened? Did somebody hurt you?”

  Nothing. Silence.

  “I don’t know what to do with you,” Elsbeth said. “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t do this.” Elsbeth was fuming. It was freezing outside, but she could feel her armpits growing damp. She’d been trying so hard lately to be sympathetic, to understand him. But she couldn’t understand him if he wouldn’t talk to her.

  Silently, they walked back to the car. Trevor got in the backseat and Elsbeth slammed her door shut. Her hands shook as she found her keys.

  “Did those mean boys hurt you, Trevor?’ Gracy asked.

  Trevor was looking down at his lap. His hands were fidgeting. They looked just like Kurt’s hands. He had the same square nails. The same fine blond hairs. A tremor ran through her body as she thought about Kurt. About what he would do to Trevor if he knew he’d left Gracy in the car by herself. What he’d think of her. After the Fourth of July, he already thought she was a failure, a terrible mother. Maybe he was right.

  She wished Trevor would say something, but he remained mute.

  As Elsbeth turned out onto the slick road, Gracy reached between the seats. She handed him a handful of marshmallows in her tiny fist. “Here, Trevor. It’s marshmallows.”

  Trevor looked up and accepted one of them from her.

  “Thanks,” he said softly.

  She hated Gracy’s innocence. Her kindness toward him. She hated that Gracy loved him more than she, his own mother, was able to.

  Elsbeth turned to look at Trevor, wanting to say something that would make him tell her what happened, searching for the words that would get through, that might crack him open like an egg. But as she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out, and she realized that tears were streaming down his cheeks.

  “Oh, Trev, why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  Gracy had been humming in her sleep in the backseat. She did that at night sometimes too. Her voice sounded like little bells, like a lullaby. Trevor had leaned his head against the cold window and closed his eyes.

  The banging startled him. Ethan’s and Mike’s faces filled his window. Ethan’s cheeks were red, his nose crusty with snot. They motioned for him to roll the window down. He knew he probably shouldn’t, but the doors were unlocked, and he was worried that they might try to get in through Gracy’s side. That they might hurt her.

  He rolled the window down, and Ethan reached in and grabbed a fistful of Trevor’s hair. He yanked it, and Trevor’s head bumped the window frame. “Get out of the car,” Mike said.

  Trevor turned to look at Gracy, who had woken and looked terrified. “Gracy, I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Just wait for Mom.”

  He got out of the car and they shoved him toward the back of the building. Trevor glanced back over his shoulder as he heard Gracy cry.

  “Heard you’re comin’ back to school next week, that they’re putting you with the retards,” Ethan said. Trevor could see the place where they’d sewn his earlobe back together, the scar like a thin, white worm. He shoved Trevor against the Dumpster. The air smelled rotten and thick. He worried about his mom coming out of the store and finding Gracy alone. He worried about what would happen next.

  “Yeah, Hannibal, sure is lonely without you,” Mike said, thrusting his lip out.

  Trevor could feel his anger, that hot steel making his entire body stiff. His hands clenched into fists. But just as he was about to knock both of the kids out, he thought about the promise he’d made to his father. He’d told him he wouldn’t fight anymore. His dad said that if he fought one more time, he’d lose the camera. That was it. And if he didn’t have the camera, he couldn’t take pictures. And then what would be left? And so he just squeezed his fists until his nails dug into his palms.

  “What? You not gonna fight back this time? What’s the matter? Not hungry?” Ethan hissed. “Don’t want to bite my other ear off?” With that, he shoved Trevor against the Dumpster harder, clutching Trevor’s parka with his fist. Trevor could feel the cold metal through his jacket.

  “You know,” Ethan said. “I know somethin’ could solve all our problems,” he said. He reached into his pocket then and pulled out a small knife. His face looked crazed, and he was licking his lips.

  “What are you doing?” Mike asked then, sounding scared. “Dude.”

  “What’s the matter?” Ethan said. He was talking to Mike, but he was inches from Trevor’s face, his spit sharp and hot as it sprayed with each word.

  Trevor watched Mike back up and then sprint, disappearing around the corner. Trevor suddenly knew it was worse now that he was alone with Ethan. He was holding the knife
with one hand, his elbow pressed hard against Trevor’s chest, but his other hand was fumbling around with Trevor’s pants, his fingers looking for his zipper.

  Ethan yanked it out, and Trevor could feel the cold metal of the zipper on his skin. The cold air on his skin. Ethan’s hand was wrapped hard around him, and Trevor couldn’t breathe. It was as though he were strangling him. Trevor felt himself getting hard. He turned his face away from Ethan, felt hot tears coming to his eyes.

  “What if I just cut it off?” Ethan said.

  Trevor winced, terrified of what Ethan would do. As the cold metal grazed the skin of his penis, he squeezed his eyes shut, concentrated on the smells, the tangy awful scent of something gone bad. He tried to imagine what a picture of that smell would look like. Where the shadows would be. Where the light was. He closed his eyes tighter until he saw constellations. When he felt the sharp buzz, spreading from his groin to his shoulders, he opened his eyes.

  “Fucking homo!” Ethan said, stumbling backward, wiping his hand across his pant leg, his eyes wide and scared. “Goddamn freak!” And then he was scrambling away, his feet pounding against the asphalt, and Trevor was alone.

  Trevor zipped his pants, felt the dampness of his jeans and the dampness of his eyes and the awful frozen air, and he sank to the frigid ground.

  Crystal went straight to the break room to clock in, shaking from her encounter with that horrid woman. Part of her felt like she should have called the cops then and there. But without any proof, what could she do? She wasn’t even sure if it was illegal to leave a kid in the car. She also wasn’t sure she’d even stolen anything this time. She’d ask Howard, but Howard had his head up his butt half the time; he probably didn’t even notice. Now Howard was up front gnawing on his cuticles; he looked up from the bloody mess he’d made of his fingers and grinned at her. “Hey, Crys.”

  “You want to do register or photo today?” She sighed.

  “You choose,” he said, blushing in a way that made her hate him.

  She couldn’t see the woman’s car from the window anymore. She figured she was probably gone by now anyway. Poor kid. People like that shouldn’t have kids.

  “I’ll do photo,” she said.

  In the photo department, Crystal sorted the orders that had come in that morning, filing them by last name. She slipped each envelope into its slot, another mindless task. Kincaid. She thumbed through the Ks: Kane, Keeney, Keller, Kennedy. Kennedy. There were that lady’s pictures, a dozen fat envelopes rubber-banded together. It had been weeks since she’d dropped off all those rolls of film. Crystal had been able to get her a discount, but then she hadn’t bothered to come in to pick them up. She plucked the first envelope from the pile and quickly glanced around to make sure no one was watching. The store was empty except for some old guy filling a prescription in the pharmacy. She stuck her finger under the flap and lifted it gently, careful not to tear the paper. The adhesive was loose and it came up quickly. She ducked behind the print machine with the stack of photos in her hand and started to shuffle through them like a deck of cards.

  She felt her stomach turn. She hadn’t been this nauseous since she was in her first trimester. The pictures were disgusting. A ramshackle house, garbage everywhere. Close-up pictures of rotten food, a rusty sink filled with dishes. A stained mattress, piles of clothes and boxes, and a room filled with empty milk jugs. Some old man sitting at a table, ashtray overflowing, and model airplanes circling over his head. A bottle of liquor sitting next to him. Then there were a bunch of pictures of some sort of broken-down train in the woods. A few of the tops of trees, of a river, some ferns and then the girl. The crying little girl, Gracy, asleep. The first was a close-up of her face, her long eyelashes pressed against the tops of her cheeks. Then another one of her face, a shivery line of drool coming out of the corner of her mouth. The girl, ragged T-shirt riding up her body to her armpits, legs spread and a pair of Disney Princess panties showing. There must have been ten pictures of her, all of them clearly taken while she was fast asleep. Two or three of her skinny legs tangled up in the sheets. One of her standing by a tree, her bathing suit too small, her nipple showing. Crystal started to tremble. What was wrong with these people? What kind of mother let her son take pictures like this? Or maybe there wasn’t a son. Crystal had never seen her with anyone other than the little girl. She felt the skin across her belly, that tight, tender, empty place aching, aching.

  Crystal took the photos. Not every envelope, but six of them. When Howard was on his break, she shoved them into her purse. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she clocked out in the break room. She grabbed her coat and wrapped her scarf around her neck, readied herself for the cold, braced herself for the freezing air that was sure to meet her when the electric doors opened. It was dark out already. She’d been at the Walgreens all day.

  The roads, which had merely been wet and slushy before, were turning to ice now. Luckily, driving the Volvo was like driving a tank. She felt invincible as she navigated her way home. The air was heavy, dark. There would be more snow soon. She pulled one of the envelopes out of her purse and looked at the address on the form. Beasley Rd. She knew that place. That was where those two boys had died. They were upperclassman when she was a freshman. They’d run track too. Everyone on the track team wore a green armband at the next meet in their memory. After the accident, they’d had a special assembly. She remembered because the boys’ parents had been there, on the stage, the father stoic and the mother barely able to stand up. And she remembered thinking that somebody should give her a chair. She remembered thinking it was cruel to put their grief on display like this. Every time she drove past those markers in the road, she’d think of that poor mother, crippled with her sorrow. It still made her insides ache.

  She had told her mother not to wait for her for dinner. She avoided most family dinners lately. A couple of months ago, they’d have babbled on about her plans. About her heading off to college in January. But now they just ate quietly. Thankfully, Angie picked up the slack. She always had some new project she was engaged in. The new art teacher had picked her and three other students to work on a mural in the cafeteria. She’d come to dinner speckled with paint, even in her hair, and fill all those miserable silences with her happy chatter. And besides, tomorrow was Thanksgiving; they’d probably just gotten a pizza anyway. Her mother would be up to her elbows in green beans and cranberries and sweet potatoes in the kitchen.

  She drove through town, the snow sparkling as it fell in front of her headlights. Glittering. The car warmed up quickly, the heat blasting onto her hands and her feet. She turned the radio on, and the music soothed her. She felt almost like the car was driving itself, and she was just along for the ride. She would be content to never go home again. To just stay here, driving in the snow, forever. She slowed when she got to the place where the crosses were. There were no other cars on the road. She felt her throat thicken with thoughts of their mother, with thoughts of the holes, not one but two, that they must have left when they died. When Mrs. Stone took the small bundle from her, it felt like someone had torn out her heart. Like something had been stolen. She thought about Grace. Her Grace, and then the Grace in those pictures. The images of her inside those envelopes.

  She studied the address on the envelope again. The house sat on a small hill with no neighboring homes around it. The mailbox at the roadside was battered and rusted, the metallic letters spelling out K-E-N-N-E-D-Y, the Y a bit torn. It was a little house, and much more well-kept than she expected after seeing the pictures. But that’s the way it goes, right? What you see on the outside rarely reflects what’s really on the inside. She, of all people, understood that appearances can be deceiving.

  There was a truck parked in the steep driveway and the beat-up Civic she recognized, the one inside which she’d found Grace alone and crying. The lights were on inside the house, casting an orange glow on the snow that had blanketed the front yard. She tried to imagine what was going on inside, who th
ese people were.

  Suddenly the porch light flicked on, and heart racing, she pressed the accelerator and kept driving down the road. When she finally was able to breathe again, she turned around in someone’s driveway. Turning that boat of a Volvo around was always a challenge because of the power steering fluid leak; sometimes she felt more like she was trying to steer an RV or monster truck. Adrenaline buzzed in her arms as she finally got turned around and on the road again. By the time she got back to her house, the snow was coming down sideways, a true blizzard. She couldn’t even see her own house until she was at her driveway. She sat outside in the car with the heater blasting, bracing herself for the cold that she knew would await her both outside the car and inside the house.

  That night she tossed and turned in her bed, listening to the sounds of her mother’s furious Thanksgiving preparations, while Angie snored softly next to her. Finally, she got up, went to her drawer where she’d stashed the stolen photos. But instead of studying them again, instead of trying to make sense of them, she pulled out the manila envelope she’d sealed more than a year ago. She locked herself in the bathroom and, her fingers trembling, she pulled out the filmy black-and-white paper.

  The ink had already partially disintegrated, and her fingers left greasy smudges at the edges. She studied the shape of Grace’s fetal body, the snail-like curve of her vertebrae. She touched the delicate profile, the tiny hands curled into fists.

  She shoved the pictures back into the envelope and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Staring at her own image, she rolled the top of her sweatpants down and traced the careful cursive of her baby’s name in reverse. Grace. Her baby girl’s name written across her skin, and that little girl’s name reflected. It had to mean something: the coincidence of their shared name, the crossing of these two paths. There had to be a reason for this.

  Trevor was sure his mother would know what had happened in the alley. He was sure everyone would know now what he had done. What he was. That they’d been right all along. That he was queer, a faggot. The whole way home, he had thought about what would happen when they got there, when his mother told his father that he’d left Gracy in the car. He flinched just thinking about his father’s belt. He wondered if he could run away somehow before his father got back. But when they’d pulled up in the driveway, his father’s truck was already there.