by Lori L. Lake
“A while,” Eric decided. “Still too wet.” As if to illustrate his point, he scrambled to his feet, then grasped the hem of his T-shirt while turning his head to look over his shoulder. A large wet spot, muddy on the edges, marred the orange material, and he yanked it off and stuck it into the waistband at the back of his shorts. Each child joined him, Grace nearly rapturous to finally be able to take her shirt off and feel the hot sun on her back and shoulders for the first time since the previous summer.
They’d just started to play king of the mountain, with AJ giving Jerry a shove when Bobby said, “Gracie! Your gramma’s coming!”
Without waiting for more information, she slapped Tommy on the shoulder and ran headlong down the hill, away from her grandmother’s path, yelling tag at the top of her lungs. The boys took off after her, the group serpentining down the hillock and trading tags, until Jerry roared past her, tagging her as he did. They were on level ground now, and Bobby turned to face her while staying out of tagging range. “I think she saw you,” he said, not needing to add of whom he spoke.
“But I didn’t see her,” Grace replied, smiling with the smugness of the technically innocent.
THE DAY CONTINUED to heat up, and during one of the group’s pass-bys of the alley behind Prairie Street, Grace noticed that her grandmother’s car was in the garage. “I’m gonna get _omething’ to drink,” she declared. Her comrades waved and continued on, knowing she’d catch up with them later in the day.
The little girl opened the screen door and ran up the three steps to the kitchen, delighted to find her mother there. “Hi!” she mouthed since her mother was on the phone. When her mother scooted the kitchen chair back and patted her legs in invitation, she dashed and climbed onto her lap.
There were a lot of times Grace was supremely happy: when she was running the streets and alleys with her friends, when her mother came home unexpectedly early, when her grandmother made a white cake with chocolate icing, when the Christmas toy catalogs arrived, when her mother read her a story, and when she sat on her mother’s lap. It was so remarkably soft and cushy and comforting, sitting there on her mom’s denim-clad legs, her own feet swinging freely. She didn’t have words to talk about the feeling, but it was the sweetest thing she knew.
She wasn’t sure who her mom was talking to, and in fact, it was very rare to find her on the telephone. Her mother had friends, none of whom Grace knew, but Luanne saw them at school and didn’t often speak to them once she got home.
Luanne put her lips on Grace’s neck and gave her a quiet kiss, then a playful, gentle bite. Grace giggled and squirmed, then her thirst propelled her from her mother’s lap. She slid off and went to the refrigerator, pointing at it with a questioning look. Her mother nodded, and the girl opened the big door and carefully took out a pitcher of water, using both hands so she didn’t break it — again. She carried the pitcher to her mother, then handed her a glass. She wasn’t taking any chances.
“No, there really isn’t anything new going on here,” Luanne said as she poured the cold water and handed her daughter the glass. “I don’t think anything new or interesting has ever happened in Voltaire.” She laughed, but Grace knew her mother wasn’t kidding. She wasn’t supposed to know, but she’d heard her mother talking with someone earlier in the year and confiding that she planned on leaving North Dakota as soon as she was finished with her degree. Grace didn’t really understand why her mother wanted to leave. Voltaire was a really nice place if you were a kid. She reasoned that there must be something about it that adults didn’t like, since her grandmother also seemed to hate it. Of course her grandmother seemed to hate just about everything except “the Lord.”
Grace gulped the water down, then her mother put her still-cold hand on her bare back, making Grace giggle and dance away “Go play, honey. You can stay out until dinner time. Put your shirt back on if your shoulders get pink”
Nodding, Grace started for the door, but she couldn’t bear to have something as exciting as a phone call from a stranger going on without snooping. She’d developed very impressive skills in the art of eavesdropping, and she used a favorite ruse. “I have to pee,” she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot to underscore the urgency of her need.
“Go on,” Luanne said, putting her hand on her back and shooing her in the direction of the bathroom. Grace ran around the corner and noisily closed the bathroom door, staying outside of the room. Stealthily, she tiptoed back toward the kitchen and crouched down, for no reason other than it seemed like something a spy should do.
Her mother’s voice was low and soft, but she could make it out. “I wish I could come now. My mother’s about to drive me crazy! But I don’t have any other choice.” There was a pause, and Luanne continued. “No, it doesn’t make any sense to leave before I get my degree. As bad as my mother is, she lets us live here and watches Gracie all day. Nobody’s gonna do that for me in San Francisco. Besides,” she added, “I’d have to take extra classes if I transferred now. I’m just gonna have to stick it out.”
There was another substantial lull, then Luanne said, “Yeah, she’s gonna have to start school here. I wish she could start in San Francisco, but the only way I could do that is if I held her back a year.”
Grace was so shocked by this statement that she nearly fell over. Stay back a year? Have everybody start school but me? No! NO!
She breathed an audible sigh of relief when her mother continued, “But she’s as a smart as a little whip, and she’d be bored to tears just running around for another year. She knows her ABCs, and she can spell a lot of words. I read to her every night, and I really think it’s made a difference.”
Grace put her hands together in prayer, just the way her grandmother had taught her. “Thank you, Jesus,” she said quietly.
“So,” Luanne said, her voice a whisper, “have you seen Dan around?”
The child’s heart began to hammer in her chest. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, but she knew that Dan was her father. Even though her grandmother had told her she didn’t have a father, she knew she did and that his name was Dan. She was still a little sore at her grandmother for telling her she didn’t have one. It wasn’t just that it made her different; she was plenty different. But she had mentioned to her friends that maybe she was like the baby Jesus and didn’t have an earthly father. Eric had laughed at her and, of course, all of the other boys had joined him. He told her that she had to have a father — even if no one knew who he was. He then proceeded to describe where babies come from, based on the research he’d done with the magazines his brother kept next to the matches. Grace was still reeling from that conversation, and she knew that somehow, her grandmother was to blame for the whole mess. She’d snuck a look at the tiny bit of sunlight she could see between her mother’s legs when Luanne stood with the sun at her back, and Grace had decided that Eric must be crazy. And if he wasn’t, well … the whole idea made her sick to her stomach.
“Is he … uhm … what’s he up to?” Another interminable pause and Luanne said, “Does he have a job?” A beat passed. “Really? How long has he been doing that? Working at a print shop is a good, steady job.” Another few seconds and Luanne said, “And he’s really not dating anyone? You can tell me, Jen, really.” Grace inched her head around the corner, being careful to keep it close to the floor. Her mother’s face bore a smile that wasn’t completely happy, but it was pretty darned happy. Satisfied and pleased with herself, Grace tiptoed back into the bathroom and flushed the toilet, then ran the water in the sink and marched back into the kitchen, being extra noisy to avoid suspicion.
She waved at her mother as she passed, then jumped down each of the stairs, trying to get as high as she could with each jump. She wasn’t allowed to practice this trick when her grandmother was home, so she had to make use of every opportunity.
When she was back outside, she went to the alley and stood quietly for a minute, listening for any signs of life. For a few seconds, all she heard was the buzz o
f gnats floating around her head. Then she heard a boy’s voice in the distance, and she took off in its direction. It might not have been one of her friends, but in Voltaire, everyone knew where everyone was, and whoever it was would direct her to the gang.
GRACE AMBLED DOWN the alley, kicking a can, when she spied her grandmother walking down Independent Avenue, heading home. She was pretty sure her grandmother hadn’t called to her when she was on the hill, and she could honestly report she hadn’t seen the older woman. But sometimes she got into trouble for things that were completely illogical. She decided to wile away a few minutes waiting until her grandmother went into the house and griped to her mother if there was griping to be done. She hated to have her mom get yelled at, but she figured it wouldn’t do much harm, since her grandmother was always yelling at her mom for some reason or another. The only thing she could recall having her grandmother be happy about was the fact that she was named Grace. She wasn’t sure what grace was, but she knew it had something to do with “the Lord.” Grace was still smug about the fact that she knew a big secret her grandmother didn’t know. Just this year, her mother had told her she was actually named after a singer she liked—not the other kind of grace. Her mother had even shown her an album cover with the singer’s picture. The woman looked a little strange, and her last name was Slick, a word that didn’t seem like a real name. But she kept her opinions to herself, knowing that her mother must have had a good reason for picking this lady’s name. She’d forgotten her misgivings immediately because her mother had sworn her to secrecy — something Grace loved. There were few things that made a kid feel more powerful than having a really good secret, especially when she knew that there’d be hell to pay if she revealed it. She wouldn’t, of course. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged that secret out of her.
She tired of standing in the alley, so she opened the creaky gate in the back of the yard by the garage. She’d found that if she opened it really, really slowly, it didn’t make much noise at all. Once inside the yard, she crept across the grass and squatted down by the door to the storm cellar. The kitchen window was right above her head, and she felt a stab of pain right in her heart when she heard her grandmother yelling at her mother. But much to her surprise, her grandmother wasn’t yelling about being ignored earlier in the afternoon. Once again, Gramma was angry about something that made no sense at all.
“I’ll not have it,” Ida Jensen said. “It’s bad enough that she runs around like a wild Indian with that bunch of boys. I’ve a good mind to put a stop to that, too!”
“Mama, those are her friends! You can’t make her stop playing with them! There aren’t any girls in town Gracie’s age!”
“Then she can play with older girls or younger girls. But no matter who she plays with, she’s gonna wear a shirt! If I ever see her running around town showing her bubbies again, I’ll take her over my lap!”
That kind of startled Grace, and she put her hands on the grass to steady herself. Times like this made her feel really bad about her gramma — and about herself. She felt mad and helpless and embarrassed all at once. The worst thing was she didn’t know exactly why.
“You promised you wouldn’t hit her!” Luanne shouted, sounding madder than Grace had ever heard her. “That was part of the deal!”
“Somebody has to take her in hand! She doesn’t even know she’s a girl!”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Luanne said, sounding a little calmer, and making Grace shiver a little less violently. “She’s just a tomboy.”
“Tomboy, my eye! She’s not right, and you know it, Luanne. You must have ruined her with all of them drugs you took. She’s not a normal girl, but she’s gonna be one before I’m through with her!”
Grace could hear a chair thump its way across the floor. She imagined her mother had been sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework. Her grandmother liked to stand to yell, so she guessed her mother was getting up so she could look her in the eye. “What do you think you’re gonna do?” Now her mom’s voice was low and sounded calm … too calm.
“I’m gonna do what you should have done since she was born. I’m gonna make her into a normal girl. She’s gonna play with dolls and have tea parties and play house like the other little girls do.”
“She is a normal girl! That’s just not what she likes,” Luanne said. “She’s never been interested in things like that. When she was just a little thing, she would only look at a doll to tear it apart. You can’t make her be something she’s not, Mother.”
Momma only called Gramma “Mother” when she was fightin’ mad, and Grace knew this scrap wasn’t over by a long shot.
“Oh, yes, I can,” Ida said, her voice topping her daughter’s in volume and shrillness. “There’s a woman from church, lives in Velva, who has a perfectly normal little five-year-old daughter. She’s invited Grace to play with her. She’s gonna go play dolls and imagine what it’s gonna be like to grow up and get married. Unlike some people around here,” she added with her voice full of disgust. There was nothing Grace hated more than the way her grandmother talked to her mother about not being married. It broke Grace’s heart, but her momma had told her not to let it bother her. It still did.
“You can take her anywhere you want; you know I can’t stop you. But neither Gracie nor this other girl are gonna have fun playing dolls. For one thing, Gracie’ll probably experiment on the other girl’s dolls by taking their heads off or giving ’em a haircut. And if she can’t do that, she’ll just sit there and stare with her arms crossed over her chest and her chin nearly touching her arms. She’s not the kind of girl you can push around, Mama.”
“Any adult who says you can’t make a five-year-old do what you want is just plain stupid! You and your big city ways. Think you always know best. Well, I’m not gonna have my only grandchild grow up to be that way!”
There was something about the way she said “that way” that made Grace’s skin crawl. She didn’t know what it was, but for the first time, she knew her grandmother was naming something — putting a tag to the way she’d always felt. She was different from the other girls, but she wasn’t a boy. She didn’t want to be a boy. She’d never talked to anyone about this, because she didn’t know how. But she knew, sure as shootin’, that her grandmother knew what it was. And she was certain that it was bad. Very bad.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luanne said dismissively. “Besides, it doesn’t matter to me who Gracie is when she grows up. If she’s different, I’ll still love her.”
“I should’ve known you wouldn’t care,” Ida snapped. “Well, I’ll tell you right now, girl, if Grace turns out that way, she can just keep her butt outta Voltaire. We don’t need those types around here.”
“Gracie is too smart for this town,” Luanne said, sounding awfully confident to Grace’s ears. “She’s gonna make something of herself.”
“She can make something of herself after I finish making her into a regular girl,” Ida yelled. Grace heard quick steps, moving from linoleum to carpet. She knew her grandmother had put on her ugly face — the one where the ends of her lips looked like they wanted to touch her chin — and stomped out of the room. She also knew that by the time she got to the living room, Momma would be crying. So Grace stood up and waited for the pins and needles to leave her legs, then dashed back across the yard and into the alley. She didn’t want to find the boys or to play. She just wanted to go to the railroad tracks and hope that a train came by. Maybe the man in the little house on the back of the train would wave at her. That always made her happy — for a while.
IT WAS BARELY dark when Grace lay in bed that night, her room dimly lit with the dying embers of the summer sunset. She’d put her shirt on before she’d come home, and no mention had been made of the new rules her grandmother had talked about. Actually, not much talking of any kind went on at dinner. Grace had asked about her mother’s day at school, but Luanne simply said nothing much had happened, and that was the end of that.
Grace had only given half of her attention to the television that night, even though her two favorite shows were on. Besides being distracted by the tension in the small room, she had to admit that she didn’t like “The Brady Bunch” as much now that cousin Oliver was on every week. She knew she’d never ask Oliver to play if he moved to Voltaire.
By the time “The Partridge Family” was over, it was time for bed. Luanne tucked Grace in and gave her a kiss, but she didn’t even offer to read her a story. She seemed to be thinking of something or someone else, and Grace imagined she was thinking about Dan.
So instead of thinking about the fire they were gonna start, or about putting pennies on the Soo Line track, she spent a little time thinking about the future. She’d miss her Gramma — a little. She knew she should love her more, but she just wasn’t able to love her or Jesus as much as she should. But she loved her momma more than anybody loved anybody, and she knew she’d love her daddy when she met him.
She thought of what life would be like in San Francisco, but the only thing she could picture was that big orange bridge. She’d never been on a big bridge — only the little one that went over the Souris River on the road to Velva. She knew they wouldn’t live on the bridge, but that was the only picture she’d ever seen of the place. So she thought of riding in a car, going across that big, big bridge. Her daddy was driving the car, even though she couldn’t make out exactly what he looked like, and her momma was sitting next to him in the front seat, looking at him like she looked at Grace when she was really happy about something. They wouldn’t be like “The Brady Bunch” — even before Oliver got there. She didn’t want a bunch of brothers and sisters, anyway. She just wanted her momma and daddy to come tuck her in at night, and tell her that everything would be all right. Even if she was “that way.”
