by Kelly Rimmer
It’s the first ring that catches my eye, and I shake it out of it’s
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box and into my palm. It’s hardly an elaborate piece of jewelry,
but it is somewhat unique. The setting is simple, four prongs
that hold the stone against a rounded band. I polish it on my
clothes, and hold it up to the light. As I turn it so that I’m star-
ing at its side, I suddenly realize I’m looking at the very object
Dad’s tried to capture in the last painting in his series—the one
from 1961. From the side, the ring is simply a round circle with
a blue burst of light at the top. All that’s missing from my view
is the silvery gray of his background, but there’s no denying
that this was his inspiration. It has to be my mother’s engage-
ment ring, and I feel an awful, miserable clench in my chest at
the thought of Dad keeping this for all these years, locked away
where it was safe.
The album is plain and I have to guess which side is the front.
Before I open it I know that it will be full of photos of Dad and
Grace, and when I turn the face page, I see that I’m right. It’s
snaps from a simple wedding ceremony. Dad is instantly recog-
nizable, as is my mother. She’s reed-thin, wearing a long-sleeved
wedding gown, with an illusion neckline and collar, and over-
lain with lace detail. There’s a lace cap pinned into her dark
hair, with a long veil trailing off, falling around her shoulders.
Both Grace and Dad look far too young to be married—but
their expressions are joyous, the shining hope in their eyes almost
painful to think about when I consider they had only a hand-
ful of years together, most of which were focused on us kids.
They were probably short on money when they married—the
last few photos have them cutting a homemade cake in what
looks suspiciously like the church vestibule, and there’s only a
handful of guests.
Wedding photos only take up a few pages, and then I turn
the page to find a yellowed piece of paper has been folded and
placed loosely against the next page. I open it and nearly drop it
when I discover it’s my mother’s death certificate. There are so
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many fields—most typed, some scrawled in ink. My gaze flies
over the page, soaking in the details.
Grace Francis Walsh—nee Gal agher.
Mother’s name: Vivienne Mary Gal agher.
Father’s name: Francis Ian Gal agher.
Spouse: Patrick Timothy Walsh.
Mother of Timothy, Ruth, Jeremy, Bethany.
Date of death: Undetermined. April 1959
That simply cannot be right. How on earth could the date
of death be undetermined if she died in a car accident? And if
Grace died in 1959, I was only two years old when we lost her
and it is highly unlikely I’d remember her at all. But I do remember her . Even now, if I close my eyes, I can summon the feel-
ing of being held in her arms. My God—the thought that I’ve
manufactured those memories leaves me feeling physically ill.
Those memories are a part of how I understand myself. I
was loved by Grace. I was nurtured by Grace. On some level,
I know myself as someone who began her life in the arms of a
woman who adored her.
What if I made it all up?
I don’t believe it for a second—the memories are far too
vivid. I’m about to fold the paper and to set it aside when a new
thought strikes me, and I scan down the page again, looking for
a cause of death. I fully expect to be at least partly reassured by
the words motor vehicle accident or something similar, but that’s not what I find.
Unable to confirm due to decomposition of body.
I fold the paper carefully and set it down on the floor beside
my legs. I’m dizzy and confused, not sure what to make of my
discovery. It was obviously some time before Grace’s body was
found. This definitely doesn’t fit Dad’s story about a car acci-
dent, but it also doesn’t indicate that she died by suicide. Un-
less she took ran away somewhere before she ended her life…?
Another wave of nausea hits me. Poor Dad. My God. Poor Dad.
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The room is spinning so I close my eyes, trying to calm my-
self down. Just then I hear a sound in the hallway and I real-
ize that Hunter is probably done for the night. He was already
hesitant about me cleaning out that attic, even just upon a sin-
gle glimpse of the mess. If he sees this mind-blowing discovery,
maybe he’ll try to insist I leave the job to my siblings. He loves
me—he’s trying to protect me—but more than ever, I need to
get to the bottom of this.
I stuff the ring box and the album back into the bottom of
the chest and slip the base back in place, and despite my shak-
ing hands, finish closing the lid as Hunter returns to the room.
“Want to watch a movie?” he asks me, sniffling a yawn. “I
don’t feel like working tonight after all.”
“Sure,” I say. My heart is racing and my palms are sweaty, so
I scramble to my feet and flash him what I hope is a convinc-
ing smile. “Let me just go wash up. I’m all dusty from clean-
ing this thing.”
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Grace
January 9, 1958
When I went into labor with Beth, I tried to pretend it wasn’t happen-
ing. I stayed at home as if that would stop the inevitable—but I was
foolish, because of course, a baby doesn’t care if the mother is in a birth-ing room at the hospital or in her own laundry. When she is ready to be born, she will be born.
When the urge came to push, I panicked, because I was at home with
Tim and the twins. I called out for help until I realized it was pointless: the McClarens on the west side of our house wouldn’t come even if they knew I was being murdered, and even though Mrs. Hills isn’t quite as
deaf as her husband, her hearing isn’t as sharp as it once was.
In the end I sent Tim next door to Mrs. Hills, despite the fact I had
no idea if my two-and-a-half-year-old son would successfully make
that journey or get lost in attempting it. I sat the little ones in front of the television and told them not to come into the laundry.
By the time Mrs. Hills came, I was sitting on a towel beside the
washing machine, and Beth was already in my arms. My third birth
happened all by myself, on a floor I hadn’t cleaned in forever because my belly was so big. Even so, my third birth was my best birth, because yes, I was alone and scared, but no doctor cut my body to ease her entrance, and no doctor was pulling my legs apart and yelling at me, and no nurse was holding me down, forcing me to lie on my back.
Instead, I let instinct call the shots. I squatted and I breathed and I let my body take over, and then I guided her into the world myself, then I lifted my beautiful
little girl up onto my breast and I sank back onto the floor in shock. She had a thatch of dark hair slicked against her head and Truths I N_9781525804601_ITP_txt_275977.indd 123
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the biggest, bluest eyes I’d ever seen. She cried until I cuddled her, and then she settled and stared up at me with wonder in her gaze.
It was all so peaceful. It was certainly still painful, but the pain was bearable—perhaps because I could shift myself around when I felt the
urge. Once Beth had settled in my arms, I felt an astounding euphoria
rise and by the time Mrs. Hills arrived, I was weeping tears of pure joy.
That birth was one of the best experiences of my life, at least in part because for the first time, I was in complete control of my body.
Even so, Mrs. Hills was horrified and she chastised me for not call-
ing Patrick—what if something had gone wrong? I guess it was risky
and silly to delay the hospital visit, especially when we had no phone
…it had been cut off months earlier because we hadn’t paid the bill.
Mrs. Hills called an ambulance, and as Beth and I were swept away to
the hospital, I let myself hope. Her birth had been so much easier, and those precious early minutes felt like bonding. Maybe this time would
be different?
The optimism lingered that first week in the maternity ward, because
it seemed I’d produced the world’s most relaxed infant. Beth slept when I needed her to sleep; she fed on a reasonable schedule right from birth; she was content to be ignored for a little while if she was in my room during the day and I didn’t scoop her up right away. Even once we went home, Beth settled right in. I was now in the tenuous position of having four children under three, but at first, it was almost okay. I established something of a routine with the oldest three children when my mood was good, and now that Beth had arrived and proven herself to be the kind of easygoing baby that every mother dreams of, I thought I had a shot of getting through the first twelve months unscathed.
By then, I should have known that however confused my mind became
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in, all I had to do was hold on and wait. Even so, when Beth was six
weeks old and I felt the tide of misery seeping back, I couldn’t think about how this too would pass . All I could think about was the stretch of hopeless days that I knew I’d have to march through.
I feared it would be bad—but I had no idea just how bad it would
get. Some combination of the monotony, the endless demands, the loneliness, the isolation and the exhaustion left me feeling like I was standing outside my body, watching another woman fail the world’s most wonderful children, again and again and again. When the dark thoughts
began, and the swirling torrents of torment started, and when the ex-
haustion seemed irreparable rather than something easily fixed by a
stretch of decent sleep, I convinced myself that the only way forward was to find an escape.
I don’t remember picking up the keys to Patrick’s car that night, and I don’t remember walking out of the house. I don’t even remember reversing out into the street or driving away. The first I really remember, I was standing on a bridge over water. It was deathly dark—hours still before dawn, and I was miles and miles away from home, at a place I knew
on some level was the Aurora Bridge. I had zoned out, and taken myself automatically to the a place in Seattle infamous for suicides.
I wasn’t consciously thinking of what would come next. I was calm
as I walked along the pedestrian path, marveling at how quiet the road was at the early hour. My feet moved without permission. They carried
me right to the edge of the path and over the handrail…to the very edge of the bridge, slippery from the rain. I stared down into the dark water and it called to me, promising peace and rest.
I knew what I was about to do was a mortal sin, and I had a desper-
ate urge to explain myself to God. I was simply going to tell Him that I couldn’t go on—that I’d reached the absolute end of my rope and besides, Patrick and the children would be so much better off without me.
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For a moment, I felt utterly certain that any reasonable person or deity would agree with me—that it was all too much, that I was failing too
miserably, and that the water offered the sensible path forward. But as I opened my mouth to speak to the endless nothingness of the night, I suddenly realized how close I was to that drop into the water and how close I’d come to my worst mistake yet. I panicked, and I clambered over the rail and threw myself forward in my panic. I hit the concrete path as a dead weight, breasts and stomach and knees and elbows and shins colliding
and skidding over the rough surface, winding and bruising and scratch-
ing me. And even though the concrete path had caused me such pain, I
clung to it as if it was my savior. The physical pain was intense enough to penetrate the fog in my mind—the first feeling other than frustration and sadness that I’d been conscious of in weeks.
And when my breath returned, it came in desperate gasps between huge,
rolling sobs that went on and on—tears that burned as they cleansed.
The sobs were cathartic—the relief that I hadn’t jumped without even
thinking reminded me that I did desperately want to live, and that the way I’d been thinking about my death was yet another lie that my mind
was telling me. I was glad to be alive, and in the momentary joy of the close call, promised myself I’d remember that moment forever.
I cleaned myself off. Shaking with fear and cold and confusion, I
went back to the car. I knew that even if I made it home before sunrise, before Patrick even noticed I was missing, I would have to explain the drained gas tank in the car and the mess I’d made of my body. My chin was scratched raw, as were my hands, knees and forearms, and I had
bruises everywhere.
Even so, I had faced death that night, and I had found the strength to refuse it. I told myself that despite the misery I had been ambling through for months, there was some bravery left in the depths of my soul, and I must never again forget that. If I had the courage to pull away from that Truths I N_9781525804601_ITP_txt_275977.indd 126
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water, I surely had the courage to face another few months of the depression until it lifted. As I drove home that night, I made myself a solemn vow: I would never again fall pregnant. Every time I’d faced the depression it was worse than the last, and a fourth bout would surely kill me.
The years of helplessly bearing child after child had taken something from me, some last reserve of inner strength that was now all but gone. I had to protect that last sliver of myself, and if that meant never returning to Patrick’s bed, he and I would simply have to pay that price.
I made it home just as the sun breeched the horizon. Tim was already
awake, playing with a wooden train on the floor of the living room. Patrick he was asleep in our bed, and the younger children were asleep in their beds, and somehow, they had all survived without me.
When Patrick woke and stumbled into the kitchen seeking coffee, his
face puffy from sleep, a crease from his pillow over his chin, I felt my heart beat faster—both from fear, and from love. I wasn’t afraid of Patrick, rather, his reaction to my physical injuries, and the desperate love I felt for
him right from that first day at the window seat seemed to breathe fresh life into my tired, aching body.
Patrick noticed the bruises and scrapes right away. He kept asking me
what happened, and although I’d come up with what I thought was a
convincing story about slipping on the back steps in the night, he wasn’t buying it, and it didn’t explain the empty gas tank.
Maybe he’d been useless to me over the lonely months that had
passed before, but that morning gave me hope. He prepared the chil-
dren’s breakfast, then led me away to the living room and sat too close to me on the couch. His hands shook as he brushed the hair back from
my face and then he pulled me into his embrace and begged me to tell
him what had really happened. I cried, and although the best I could
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to be enough for him to understand that we had come very close to los-
ing one another that night.
“I’ll do better,” he promised as he cupped my face in his hands and
he kissed me around my injuiries. “I’ll do better, Grace. I promise I’ll do better.”
And for a while, he did. I saw frequent flashes of the man I always
hoped he could be for a while. He came home on time and he didn’t
complain when I fell behind with the laundry. He was drinking less,
so we had the money to catch up on some of the bills. But of course it didn’t last, and by Beth’s first birthday, he was coming home late every night again, and the milkman was angry because we hadn’t paid him
for weeks and the roof was leaking again but Patrick never seemed to
have the time to fix it.
These days, he’s back to the man my parents think he always will be,
and at long last, I’m starting to feel resentful. Funny how we can’t afford to have a phone anymore, but Patrick can afford to go out for beer with his friends almost every night. It’s funny how the money he gives me for housekeeping keeps shrinking and the bills go unpaid, but we’re never too short for a bottle of whiskey each week.
He says he’s stressed and he needs time to himself. He says he misses
his freedom and I need to let him be for now. He says I shouldn’t question him. After all, he’s the man in this household, and he’s working so hard supporting us all.