What We Take For Truth

by Deborah Nedelman

  “Jackson, I think that’s very romantic of you.” How could she refuse such an offer? Getting a chance to do something she loved for people she loved and getting paid for it! “Sure. I’d love to do it.”

  Rose had been eating at the café for years and Grace knew what she liked. But designing a meal for her that wouldn’t be limited to what was on the two sides of the Hoot Owl menu was a new adventure. It got Grace excited.

  The hard part was hiding it all from Rose. Grace loved Rose and could never have lied to her. If she’d asked what was going on, Grace knew she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from blurting it all out. Fortunately, even if she had an inkling something was up, Rose never asked. Things worked out just as Jackson had planned.

  Grace treated the meal as an opportunity to create something beautiful as well as delicious. She let her artistic sensibilities take over. She borrowed Jane’s truck and made a trip to Everett for supplies.

  When the couple came home that evening, the table was set with candles and a crisp white cloth. On each plate, spring-green asparagus sat next to curried carrots and rice darkened by slivers of wild mushroom; slabs of pink salmon were sprinkled with minced red pepper and parsley, slices of lemon on the side. The green salad was topped with orange nasturtiums and purple pansies, and for dessert Grace had drizzled raspberry sauce over a caramel custard. It was a work of art.

  Rose stood before it all with her mouth agape. She looked from her husband to the young woman she regarded as a granddaughter.

  “How? Did you—?”

  Grace and Jackson nodded in unison.

  “Oh, my, how lovely! And how delicious everything smells.” Behind her glasses, Rose’s brown eyes sparkled with tears. Rose was a sturdy woman who was not used to being taken care of. She immediately insisted that Grace sit and share the meal with them.

  “No, no. Rose. I loved every minute of making this for you. Please sit and enjoy it. It was Jackson’s idea and he paid me for it. Happy Anniversary.”

  Grace left the couple and retreated to the kitchen. As a child, she’d papered the Dyers’ walls with drawings and brought in bouquets hand-picked from Rose’s garden. But ever since she’d started working at the café and earning her own money, Rose had refused to accept any gifts from her. “You need to save your pennies,” she’d tell her. “You never want to be financially dependent on someone else.” Though this message belied Rose’s own life choices, Grace understood it as hard-won wisdom.

  That had been the beginning of the tradition of Grace making weekly dinners for the older couple. Tonight would be the last of those meals.

  ***

  The crunch of tires along the back road signaled the arrival of the first of the mill workers for the day. Grace turned away from the fence and headed back, retracing her steps past the café with its still-empty tables, and ran the short, wet blocks back to the house.

  Grace had lived in this house for fourteen of her eighteen years, but aside from a few books and a box of art supplies, little that she owned seemed right for the city. She pulled her favorite jeans off the hook on the back of the closet door, folded them and laid them on top of the underwear she’d strewn across the bottom of the suitcase. Two minutes later she lifted them out and hung them back on the hook.

  Grace would never share Shauna’s excitement over things like clothes and makeup. They’d remained tight, in spite of what would have an unbridgeable gulf had they lived in a community that offered the luxury of such differences. But in Prosperity, and even at Cooper High, Shauna could roll her eyes in frustration over her best friend’s lack of fashion awareness without running any risk to either of the girls’ social standing.

  Just three months ago, Grace and Shauna had been standing in front of the mirror in the girls’ bathroom at Cooper. Their next class started in five minutes. Shauna had her makeup arrayed across the narrow space between the sinks and was taking meticulous care with her eye shadow. Grace quickly washed her hands and barely glanced at her face in the mirror. As usual, the paper towel holder was empty. Grace impatiently wiped her wet hands on her pant legs. “You and Jen are going to spend all your money on clothes. That’s ridiculous.”

  “Well, at least people aren’t going to assume we’re ignorant rednecks from the mountains when they look at us. First impressions, you know.” Shauna shook her finger at her friend.

  Grace looked away, pulled her hair back from her face and tied it with a scrunchie. “I’m from the mountains and I’m not ashamed of it. Anyway, I’ll probably get some waitressing job where I have to wear a uniform.”

  “It’s a start.” Shauna carefully outlined her lips in coral. “Once you’ve gotten used to Seattle, you’ll probably be wearing four-inch heels and tight skirts.”

  As she was about to shut her suitcase, Grace grabbed the jeans and stuffed them inside.

  It was four o’clock—time to head up to Rose’s. Grace climbed into Jane’s old pickup and drove to the end of Hope Street and up the one-lane gravel road that wound through Jake Oliver’s forest—the ancient stand of trees surrounding the town, unlogged by order of Jackson’s maternal grandfather, the man who gave Prosperity its ironic name. The road ended at the Dyers’ place.

  Grace had planned an Italian dinner and was soon in the kitchen mincing garlic and chopping tomatoes for Jackson’s favorite pasta dish. Rose sat at the table fighting the urge to get up and help. It had been a stumbling process, convincing Rose to let Grace do the cooking alone. In time they settled on this: Grace cooked, and Rose kept her company, never gossiping (which Rose referred to with disdain), but, inevitably, sharing stories about their neighbors.

  “I hate how everyone in town is riled up over this spotted owl thing.” Grace moaned.

  “Oh dear, yes. Some days I think it’s going to kill Jackson. I hate to even talk about it. It’s as if you can’t just love the forest anymore. You have to either be for logging or against it.”

  “That’s exactly it!” Grace put down her knife and turned to Rose. “That’s why Pat broke up with me. I wouldn’t pick a side.” She wiped her hands on the dishtowel slung over her shoulder. “Which, according to him, meant I had picked the other side.”

  Rose put her idle hands flat on the table in front of her and looked sternly at Grace. “I have to admit I am disappointed. My garden is going to be so beautiful for a summer wedding.”

  Grace grimaced. As a child she’d played dress-up in Rose’s garden, creating an elaborate fantasy wedding under the wisteria vines. She sighed.

  “He wanted me to take him to that spotted owl nest my dad showed me. He would have destroyed it. I just couldn’t.”

  Rose tilted her head and took a long look at the young woman who was as close to a granddaughter as she’d ever have. “Jackson always said that Patrick had the makings of a good woodsman. Maybe too good.”

  “It’s all these regulations and everything. He’s changed.” Grace stirred the sautéing vegetables, turning the flame down to let the onions release their juice slowly. Then she slumped into the chair opposite Rose.

  Grace had known Pat as long as she could remember. They’d spent their childhoods in the tiny Prosperity Grade School, ignoring, then hating, and finally flirting with one another. Their relationship had bloomed through high school and everyone in town had expected them to marry.

  “I don’t think I’m ready to settle down anyway. Shauna and Jennifer are going to Seattle to find jobs and I’m going with them. They’ve picked out a house for us to share.” She kept her eyes on the stove. “It’ll be kind of fun.”

  Rose nodded slowly. “I wondered how long it was going to take for you to tell me. Jennifer’s sister is the bookkeeper at the mill, Grace. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

  Rose’s voice took on a particular tenderness whenever she called her Grace.

  Grace flushed and shrugged her shoulders.

  Rose reached out and took Grace’s hand. “If you aren’t ready to get married, then going to the city and getti
ng a job, that’s a good option.” Rose searched the young woman’s face for a moment, then turned away to look out the window. The sauce was beginning to bubble and the kitchen was filling with smells of basil and oregano.

  “I wanted to tell you, but it just felt so… final, I guess. Once I told you, then I’d have to go.” Grace was surprised by a sudden sense of loss. These were just onion tears, weren’t they?

  “My dad would have wanted me to stay.”

  Rose turned sharply back. She stood and walked over to place herself between Grace and the stove. “Now that’s just silly. This isn’t about what I think or what your parents would have thought. Sure, Warren loved this place. He would have stayed forever. Your momma? She always talked about going somewhere warm—somewhere where there were parrots.” Rose smiled. “Now it’s time for you to make your own decision.”

  Rose was the one person who ever mentioned Annie, and when she did there was always sadness in her voice. But rather than answering Grace’s questions, Rose would always say things like, “Your momma was a sweet girl,” or “Annie loved her baby girl.” These references to her mother comforted Grace, and she sensed that by pushing Rose to tell her more she’d be causing her pain.

  Grace had lost her mother before she was five years old. And just three years ago they’d buried her father in the town cemetery after a jagged stump of hemlock kicked back as he tried to wedge it into a straight fall. The remnant of that tree stood somewhere on this mountain, red and raw like a bloody sword. The unmistakable finality of her father’s death had resurrected old memories of her mother’s disappearance, and now as Grace yearned for some parental advice, she was heartened to think how well Rose had known Annie.

  “Right. Momma loved parrots, didn’t she? Maybe I should save my money and go somewhere tropical.”

  Rose shook her head and threw up her hands. “That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it. Your mother was a daydreamer, but she loved Prosperity almost as much as she loved you. She never ever wanted to leave you.” She shook her head as if to erase her next thought and then took Parrot’s face in her hands and looked her square in the eyes. “Nobody can tell you what’s best. All I know is whether you go or stay, Prosperity won’t go back to the way it was. All this spotted owl rigmarole is changing us. That’s what happens. We all change. You can’t avoid it.” Rose turned toward the stove, unable to stop herself from turning down the flame just a tad. “And, one more thing, young lady.” She turned back to face Grace. “I think it’s high time you started claiming your proper name. Grace is a beautiful name. And it doesn’t come from some foolish bird book. You are Grace Tillman.”

  Grace smiled and put her arms around Rose. She’d never cut her ties to this woman, but that didn’t mean she had to stay in Prosperity. Did it? The aroma of the sauce called her back to work. She began to mix the meat for the meatballs when the phone rang. Rose picked up the receiver.

  “Hello, this is Rose Dyer. No, he’s not home yet. Oh, yes?”

  Grace let the sound of Rose’s conversation fade into the background. Rose was right, this place was changing; it was useless to try and fight it. And she was ready to be Grace, even if no one else in this town would call her that.

  A shift in Rose’s voice got Grace’s attention. She turned to see her Rose slump down in the chair as she said into the phone, “Thank you for calling, Doctor. I understand. I’ll tell him right away.” She hung up and the look on her face made Grace drop the knife from her hand and rush to her side.

  “Rose, what’s wrong?”

  Rose stared at the phone. After a long moment she whispered, “You can’t tell anyone. The town would panic.”

  “What, what are you talking about?”

  “I mean it, “she shook her head. “You have to keep this a secret. He’d be furious if he knew I’d told you.”

  Grace nodded and sat down next to Rose, “OK, sure.”

  “It’s been so hard to keep this to myself. He’s been sick for a long time.” Tears puddled behind Rose’s glasses. “I keep trying to get him to talk about it, but you know how Jackson is.”

  A rope of fear knotted in Grace’s stomach.

  “Some of the guys may already suspect. He’s been taking time off to go to Everett for tests.” She stopped talking and sighed. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and began wiping her eyes. “Well, now there isn’t much time left.”

  When Rose looked up, Grace recognized the all-too-familiar face of grief.

  ***

  One day in the early fall, when Grace had gone up to the Dyers’ to make dinner, Rose was sitting by the living room window looking out at the garden. In her hand was a black-framed photo of a baby.

  “Hey, Rose, what’s up?” As usual, Grace’s adolescent exuberance bustled with her into the Dyers’ home. But as soon as Rose looked up, Grace saw this wasn’t a usual day. Rose’s eyes held a sadness Grace had never seen in them before.

  “Today is Jake’s birthday,” Rose said. “He would have been thirty years old.” Rose and Jackson had had a son they’d named after his grandpa, Jake Oliver.

  He had been just a baby when he got sick. The doctor told them to get Jake to the hospital. It was winter. The road down the mountain was bad. They probably shouldn’t have even tried, Rose said.

  “Maybe we could have kept him warm enough at home, maybe the fever would have broken.” But they got out on the highway and there was black ice everywhere. Jackson could barely see through the thick snowfall. She held the sleeping baby on her lap and she felt him get hotter and hotter.

  “Sometimes I can still feel that—his little body burning up. He cried so pitifully. I didn’t know whether to unwrap him, it was so cold in the car.” As she told the story, she continued to stare out the window. “Then he got quiet. I thought that was a good sign.” She stopped talking. After a while she turned to Grace. “Oh, that was such a long time ago. I’m sorry. You go on and fix dinner, dear.”

  They never talked about Jake again. But Grace imagined it must all be coming back to her now.

  Jackson was dying. Grace could barely allow herself this thought.

  No more losses. She just couldn’t take it. She couldn’t imagine facing the empty hole of Jackson’s absence.

  As she put her arm around Rose and murmured comforting sounds, something inside Grace began to shut down. By the time she set the table and served the older couple their dinner—averting her eyes from Jackson’s face, smiling with a forced cheer—she’d gone numb.

  It was as if her home were disappearing beneath her, one person at a time. What was left to hold on to?

  Chapter 3

  May 30, 1991

  A weird dream kept me tossing all night. I was a little kid, crying out for my mommy. There was a crowd of people and I knew Mommy was there, too, somewhere. I was in a forest of legs. I tugged at different pants and skirts. Some hands reached down and patted my head, but no one said anything to me. Garbled talking above my head. Couldn’t understand a thing.

  That feeling—not scared exactly, but lonely, confused, wanting my mother—that was real. I can’t remember anyone ever sitting down with me and explaining what happened to my mother. People don’t talk about death. Maybe it’s just these people, just Prosperity—there are so many losses. Everyone grieves silently. A glass raised in memory or a hand on the widow’s shoulder.

  Rose doesn’t want to talk about Jackson’s illness. But it’s all over her face.

  (Here a sketch of a dead tree with a flock of parrots sitting in it; all around the perimeter of the page, the name “Grace” is written in various script.)

  Grace jumped up gratefully when the phone interrupted her.

  “I finally got a call back from the landlord about our place in Seattle—oh, I love saying that!” Shauna’s voice practically bubbled out of the phone into Grace’s ear. “He says we can move in Saturday! So, this is it. We need to know for sure. You’re coming, right?”

  Grace swallowed and nodded her head fi
rmly. “Yes, Shauna. I’m doing it.” The words were so simple, but as she said them the ground beneath Grace’s feet seemed to vanish. “Shauna?”

  “What?” Shauna’s need to leave Prosperity was fueled by the daily sight of her own father, whose once-powerful hands had set choke, chaining the fallen timber so it could be hauled out of the woods. He’d lost the thumbs from both his hands and now was barely able to hold his beer. Shauna couldn’t wait to put Prosperity behind her.

  “Do you want me to come over and help you pack?”

  Grace reached her hand out and leaned against the wall. She took a deep breath. “No. Thanks. I’ll be ready on Saturday.”

  “Great! I promise you, you won’t regret this. The place is so cute! You’ll love it. I bet you’ll be the first one to get a job with all your waitressing and cooking experience.”

  “We’ll see. I’m just hoping folks in the city believe in tipping. See you Saturday.” Grace hung up the phone.

  Without giving herself another moment to think, she crammed the contents of her small dresser into the half-filled suitcases, not bothering to fold anything or even consider whether she needed it. She pulled her flannel shirts and jeans off their hooks and threw them on top. She slammed the cases shut, dragged them off her bed and set them by the front door.

  The lack of business at the café didn’t seem to upset Jane, and Grace wasn’t sure what to make of that. Over the last weeks, her aunt had been almost as preoccupied as Grace herself. It was probably a good thing they hadn’t been busy; only last week Jane had let three pies turn to cinders before she pulled them from the oven.

  Grace was leaning on her elbows at the kitchen table when Jane came home. She’d been sitting there since late afternoon, memorizing the gouges and cup rings that embellished the massive plank her father had cut and sanded. It was now well after dark.