What We Take For Truth

by Deborah Nedelman

  She dumped the contents of her pack on the bed and rummaged through the clothes and the few toiletries she’d brought for what she had expected would be a brief night at Jane’s. She stuck her hand down to the bottom of the center pocket. There she found the little book she never went anywhere without. The edges of the cover were slightly swollen from the time she’d dripped hot chocolate on it as she wrote, several pages were wrinkled and smudged with greasy fingerprints. Grace thumbed through pages covered with small sketches of birds and trees growing out of l’s and t’s. There were a few dried flowers and bits of crumbling leaves stuck in the seams between the pages. Her diary. Just holding it settled her a bit.

  Warren had given his daughter her first diary for her eighth birthday—a small blue book with white flowers on the cover. It had a leather flap that folded over the edge and locked with a key. The edges of the paper were gilded.

  “Rose says girls like to write secret stuff, so it has a lock.” He presented it to her with such an aura of seriousness that Grace came to believe only very serious thoughts belonged on those pages. From that first day she was diligent, recording in her diary before bed each night, taking care to lock it and stow the key in her dresser.

  But one night the key didn’t make it to the drawer. She searched for days, but the key was lost forever. Warren offered to use a knife on the leather flap and slit it open, but Grace wouldn’t hear of it. She imagined the words inside that locked book had been sealed by some magical spell and it would be wrong to break it. She convinced herself that one day when she was ready to read those words the key would reappear.

  The habit of writing in a diary had taken root by then, so Grace asked her father to get her another blank book—one without a lock. And Grace continued to record her thoughts, dreams, confusion of feelings about all the people in her life, and her sketches of plants and birds. Over the years, she filled several little books, though recently she’d become lax—writing only brief comments occasionally, so that one book covered years. The one she pulled from her backpack as she sat on the bed in the hostel dated back to high school.

  September 10, 1987

  I can’t believe it. I’m actually in high school!!! The same high school my parents went to. It makes me sad to think that I never got to ask Mom about her time at Cooper. I’ve asked Dad to tell me about those days, but he just brushes me off. Or he gets mad. Real mad.

  I don’t want to think about that. Today is a day to be excited and happy. I wonder what it will be like to be in that huge place. I hope I don’t get lost. Shauna and I have pretty much the same schedule, so we’ll have each other.

  She thumbed through several pages to this:

  March 15, 1988

  I can’t believe Patrick wants to go out with me!! I’ve known him all my life. Is this weird? I wish my mom were here—I need to talk to her about this. My mom was pretty and funny and really popular in high school—you can just tell by looking at her yearbooks. I wish Dad would tell me more about her, but he never likes to talk about her.

  There I go again. Every time there’s something exciting happening in my life I think about my mother and get sad. Not today though—PATRICK!!!!

  (Bright red hearts and yellow stars circle his name)

  Not that I’m in love or anything. He is cute and funny and we know each other really well. That’s good, isn’t it?

  Was that me? Grace slammed the book shut and closed her eyes. It was all a lie. Who am I? The question kept hammering inside her. How can I be the same person I was before I knew my mother abandoned me? She took a pen from her pocket, opened the book to its back page, turned it upside down, and began writing as if it were the opening page of a new journal.

  August 17, 1991

  Nothing will ever be the same again. Nothing. I can’t even trust myself--I’m a gullible fool. What if I’d known the truth when I was four and still had my dad? Sure, it would have been awful, but having my mom die (?!) was pretty damn awful. Dad must have really hated her. All those years he would never talk about her. And Jane—her best friend ???!!! I try and try to remember every bad thing I can about my mom, but there’s just nothing there. This morning I woke with a thought that I’ve been carrying around all day—maybe Jane is making this up. I don’t know why she would do that, but it just doesn’t feel real. I can’t get my head around the idea that my mom is still alive. That she’s been alive the whole time I’ve been growing up. I don’t even know if I want to find her. She’s never wanted to find me, apparently. If she’d been around, maybe Dad wouldn’t have been so angry. Maybe. But maybe Jane was lying; maybe my mom did try to come back for me. I’m in a weird fairytale and Jane’s the wicked stepmother.

  “Sorry to bother you, but is this bed free?” The voice startled Grace and she looked up to see a young woman with thin strands of colorless hair dripping dirty water onto the bed next to hers. This new arrival grinned, showing gray teeth.

  “Um... I think so.” Grace stared as her new neighbor wiped her towel over her head.

  “Great. I’m exhausted and it’s pouring out there. I just need a warm, dry bed.” She stuck out her hand, “I’m Marla.”

  “Hi, I’m Grace.” The smile Grace offered in return felt forced and she looked back down at her journal.

  “I really meant it—don’t want to bother you. I know how important it can be to keep up your journal when you’re on the road. Sometimes my journal is the only place where I can collect my thoughts. In fact, that’s a great idea. I think I’ll join you.”

  Grace lifted her eyes, alarmed, and noticed the dark bruises on the side of Marla’s face.

  “I mean, I’ll write in my journal now too. I’m trying to make it a habit, but I still have to remind myself to do it.” Marla sighed and sat firmly on the neighboring mattress. Grace tried to refocus on what she’d been writing, but the heaviness radiating from this new roommate distracted her.

  Marla dumped her sack out on the floor and began rummaging through the pile of dirty clothes.

  “God, I know some girls who write every day. One of my friends back home started writing in a journal when she was like five years old and still does it. Every day.” She looked hard at Grace. “I tell ya, there are some days in my life I don’t need a written record to remind me of. They’re etched in the brain, along with the scars.” Grace’s eyes were drawn to the brownish-red band of thickened skin that circled Marla’s wrist.

  “But just imagine, you could go back and read all the other stuff you’d forgotten from your childhood. Some of it would probably be good, too. It’s the good stuff you forget.”

  “Yeah.” As this idea sank in, Grace sat up straight.

  “Excuse me.” Grace jumped up and began cramming her belongings back down in the pack. She tossed the blanket on the bed.

  “I just realized I need to be somewhere else. Thanks!”

  “Thanks for what? I’m telling you, it’s raining like hell out there,” Marla called after her.

  Grace’s backpack bounced on her shoulders as she raced out through the door of the hostel and up the hilly street, pushing through the rain, past the restaurant where she’d learned the truth. At the bus station, she found a pay phone and, just before boarding the bus, made a call. “Lyle? It’s Grace. I need a big favor. Can you pick me up in Everett? I need to come home.”

  ***

  The trip north took Grace through a strange country. She didn’t recognize landmarks; even the mountain peaks, whose names and contours she knew like she knew the streets of Prosperity, seemed to have rearranged themselves in the fading light. She’d traveled along these roads in blurring rain many times, but this evening nothing was the way she’d known it before.

  She was surprised when the driver announced their arrival in Everett. As Grace disembarked, the sight of Lyle’s pickup puffing exhaust through the wet air broke through her disorientation. She took a slow breath and tried to calm herself as she stepped up to the truck and threw her pack into the bed. She climbed int
o the passenger seat and looked at this man who had lived in Prosperity for only a few years. He had no part in keeping the truth from her.

  “Thanks, Lyle, this is a huge help.”

  “Good to see you, Grace. Jane’s been callin’, wondering where you were.”

  “How’d you handle that?”

  “I just told her the truth. I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know when you’d be back home, but you’d promised me you wouldn’t be away too long. What else could I say?”

  “Yeah, well, the truth is a good way to go, I’d say. Thanks. I just needed to spend a little time in the city. Hope you managed OK without me.”

  He shrugged. “There wasn’t much to do. Things were pickin’ up there for a bit, but the last two days were pretty dead.”

  Grace shook her head. “And we have to get the taxes in this week. The utility bills. And we owe Bargreens. We can’t go to the bank again, they’ll just laugh.” Then she stopped. She folded her arms across her chest.

  “But, honestly, I’m not worrying about the damn café. I’ve got other things to deal with right now.”

  “OK. Worrying wasn’t going to solve anything anyway.” He put the truck in gear and began the trip out of the city. “Did something happen between you and Jane?”

  She waved this off. “What’s going on in town besides nobody eating pie?”

  Lyle sighed. “Ran into Pat a couple of days ago and he asked where you’ve been. I told him you were visiting Jane in Seattle and he just gave me this smirk and said ‘figures.’ What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”

  “Fuck Patrick.”

  “Grace! What the hell? I thought you and he were, like, a thing.”

  “Not for a long time, Lyle. That’s old news.”

  He glanced over at her and shook his head. “Nobody’s got any loyalty anymore.”

  “Yeah, well, loyalty’s a pretty weird thing in Prosperity, I’m learning.”

  A silence settled between them as the pickup made its rattling way up the mountain. Grace let her head fall back on the seat and closed her eyes, slipping slowly into the blankness of sleep.

  ***

  Lyle laid his hand lightly on her shoulder.

  “You’re home.”

  She sat up and rubbed her hands over her face. “Thanks for the ride. That really saved me.” Grace stepped down out of the truck and reached into the bed for her backpack. It might be that nothing else was true, but this was home—her cabin, her jungle. And she was grateful to be here.

  “Sure,” Lyle said. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Grace climbed the ladder and fell into bed too exhausted to remember the urgency that had driven her back home. The night was full of dreams. She wandered the forest, lost, disoriented; hidden birds called to her and small creatures scuttled beneath the undergrowth. Shadows and sounds drew her on till she was sitting on a patch of sunny grass in the middle of the Prosperity cemetery.

  There were tears on Grace’s face when she woke.

  Brilliant sunlight blazed through her windows. Like an avalanche, all the confusion and shock of the last few days came rolling through her. Climbing out of bed, she dragged herself to the corner of the loft and pulled a battered cardboard box from the shelf above her clothes. The blue diary was buried beneath a collection of childhood toys, trophies, and favorite books she had packed when she left Jane’s house.

  Chapter 15

  Gingerly, as if it might explode, Grace lifted the diary out of the box. She carried it down the ladder, stepped over to the kitchen counter and picked up a paring knife. She slid the blade between the gilded pages and the leather flap. The thin leather barely resisted her knife; the book fell open as if it had been waiting all these years for release. She took a deep breath and began reading the loopy, childish handwriting.

  July 4, 1981

  Dear Diary,

  Today is my eighth birthday and Daddy gave me the best present ever—you!! He told me you’d keep my secrets. That is good, because I have secrets and no one to tell. You have a gold lock and I have the key.

  Here’s my first secret—I am sad. Everyone thinks I’m a happy girl because I smile and play and I’m good in school. But inside I’m really, really, really, sad ever since my mommy died.

  Love, Parrot

  July 5, 1981

  Dear Diary,

  It feels funny to read what I wrote yesterday. I’m not sad all the time.

  I love Daddy LOTS! I just wish he didn’t get mad so much. He has a loud yelling voice that scares me. I miss my mommy at night. Here’s my other secret—I can’t really remember what she looked like.

  Tear drops wrinkle the paper here.

  That’s all.

  Love,

  Parrot

  July 7, 1981

  Dear Diary,

  I’m sorry I didn’t write yesterday. I was busy! I went to bed it was late and I was tired. Yesterday was a fun day. Aunt Jane let me help her make pies at the café. Mr. Walt and Mrs. Rose and Mr. Jackson came in and they all saw me in the kitchen. It made them smile. They all were friends with my mommy. I think they miss her too. I wonder if they remember what she looked like. Mrs. Rose said I looked like I belonged in that kitchen. I guess I do.

  Grace looked at the clock. It was nearly noon. She picked up the phone.

  “Hey, Lyle, do you need me today?”

  “I’m managing. Forget it. Stay home and rest up. You gotta make a run up the mountain tomorrow morning. I’ll pull the stuff together.”

  “Damn. I forgot those guys. OK. I’ll come by early tomorrow and get everything. And thanks, Lyle. A lot.”

  He grunted. If his voice was colored with exasperation, Grace didn’t notice. She made a pot of coffee and curled up on the sofa with the diary.

  There were several short entries—a sketch of hearts or a line or two describing a bird’s nest or just I had a good day. She turned the pages slowly, not exactly sure what she was looking for. Then this entry:

  July 28, 1981

  Dear Diary,

  This is my first time writing in the morning. It feels strange, but I have to tell you about my dream last night before I forget it. I saw my mommy! In my dream she came and sat on the bed and talked to me. I was so happy! She told me that she missed me too and that I shouldn’t be sad. She said she was watching over me. Like an angel, I guess. She was so beautiful—I can still see her face in my mind! That dream made me happy!

  July 31, 1981

  Dear Diary,

  I don’t want to go to sleep ever again. I don’t want to have the dream I had last night again. It was bad. You remember the happy dream when mommy sat on my bed and told me not to be sad? That’s my favorite dream. Last night I had a different dream. My mommy was there again, sitting next to me on the bed. She put her hand on my head and she said she had to go away. She said she was really sad and sorry she had to leave me, but Aunt Jane would keep me safe. It was awful and I was crying and crying. I think I had that dream before, a long time ago. I don’t want to have it again.

  That was the last entry. The key must have disappeared that night.

  Grace closed the book and hugged it to her chest. That feeling of her mother’s hand on her head. A cool breeze and the smell of lilacs. It was so close. Grace held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to still her mind, tried to remember. Annie had vanished just before Grace’s fourth birthday. It would have been the end of June. The lilac bush outside her childhood bedroom would have been well past its bloom. Something important, something she once knew but had long ago forgotten was right there, but it stayed just out of sight.

  In the corner above where she sat, the yellow-green beak of a toucan smiled down at her; on her right a black and orange snake wrapped itself around a thick vine and peered into the room. This was the jungle world her mother had described to her as they sat snuggled together on the couch. Annie had whispered it into Grace’s ears. “There is a place called the jungle where there are monkey
s and bright, beautiful birds. The trees are all different, coconuts and papayas and mangos, palms—and vines everywhere. I want to see that, don’t you, sweetie?”

  Grace could feel the soft tickle of her mother’s breath on her ear. A sense of excitement sparked through the air, along with a sense of panic. I asked her if birds ever got lost! I remember that. I was so afraid of getting lost.

  “The birds have their ways, their routines. You know that pair of eagles that nest in the cedar next to the river? They come back every year, don’t they? They know where their home is. It’s like they have roads in the sky that we can’t see.”

  Grace climbed back up the ladder and dragged the box over to her bed. She turned it over and dumped out all the toys and junk she’d thought so essential to save. At the bottom was another black book—the journal she’d gotten after the key was lost.

  August 15, 1981

  Dear Diary,

  I can’t find the key to my blue diary, but that’s OK. There are secrets in there that can stay locked up. But I want to keep writing. Yesterday Mrs. Rose took me shopping in Cooper and I bought you. I didn’t get one with a lock ’cause I don’t want to write secrets anymore. I’m just going to write happy things. You’ll be my happy book!

  Grace flipped through the pages of this “happy book.” The entries were all short and simple, “Today I made a pie!” “I found a robin’s nest in the tree outside Daddy’s window.” “Mrs. Johnson put my picture of a parrot up on the wall. She said it was beautiful!” “Aunt Jane helped me with my arithmetic.” Not a single reference to Mommy or to dreams, either good or bad. There were several long gaps between entries. The last several pages were blank.