“Oh, gosh,” Cheryl tucked her hair behind her ears before tackling the beer cheese with me. “That was a long time ago, Reesie. I’ve slept since then.”
“I know. I’ve racked my brain, though, and I just cannot remember.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly a crowd either of us ran with anyway. Why you studyin’ on that right now?”
“Ugh…long story,” I said. I wasn’t sure I was ready to give her all the details. She’s not like her mama, but still, I’m not exactly ready to go public.
“Oh, come on, girl…there’s got to be some reason you’re askin’. You aren’t inclined to waste a syllable, much less a question. What’s up?”
I stressed that this was not public knowledge yet and shouldn’t be discussed with anyone else. That I was alluding to her mother was a given and she laughed.
“I don’t tell that ol’ girl nothin’. She’s not as bad as she once was, but I still gotta watch what I say.”
I told her most of the story, omitting some details and names.
“Well, my Lord, no wonder Grace was so messed up. You know I told Mama one time I didn’t know how she’d fallen so far from her little pedestal. I mean, y’all were all good people – salt of the earth – but Gracie was such a sweet little thing. It was just hard to imagine her causin’ you and your mama so much heartache.”
“Makes sense now, but I sure wish I’d known about it a little sooner. It would have changed everything.”
“So why you wanna know who Skipper hung out with?”
“Grace says there were three other boys there the day it happened.”
Cheryl’s eyes got wide. “All of ’em…they were all…oh, God.”
“No, no…they were witnesses, that’s all. Grace said they came back to find Skipper and saw what he was doing.”
“And they didn’t stop him?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Apparently they just laughed and told him to hurry.”
I should have chosen my words more carefully. Cheryl covered her mouth with her napkin and rushed to the restroom. When she returned, she was pale and clearly stricken.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, saying it that way.”
“Don’t you dare be sorry, Patrice. I have my high school yearbooks at Mama’s house. I’m gonna get those things and stop by Miss Ora’s tomorrow. We are going to figure this out if it’s the last thing I do. The very idea…”
This was another thing I’ve always loved about my friend. She is passionate and determined. If she says we’re going to figure it out, we are going to figure it out. I tried to change the subject, but she pressed for all the information I knew.
I have to admit I did some soul-searching on the way home. Why haven’t I pursued this with the same outrage? This was my baby sister…the victim of one of the most egregious offenses we know. Where is my compassion? Kamilah says I need to suspend my anger, but I think it’s more than that. I’ve spent half my life seeing Grace as the perpetrator, and my family as the victim, and the truth is we were all victims. Victims of a system that made my mother believe there was no justice to be had for her child. And now, here I am, a part of that system, and what have I done to change it?
35 – Grace
Miss Ora and I was plannin’ a quiet supper tonight. She hasn’t been feelin’ all that great, so I told her to head on out to the porch and I’d make us a salad once Patrice’d picked up the kids. I been doin’ good, but it’s a little strained between me and my babies. Rochelle still lets me help her with homework, and I read to her some, but Shawn, he keep his distance. We made Miss Ora’s sewin’ room into a little place where they could play video games and watch TV and that keeps ’em pretty happy.
Miss Ora wasn’t out there ten minutes ’fore she scooted inside sayin’ “Hide me. Dovey Kincaid is headed this way.”
I ain’t hardly said, “She just go’n knock on the door, Miss Ora. You might as well stayed out there,” when sure enough, there came the knock.
But it was Cheryl, not her mama, which was a relief. Unfortunately, Miss Ora done let that relief show plain as a pancake.
“Lord, Cheryl, you look more like your mama every day.”
“I’m gonna take that as a compliment, Miss Ora,” Cheryl grabbed her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on each cheek. She didn’t even turn her loose ’fore she looked her dead in the eye and, with a grin like Alice’s cat, says, “Even though I don’t think you actually mean it that way.”
“Are you forgetting your mama was a debutante?”
“Which means my grandmother thought she was pretty. You might oughta quit while you’re ahead.” Cheryl turned loose of her then and shot me a Lord help me look if I’ve ever seen one.
I barely had time to think, this ain’t go’n be good, when Miss Ora laughed so hard she crossed her legs right there in front of God and everybody.
“The older I get, the farther I leave my manners behind. I’m at the point now where I can’t hold my water or my tongue.” Then she headed toward the hallway and spoke without looking back, “You’ll have to excuse me on both accounts.”
Soon as Cheryl turned her attention to me, I knew Patrice done told her about me. That little twinkle she had laughin’ at Miss Ora faded right away.
“Gracie,” she said, reachin’ both arms out to me. I thought she was gonna hug me, but she took my face in both of her hands and said, “Precious girl…I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through. Are you okay?”
Ain’t nobody ever asked me that before. Not ever in my life. Anytime Mama’d see me fall, skin my knee, slam my finger in the screen door, whatever, she’d say, “You all right. You fine. Get up now. Go wash your knee. Stick that finger in some water. Put some butter on that burn. You fine, Gracie. Stop that cryin’. It was just a dream. You go’n be fine.”
I don’t know what came over me when she asked those three little words. Are you okay?
I looked at her for a minute, not sure at all how to answer, and I felt tears rollin’ down my cheeks before I even knew I was cryin’.
“I don’t know.” I said, and that was the honest truth.
✽✽✽
Miss Ora came back out about the time Patrice got there to pick up the kids, and by then, Cheryl and I was sittin’ side by side on the couch talkin’ like we was old friends.
Patrice had a bag of groceries and a gallon of milk and she eyed us sideways before she went into the kitchen to put the food away. Miss Ora followed her in there and I could hear ’em whisperin’ in there like they didn’t want me to hear what they were sayin’. And I couldn’t, but I still figured it was about me.
When Patrice came back out, Cheryl said, “You’re just in time. Grace and I were just about to look through the yearbooks I brought.”
Sister looked confused for a minute. “I thought we were…I didn’t mean for Grace to…Grace knows what we’re looking for?”
“Well, duh,” Cheryl said. “Of course she knows. She’s the one who saw ’em in the first place.”
“Saw who?” Miss Ora asked from the doorway of the kitchen.
All three of us turned our heads to look at her. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with her hearin’, that’s for sure.
“The three boys with Skipper. That’s who we’re looking for, right?” Cheryl leaned over and picked up one of the yearbooks sitting in a stack on the side table.
“Well, yeah,” Sister said, “but I was just looking for their names right now.”
“Who are you talking about?” Miss Ora had come into the living room by then.
Patrice held up both hands. “Okay, wait. I asked Cheryl last night if she remembered the names of the boys Skipper hung out with in high school. I overheard her telling Kamilah there were two other boys there the day…” She hesitated, so Cheryl finished the sentence for her.
“The day she was raped.” I felt her warm hand squeeze my leg just above my knee. It’s like she was telling me, hang on. I got this t
hing. “You gotta be able to say this out loud, Reese. Gracie was raped. There is no shame in that. She’s gotta hear you say it out loud. Y’all can’t keep tiptoeing around this thing. That’s the biggest problem y’all have right now. Those boys are out there, just goin’ on with their lives like nothin’ ever happened, but it did. It happened to Grace and it happened to this whole family.”
“And you’re trying to figure out who they are?” Miss Ora asked.
“Yeah, Patrice and I were going to look through the yearbooks to see if it would jog our memories, but I thought it’d be good if Grace looked, too.”
Cheryl just like her mama sometimes. Patrice dropped her shoulders like she was just surrenderin’ to the tide that was Cheryl Kincaid. Then Miss Ora dropped her bomb.
“I know their names. I’ve always known their names.”
“You do?” Patrice sat on the couch beside Cheryl and looked up at Miss Ora, who was drying her hands on a kitchen towel.
“Of course, it was…”
“Wait!” Patrice threw a palm up at Miss Ora. “Let’s let Grace look first. If she recognizes their faces without knowing their names, she’ll be a better witness.”
“Good point,” Cheryl said.
“Witness for what? They never touched me.” I felt myself beginning to shake all over, and I think Cheryl felt it, too. Her hand was still resting on my thigh.
“Okay, let’s slow down a minute,” Patrice said. “I think we’re about to run this train off the rails. What are we trying to do here?”
We all just kind of looked at each other for a little bit. Nobody seemed to want to answer that question. Finally, it was Miss Ora who spoke.
“All I wanted to do was to tell the truth about Grace. I feel like we owe it to her, and we owe it to Eddie. Really, that’s all I ever wanted.”
36 - Patrice
Grace scanned the 1975 and ’76 yearbooks without saying a word. When she got to Skipper Kornegay’s class picture, she put her thumb over his face and continued to look at one photo after another. I kept waiting for her to break down, but she didn’t.
She also didn’t recognize anyone from the tiny rectangular photos covering the pages. We kept thumbing through, though, and finally landed in the sports section. The football team got the biggest spread, of course, being the gods they always were back then. There were plenty of shots of the cheerleaders, too, including me with my glorious Afro and Cheryl with her long blonde ponytail and slightly bowed legs.
“Look how skinny I was.” Cheryl looked wistfully at her much younger self. “I would kill to look like that now.”
“You and me, both,” I said.
“That’s how I remember you, Sister. I begged Mama to let me have a ’fro, but y’all kept me in braids all the time. I did not think that was fair.”
I rolled my eyes. “You think that wasn’t fair…Mama made me sit there and braid all y’all’s hair. One at a time. It took hours.”
“Yeah, I know…hours of sittin’ there gettin’ my hair pulled and twisted. I still hate the smell of Vaseline.”
She had a point there. She was the squirmiest of the three girls. The twins would sit still for me, but I always had to let Gracie have several breaks.
“You hated getting your hair done, period.” I said. “I’d get three or four rows done, then have to let you run play. I wish I had a picture of you running around with half your hair in cornrows and half of it sticking straight up from your head where I’d combed it all out.”
Grace grinned. “I remember that. I’d go to the bathroom and scare myself in the mirror.”
We were still laughing at that when Grace turned the page to a half-page photo of Skipper Kornegay and three other boys, arms slung over each other’s shoulders. They were all in baseball uniforms, gloves tucked under their arms. Skipper held a bat loosely in one hand, its tip resting on the toe of his cleats. Grace took one look and choked, the sound of her laughter squeezed into a muted wail.
“Oh,” Grace leaned back against the couch and squinted at the picture. “Oh, wow.”
“Is that them?” I asked.
“That’s who I remember him hanging out with,” Cheryl said. “They called themselves the Four Musketeers.”
Miss Ora was sitting across the room in her recliner. “Allen Madison, Jimbo Hardy and Donnie Allred,” she said in a slow monotone.
“Bingo,” Cheryl said.
“That’s them,” Grace said. “I’m pretty sure.”
Miss Ora got up and went into the kitchen. We could hear her rummaging around and then it went silent.
“You all right?” Cheryl asked Grace.
Grace shut the yearbook with both hands and slid it onto the coffee table.
“I’m good,” she said, then repeated. “I’m good. I don’t need to look at ’em again, but I’m good.”
“You sure?” I asked.
I heard her say she was okay, but something didn’t feel right and the hair stood up on the back of my neck.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Grace said, “but I promised to fix Miss Ora and me some supper.”
She didn’t even look at us then. She went straight to the kitchen. Cheryl and I had just enough time to exchange bewildered glances when Grace yelled from the kitchen.
“Oh, my God, Sister! Miss Ora? Miss Ora? Sister, call 9-1-1.”
37 – Grace
I ain’t never been so scared as I was seein’ Miss Ora on the floor like that. Her skin was ashy gray and her breathin’ was real shallow. I hollered for Patrice and knelt down beside Miss Ora on the floor. I took her wrist and felt for her pulse with my thumb. It was thready, like a’ overdose.
“Miss Ora, don’t leave me,” I whispered. I lifted her head up and pulled her into my lap just as Sister appeared. She had the phone in her hand and was dialing.
“What happened?” she asked me as she put the phone to her ear.
“I don’t know. I found her on the floor. She’s breathin’, but just barely.”
I sat there and stroked Miss Ora’s hair as I heard Sister talkin’ to the dispatcher. It was probably only five minutes before the first responders got there. We’re not but a few blocks from the fire department. They had her all hooked up to monitors by the time the ambulance arrived. Actually, Dovey Kincaid beat the ambulance there. Guess she hustled over soon as she saw the firetruck.
Cheryl calmed her mama down while Patrice stayed with me. She made me sit at the kitchen table and focus on breathing calm and slow.
One of the medics asked, “Who’s her next of kin?” and Patrice and I both said, “We are.”
“You’re related to her?”
“Not officially,” Patrice said.
“We need next of kin,” he said.
“I live here,” Grace said. “I’m as close as you’re gonna get.”
“Do you know what medication she takes?” he asked me.
“Not off the top of my head, but I know where she keeps it. I’ll be right back.”
I went upstairs to her room and passed the door to Miss Ora’s old sewing room. The kids were sitting there, glued to the TV. They hadn’t heard a thing. I tiptoed by them and grabbed the plastic box of medicines Miss Ora kept on her bedside table. When I went back by, they both looked up.
“What’s going on?” Shawn asked.
I stopped and tried to think of what was a good way to answer him, but I needed to hurry so I just said, “Miss Ora ain’t well. Paramedics fixin’ to take her to the hospital.”
They both jumped up and followed me back down the stairs. I handed the meds off and turned around to make sure the kids were all right. Rochelle tried to go right up to Miss Ora, but Shawn took her by the shoulders and backed her up into a space by the table out of the way. He pulled her close to his chest, wrapped his arms around her and held both of her hands in his. He was saying something into her ear, but I couldn’t hear what it was. I went over and stood by my babies.
Rochelle looked up at me just as a tear rolled down h
er cheek.
“Is Miss Ora gonna be okay, Mama?”
I couldn’t help it. I just burst into tears, and only partly ’cause of Miss Ora.
“I hope so, baby,” I managed. “I sure hope so.”
I put my hand on Shawn’s shoulder and he did not pull away.
38 – Patrice
When the ambulance pulled out of the driveway, I picked up the phone and called my Aunt Tressa. It’s not like me to call for help, but I knew as sure as I knew my name, I could not handle this on my own. She promised she would work her schedule around so she could be here within a few days. I felt guilty asking her. This was not her cross to bear, but she reassured me as best she could that she wanted to come.
My brain raced with details I had to consider, both immediate and long-term. Is Miss Ora dying? Is this the beginning of the end? Will she need care going forward? What about Grace? Will she be okay alone? Where will the kids go after school tomorrow? Does Miss Ora have any family to notify? Would she want me to notify them? I’d never heard her say a word about a cousin or nephew or niece. Far as I knew, she had no one. I couldn’t remember the few details she’d laid out about the house, and I wasn’t sure if the trust had even been filed. I didn’t even remember the name of her family attorney.
I shook my head of all the noise and called Kamilah next. If I ever doubted her concern for our family, I never will again. She was at Miss Ora’s house in less than fifteen minutes. She has such a calming countenance about her, we all breathed a sigh of relief when she arrived.
Bless Dovey’s heart, she went straight to the kitchen and started making supper. Cheryl took the kids back upstairs with the promise that we’d let them know as soon as we heard anything. After we ate, Grace and I went to the hospital to check on Miss Ora. Cheryl took the kids to my house. For once in my life, I felt like I had a real support network, like I didn’t have to do everything for everything to get done.
The Truth About Grace Page 13