“Take this,” she said. “I told Miss Ora how much I spent and how much I owe her, and now I’m telling you. I can’t stay clean if I know it’s there.”
I pulled the plastic lid off and looked inside at the rolled-up bills.
“How long have you had this?”
“Long enough,” she said.
“Have you broken the contract?” I could feel the heat rising in the back of my neck. All I could think was, not now. Dear God, not now.
“No!” Her answer was swift, but I’d heard it before. “That’s why I’m giving it to you. You can test me. We can go right now.”
I heard Kamilah’s voice in my ear. Lead with love. Give her a reason to want to get well.
“We can go in the morning,” I heard myself say. “That way we’ll both know we did the right thing. This is good, Grace. You can tell me later how much you owe Miss Ora.”
I swear I saw my baby sister rise up two inches taller.
“I been thinkin’ a lot about how much I owe everybody. If I try too hard to work it out in numbers, it gets overwhelming. I can’t give you back the years you’ve spent raisin’ my kids. I can only focus on the examples y’all set for me. I need to stay busy, Sister. That money been callin’ to me every day, and I been proud every day I didn’t use it. But I didn’t wanna give it up. Kinda like a safety net, you know? But that ain’t right thinkin’. So I want you to put that money away now. I’m gonna step up and take care of things like I should. The kids is out of school next week for summer break. I want ’em here every day. And when Miss Ora get outta the hospital, I can take care of her here. I can do it, Sister. I need to do this.”
I reached out and hugged Grace tight. I was so afraid I’d say the wrong thing, I said nothing at all. I’m afraid she’ll take on more than she can handle, but I don’t want to discourage her. If she believes she can do it, maybe she will.
✽✽✽
Grace went upstairs to help Shawn and Rochelle with their homework while I waited for Rebecca to arrive, which she did about a half an hour later. She is the same in many ways, but different. She is calm, assured, pleasant, but still distant and wound pretty tight.
“So how’d you say you found out about this story?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but I’m certain I failed.
She narrowed her eyes and laughed – more like snorted. “I didn’t say,” she said, taking out a leather-bound notebook and pen. “And I’m not going to say. If that’s a deal-breaker, tell me now. I’ll do it without you.”
Lordy, same old Rebecca, no doubt.
We chatted briefly about high school and college and the fact that neither of us had married, which made me curious.
“I saw your byline. You go by Yager-Mills now?”
“I have a partner,” she said, flipping open her notepad. “We both hyphenated.”
“Ah, what’s her name? Anyone I know?”
Rebecca stopped and studied me over the top of the pad for a few seconds. “Maybe. You remember Debbie Mills?”
“Hah!” I slapped my thigh. “I knew that’s who you were going to say. I do remember her! Do you still stomp on her foot when she makes you mad?”
Rebecca laughed so hard, she started coughing.
“Damn cigarettes,” she said, still hacking. “I can’t believe you remember that.”
“Girl, I remember a lot. I was in awe of you.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” she said with the first smile I’d seen on her face today. What an amazing thing a smile can do. I’d never thought of Rebecca as pretty before.
She took out a digital recorder and put it on the table in front of me. “Mind if I record?”
“Not at all. Let me go get Grace, though,” I said, standing. “I’d really like for her to tell you her story.”
“I’d rather talk with you separately, if that’s all right.”
I sat back down. “Okay, sure. I don’t know a lot, only what I’ve been told, really.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “This can be a little tedious, but it works better for me to hear from one person at a time.”
Rebecca leaned forward and pressed a button on the recorder.
“Rebecca Yager-Mills, Interview with Patrice Lowery, Attorney-at-law, May 26, 2001. Miss Lowery, I am taping this interview for future use in an article or articles to be written by me. If you agree to the interview, please state your name and occupation and your consent to record our conversation.”
I answered her questions as best I could, and I soon realized she already knew some of the answers. It bothered me not to know who she’d spoken to first. I’d done depositions before, but this was different. I felt awkward. I train my clients to answer only the question asked, but this was the opposite of what Rebecca hoped from me. Eventually I relaxed and it felt more like conversation than interrogation.
She asked me very little about the things I’d heard secondhand. She focused more on what my childhood was like, who my mother was, and what kind of brother Marcus was. I was honest with her. My childhood was pretty idyllic, from my perspective anyway, until my father died when I was ten. His mother, my grandmother, was living with us at the time and she took it harder than all of us. She was the only grandparent I ever knew, and she only lasted about four years after Daddy died. That was when I had to grow up and start taking care of things. From that time on, I watched Gracie every day after school while Mama worked. She’d get home about four or five every day and fix supper, but for two years, Marcus and I coordinated our schedules to make sure someone was home to take care of Grace. We never fought about it, either. It was just the way things were. Every now and then, we’d have to ask one of the neighbors to watch her for an hour or so after she got off the bus, but I’m pretty sure there was a time or two when she went home to an empty house for a little while. Our world was safe, normal, happy. Even when I was home, Grace spent half her time off in the neighborhood, playing with her friends. I think I told her these things to justify why I let her walk to Miss Ora’s by herself. Rebecca took notes and asked occasional leading questions.
“What do you remember about the day your brother died?”
“Very little,” I said. “We were all devastated, especially Gracie. She would wake up calling for him every night. The twins took it hard, of course, but they had each other. I felt like I was the one really left stranded.”
“So you were close?”
“Very. I idolized him. But I was also the one who had to be strong. Mama grieved, of course, but she was always stoic. I remember crying about something one time and she told me I’d cried enough and I needed to stop. It was one of the few times I talked back to my mother. I told her she hadn’t cried once since the funeral and she must not even miss Marcus. ‘Don’t you worry about whether or not I cry,’ she said. ‘I buried my son. You come back and tell me what I oughta do when you bury one of your children.’ That’s how Mama was. She knew exactly what to say to make you regret opening your mouth. Of course, I know now that Mama was heartbroken. I knew she changed some after Daddy died, but after Marcus…well, she was a different person altogether. It was like she built a fortress around her that no one was going to get through. She loved us, though. No doubt about that.”
I heard Grace coming down the stairs then and realized Rebecca and I had been talking a full hour. I stood then and greeted my sister.
“I’m going to go in and make us some supper while you talk to Rebecca. The kids are probably starving.”
“They claim they are, but I know better.” She took a deep breath and let it out at once. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”
43 – Grace
That Rebecca girl is somethin’ else. I don’t think I’d wanna be alone in an alley with her, that’s for sure. It’s a little hard to read her and we were quiet at first. She was fiddlin’ with her recorder like it wasn’t working right or something.
“I’m just a little curious about all this,” I said. “What’s your plan?”
; “My plan?” She seemed irritated by the question.
“Yeah, like, why are you doing this?”
“Same reason I always have – to tell the story. I have no ulterior motive, Miss Lowery, if that’s what you mean. I was asked to write the story, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Who asked you?” I demanded.
“Technically, my boss,” she said. “I got the lead directly, but I had to clear it with him first.”
“Directly from whom?” I asked again.
“Miss Lowery, I’ll tell you like I told your sister. I do not divulge any sources at all. Not ever. I just don’t.”
I stared at her a minute. Some people just full of themselves.
“Fine, but I don’t know who you’re talkin’ to when you say Miss Lowery. I’m just Grace.”
She said, “Fair enough,” and started right in. She asked for my name and occupation, and that bugged me just enough to get smart with her. “Grace Lowery, Recovering Drug Addict. You can record whatever you want. Don’t matter to me.”
I figured out pretty quick she don’t react to nothin’ I say, so I got ahold of myself and started talkin’ straight. She ain’t bad, really. She just serious as all get-out.
So I ended up tellin’ my story all over again, which ain’t easy, especially when you’re talkin’ to a stranger.
“So tell me about the boys on bicycles,” she said. “Had you ever seen them before that day?”
“I don’t remember. If I did, I didn’t pay ’em no mind.”
“Did you see them after the rape?”
I had to think about that a minute.
“Seems like I did, but it’s all confusing. I didn’t think I’d be able to pick them out of the yearbook, but I recognized ’em right off. I remember a time or two I kinda freaked out. Once when I saw that white-haired boy and another time when I saw some boys on bicycles downtown. I don’t know if they were the same ones or not. You gotta understand, my mama told me the rape never happened, that I just dreamed it. I grew up tryin’ to make myself believe her.”
“Why do you think she told you that?” Rebecca stopped writing in her notebook and looked hard at me.
“Miss Ora say it’s ’cause Mama didn’t think the police’d believe me. Knowin’ what I know now, I’d say she prob’ly right. But I also think Mama the one didn’t wanna deal with it. She was scared for me, but she was scared for the whole family, includin’ herself. And there was Marcus off at boot camp and us girls always home alone. No tellin’ what they’da done to us back then. Just no tellin’.”
“So you went twenty-five more years thinking you’d had a nightmare instead? You didn’t question that at all?”
I ’bout came up outta my chair. “Girl, come on,” I said. “Of course I questioned it. I questioned it every day. Sometimes out loud, sometimes just in my head. It never made sense to me, but eventually Mama stopped answering my questions. ‘Enough about that dream,’ she said. ‘How many times I tol’ you? Stop askin’ me all the time.’ And I finally stopped asking. But I never stopped questionin’. I didn’t get the real answer ‘til Mr. Pecan died.”
“How’d you feel after that?”
“About like you’d imagine, if you actually could imagine. I loved my mother, and I love Miss Ora, but I felt betrayed in the worst way. I guess I got a little of my mama in me, ’cause at some point you just have to let it go. Stop studyin’ on it, as Mama used to say.”
“Can we talk a little about your substance abuse?” She just throws stuff in the air to see where it lands, I think.
“What do you wanna know?”
“When did it start? How old were you? Why do you think you were drawn to drugs? That kind of thing.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and stretched.
“Somebody at my AA meeting the other day called it unresolved business. I think that’s exactly it. I had some issues I never addressed. I didn’t even know how to address them, you know? It’s like a ghost standing in your living room. You can see it there, and it’s jumpin’ out at ya’ goin’ boo! But nobody else sees it, and it ain’t like you can pick it up and move it. So, you just live with it as long as you can. Then one day you figure out that you can’t see it either when you’re high. So you get high and you feel better for a little bit. But then you open your eyes and there sits the ghost, laughin’ his ass off.”
She actually smiled then. “I like your analogies. Do you write?”
I had to study her a minute to see if she was makin’ fun of me, but she seemed serious.
“I journal some, and I used to write really bad poetry, but no, not really.”
That wasn’t actually true, but I didn’t feel like sharing anything with her, so I lied.
“So, I think we can stop here.” Rebecca leaned up and turned off the recorder, then stood and stretched.
Patrice came in then, wiping her hands on a towel. “Can you stay for supper? I’ve got plenty.”
“No, but thank you. Deb’s cooking tonight. I’d best get home.”
“So how’d we do?” Patrice asked her. “Do you need to talk to Miss Ora? It will be a while, but I can set it up when she’s able.”
“I think I’m good for right now. Maybe later. I have a little research to do. I’ve pulled some of the police reports, one on your brother’s accident and a couple on the Kornegay murder. It will take me a while on some of that investigation.”
“I’ve never seen the report on Marcus’s wreck. Do you mind sharing it with me later?” Patrice put the towel down and followed Rebecca to the door.
I went upstairs to get Shawn and Rochelle while they said their goodbyes. They were still talking when we came back down. Rebecca came at me with her hand stuck out, so I shook it.
“Thanks for being so forthright with me today. I gotta say, you’re kind of a breath of fresh air,” she said.
“I hope that’s a good thing,” I said.
Shawn and I started getting food to the table while Patrice walked her out to her car.
“Who’s that?” Rochelle asked me the second the front door closed.
“She writes for the newspaper,” I said. “You wash your hands?”
She froze for a second, then went to the kitchen sink to wash up.
Shawn got the plates out of the cabinet but stopped before he passed me on the way to the dining room. “They writing a story about you?”
“Kinda,” I said. “Mostly about Mr. Pecan, I think. I wish you’da known him, Shawn.”
“What was he to me?” Shawn asked.
“He was your great-granddaddy.” And he was great, I thought to myself. A great man.
44 – Patrice
Grace passed a drug screen the next day. We had decided to send her for random tests at the lab, which they would call for and conduct, and she’s had one so far, which she also passed. This time we used the over-the-counter brand we’d bought for emergencies. My instinct was to say, “It’s okay, I believe you,” but I followed the plan instead, and was relieved to have evidence rather than doubt or suspicion.
We called a family meeting for the next evening, to include our twin sisters Danita and Re’Netta, Grace, Aunt Tressa and Kamilah. Miss Ora was still in the hospital but scheduled to go to a skilled nursing facility soon where they offered on-site physical therapy. The stroke was fairly mild, I was assured, but she needed help recovering some fine motor skills. Already her speech was improving and her face was almost completely unfrozen.
Danita brought her two children Alex and Mica, who are close in age to Shawn and Rochelle. Because of the situation with Grace, the cousins grew up spending a lot of time together but haven’t gotten to see each other as much since Mama died. The first thing they did was head upstairs to “their room” as they now call it.
As soon as the twins arrived, I was filled with nostalgia and longing for…well…I was going to say the good old days, but that seems a bit optimistic. On the other hand, we did have good times. There was a lot of laughter in ou
r family, at our home and here at Miss Ora’s.
“Feels weird here without Miss Ora,” Re’Netta said. She’d come into the kitchen with me to help me get a tray of drinks for everyone.
“It does,” I agreed. “I asked Miss Ora if she wanted me to take Grace to my house and she said ‘absolutely not.’ I think she was worried about her house being empty, if you want to know the truth.”
“When is she coming home?” Re’Netta cracked an ice tray and started to fill the glasses lined up on the counter.
“Soon, I hope. That’s really what we’re meeting about tonight. Just where to go from here and what to do about Grace and the kids. I have a full schedule this summer. I’m a little worried about how we’ll manage everything.”
We finished our work and headed for the dining room where everyone was seated and chatting. Aunt Tressa had landed at the head of the table, which felt fitting somehow. I hadn’t known her long, but her presence was a comfort to me. Grace sat to Aunt Tressa’s left and Kamilah to her right. Danita was next to Grace, her arm already forming a protective circle around Grace’s shoulders. Re’Netta placed the tray of iced tea and water glasses in the center of the table and took a seat at the other end.
Before we could start the meeting, the doorbell rang, and I got up to answer it. Dovey Kincaid didn’t wait for me to invite her in, she just stepped across the threshold the second I swung the door back.
“What’s happened? I saw all the cars. Is it Mrs. Beckworth? Is she okay?”
“Hey, Miss Dovey,” I said by way of greeting. “She’s fine. We’re just having a family meeting to discuss what’s going to happen when she comes home, that’s all.”
Lord help me, that woman flung herself into the nearest wing chair, picked up a magazine from the coffee table and started fanning herself.
“Thank God,” she said. “I thought maybe she died. I just couldn’t stand it. I had to know.”
I closed the door and stood there a moment trying not to laugh at her dramatics.
The Truth About Grace Page 15