Grace Above All

by Jane St. Anthony

27

  In her dream, Grace walked with Frankie down an endless wooded path. The sun worshipped Frankie, highlighting his hair and casting him in vivid relief against the unbroken blue of the sky.

  An unwelcome pattering on the roof woke her. Today was Thursday, a day to walk with Frankie.

  “Gracie, what will we do today?” Beth leaned over Grace, her warm breath smelling of toast. “It’s raining.”

  Rain? Rain should be forbidden at cabins. It hadn’t rained the entire time they’d been here. Why now?

  “I don’t know, Bethie,” she said. “We’ll think of something.”

  Grace shut her eyes against reality. Tomorrow they would go. She wanted to stay at the cabin as desperately as she had wanted to leave it on the first day.

  The light in the cabin was a feeble gray. Pinky sat in a chair by the window, a low-watt bulb in an unshaded lamp providing him with enough illumination to pore over Frankie’s comics again.

  “What time is it, Pinky?” Grace asked. Pinky looked up, then reached into his T-shirt pocket. He carried a pocket watch that he had found in a church parking lot. In another family, someone would have made him call the Lost and Found. But Grace never said anything because Pinky was so pleased with it.

  “It’s ten-twelve,” he said, snapping the cover shut and returning the watch to his pocket. “Probably ten-thirteen by now.”

  “We could play games, Gracie,” said Beth.

  From the other side of the room, Chuck rustled in his bed. “Frankie’s cabin has lots of games,” he said. “If you can think of a game, they have it.”

  “Can we ask him if we can come over?” said Polly, hidden in the gloom on the other side of the room.

  “It’s so neat over there,” Grace said. “I don’t know if Grandpa Ernest and Frankie’s dad want us tracking mud on their floor.”

  “We could take our shoes off,” said Pinky.

  “I’ll ask,” Chuck said, his voice muffled under the covers.

  If Chuck asked, it was Chuck’s show. Grace racked her brain. She and Frankie had planned to go on a walk. Now the day was turning into a circus. How could she take control back? Did she have to stay up every night making contingency plans?

  “Hey, it’s darker in here than it is outside,” Frankie called from the porch. “Is Grace in there?” Frankie stepped inside the cabin after stomping his feet to discharge some of the water.

  Grace pulled the sheet up to her chin as Frankie looked down on her. “Hi,” she said, hoping that her sour night breath wouldn’t float up to him.

  “Grandpa’s in the car on his way to go grocery shopping, and he said that I could ask you to come along.”

  “He’s in the car?”

  “Yup.”

  “Will he wait while I get dressed?”

  “I guess so. He probably thought that you were, you know, up.”

  “Give me two minutes.”

  Frankie surveyed the room. “Hi, Polly. Hi, Pinky. Hi, Beth.”

  “You go outside,” Grace said, still under the sheet. “Then the two minutes start.”

  Frankie walked over to Chuck and tapped him on the head as if he were knocking at the door. “Hey, big guy, how much beauty sleep do you need?”

  When the porch door slammed after Frankie, Grace raced into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and dressed. She ran a comb through her hair and pulled it into a ponytail as she moved back into the big room, then ran her hand under the rollaway for her tennis shoes.

  “Tell Bernadette I’ll be back in a while,” she said to Polly. “Did you say something, Bethie?”

  “What about the games, Gracie?”

  “We’ll ask Frankie when I get back, okay?”

  “Okay, Gracie.”

  Grace paused to look at Beth, who gave Grace an expectant smile, equal parts hope and disappointment.

  “Okay,” Beth repeated softly.

  Grace knew what she had to do even though she felt sick with misery. “I’m coming right back,” she said to Beth. “I’m not leaving you this morning after all.”

  She didn’t bother to look for a jacket before walking outside into the rain. Frankie opened the back door of the car for her.

  “I can’t go with you,” she said, rain running into her eyes. “I want to, but I can’t.”

  “Will you tell me why later?”

  “Yes.”

  “Should I come over when we get back?”

  “Do you think I could bring the kids to your cabin?”

  “Sure.”

  “They want to see your game collection.”

  Grace backed away from the car and held her hand up in farewell. She didn’t want Frankie to think that she was mad at him. Through the rain-blurred window, Frankie waved back. Grandpa tapped the horn two times. Good. Bye.

  On the porch, Grace kicked off her shoes and shook her wet head.

  “I should have gone with Frankie,” Chuck said.

  “You could have,” Grace said, without stopping. She crossed the big room and paused in the hallway. Cigarette smoke escaped from underneath Bernadette’s door.

  28

  Grace’s resolve began to falter. But she walked up to Bernadette’s door and pushed it open. Bernadette looked up from her magazine and blew smoke out of her nostrils.

  “What’s up, Gracie?”

  Grace didn’t have one thing to say. She had a multitude of grievances. But with Bernadette, you had one chance to speak before she would say that you must be having a hell of a day, or blow smoke out of her ears for a laugh, or ask if you were having your period. Grace took two deep breaths to steady herself. She had given up a date with Frankie, even if they were only going into town with Grandpa. Beth and Pinky lived in anticipation of being let down. Dad had gone. That stunk. Everything stunk. Why didn’t Bernadette see that?

  “I cannot stand how you act,” she said to Bernadette, the words rolling out of her mouth as if they had been lined up. “Or maybe I can’t stand how you don’t act.”

  “Gracie, Gracie, Gracie,” Bernadette said. “You sound like a four-year-old.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Did your boyfriend disappear? Is that why your underwear’s in a bundle?”

  “Don’t do that to me. I’m sick of it.” Shaking, Grace crossed the room and grabbed her mother’s sheet. But instead of dramatically flinging it off Bernadette as intended, Grace released it as soon as she had grasped it. Bernadette stubbed her cigarette out in the bedside ashtray, as though extinguishing Grace’s determination.

  “Grace, really, I’m minding my own business and you barge in here like a banshee.” Bernadette’s skin had an unhealthy, pasty look to it. No makeup, Grace realized.

  “Mama, I’m just so tired of taking care of everything,” she said.

  Bernadette pushed her legs out of bed and her feet into their flip-flops. She put her terry-cloth robe over her baby doll pajamas and stuffed a packet of cigarettes into her pocket.

  “ ‘Mama’?” she said to Grace, who was now sitting next to her on the bed. “I haven’t heard that word from you in about a hundred years.”

  “It surprised me, too,” Grace muttered, putting her face in her hands.

  “I suppose I’m not really the motherly type,” said Bernadette. Grace listened to her remove the top from a bottle of hand lotion. She sensed Bernadette’s motions as she rubbed the lotion onto one elbow and then the other. She waited for Bernadette to add another sentence. There should be another sentence.

  A knock at the bedroom door broke the silence. “Grace, I can’t find the jelly,” Polly said. “Are you in there, Grace?”

  “It was a breeze being pregnant,” said Bernadette. She stood up and patted her stomach, flat through the white robe. “Maybe I’ll be a better grandma.” She walked across the room to the door. “But why would I be? You know what I was? I was a fun girl. Gracie. You got gypped. I love you guys. But you were gypped of a mother.” She opened the door. “Your turn, Polly.”

  Polly entered and Berna
dette disappeared into the hallway. “She isn’t really a good mom, is she?” said Polly, struggling not to cry. “Sometimes I try to remember that she’s pretty.”

  Grace patted the bed next to her that had been warmed by Bernadette. Polly sat and flung her arms around Grace’s neck. As Polly’s tears spilled, Grace gave thanks for her sweatshirt. At least Polly wasn’t leaking all over her skin.

  “I heard Mom say she loved us,” Polly sobbed.

  Polly seemed to be stuck to Grace, adding an unpleasant warmth, but Grace decided to let her have another minute so that she wouldn’t feel rejected by everyone in her life. She counted to sixty in her head as quickly as she could.

  “Okay, Pol, let’s go.”

  Polly wiped her nose on her pajama sleeve. “What should we do, Gracie?”

  “About what?”

  “I heard what Mom said.”

  “That’s not news, is it?”

  “But she said she loves us.”

  “She did say that.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  Grace sighed deeply, noting how old and useless sighing made her feel. “Yes, that’s good. She said that. But it’s how you love someone that matters.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. It just sounded good.”

  Polly wiped her nose on the other sleeve. “Gracie, could I live with you when we’re grownups?”

  “If I’m dead, that should work out,” Grace almost said. But she stopped the words, enjoying them without saying them out loud. “If we don’t have to share the toothpaste,” she said. “I hate that.”

  “Okay,” Polly replied, as if they had just paid the first month’s rent.

  “Let’s make some dessert for the party now. It’s still raining. Maybe we’ll make two desserts.”

  They stood up together.

  Nothing was different except that Polly had stopped crying. Grace might have asked Bernadette if she would try a little bit, for Pinky and Beth. If Bernadette knew that she was a crummy mother, she must know what a good one was like. Couldn’t she pretend?

  She, Grace, could act. She had wanted to say something mean to Polly, but she had let it go and acted as if Polly were a real person. Her heart had made an infinitesimal adjustment, stopping itself before it grew crooked or something.

  Crooked. When had Hilda realized that she was beginning to slant the wrong way? And Bernadette? She was as crooked as a parent could be. Did it begin before anyone realized what was happening? Should she worry? No. She might be Hilda-crooked someday, but she would never, ever be Bernadette.

  29

  The rain stopped early in the afternoon, and the kids trooped over to Frankie’s cabin for games. The party, Grandpa Ernest told them, would start at five o’clock because Hilda and Gunda went to bed early.

  “I thought this was the party,” Pinky said.

  “It seems that there are two parties today,” said Grandpa. Then he returned to town and picked up Hilda and Gunda. By the time they arrived back at the cabin, everyone else was on the beach.

  Grandpa helped Hilda down the wooden steps. Right behind them came Frankie’s dad and Gunda, who tried to hold on to Hilda’s shoulder as well as her escort’s arm.

  “Hey, girls,” Bernadette called up. “Welcome back to your beach.”

  Polly huddled behind Chuck, the only person big enough to hide behind.

  “Don’t worry. Gunda will have a lot of kids to choose from,” Grace said to her. “If she decides on Chuck, it should take her all night to lug him from one spot to another.”

  “Hello, Bernadette!” Hilda said in her high voice when she reached the sand. “This young man must be Charles, the oldest. I remember the other children.”

  “You’re right. This is Chuck.”

  Chuck stared at Hilda, who looked even odder on the beach than she had in her house or any of the other places Grace had seen her.

  “How do you do, ma’am?” Chuck said very slowly.

  “Very well, thank you.” Hilda smiled sweetly.

  “Where am I? Who is he?” Grace whispered to Polly because she was the nearest person.

  “You remember my grandson, Frankie, from the park,” Grandpa said. “This is my son, Tom.”

  After everyone including Gunda had been introduced, Gunda stared at Polly. “Girl,” she said in her low voice.

  Polly smiled a tortured smile at her. “Hi, Gunda,” she said, raising her arm stiffly in what looked to be more of an attempt to shield herself than to greet Gunda.

  “Such a lovely family,” Hilda said, raising her little turtle head a bit higher as she scanned the faces. “Perhaps I should have taken my Gunda out more to play with other children. But I tried to do my best, I truly did.” She snapped back to the present. “I can’t seem to recall Pinky’s real name.”

  “Patrick,” said Bernadette. “His dad picked it. As a matter of fact, I had a name for each kid. But my husband chose a different one for each birth certificate while I was busy turning back into a human being after giving birth.”

  “What was my name?” Grace asked.

  “What?”

  “You said that you named us and Dad renamed us. What was my name?”

  “Ava. As in Ava Gardner.”

  Grace. Why had Dad chosen Grace over Ava? Did he like the sound of Grace or did he think that she would bring grace into their lives? Had he considered Catholic grace or the kind of grace that flows effortlessly from elegant people? Had Bernadette ever had grace or simply a lazy way that once passed for breeziness? She would have to talk to Dad about this. He was a good dad. But a lot of things didn’t add up.

  With wood that the kids found beneath the trees around the cabins, Frankie’s dad made the fire. Pinky stayed close to it and added kindling as Mr. Hale instructed. Pinky’s eyes looked worse than usual from the smoke, but he didn’t appear to be bothered. Everyone ate seated on the sand, except for Hilda, Gunda, and Grandpa Ernest, who had carried folding chairs down the steps to the beach.

  “Gunda’s not as scary when you can see what she’s up to,” Polly whispered to Grace. “Or maybe I’m getting used to her.” Polly relaxed when Beth sat at Gunda’s feet. After Gunda had finished her hot dog, the coleslaw that Frankie and his dad had made, and a brownie and a snickerdoodle cookie baked by Grace and Polly, Beth let Gunda hold her doll.

  While the kids played tag, the grownups talked. Grandpa Ernest announced that it was time to take Hilda and Gunda home when the sun looked about to be yanked below the horizon.

  “Bernadette, I hope that you’ll bring your family back to the cabin next year,” Hilda said, holding Grandpa’s arm while Gunda held on to her. “It’s so nice to have the families together.”

  “Maybe we’ll make the trek again,” Bernadette said. “We’re all that’s left of the old guard, I guess.”

  “You’re very fortunate to have your children,” Hilda said, as though imparting a secret. “I don’t know what I would do without my Gunda.”

  Bernadette followed the departing guests to the steps, then paused and turned around. “C’mon, Bethie. It’s time for your bedtime story. You, too, Pinky. Polly, you help me get the kids into their jammies. Chuck, help Gracie clean up.”

  Beth looked confused. After the initial shock, she followed Bernadette.

  “What did she say, Grace?” Pinky said, looking not only red around the eyes but as puzzled as Beth.

  “Did you hear what I heard?” Polly said to Grace.

  “You’d better catch up, Pinky,” said Grace. “Bernadette only reads a bedtime story once in a lifetime.”

  Grace and Frankie and Chuck cleaned up, and then played catch until the starry night turned into a dark and cloudy one.

  “See you in the city,” Chuck said to Frankie. “It’s been great.”

  “So long,” said Frankie.

  Frankie and Grace stayed on the beach. “So he knows that you don’t live that far from us, too?”

  “Right. It’s really no
farther than our walk into town. And on a bike, it’ll be a breeze.”

  “My house is a zoo, but you can come over.”

  “I will. Plus there are movies, and other places we can go to.”

  Before they walked up the steps holding hands, they leaned together in a kiss that felt as if their dry lips were free-floating away from their bodies. Water lapped in the background but, in the silence, sounded like a roar. Frankie looked into Grace’s eyes as if he had forgotten something in them. “I hoped that I’d see you every time I went outside,” he said. “I’m going to miss living next door to you.”

  “Me too,” said Grace. She went into the cabin. Chuck’s snoring didn’t bother her.

  30

  In the morning, Grace told the kids to look under their beds for lost items. Then they carried their bags of clothes to the car. Bernadette peered into the cupboards and drawers.

  “Gad, we’re going to have to stop in town for cigs,” she said, tucking a box of Sugar Frosted Flakes under her arm and picking up the small bag of extra groceries.

  “Can I drive, Ma?” Chuck asked.

  “Forget it, Chuck. Remember, no permit? How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “I’ll probably drive before you do,” said Polly.

  “Oh, sure,” Chuck answered, “and Pinky will fly.”

  “I think he could,” said Beth. “He might.”

  Pinky turned to Beth with an expression of immense gratitude. How did this sweetness bloom? Those two were still young. Chuck was wrecked. Polly lived in misery much of the time. Was there a chance that the little ones might be normal?

  Beth looked at Grace, who was mercifully alone in the back of the station wagon, as they drove away. “Grace,” she whispered, “Mommy read to us last night.”

  “Mommy read to you? Really?” What could she say to Beth? She could tell her friend Margaret that this event rivaled the Second Coming. “What did she read, Bethie?”

  “She read a story.”

  Bernadette would never think of bringing books for the kids. She barely remembered to bring the kids. “Did you and Pinky like the story?”

  Beth radiated satisfaction. “Gracie, there was a beautiful lady in it. But she got sick. Then her husband didn’t like her.”