Stolen Grace

by Arianne Richmonde

  In the open-air bathroom, Grace washed her hands with soap, the way her mom had shown her, making a creamy lather and rinsing them with lots of water. Once her Granny told her that if you didn’t wash your hands, tiny worms that you couldn’t see would wiggle all over you and find their way into your mouth. Then they would set up home in your stomach like it was a hotel! Yuk! So she knew that washing hands was a good thing to do, especially before you ate so you didn’t get nasty worms living in your tummy. Grace brushed her teeth, rinsed, and spat.

  High above her, the tall palm trees were swaying very gently in the breeze. The sky was even bluer than the ocean, and scurrying about on the sand, taking up their positions in the early morning sun, she could see the lizards. And her favorite turtle, big and slow, who had a shell the shape of a huge heart (whose name was Olive Ridley) was there in his usual place, hiding under the shrubs. Today he looked up at her with his sweet round eyes like glass balls and said, “Have a good day at school, Grace.” At least, that’s what she liked to imagine. Truthfully, she couldn’t see him so well, but still, she knew he must be there somewhere.

  Lucho had explained to her how important the turtles were, that the females came at least a couple of times a year in huge numbers, sometimes thousands at a time, to lay their eggs on the beach—the same beach where they were born. Always at night. It had a name, he said: the arribada. The female turtle would dig a hole in the sand with her fins and lay about a hundred eggs. But, Lucho warned, the local people had to be taught to not only not eat the eggs, but to not eat the turtles themselves! The locals had been doing it for centuries and it was hard to change old habits, he told her. Grace’s special turtle wasn’t the only Olive Ridley. In fact, they were all called Olive Ridley, because that was the name of the breed.

  There were other breeds too, all in danger, all on the menu for dinner. And those baby turtles, even if they were lucky enough to survive in the egg and hatch, had a dangerous journey. From the moment they split open the eggshell, they had to get across the beach and into the ocean. Would they make it? Snakes, big birds, and pigs could get them. Yes, even the greedy pig who liked Grace’s poop might like a tasty little baby turtle. Poor Olive Ridley and his family. Grace thought more about the DNA solution, and how she wanted to be a scientist when she grew up. Not only was she going to bring her Mom back, but Olive Ridley and all his Olive Ridley family. That is, if they didn’t make it in the future.

  She kept walking. Bits of stick kept poking her feet and she realized, too late, that her flip-flops had not been the best choice of footwear. And when she looked down at her shirt, white with yellow stripes (one that Mama Ruth had bought her after she got rid of all her real clothes), she saw trails of ketchup from last night’s dinner had run all the way down the front. It looked like blood. And there were patches of dirt on her shorts, too, from sitting on the ground. Uh oh! Her mom would have called her a “Ragamuffin,” a “Scallywag” or a “Street Urchin” looking so dirty. Those were her nicknames when she got all messy.

  Too late now to turn back. Elodie might wake up and find her money missing and call Lucho. Then she’d never get to school. Grace wondered how she would pay Elodie back for the money or if Elodie would even notice it was missing. Grace could paint her a picture as a trade, or brush her hair—she’d find a way. She did that with her mom sometimes. She had set up a hair salon and her mom was her most important client. And her dolls too. Perhaps Elodie could be a client then she’d have money for the bus every day to get to school.

  Grace kept on walking. She passed a farm with chickens and goats. There was a billy goat with big amber eyes, jumping up onto a rusty old tin drum, and jumping back down again, wagging his scraggy little tail. He was showing off to her, shaking his curvy horns and waggling his pointy white beard! The chickens were scrabbling about in the dirt, looking for things to nibble. Grace skipped on.

  The sun was getting higher, brighter, the sand turning into pure dirt beneath her flip-flops, and crusted between her toes. She passed giant bamboos and lemon trees . . . so pretty. She held Hideous Bear against a lemon to compare the yellow. Hideous Bear was orangeier but he had definitely lost his Factory Farmed look. In fact, he looked as if he’d been to war. He’d lost an eye—where and when she couldn’t be sure. It had happened overnight, one minute he had two huge shiny eyes, and the next he was half blind. She held him tight, his squidgy tummy pressing against her skinny brown arms, his pointy nose nestling against her birdy neck. Her heart missed a beat as she remembered Pidgey O Dollars and she gulped back a tear. But Hideous loved her with all his heart and soul, and “Yes, Ruth,” she said out loud, “he does have a soul. Tiene alma!” she cried in Spanish.

  In her head and in her dreams, Spanish and English mixed like a big flowery bouquet. It depended on what she was thinking about, what she was trying to describe. Ruth explained in her lessons that there were two ways of saying “to be” in Spanish. One way was forever and the other was just for a moment. If someone was pretty, Ruth told Grace, it was forever and she needed to use the verb ser but if they were hungry it wasn’t forever and she needed to use the verb estar. At the time, Grace questioned this. What about a pretty girl who turns into an ugly old lady, or a hungry baby who never gets a chance to eat and dies of starvation? But after listening to people talk, it started to make sense. In English, when someone died, it meant forever and ever and there was nothing you could do about it. But in Spanish, it was only for a while and that did make sense. Mi mamá está muerta. It wasn’t forever. Grace liked that notion, that her mother was only dead temporarily.

  While all these thoughts were swirling about in her head, she saw a group of women standing together in a knot by the side of the road. They had baskets and colored plastic shopping bags, woven in patterns. One of them carried an upside down chicken by its feet, as she chatted to her friend, forgetting about the animal while she gossiped away. Every once in a while, it would pathetically flap a wing but it was useless. This was what happened, Grace supposed, to non-factory-farmed animals. It was more personal. She’d seen pigs, too, in giant wicker baskets being carried on the back of mopeds. Perhaps, she decided, it was best never eat any animal ever again.

  A small bus pulled up next to the talking ladies and they all piled in, still babbling. Grace scurried up to the step, wondering where the big yellow school bus was and where all the girls were in their uniforms of blue skirts and white blouses. She heard the words Chinandega, all said together quickly in a row, and she climbed up the steps, following the women. They gave their coins, and as Grace was searching in her pocket for a córdoba, the bus driver drove off in a jerk. He didn’t ask her to pay her fare as he thought the chicken woman was her mother. As if her Real Mom would hold a chicken upside down!

  Grace thought about Ruth. Ruth would never be her mother. Only her mom was her mom and that was that. In fact, when Ruth got back, she wasn’t going to call her “Mama Ruth” or “Mama Rocío” or “Mommy”. Any More. She would call her just plain “Ruth.” And if she didn’t like it, well too bad!

  Grace sat at the back of the bus, squeezed in between big sacks of something extremely bulgy and a mother carrying a baby. The baby was coughing and had a runny nose, his eyes streaming with tears. But not tears of unhappiness, tears of a sick child. Nobody really noticed Grace, except one woman who smiled at her. Everybody else was busy talking about what they were going to buy at the market. Grace looked at the baby-woman and asked, “Chin Anne Dega?”

  “Sí, sí,” she replied, wiping her boy’s wet nose with her skirt.

  Grace looked out of the window and watched trees and fields go by. She saw huts with rough straw roofs and washing laid out on spiky plants. There were bony oxen pulling wooden carts, plowing fields. She could see their knobby ribs shining through their pale skin and pointed hips, like big triangles, jutting through. They looked tired in the hot sun. Every time somebody held up a hand or waved at the bus, it would stop. And every time the driver saw something in his
way, or even at the side of the road, he would beep his horn, long and hard. Poor people bicycling along were getting beeped at—even little children her size, pedaling on bicycles too big for them. Grace wondered how they managed to stay on their bikes with the shock of the bus noise. She remembered her bicycle back home, pink with bells and pom-poms. She hadn’t seen children’s bikes here, and certainly not pink ones.

  Her tummy was rumbling and gurgling, she already felt hungry. When she got to the town she’d buy a doughnut or something sweet. She wondered if Lucho would be asking why she wasn’t at breakfast. She pulled some coins out of her pocket to see how much she had. She knew all about cents and dollars, her dad had shown her and she knew how much each coin was worth when she bought candy. But this money was different. There was a shiny one, 50 centavos and another that said 1 córdoba. She remembered her dad giving her an old-fashioned British penny, a silver sixpence and a thrupenny bit. He collected coins. The penny was big and looked important but the smaller coins, the silver sixpence and the thrupenny bit, were worth more. She looked again at her Knicker Agua coins and decided they must be the same—the bigger the coin, the less it was worth—just like the penny. She had to be careful to keep that 50 safe because it was a 50. And the córdoba was only 1.

  CHAPTER 32

  Sylvia

  Sylvia and Melinda had finally made it to Rio after a major delay in São Paulo. They dragged themselves from the plane, exhausted, heaving their small but tightly packed backpacks onto their respective shoulders. As they stepped out of the Arrival doors to catch a taxi, Sylvia felt a warm breeze blow the hair away from her face. She switched on her old cell phone and waited for it to light up. She listened to her voice-mail. Nothing from Tommy. Why? She’d need to check her e-mail later, just on the off chance. But there was a message from Agent Russo. She was the FBI agent who had been in contact with Sylvia from the beginning, in charge of her case. This time, the woman’s voice was urgent. Good timing, she’d only missed the call by ten minutes.

  “What’s up?” Melinda asked, steering them into the taxi line.

  Sylvia’s heart was pounding in her stomach. At least that’s the way it felt. “That was a message from the FBI. She’s been tracked down.”

  “Grace?”

  “No, Ruth. But alone.”

  Melinda raised her eyebrows. “No sign of Grace?”

  Sylvia shook her head.

  “Holy crap,” Melinda said. “Any news from Tommy?”

  “No text and nothing on my voice-mail.”

  “And in your inbox?”

  Sylvia held out her ten-year-old Nokia. “You see this? It’s not even in color. It’s not a Smartphone, I can’t get e-mails on it.”

  “Sylveee! What are you thinking? With Grace missing, what the fuck are you doing with that old thing? You can’t even see your e-mails? I don’t know how I’d live without my iPhone!”

  “I know, I know. I just haven’t got round to buying one, you know? I happen to have had the first generation iPhone but it fell in the bathtub and then I didn’t even need a cell at all in Wyoming, so I didn’t bother buying a new one, just got the faithful old Nokia back out. I don’t even use it, except to have in the car for emergencies. I’ve practically forgotten how an iPhone even works.” Sylvia closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She wasn’t sure if she should feel elated or sick. Ruth had been found, but still no sign of her daughter. She pressed the agent’s number.

  “Where is she?” whispered Melinda.

  “One second. Hello? Agent Russo? Hi, it’s Sylvia Garland.”

  The voice on the other end of the line was professional but warm. “Hi, Mrs. Garland—excuse me, I know you said for me to call you Sylvia. I’ve been expecting your call.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t pick straight up. I was on a flight.”

  “Do you want the good news first or the bad?”

  Blood pounded through Sylvia’s ears. “Please tell me that Grace is okay.”

  “I wish I could. The truth is we still don’t have a clue where your daughter is. I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Don’t panic. The police are on their way right now to arrest Ruth. We’ve located her. She still hasn’t checked out of her hotel.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In Rio de Janeiro at the Copacabana. She was seen, not with Grace, but with your husband.”

  “Yes, he had a tip she might be there. He went to find her and Grace.” Why, Sylvia wondered, hadn’t Tommy called her if he’d tracked Ruth down? Or at least sent a text. She’d messaged him from São Paulo, but no reply.

  The agent added, “I’m really sorry to break this to you—it was quite a shock to us, but Ruth and your husband were seen together last night having a cozy dinner.”

  “Having dinner? But Tommy doesn’t even know her. He’s not even sure what she looks like, except from the photofit.”

  The agent said, “Well, I feel badly telling you this, but, whether he knew her previously or didn’t know her at all, it doesn’t look good. They were in an intimate embrace. They were seen with their heads, and I quote, ‘locked together.’ ”

  The world seemed to stand still in that moment. “Seen by whom?” Sylvia croaked out, her mouth trying to gather enough spittle to get the words out.

  “The waiter at the restaurant. And the barman.”

  “Together?”

  “Very much together.”

  The coffee she’d drunk on the plane, the roll she’d eaten—all rose in Sylvia’s throat. She swallowed it back. She could feel short, panicked breaths tugging at her lungs as she fumbled for her half bottle of mineral water. She glugged it down in great gulps. Surely there had been a mistake? Yet . . . maybe not. That’s why Tommy hadn’t called—why he didn’t want her to come to South America in the first place . . . because he was off to meet Ruth at the Copacabana, not to track her down, but to elope with her! That’s why Ruth had the parental consent form which Sylvia had assumed Ruth forged. Not forged, she realized now, but signed by Tommy! A vision of what had happened flashed through her mind—Tommy had planned it all. Somehow, somewhere, he knew Ruth. They’d been lovers all along. He was sick of his marriage—he didn’t love her anymore. He’d plotted the whole thing, planned it alongside Ruth—Grace’s kidnapping, the money—he’d told Ruth to look in the filing cabinet for bank details. Perfect. Set the whole thing up to make it look like a crime when he was in on it from the beginning! Meet Ruth alone, then both of them would collect Grace from her hiding place and live together happily ever after on a remote beach somewhere, or in a tree house in the jungle. Tommy could hang out and take photos while Ruth wrote her novel, both living on her inheritance money. Sylvia’s mind contorted itself into this film noir—maybe it was farfetched. But maybe, just maybe, this was exactly what had happened.

  “Mrs. Garland? Sylvia, are you still there?”

  Sylvia blinked her eyes. “Yes, I’m still here. Go on.”

  Melinda laid her hand gently on Sylvia’s shoulder. “Honey, you look so pale. What’s she saying? Are you okay?”

  “Ssh, wait” –Sylvia waved her hand at her cousin—“I can’t hear—as you were saying Agent Russo . . .”

  The agent carried on talking while the nest of vipers writhed and twisted in Sylvia’s incredulous brain. Heads locked together? If that was really true, Tommy was guiltier than Sin itself.

  “Like I said,” Agent Russo continued, “the police are on their way over now. It remains to be seen if Ruth is hiding your daughter.”

  “How did you locate Ruth?”

  “Blood work. She checked in a week ago to a plastic surgery clinic to have a procedure. Rhinoplasty.”

  “A nose job?”

  “Correct. Her blood work matched samples of DNA taken from the IVF clinic in Guadalajara.”

  “Good job FBI! I’m impressed. I was terrified that all this time you’d forgotten about Grace because no progress seemed to have been made.”

  “N
o, ma’am, we were making progress but didn’t want to get your hopes up until we had confirmation. We’ve been working around the clock on your case. I can assure you we have it as high priority. Kidnapping is a serious crime. Not to mention grand theft and larceny.”

  “What’s Ruth’s real name?”

  “That’s the crazy thing. We still don’t know. She checked under a bogus name at the clinic, under the name of Rocío Guirnalda, and paid cash—but the DNA is a match to the very same Ruth Vargas from the IVF clinic in Guadalajara. Get this: Guirnalda means Garland in Spanish.”

  Each word that passed the agent’s lips made the horror of the situation magnify. “Oh my God. She’s trying to take everything from me. My daughter, my husband, my money, even my name!” The image of Ruth slavering all over Tommy with her pretty new nose, enticing him with her “man-magnet” powers of seduction while playing Mommy to Grace, was repulsive. “I guess she must have always wanted a nicer nose and used my money to do it with. What even gave you the idea to search the clinics?”

  “We’ve seen instances of this before with fugitives. Nose jobs are common, we pre-empted that possibility. We had Rio earmarked—it’s famous for its world-class plastic surgeons. The photofit was working in our favor, obviously. She was frightened of being discovered and wanted to change her identity. If she’s abandoned Grace, it’s because of that—fear of getting caught. On her own, she has a lot better chance of slipping into oblivion, but with Grace’s photo everywhere, the alerts on TV, and so many people on the lookout for her—”

  “You think for sure she’s abandoned Grace?”

  “Nobody has seen your daughter. Ruth/Rocío checked into the hotel alone. We verified—no food has been taken up to the room. It looks as if she came to Rio without her.”