Bone Dust White

by Karin Salvalaggio

  She moves her lips the bare minimum to get the words out. The acrid stench of smoke coats her like a second skin. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want anything more to do with me.”

  “Come on, Grace. I’m not like that.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’ve never given you any reason not to trust me.”

  Grace turns away and blinks into the falling snow. The interior lights illuminate her profile. Her narrow chest heaves up and down with each breath. She wants Jared to hold her in his arms like he did back at the truck stop, but she knows he isn’t going to come near her ever again. Her face is a scrunched-up mess of nerves when she turns toward him.

  “You have to promise.”

  “Promise what?”

  “Promise that you’ll be a proper friend to me. That you’ll always be there for me.”

  Jared lets out an anxious sigh. “Of course I promise, but I can only do my best. I’m not perfect, Grace. You’ll have to take me as I come.”

  21

  Unused to the noise of traffic right outside the windows, Grace hasn’t been sleeping well. She burrows her head deeper into her pillow. The previous evening her aunt presented Grace with a schedule for her mother’s funeral.

  “There will be a short service at the crematorium at four, and after that Martha Nielson has offered to have us over for an early supper. It will be just a few people. We’ve decided to keep it simple.” Her aunt had gone on to tell Grace about her doctor’s appointment in the morning, mentioning it in an offhand way that was at odds with her tremulous voice. “I think it’s a good idea for you to come with me since I’ve had some tests done.”

  From the bedroom Grace can smell freshly made coffee and eggs cooking on the stove. She hears her aunt’s footsteps, the hum of the television news, and the sound of the refrigerator door being opened and shut. She rolls over onto her back and pulls the quilt upward so it’s covering her neck. Almost hidden, she holds it there and waits for the panic to pass. It feels like a low-pressure ridge is settling between her throat and her heart. It’s not the service at the crematorium or having supper at Martha Nielson’s house that worries her. It’s the doctor’s appointment that’s kept her up half the night.

  Elizabeth comes into the bedroom. Dressed in a dark woolen skirt and jacket, she looks like she’s going to church. She says her usual good morning and sits down on the edge of the bed. They’ve been tiptoeing around each other since the day they argued about Arnold’s truck. Elizabeth shakes Grace’s leg and tells her to come get some breakfast before it’s cold.

  Grace takes her aunt’s hand and squeezes it. “What if we just hide out here all day?” she says, hopeful to the last.

  Elizabeth gives her niece a tidy little smile. “It’s a nice thought but I have this feeling life will come knocking on our door whether we like it or not.”

  *

  Elizabeth is tired so she lets Grace drive to the hospital for the appointment with the oncologist, but she fidgets in her seat and insists on instructing Grace as to which roads to avoid so they won’t get caught up in the traffic around Old Town.

  “Dr. Fischer has a hearing problem,” says Elizabeth as she indicates to Grace to take a right at the next intersection. “He refuses to wear a hearing aid. He ends up shouting all the time because he can’t judge how loud his own voice is anymore.”

  Her aunt doesn’t exaggerate. In his office Grace jumps up in her seat each time the doctor opens his mouth, and next to her she sees her aunt doing the same thing. An enormous man, Dr. Fischer dominates his side of the desk. Grace looks upward into his elongated face and dark eyes, waiting for something resembling good news to come out of his sausage-sized lips, but he says all the wrong things: inoperable, prognosis isn’t good, chemotherapy.

  He finishes going through the test results and snaps the file shut. “Elizabeth,” he booms. “You’re going to have to fight hard if you want to beat this.”

  “But you’ve just said it’s inoperable? I don’t understand.”

  Dr. Fischer brushes away his previous prognosis with a smile and a fresh flurry of bellowing. “Those are all just statistics, Elizabeth. You can beat this. You’re better than this.”

  Elizabeth isn’t convinced. The cancer has spread beyond her stomach and is inching its way into her other vital organs. “I’m tired. I can’t spend the rest of my life fighting against something that’s going to kill me anyway.” She gathers her things, signaling her niece to do the same. “I’ll take pain medication but nothing beyond that. I watched my mother suffer through two rounds of chemo. It didn’t make her live any longer.”

  They are waiting for the elevator when Grace realizes she’s forgotten her gloves in Dr. Fischer’s office. He’s still at his desk. She asks him the one question she still wants answered.

  Six months if we’re lucky echoes down the corridors.

  The doctor tries to persuade her to speak to her aunt but Grace isn’t convinced he knows what’s best.

  Grace finds Elizabeth outside the elevator door doubled over, her face contorted with pain. “Promise me, Grace. You won’t let me die here.”

  *

  In the living room of the tidy little bungalow on Spruce Street, Martha Nielson has built a shrine dedicated to her dead husband, Walter. There are pictures of him everywhere. In the presence of so many of his keepsakes it feels as if they should be mourning Walter rather than Leanne. Grace examines his photographs closely. She remembers him well—how the swell of his belly had pinned her to the ground and the way his swollen lips had smothered her cries.

  There’s a voice at her shoulder. “He’d have been fifty-nine last Saturday,” says Martha, clutching on to Grace’s arm. “The kids came over and we had some cake.”

  Grace rests a hand on the edge of the display. Birthday cards sit as bookends to an urn. Amazed that such a big man could be contained in such a small way, she asks Martha if the urn contains her husband’s ashes.

  Martha runs her fingertips down the side of the pewter vase. “Yes, he’s still here with me. I couldn’t bear to have him buried alone.”

  Grace’s mother had been nothing more than skin and bone. Grace imagines the crematorium delivering what’s left of her in a thimble. We’re very sorry, Grace, but this is all there was.

  Martha gazes out the window overlooking the snowbound front yard. In the bleak early evening light the entire world is powdered gray. “Have you thought about what you’ll do with your mother’s ashes?”

  Aside from her aunt’s closest girlfriends, there’d been no one else in attendance at the crematorium service. Grace had stood next to her aunt dry-eyed and silent. She’d expected the theatrical blast of a roaring furnace but there was nothing aside from the quiet brush of heavy drapes closing. She’d expected her aunt to remain composed but Elizabeth had broken down in sobs, her small frame fluttering in a way the drapes could not. Afterward she’d adjusted the collar on Grace’s coat and cried some more.

  Martha Nielson holds tighter to Grace’s arm and asks about the ashes again.

  “I don’t know,” says Grace, staring at the Jeep pulling up outside the house. She turns in time to see Martha’s eyes crinkle around the edges into a smile.

  “Oh, look who’s here,” says Martha, raising her voice and moving toward the front door, pulling Grace along with her. “Did you know Dustin was one of Walter’s best friends?”

  Grace makes her excuses and heads for the kitchen. The counter is covered with plates of food and bowls of salad. A large ham sits sliced and ready to serve. She pulls the phone from its cradle and dials Jared’s number, but there’s no answer. Macy picks up on the first try.

  Grace can barely speak. “Macy.”

  “Grace, is that you?”

  “Can you come get me?”

  “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  “Please come.”

  “Where are you?”

  Grace can hear Dustin’s voice in the living room.
He’s not more than ten feet away. “At 23 Spruce,” she says, hanging up.

  Grace ducks into the pantry and sits with her back braced up against the door so no one can get in.

  Ten minutes later her aunt knocks. When she speaks she keeps her voice low. “Grace, sweetheart. I know you’re in there.”

  Waiting for Macy, Grace has been doing a full inventory of Martha Nielson’s pantry. There are rows and rows of preserves: pickled cucumber, wild huckleberry jam, runner beans, elderberry conserve, sun-dried tomatoes, applesauce, buffalo berry jam to name but a few. All the labels are handwritten with a thin black pen. All the lids have bows. Grace pictures Martha in her apron, steam rising up from pots, working her fingers raw. Her kids are grown up and her husband is dead. There’s nothing left for Martha to do but make jam. Grace leans forward inspecting the labels closely. There are untouched rows dating back to the year Walter died. Grace plucks a dust-free jar of huckleberry jam off the shelf and secretes it away in her purse.

  Unperturbed by Grace’s silence, her aunt continues speaking. “When you were little you used to hide in there when you were scared. Do you remember?”

  “I just want to stay in here a bit longer. I’m feeling overwhelmed.” She’s more scared now than she ever was as a child. She expects her aunt to tell her to stop being rude but that doesn’t happen.

  “Just know that I love you. I’ll be here when you’re ready to come out.”

  She leans back and pulls a thin cord. The light snaps on and off like a flashbulb.

  From her hiding place in the pantry Grace hears a dance of sensible heels break out in the kitchen as the ladies move plates of food from the counter to the dining room table for the meal. They’re all whispering. Grace imagines the knowing glances they throw toward her hiding place every time they walk past. Occasionally the deep baritone of a man’s voice cuts through the chatter but he’s shooed away when he tries to interfere. Soon the voices are muffled. They rise and fall with the saying of grace and they rise and fall with the telling of stories. Grace doesn’t need to hear anything. She already knows all of them by heart. No one mentions her mother, not even in passing, but Grace hears her own name spoken more than once.

  Why don’t you try? Yes, that’s a good idea, why don’t you try? There’s a scrape of a chair, footsteps, and the rise and fall of a voice she knows too well.

  With only a thin wooden door separating them, Dustin Ash leans in close and talks at a whisper. “Grace,” he says. “Your aunt is dying. Who’s going to take care of you when she’s gone?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “By hiding in cupboards?”

  “Go away.”

  “You need to stop this nonsense. I won’t hurt you.”

  Grace tries not to cry. “Tell me who killed my mother?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Grace, I need you to listen carefully. The man who killed your mother has something of ours and we need to get it back.”

  “My sketchbook?”

  “He has the photos, Grace. He found them in your uncle’s office. He wants the money your mother took. Do you have it?”

  “I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

  “If I give him the money he’ll leave town and never come back.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “I’m the only one you should trust.”

  “I’ll tell my aunt, she’ll help me.”

  “Will she? I don’t think so. She lies to you, Grace. Did she tell you your mother called her last month? I know they spoke.”

  Grace bangs her head on the door. “Please go.”

  He lowers his voice further. “Think about what I’m offering. I can look after you.”

  “Like you looked after Molly Parks and those other girls? Don’t try to deny it. I know it was you.”

  She hears him take a deep breath before he speaks.

  “I’m a lost soul without you.”

  “You need to go get lost again.”

  “If I go away there will be other little girls and they’d be on your conscience. We can make a fresh start, Grace. Just you and I. No one ever has to know what’s happened in the past. All this time you wanted me to come back. I know what’s in the sketchbook. He returned it to me. It’s all there in black and white. You drew my picture. You practiced writing your new name—Grace Angelica Ash.”

  Grace has to put her hand over her mouth to stop a cry from escaping.

  “I love you, Grace. That’s all that ever really mattered.”

  “Tell me his name.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

  “I’ll do what you ask if you tell me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  “He’s threatened to sell the photos if we don’t cooperate. Let me do this for you, Grace. It will be my way of making things right.”

  Grace slowly slides up the door and stands. The metal handle feels cold against her palm. She can hear him breathing. It’s as regular as clockwork. He isn’t going anywhere. He promises to never hurt her again. He promises to look after her. He tells her that he is the only man who can truly love her. She changes her mind several times before she’s brave enough to face him.

  She opens the door and blinks into the bright overhead lights but Dustin is gone. She doubles over and puts her hands to her face. Laughter escapes in nervous bursts. Stiff from sitting on the cold floor, she moves with difficulty. She brushes off the dust coating the back of her skirt. Outside in the dining room the lunchtime chatter continues. Aside from one voice, the remaining people are as familiar as a hymn. She listens. She wants to be sure he’s gone.

  “Oh, there you are.” Elizabeth stands in the doorway with her arms stretched wide. “Dustin managed to get you out after all.”

  Grace can’t look her aunt in the eye. “Is he here still?”

  Elizabeth hesitates. “He had to rush off. That nice detective has just arrived though.”

  “Macy?”

  “Yes, but I think you should call her Detective Greeley. I’m sure it’s what she expects from all of us.”

  “It’s okay, Elizabeth.” Macy comes up from behind Elizabeth and steps into the kitchen. “Grace can call me whatever she likes.”

  “I was worried you wouldn’t come.”

  “I got here as soon as I could. Are you ready to go?”

  “I just need to get my coat.”

  Grace feels strange sitting in the front seat of the sheriff’s patrol car. Macy checks her messages while she drives, and puts on the sirens to avoid sitting in traffic.

  They stop at an intersection and she glances over at Grace. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Grace takes hold of the handle above the door as Macy flies around the corner. “I was upset but I’m fine now.”

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Given everything that’s happened, you shouldn’t be fine.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s okay to be upset. To cry. To scream. To pull out your hair. To hit someone.”

  “It’s never done any good so I’ve learned not to bother.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Jared told me about the trailer.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “Not this time, but don’t pull anything like that again.”

  “He’s angry with me.”

  “No, Grace. He’s worried. There’s a difference.”

  “Did he tell you I tried to kiss him?”

  “No, it seems he left out the best part.”

  “I’m so embarrassed. I thought he liked me.”

  “Don’t be. These misunderstandings are more common than you think.” Macy looks in her rearview mirror. “Are you ready to talk about what happened back there at Martha Nielson’s house?”

  Grace shreds the tissue on her lap. “I’m working on it.”

  “Don’t bottle it up for t
oo long. It will just make you feel worse.” She pulls the car into the parking lot of the diner and finds a spot near the doors. “How do you feel about having some dinner? Your aunt told me that you didn’t eat anything.”

  It’s after the dinner rush so there aren’t many customers. Macy chooses a booth near the windows before going to find the bathroom. “I’ll be right back. Order a diet soda and hamburger for me if the waitress comes by.”

  Grace is still sitting in the same position when Macy returns. An unopened menu is laid out in front of her.

  Grace stares out at the traffic passing on Main Street and tears roll down her flushed cheeks. “When I was fourteen I thought I was all grown up but I was just some stupid little girl.”

  “We all go through that phase,” says Macy, sliding into the booth across from her. “It’s just that some of us get a little more bruised than others.”

  “Nobody seems to have noticed how much I looked like Molly Parks when I was younger.”

  “Give them enough time and they will.”

  Grace rubs her eyes.

  Macy keeps her voice low. “My theory is that the same man who hurt Molly and the other two girls may have done something terrible to you as well.”

  Grace pulls her coat around her. “I trusted him.”

  “That’s usually how it starts.”

  “He took me to that house they’ve been showing on the news. I thought I was ready.” She looks down at her hands. “I actually thought I loved him.”

  “You probably did.”

  “I was expecting a cottage in the woods but it was nothing like that.” It was nothing like she’d imagined it would be. A single bulb hung from the low basement ceiling. The mattress was filthy and even though it was midsummer, it was cold.