by Linda Mayes
CHAPTER 2
Grace was woken the next morning by an elbow to her right eye. “Ow! Brock, what are you doing here?” she asked as she sat up. As she did, she had to roll Lucy off her other side. “Why are you two in here?” she asked again. “Was there something wrong with your room? Where’s your sister?”
“It was too dark in there, Mama,” Lucy said. “Brock was scared.”
Grace picked her daughter up and kissed her nose. “Oh, I see, Brock was scared,” she said. “So you came with him just to put him more at ease?” Lucy nodded. Grace smiled. No matter how bad things had ever gotten, her children could always make her smile. Lucy most of all. It was ironic, Grace thought. Lucy was the one of her children who most resembled her mother. She had the same strawberry blonde hair and ice blue eyes as Maggie. That was where the resemblance stopped, however. Lucy was funny and warm and sweet and kind; all of the things her mother wasn’t. Grace hugged her tight and then hooked her son under other arm and did the same. She threw back the covers and said, “Let’s go get your sister and see if we can find some breakfast.”
Grace put on her robe and passed through the bathroom to get to the bedroom where the children were supposed to have slept. She found Macy there, still in bed with the large comforter pulled over her head. Grace pulled the cover back and Macy turned on her side away from her. “Hey sleepy head, let’s go get some breakfast, okay?”
“I’m not hungry,” was Macy’s reply.
Sighing heavily Grace said, “Come on, Mace. New place, new start, okay? I know none of this is what you want, okay. But like I told you yesterday, none of us have another choice right now. So come on and get up, get dressed and let’s start a new chapter of our lives. It’s exciting if you think of it that way, right? We get to fill in all the blank pages and best of all, write our own ending.”
Macy turned on her back and looked at her mother, with Conrad’s eyes. “That was corny,” she said.
Grace smiled. “I know, but it got your attention.”
Macy threw back the rest of the covers and said, “I’m getting up because I’m hungry.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Grace told her.
There was no sign of Grace’s mother as they made their way to the kitchen. Grace found a note on the table that simply said, “Gone to work. Eggs in the fridge.” She read it and thought it was probably the biggest welcome they would ever get from her mother. It actually motivated her that much more to find a job, and quickly.
Grace had to take the truck back to a station in Belt where they would pick it up, or rent it out again, she wasn’t sure. What she did realize after they had dropped it off was that they were definitely not in Boise any more. She asked the young man who worked at the station if he had a number for the local cab service. He looked at her like she had two heads and told her, “The closest cab company is about a hundred miles away, I think.” Grace thanked him anyway and took her children by the hand, not sure what to do now.
She supposed they could walk to her mother’s shop. She hadn’t seen a car at her mother’s place last night, but Maggie obviously must have one in order to get to town and back. Once she had gotten her bearings, they began to walk toward the north end of town where Grace remembered seeing the shop. An old, beat-up pick-up stopped for them as they crossed the street. The man behind the wheel smiled and tipped his cowboy hat at her. She smiled back and gave him a thank you wave for stopping. Grace noticed that there were a boy and girl in the truck also. The boy was probably a couple years older than her Macy and sat next to the window. The girl sitting in the middle looked to be about Lucy’s age. It made Grace feel better to know there were at least two young children in this town that seemed to be made for adults.
They reached her mother’s shop and found her talking to a customer. Grace and the kids stood quietly as Maggie handled her business. Grace was fascinated as she watched her mother smile and exchange pleasantries with the woman. It even looked genuine, she thought. As the woman turned to leave, she noticed Grace and the kids. “Oh, Louise,” her mother was saying, “this is my daughter, Grace, and my grandkids, Macy, Lucy and Brock.”
Grace was genuinely shocked now. Maggie had introduced them as if she were any other grandmother, and not one who hadn’t even seen her grandchildren in years. Grace was the one to force a smile as she held her hand out toward the woman and said, “Hi, I’m pleased to meet you.”
The woman took Grace’s hand in her large warm one and shook it. “What a delight to meet ya’ll,” she said, looking down at the children. “Your kids are just beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Grace told her. This time her smile was genuine.
The woman looked at Lucy and said, “Well I’ll be, Maggie. This one here looks just like you did when we were growing up.”
Maggie Payte smiled again; this time Grace thought maybe she saw a flicker of pride or something like it in her mother’s eyes. She felt like she was caught in an alternate universe. The woman had also said, “When we were growing up. . .” Her mother used to talk about growing up in a small town when they quilting together, but it never dawned on Grace until now that she had never said where. If Belt was Maggie’s hometown, that would at least explain her mother’s move here after Grace left for college.
The woman was still talking, and Grace heard her say something about the Harwells. That name sounded familiar to her for some reason, and as Louise mentioned that she worked for the family and they had two children, Grace remembered that it had been the name on the sign leading down the dirt road in the opposite direction of her mother’s place, and likely the people who had named the little road “New Beginnings.” Grace re-focused herself on the conversation.
“Little John, he’s ten, and Patty, she just turned seven. They’re good kids and they’ll be happy to know they finally got some other kids close enough to play with for a change. There ain’t many kids here in Belt. There’s only about fifty or so students altogether over at the school, and there ain’t may activities geared toward children around here.”
Grace looked down at Macy’s face and she wished the woman would stop talking. Macy’s dark eyes were looking up at her mother and smoldering. Louise was giving the little girl more ammunition to use against her mother with each word she spoke. Finally, as the woman took a breath, Grace told her, “Thank you, Louise. It was so nice to meet you and I will make a point of bringing the kids over soon to meet John and Patty.”
“We’ll look forward to it,” she said. Looking out the store window added, “Oh my, there’s John waiting for me now. We’ll see ya soon, Maggie.” She turned and waved as she left the small store. Grace watched as the man in the truck who had stopped for them earlier got out and opened the passenger door for Louise. The children weren’t with him any longer. He was a rugged-looking man, a little older than Grace with a cowboy hat and dusty work boots. He glanced in the window just for a second, but Grace couldn’t help but notice that he had the prettiest aqua blue eyes and long eyelashes she had ever seen on a man. For a moment she wondered if they were colored contacts, and then she remembered where she was and smiled at her own silliness. Thinking she was smiling at him, he smiled back and gave Grace a small nod of his head. She realized then that she was staring and grew embarrassed. She turned her head back toward her mother.
“That’s John Harwell,” her mother said, stepping up next to her. “He owns the ranch just south of my place.”
“Yes, I saw the sign last night,” Grace told her. “I’m sorry to ask, Mother, but I didn’t realize there was no cab company here in town. I took the rental truck back and the kids and I have no way back to your house.”
Grace’s mother looked down at the kids hiding behind their mother. She picked up her purse and took out a set of keys. “The pickup is around back in the alley.”
Grace smiled at her mother and took the keys. “Thank you. What time should I come back to pick you up?”
“Never mind about that. I’ll get a ride with Charlie. He c
loses up the grocery store about the same time I close up.”
“Are you sure?” Grace asked her. “I don’t want to inconvenience you more than we have already.”
“It’s fine,” Maggie said, looking at the kids once more. This time, Lucy smiled at her. Maggie actually smiled back. Grace wondered what kind of alien had invaded her mother’s body.
“Okay kids, say thank you to Grandmother and let’s get you home for some lunch.”
Macy mumbled under her breath incoherently and Brock and Lucy both said, “Bye Gram-mother.”
Maggie smiled again and said, “Bye now.” Her smile seemed to fade as she looked at her daughter. Although it hurt Grace a bit, she couldn’t help thinking that it was at least a start.