Grace (34 page)
Authors: T. Greenwood
“Fucking homo!” Ethan said, stumbling backward, wiping his hand across his pant leg, his eyes wide and scared. “Goddamn freak!” And then he was scrambling away, his feet pounding against the asphalt, and Trevor was alone.
Trevor zipped his pants, felt the dampness of his jeans and the dampness of his eyes and the awful frozen air, and he sank to the frigid ground.
C
rystal went straight to the break room to clock in, shaking from her encounter with that horrid woman. Part of her felt like she should have called the cops then and there. But without any proof, what could she do? She wasn’t even sure if it was illegal to leave a kid in the car. She also wasn’t sure she’d even stolen anything this time. She’d ask Howard, but Howard had his head up his butt half the time; he probably didn’t even notice. Now Howard was up front gnawing on his cuticles; he looked up from the bloody mess he’d made of his fingers and grinned at her. “Hey, Crys.”
rystal went straight to the break room to clock in, shaking from her encounter with that horrid woman. Part of her felt like she should have called the cops then and there. But without any proof, what could she do? She wasn’t even sure if it was illegal to leave a kid in the car. She also wasn’t sure she’d even stolen anything this time. She’d ask Howard, but Howard had his head up his butt half the time; he probably didn’t even notice. Now Howard was up front gnawing on his cuticles; he looked up from the bloody mess he’d made of his fingers and grinned at her. “Hey, Crys.”
“You want to do register or photo today?” She sighed.
“You choose,” he said, blushing in a way that made her hate him.
She couldn’t see the woman’s car from the window anymore. She figured she was probably gone by now anyway. Poor kid. People like that shouldn’t have kids.
“I’ll do photo,” she said.
In the photo department, Crystal sorted the orders that had come in that morning, filing them by last name. She slipped each envelope into its slot, another mindless task.
Kincaid
. She thumbed through the Ks:
Kane, Keeney, Keller, Kennedy.
Kennedy. There were that lady’s pictures, a dozen fat envelopes rubber-banded together. It had been weeks since she’d dropped off all those rolls of film. Crystal had been able to get her a discount, but then she hadn’t bothered to come in to pick them up. She plucked the first envelope from the pile and quickly glanced around to make sure no one was watching. The store was empty except for some old guy filling a prescription in the pharmacy. She stuck her finger under the flap and lifted it gently, careful not to tear the paper. The adhesive was loose and it came up quickly. She ducked behind the print machine with the stack of photos in her hand and started to shuffle through them like a deck of cards.
Kincaid
. She thumbed through the Ks:
Kane, Keeney, Keller, Kennedy.
Kennedy. There were that lady’s pictures, a dozen fat envelopes rubber-banded together. It had been weeks since she’d dropped off all those rolls of film. Crystal had been able to get her a discount, but then she hadn’t bothered to come in to pick them up. She plucked the first envelope from the pile and quickly glanced around to make sure no one was watching. The store was empty except for some old guy filling a prescription in the pharmacy. She stuck her finger under the flap and lifted it gently, careful not to tear the paper. The adhesive was loose and it came up quickly. She ducked behind the print machine with the stack of photos in her hand and started to shuffle through them like a deck of cards.
She felt her stomach turn. She hadn’t been this nauseous since she was in her first trimester. The pictures were disgusting. A ramshackle house, garbage everywhere. Close-up pictures of rotten food, a rusty sink filled with dishes. A stained mattress, piles of clothes and boxes, and a room filled with empty milk jugs. Some old man sitting at a table, ashtray overflowing, and model airplanes circling over his head. A bottle of liquor sitting next to him. Then there were a bunch of pictures of some sort of broken-down train in the woods. A few of the tops of trees, of a river, some ferns and then the girl. The crying little girl,
Gracy,
asleep. The first was a close-up of her face, her long eyelashes pressed against the tops of her cheeks. Then another one of her face, a shivery line of drool coming out of the corner of her mouth. The girl, ragged T-shirt riding up her body to her armpits, legs spread and a pair of Disney Princess panties showing. There must have been ten pictures of her, all of them clearly taken while she was fast asleep. Two or three of her skinny legs tangled up in the sheets. One of her standing by a tree, her bathing suit too small, her nipple showing. Crystal started to tremble. What was wrong with these people? What kind of mother let her son take pictures like this? Or maybe there wasn’t a son. Crystal had never seen her with anyone other than the little girl. She felt the skin across her belly, that tight, tender, empty place aching, aching.
Gracy,
asleep. The first was a close-up of her face, her long eyelashes pressed against the tops of her cheeks. Then another one of her face, a shivery line of drool coming out of the corner of her mouth. The girl, ragged T-shirt riding up her body to her armpits, legs spread and a pair of Disney Princess panties showing. There must have been ten pictures of her, all of them clearly taken while she was fast asleep. Two or three of her skinny legs tangled up in the sheets. One of her standing by a tree, her bathing suit too small, her nipple showing. Crystal started to tremble. What was wrong with these people? What kind of mother let her son take pictures like this? Or maybe there wasn’t a son. Crystal had never seen her with anyone other than the little girl. She felt the skin across her belly, that tight, tender, empty place aching, aching.
Crystal took the photos. Not every envelope, but six of them. When Howard was on his break, she shoved them into her purse. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she clocked out in the break room. She grabbed her coat and wrapped her scarf around her neck, readied herself for the cold, braced herself for the freezing air that was sure to meet her when the electric doors opened. It was dark out already. She’d been at the Walgreens all day.
The roads, which had merely been wet and slushy before, were turning to ice now. Luckily, driving the Volvo was like driving a tank. She felt invincible as she navigated her way home. The air was heavy, dark. There would be more snow soon. She pulled one of the envelopes out of her purse and looked at the address on the form. Beasley Rd. She knew that place. That was where those two boys had died. They were upperclassman when she was a freshman. They’d run track too. Everyone on the track team wore a green armband at the next meet in their memory. After the accident, they’d had a special assembly. She remembered because the boys’ parents had been there, on the stage, the father stoic and the mother barely able to stand up. And she remembered thinking that somebody should give her a chair. She remembered thinking it was cruel to put their grief on display like this. Every time she drove past those markers in the road, she’d think of that poor mother, crippled with her sorrow. It still made her insides ache.
She had told her mother not to wait for her for dinner. She avoided most family dinners lately. A couple of months ago, they’d have babbled on about her
plans.
About her heading off to college in January. But now they just ate quietly. Thankfully, Angie picked up the slack. She always had some new project she was engaged in. The new art teacher had picked her and three other students to work on a mural in the cafeteria. She’d come to dinner speckled with paint, even in her hair, and fill all those miserable silences with her happy chatter. And besides, tomorrow was Thanksgiving; they’d probably just gotten a pizza anyway. Her mother would be up to her elbows in green beans and cranberries and sweet potatoes in the kitchen.
plans.
About her heading off to college in January. But now they just ate quietly. Thankfully, Angie picked up the slack. She always had some new project she was engaged in. The new art teacher had picked her and three other students to work on a mural in the cafeteria. She’d come to dinner speckled with paint, even in her hair, and fill all those miserable silences with her happy chatter. And besides, tomorrow was Thanksgiving; they’d probably just gotten a pizza anyway. Her mother would be up to her elbows in green beans and cranberries and sweet potatoes in the kitchen.
She drove through town, the snow sparkling as it fell in front of her headlights. Glittering. The car warmed up quickly, the heat blasting onto her hands and her feet. She turned the radio on, and the music soothed her. She felt almost like the car was driving itself, and she was just along for the ride. She would be content to never go home again. To just stay here, driving in the snow, forever. She slowed when she got to the place where the crosses were. There were no other cars on the road. She felt her throat thicken with thoughts of their mother, with thoughts of the holes, not one but two, that they must have left when they died. When Mrs. Stone took the small bundle from her, it felt like someone had torn out her heart. Like something had been stolen. She thought about Grace. Her Grace, and then the Grace in those pictures. The images of her inside those envelopes.
She studied the address on the envelope again. The house sat on a small hill with no neighboring homes around it. The mailbox at the roadside was battered and rusted, the metallic letters spelling out K-E-N-N-E-D-Y, the
Y
a bit torn. It was a little house, and much more well-kept than she expected after seeing the pictures. But that’s the way it goes, right? What you see on the outside rarely reflects what’s really on the inside. She, of all people, understood that appearances can be deceiving.
Y
a bit torn. It was a little house, and much more well-kept than she expected after seeing the pictures. But that’s the way it goes, right? What you see on the outside rarely reflects what’s really on the inside. She, of all people, understood that appearances can be deceiving.
There was a truck parked in the steep driveway and the beat-up Civic she recognized, the one inside which she’d found Grace alone and crying. The lights were on inside the house, casting an orange glow on the snow that had blanketed the front yard. She tried to imagine what was going on inside, who these people were.
Suddenly the porch light flicked on, and heart racing, she pressed the accelerator and kept driving down the road. When she finally was able to breathe again, she turned around in someone’s driveway. Turning that boat of a Volvo around was always a challenge because of the power steering fluid leak; sometimes she felt more like she was trying to steer an RV or monster truck. Adrenaline buzzed in her arms as she finally got turned around and on the road again. By the time she got back to her house, the snow was coming down sideways, a true blizzard. She couldn’t even see her own house until she was at her driveway. She sat outside in the car with the heater blasting, bracing herself for the cold that she knew would await her both outside the car and inside the house.
That night she tossed and turned in her bed, listening to the sounds of her mother’s furious Thanksgiving preparations, while Angie snored softly next to her. Finally, she got up, went to her drawer where she’d stashed the stolen photos. But instead of studying them again, instead of trying to make sense of them, she pulled out the manila envelope she’d sealed more than a year ago. She locked herself in the bathroom and, her fingers trembling, she pulled out the filmy black-and-white paper.
The ink had already partially disintegrated, and her fingers left greasy smudges at the edges. She studied the shape of Grace’s fetal body, the snail-like curve of her vertebrae. She touched the delicate profile, the tiny hands curled into fists.
She shoved the pictures back into the envelope and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Staring at her own image, she rolled the top of her sweatpants down and traced the careful cursive of her baby’s name in reverse.
Grace
. Her baby girl’s name written across her skin, and that little girl’s name reflected. It had to mean something: the coincidence of their shared name, the crossing of these two paths. There had to be a reason for this.
Grace. Her baby girl’s name written across her skin, and that little girl’s name reflected. It had to mean something: the coincidence of their shared name, the crossing of these two paths. There had to be a reason for this.
T
revor was sure his mother would know what had happened in the alley. He was sure everyone would know now what he had done. What he
was.
That they’d been right all along. That he was queer, a faggot. The whole way home, he had thought about what would happen when they got there, when his mother told his father that he’d left Gracy in the car. He flinched just thinking about his father’s belt. He wondered if he could run away somehow before his father got back. But when they’d pulled up in the driveway, his father’s truck was already there.
revor was sure his mother would know what had happened in the alley. He was sure everyone would know now what he had done. What he
was.
That they’d been right all along. That he was queer, a faggot. The whole way home, he had thought about what would happen when they got there, when his mother told his father that he’d left Gracy in the car. He flinched just thinking about his father’s belt. He wondered if he could run away somehow before his father got back. But when they’d pulled up in the driveway, his father’s truck was already there.
“Daddy’s home!” Gracy squealed, climbing out of the car. She had marshmallow stuck in her hair.
Trevor followed behind Gracy and his mother, the denim of his pants frozen now, making the cloth stiff. He could still smell that awful smell, that pungent funk. It was a part of him. It had come
out
of him.
out
of him.
His father was inside sitting at the kitchen table, studying a bill. He looked up when they came into the kitchen, and Trevor winced. Waited.
“Hey, baby,” his mother said, hanging her purse on the back of the kitchen chair.
She looked at Trevor, shaking her head a little, but her face was soft. Sorry even. She knew. She had to know what he’d done.
“What’s the matter?” his father asked. “Something happen?”
“How about I make us all a nice dinner,” she said. “I’ve got some steaks in the freezer.”
Before Trevor changed into his pajamas that night, he took off his clothes in the bathroom, the crotch of his jeans stiff. He knelt on the floor next to the bathtub and ran the water so hot that it burned his hands. He held the jeans under the stream until the fabric softened, hoping that any evidence of what had happened was getting sucked down the drain. He studied his body in the mirror, a body he didn’t recognize anymore. It was a man’s body. His father’s body. It made him ashamed. He pulled the jeans out of the tub, wrung them out the best he could, and laid them across the radiator that was sputtering and hissing, hot to the touch. He got into the shower, scrubbed his skin, trying not to think about what Ethan had done to him and how his own body had betrayed him. He closed his eyes and pretended he was in the forest, in the caboose. Safe and warm. Protected. The water burned his skin, but he pretended it was only the sun. That it was only the heat of summer.
Gracy was already sleeping when he got into his bed. His skin was tender, rubbed raw. And his jeans had not dried but just started to stink like burnt denim when he took them off the radiator. He folded them, stuffed them into a plastic bag, and shoved them into the bottom of his wastebasket.
His whole body felt bruised. Even the sheets hurt. He thrashed around in his bed, the sheets getting tangled around his legs, making him feel like screaming. He kicked the blankets onto the floor and lay flat on his back.
“What’s the matter, Trevor?” Gracy asked sleepily, squinting her eyes against the light.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
He felt tears spilling from his eyes.
“You can sleep in my bed,” she said.
And then he remembered one time when he was about Gracy’s age that he had a nightmare. He couldn’t remember what it was about anymore; he just remembered waking up feeling terrified. Somehow he’d found his way through the labyrinth of the dark house to his parents’ room. He’d opened the door and made his way through the darkness to their bed. He’d climbed in cautiously, wanting nothing more than for someone to hold him, for his mother to hold him. But Elsbeth had startled awake as he curled his body against hers. “Jesus Christ!” she’d said, sitting up. “You scared me to death!” Then she scooped him up and set him on the floor again. “It was just a dream. Now, go back to bed,” she said. “I’ve got to work early.”
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