Saving Gracie (14 page)

One humongous body of water. In her entire life and hundreds of trips to the beach she’d never made that connection. Wow.

She waved “time’s up” to the girls. As they dried off, Grace pointed to the water. “
When did it become green?
”

Hannah and Jenn turned to the water, exchanged glances, then looked at Grace.

“
Always green
,” Hannah signed.

“
But…always that pretty?
” Grace asked.

The girls nodded, looking at Grace like she’d grown a third eye on her forehead.

Walking back over the narrow footbridge, Grace made a decision. Did she just say that? She’d definitely read
Gift From The Sea
. Definitely. Definitely read
Gift From The Sea
.

“Okay, Rain Man,” #2 thought. Mission accomplished. “And stop saying wow. I can’t be nice any longer.”

CHAPTER 21

GRACE

The rest of the week flew by. Grace read
Gift From The Sea
, not once, but twice. She marked meaningful passages, almost highlighting the entire book. Her kaleidoscope had shifted once more, opening the possibility to imagine more for herself.
To be the person I was meant to be
. The thought excited and scared her at the same time.
Purity of intention
danced around her head like a dizzy ballerina. And besides the weird “standing in the Gulf of Mexico talking to his office” incident—or so he said—Adam had been his old self. She hoped he stayed that way.

~~~

The kids played Monopoly on their last night in Port Aransas, and Grace and Adam walked the beach at dusk. The sky darkened in the east while streaks of pink and orange stretched outward from the fiery glow in the west. The sun dipped below the horizon, ending the day and their vacation. Such a good week. She had her old Adam back. Holding hands and barefoot, they enjoyed their alone time.

“Don’t you think it’s strange the first page I read had my name on it?” Grace couldn’t stop blabbing about her new favorite book.

Adam untangled his fingers from hers and draped an arm around her shoulder. “I’ve heard of stranger things.”

“What do you think? I mean, don’t you think it’s trying to tell me something?” Grace turned her gaze back to the profusion of colors to the west. “Have sunsets always been this beautiful?”

“I don’t know. Possibly. And…yes.”

“What?”

“I just answered your questions.” Adam smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “Maybe you ought to do something about all this enthusiasm.”

“Like what?”

Adam shrugged, his hand dangling over her shoulder. “I don’t know.” He paused as if studying wet sand. “What about going back to school?”

Grace’s eyes widened. “You’re joking, right?”

“Why not? You just asked if I thought it meant something.”

“You think the book’s telling me to go back to school?”

Adam pulled his arm away and shoved hands into his shorts pockets. “It’s just a thought.”

Grace shook her head. School? At my age? Not even a remote possibility. Damn. I can’t go back to school. Can I? No way. Shoulda kept my mouth shut.

“Whiney-ass,” #2 sounded off.

Grace grimaced.

The couple’s footsteps in the sand left soft puddles of the warm Gulf water at low tide. Grace reached for what looked to be a smooth brown stone, heart-shaped, but light in weight.

“What is this?” She turned it over.

“Maybe it’s your gift from the sea,” Adam said.

~~~

The kids slept most of the way home, huddled together like puppies. Grace looked in the back seat and a smile pushed up the corners of her mouth. Besides the occasional Cherry blurb or nostalgic “mom-moment” darkening her mood, her week had been perfect. And best of all, the barrier between her and Adam had dissipated, like the tide washing away footprints in the sand. She had her woobie back.

She snuggled in the front seat of the SUV, relishing her relaxed state of mind. Life was good on the island. Many sea-worthy locals in the Port Aransas area modeled a Jimmy Buffett mentality. Sand, sun, ocean, tequila and salt, flip-flops, tattoos, lots of tattoos and smiles…all ingredients for a Parrothead life.

Climbing the corporate ladder didn’t appear high on their priority list. Yet the local islanders possessed their own education, their own stories, their own social integrity. Move to the big city? She knew they’d rather be lost at sea. Even a local looking for “three hots and a cot” would undoubtedly spout, “What? And leave all this?” People on the island generally seemed happy and for the most part…content.

What was it about being near the ocean? She rewound her mental recorder to her revelation of the ocean-connectedness thing. She had to admit being at the beach this past week felt different. And for once different didn’t feel scary.

Reading one of the brochures at the beach house Grace learned that Port A, labeled by locals, was a small community nestled on the northern tip of Padre Island. The long sliver of land surrounded by water ran along the lower Texas Coast, separated from the mainland by the Laguna Madre.

Padre Island—
Father Land
. Laguna Madre—
Mother Water
. Grace’s eyebrows pulled together, her mind clicking to the yin-yang symmetry of her thoughts. She felt connected to everything around her. “Oh. My. God.” Grace slapped a hand over her mouth, realizing she’d spoken out loud.

“What?” Adam’s voice held panic as he panned the highway. “Did I hit something?” He checked his rear-view mirror.

“No, you’re fine.” Grace’s hands clamped her head.

“What?” Concern filled Adam’s eyes.

“I don’t know. What a minute, let me think.” Grace’s voice edgy, her eyes blurred behind her large sunglasses.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just give me a minute.” She tried focusing on the passing scenery out her window but felt her head spin. Her pause lengthened. She squeezed her eyes shut. A long minute passed before she lowered her sunglasses and turned to Adam. “It can’t be.” Her voice shot out in gasps, her eyes rounded.

“Grace, what is it? Should I pull over?”

“I’m turning into my mother.”

“What?”

“I’m turning into my mother!” Her mouth puckered like she’d sucked a lemon.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.” Grace massaged her forehead with the heels of her hands. Her throat felt gritty. She needed water…or a shot of tequila.

“No. You’re not,” Adam repeated. “Why are you saying that?”

Grace shook her head to clear her mind. Thoughts needed to be put into words. “It’s the connection thing.”

Adam reached over and playfully touched her forehead. “No fever.”

She batted his hand down. “The thing! The thing Mom used to always talk about. You know, about how we…everything is connected. Blah, blah-blah, blah-blah. She used to go on and on. It sounded like such bullshit.” Grace winced, glancing toward the backseat. Good. Everyone was still asleep.

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “And now you don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Think it’s bullshit.” Adam’s voice tuned much lower than hers.

“No. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I think I finally get it.” Well, maybe she didn’t totally get it, but at least now ‘it’ had a shadowy outline.

Grace sat straighter, trying to articulate her thoughts. “This sounds crazy, but remember that first day when you and Josh went fishing and I had the girls at the beach?”

Adam nodded.

“Well, I tried reading a magazine, but the noise of the waves drove me nuts. And the sea gulls….” Grace pulled her fingers through her hair, trying to recapture the beach scene, “Were cackling, loud, almost like they were laughing at me.”

“The sea gulls were laughing at you.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I stopped trying to read and just focused on the water.”

Adam chose silence.

“After a while the waves didn’t sound like noise anymore. They almost sounded like, like….” she couldn’t believe the word she almost said.

“Like what?”

“Music.” Grace leaned back in her seat, deep in thought.

“And the sea gulls?”

Grace gulped. “Singing.”

“First they laughed at you and then sang?” Adam glanced at his wife with a straight face. “Too much sun?”

“Never mind.” Grace smiled sheepishly at Adam. She slipped into silence, her thoughts on a planet far, far away.

A few minutes later she bolted forward. The seatbelt locked across her chest, throwing her back against the seat. Every muscle in her body tensed. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That smell.” Grace lifted her chin.

“I don’t smell anything.” Adam eyed her strangely.              

“I smell perfume.” Grace sniffed the air like a bloodhound.

“The kids have their shoes off,” Adam kidded. “Maybe you need something to eat. I’ll stop.”

Their usual return lunch place was still thirty miles down the road. “No. I’m fine. Let’s wait.” Grace readjusted the seatbelt. “I’ll just…close my eyes…for a few minutes.” She needed alone time. Her? Needing alone time?
Wow.

The whiff of
Obsession
penetrated her senses…her mother’s signature scent.

~~~

Trying different exercises from the book, How We Connect, Quinlan mistook the word “sense” for “scents” and spent an entire day trying to send Gracie the only scent she could think of…her favorite perfume.

CHAPTER 22

QUINLAN

Her obsession with accessing the Earth homepage paralleled Quinlan’s fixation on Gracie; an online junkie: an old lady online junkie…shameful.

She’d almost been busted twice, which had her radar on high alert. Ruby had caught her at the computer one day. Fortunately she had bookmarked the Food Network homepage and quickly switched to a
Barefoot Contessa
live stream segment. Another time she failed to notice the approaching tap-tap-tap and swore she had a mini stroke when George passed behind her, his cane leading the way. She had no idea if he noticed what she was up to. Only after he turned the corner did she break out of freeze-frame and release the air locked in her lungs.

The online snippets Quinlan pieced together escalated her determination to return. Gracie’s life appeared to be in shambles. Her mission to save her daughter took on a life of its own, controlling her every thought. Somehow, she had to get back.

Quinlan read, took notes and plotted her strategy between classes or at night after Meghan had gone to bed. Her major, Where Do We Go From Here, turned out to be a relatively decent option, giving her some insight on choices others make at this time, and would have been even better if she’d been more diligent about class attendance.

She spent countless hours working on exercises from the book,
How We Connect
. “Sending Signals” seemed easy. Not so. After each attempt to connect with Gracie, she’d sneak off to the library to see if any of her experiments worked. She could zip her CI card as efficiently as cha-chinging the arm on a nickel slot machine. But nothing she found gave her a clue whether Gracie received any of her signals.

Locked in her room late one night, Quinlan read over the list she’d made from
Rules of Return Engagement.

-Get return packet (check)

-Complete and turn in packet (check)

-Receive permission to appear before the Advisory Council

-Present case at scheduled time (be prepared!)

-Tell Meghan

She’d made a decent start on her case presentation, which eased her apprehension…a little. The rest of the time she resorted to the one thing she used to do when nervous. Quinlan cleaned. The kitchen pantry, her closet—she even washed and ironed the kitchen curtains. She had to stay busy while waiting to hear when and if
she’d get to meet with the Advisory Council. Her nerves wouldn’t be so raw if only she could talk this over with Meghan. She stopped, mid-swipe of yet another layer of lemon polish on the kitchen table and weighed the scenario.

“Nope.” She shook her head. “Not yet.”

Meghan would blow a fuse, no doubt. However, the fact remained Quinlan had always been able to untangle Gracie’s life dilemmas. Even Meghan couldn’t deny that. Pulling a small notebook from her pocket, she reread her reasons to return to Earth.

-Gracie sleeps too much (could she have mono?)

-Why all the take-out food? (she has all my recipes)

-Adam’s trip to Chicago (he left Gracie in charge?)

-Hannah has a boyfriend (can’t approve, haven’t met him)

-Hasn’t had piano tuned (not really time for one, but still…)

-She messed up the bean recipe (how can someone screw up beans?)

“What a mess.” Quinlan shook her head. “I can’t believe I left her. She’s clueless.” The list fueled her motivation to push forward with her plan. She closed the notebook. “That’s all there is to it. She needs me.”

~~~

A week after submitting the packet, Quinlan received the letter. Her heart flip-flopped. She snatched the envelope from the mailbox and shoved it deep into her pants pocket. She’d have to wait till later to read it. Each tick of the clock seemed like a day. With the nervous energy of a cat with its tail on fire Quinlan power-weeded her garden and cleaned the cottage down to scrubbing the baseboards, all the while feeling the envelope as if it burned a hole in her pocket.

After hearing Meghan’s door close for the night, she locked herself in her room and sat crossed-legged in the middle of the bed. She counted to 100, trying to calm herself, but skipped through nearly half the numbers. She tore open the envelope, her pulse pounding in her ears.

You have been granted permission to present

your case presentation before the Advisory

Council two weeks from today’s date.

12:00 Noon

“Yes!” She covered her mouth, afraid of waking her sister. One step closer to her goal. The only remaining obstacle? Actually being awarded the assignment. Oh yeah, and telling Meghan.

~~~

The following evening Quinlan sat on the porch with her sister. Small billowy clouds splashed sunset colors across the early evening sky. She positioned herself in a high-back rattan chair and crocheted, anything to keep her hands occupied. Meghan sat in the porch swing, flipping through
The Guardian
, the local newspaper.

Quinlan breathed slowly to tame her mind and lessen her heart pounding in her ears. “Beautiful evening.” A feeble conversation attempt.

“Uh-huh,” Meghan mused, her head stuck in the paper.

Then…the bomb dropped. The “beautiful” evening part vanished like a magician waving his wand.

“What!” Meghan shrieked. “You’re kidding me, right? Tell me this is a joke!”

The shrill of Meghan’s voice jolted Quinlan, the crochet needle flying out of her hand. She grabbed her heart. “Good grief Meghan! You scared me.”

Meghan’s jaw went slack and then clamped back tight, her eyes round and bulging. “I said…tell me this is a joke.” She stood, waving
The Guardian
in Quinlan’s face.

“Tell you what?” An uncomfortable tingle trickled down her spine. The pounding in her ears escalated.

“This says,” Meghan paused, jabbing at the newspaper, “that you’ve requested a return trip to Earth.”

Quinlan shot up, pulling out her innocent act. “What? Where does it say that?”

“Right here. Under
Public Notices
.” Meghan pointed to a column on the bottom of page five.

“Let me see that.” Quinlan enunciated every word, trying for indignant. She grabbed the paper and gulped when she saw her name in print. She had no idea her request would become public forum.

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Meghan barked. “Oh, as in ‘oh, that’s crazy’, or ‘oh, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you’?”

Quinlan twisted her neck until she felt a pop and winced. Not from the self-adjustment, but what was sure to come next. She paused to clear her throat. “The second oh.”

“The second? Sit your butt down and start talking, Missy.”

Obediently, Quinlan sat. She hadn’t heard that tone since she and her best friend Courtney, both age seven, used Meghan’s favorite red lipstick to color their face and arms for Valentine’s Day. Her sister had been furious…similar to now.

Quinlan eased down beside Meghan on the swing. “It’s no big deal, really.” She waved her hand over the small white lie.

“No big deal? Are you insane? And worse yet, why am I reading about it in the newspaper?”

The questions stumbled over each other, leaving little room for Quinlan to interject. She jumped in as soon as Meghan took a breath. “I didn’t want to upset you. And I was right. See? You’re upset.” Quinlan crossed her arms to make a point.

“Upset? Why would I be upset?” Meghan threw the newspaper onto the porch.

Quinlan watched as the pages of
The Guardian
refolded in a neat pile. Littering…not allowed.

“You finally get here, for what…four months? And you already want to go back?” Meghan dropped her hands in her lap and paused, deliberating. “Now,
why
would I be upset?”

“Calm down. I know it’s unusual but—”

“Unusual, she says.”

“That’s my point.” Quinlan talked fast. “You know I’ve always done things my own way.” She looked at Meghan for a reaction. “I just thought it would be something different to try.” Less of a lie?

“Different?” Meghan stood, pacing the length of the porch. “Quinlan, it’s not done. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s just
not
done.”

“I know it’s not normal.” As if any of this is normal.

“Listen to me.” Meghan sat back down and grabbed Quinlan’s hands. “There are things to learn here. Lots of things. Things you can’t even imagine.”

“Like what?” Quinlan asked. “I’ve been to all my classes.”

Meghan rolled her eyes. “Now that’s just wrong and you know it.”

Quinlan pulled her hands free. “What do you mean?”

“Answer me this,” Meghan started. “Why did you settle for only one major when most everyone chooses two? Learning used to be
everything
to you. Now you can’t even take your one major seriously. And I know you’ve skipped more classes than you’ve gone to.”

“I’ve been studying at home….” Quinlan’s eyes narrowed and zeroed in on Meghan. “Wait, how did you know that?”

“Your progress report,” Meghan answered. “You left it on the kitchen table.”

“Oh.”

“There’s that ‘oh’ again,” Meghan said. “And another thing, why are you still afraid of heights? That shouldn’t be an issue anymore.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Although Quinlan secretly wondered the same thing.

“I saw you the other day on the ladder changing the light bulb,” Meghan answered. “You white-knuckled it the whole way.”

“You know I’ve always had a fear of heights.” Quinlan protest sounded feeble, even to herself.

“As a human, yes. But not here!” Meghan said. “All those things are supposed to be filtered out during orientation.” She resumed her pacing. “Something’s not right.”

“Okay, okay. I get the picture,” Quinlan said, more than ready to switch topics. The last thing she needed was for Meghan to figure out the real reason for her return. She smiled tentatively. “See why I didn’t tell you?”

Meghan’s glare could turn boulders to dust.

“I wanted to tell you, if that helps. And it’s the thought that counts. Right?” Quinlan scrunched up her nose like a little kid. “Besides, now that you know, will you help me?”

Meghan picked up the folded newspaper and sighed. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Be my study buddy?”

“Your study buddy? What are we, in fifth grade?”

Quinlan offered up her best round-eyed pout.

Meghan groaned. “How long do we have?”

“Two weeks.”

“Great. Just great.” Meghan threw up her hands and headed into the cottage.

Quinlan pressed her hands to her stomach, feeling her diaphragm clench erratically. “Well, that’s done.” She puffed out her cheeks, mentally crossing “tell Meghan” off her list.

~~~

She stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom, her fingers tangled in the scarf around her neck. “Why can’t I get this right?”

“Turn around.” In less than thirty seconds Meghan tastefully arranged the scarf Quinlan had wrestled for the last five minutes. “There. Done,” Meghan said. “Now go. You’re late.”

Quinlan scooped up her presentation folder and made sure her reading glasses were somewhere on her body. She found them where they were supposed to be…on her nose. “Do I look okay?”

“It’s not a beauty contest.” Meghan said, using her sister voice.

Exiting the cottage for her appointment with the Advisory Council, she heard her sister’s final remarks.

“Don’t fidget. And remember to make eye contact!”