Broken Grace (2 page)

THREE

W
HEN SHE WOKE, THE CAR WAS
ON AN EXIT RAMP.

Grace sat up carefully; every muscle of her torso ached. “Are we here?”

“Not quite. But let me know if things start to look familiar.”

They turned left, away from the highway, and passed a little brewery, a market, some antique shops, and restaurants. They continued past some small homes set back from the road.

“Is this our town?”

“This is Sawyer. It’s not far from where we live, but we’re a bit farther out.”

They drove through a wooded area before the road opened up to expose acres and acres of farmland. Lisa took a left and drove along several more miles of cultivated land before the road wound around a series of bends. They turned again and passed an orchard of some kind and row after row of vineyards.

Lisa looked over with a hopeful expression. “Any of this look familiar?”

Grace was about to say no when Lisa turned left and the car rolled forward on a gravel road. It was unmarked, barely wide enough for two cars, sandwiched between a large field on one side and a forest on the other. The crushing sound of tires on gravel felt familiar. She didn’t recognize anything, but she closed her eyes and let the noise fill her ears.

They traveled about a quarter mile before Lisa stopped the car and opened her window to gather some mail from a box. “I forgot to get this yesterday.”

Grace sat up, gripping the seat, waiting for something to happen.

“What is it?”

“Is this it?” She was leaning forward, trying to get a look through the trees.

Lisa smiled. “Yep. This is home.” She turned onto an unpaved drive that cut through the dense trees for ten or fifteen feet before the view widened. She looked over at Grace for her reaction. “Do you remember?”

An old white farmhouse sat in the middle of a patch of open, snow-covered land, the center of the maze. Snow had slid off portions of the metal roof that hung over a covered porch; one of the gutters hung precariously from a corner. The white siding was chipped in several places. Two dormered windows extended out of the roof on the second floor. Two rocking chairs, turned upside down, flanked the front door. There were no other homes in sight.

“Is all this land ours?”

“Yep. It’s, like, twenty-five acres.”

An old red pickup truck was parked off to the side. A giant tree stood in the center of the front yard, a broken rope swing hanging from its massive branch. The woods in the distance seemed to wrap the home in a protective shell. “This is where I grew up,” Grace said.

“That’s right.” Lisa stopped the car. “Are you remembering something?”

Grace couldn’t take her eyes off the house. “I know this house. I knew that sound of tires on gravel, like I’d heard it thousands of times.” She turned. “We still live here?”

Lisa nodded. “Our parents left it to us. In fact, that’s Dad’s old truck over there.” She pointed to the pickup. “I’ve been meaning to get rid of it, but it’s got sentimental value.”

“They’re dead?”

Lisa pulled closer to the house and put the car in park before answering. “It was a long time ago, Grace. It’s a lot for you to take in, I know.” She reached out and put a hand on Grace’s knee. “It’s just you and me now.”

She got out before Grace could say more and came over to Grace’s side of the car to help her.

“I’m fine,” Grace insisted. It was a lie. She felt the cracked ribs with every step. Her head pounded with each movement, and she stopped several times, hoping to lessen the dizziness with a deep breath that only made her wince in pain.

Lisa ran ahead to unlock the door and hold it open. Grace followed, and as soon as she saw the bench next to the stairway in the hall, she sat. Lisa returned to the car for Grace’s medications, letting the screen door slam shut behind her, and then threw it open again, scurrying past her in those obscenely loud shoes. A minute later, she was standing before Grace with a glass of water and some pills.

“Thanks.” Grace didn’t have the strength to say more. She threw back three tablets with a single swallow.

“Come on, you should lie on the couch,” Lisa said, helping her stand. The living room, unlit but for the few sunrays spotlighting swirling dust, felt stale, as if everything in it—once fresh and loved—had spoiled. The floor was covered in a thick, brown shag rug that must have been older than Grace, and two antique chairs had long passed their expiration date. The wall in front of her was partially painted a shockingly vivid blue, while the other walls remained cream-colored, maybe a bit dirty.

“We were trying to update the place,” Lisa said, “give it some new life, get some new stuff. But it’s kind of a long process. Money’s not exactly flowing these days. And it’s in pretty bad shape. We sold most of Mom and Dad’s stuff, but there are some things in the basement.”

Grace propped up the pillows at the end of the leather couch, obviously a newer purchase, and lay down. Now facing the hall, she noticed swatches of red and orange paint marking two square-foot sections of the entry wall. Ripped magazine pages were taped up in various locations.

“Inspirational,” Lisa said.

Grace smiled before covering her eyes with her forearm.

“Well, let me know if you need anything.” Stair treads soon creaked under Lisa’s feet as she headed upstairs.

When Grace opened her eyes again, the headache was gone, and as she sat up, she no longer felt the pain in her ribs. She rolled her head, stretching her neck, and carefully stood, taking a moment to adjust to the new perspective. “Hello?” she called out. No response.

She slowly climbed the stairs. It was that sound. The squeak of a tread when she put her weight on it. She stood on the spot and closed her eyes, waiting for something to come to her. Maybe if she stared into the darkness of her mind long enough, her eyes would adjust and see shapes. Nothing came, but then she looked at the spindles of the stairwell, grabbed the one beside her, and tugged at it. It was loose—completely detached from the stair beneath it. She knew it would be. At least that was something.

Lisa was in the room to the left, making up a double bed. Grace leaned against the dark-stained casing. “Hi.”

“Oh, hey, how are you feeling?”

“Better.”

“This is your room. I was just trying to straighten it up for you.”

The room was fairly large, though mostly empty. The wood floors were bare, scuffed, and faded from the sun except for a large rectangular outline of darker wood in the center, as if it had been long covered by a rug. An old ceiling fan and light with four decorative glass shades hung in the center of the room. A white sheet, tied back with a yellow ribbon, hung above the single dormer window that flooded the room with light. The walls were bare, just like the hospital, except dirtier. The iron-framed double bed was covered in a white bedspread, its pillows fluffed, with an old milk crate propped beside it. A dresser, painted white but chipped, housed a small table lamp and a picture. Nothing felt familiar. Lisa took the picture from the dresser and brought it to her. “What about this? That’s you, Grace. Do you remember this?”

Grace studied herself. Her hair was longer in the photo, nearly to her waist, and sun-streaked—or maybe highlighted. She was sunburned, smiling, squinting and holding up a hand to block the sun. She looked a little younger. She was sitting on a beach in shorts, leaning back into the arms of a shirtless man. An older man. He was cute—tan, with wild dark hair, blue eyes, dimples. “Who’s that?”

“Michael.”

Michael. One of the names in her contacts. “When was this?”

“I guess it was a few years back. It’s such a nice picture. You looked so happy. But I guess that’s over now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You broke up last week.” Lisa put back the picture.

“Why?”

“You wouldn’t tell me.” There were no other pictures in the room.

“He was my boyfriend all this time?”

“Oh yeah, you’ve been together for as long as I can remember.”

“He looks a lot older than me.”

“He is. Like, ten years older, I think. That was probably why it ended.”

“What do you mean?”

“He . . .” Lisa hesitated. “It bothered you that he could be controlling sometimes.”

She wondered if he’d controlled her phone, if that was why it was so empty. “Does he know about the accident?”

Lisa shook her head. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see him. You were so upset about the breakup.” She smiled. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

Grace followed her into the hallway but stopped to open the nearby door. She leaned in. “What’s this?”

“We don’t use that for anything,” Lisa said, walking toward the other end of the hall.

Grace stood in the doorway, staring into the small bedroom, looking for memories. A shade pulled over the window prevented light from entering the space. The switch didn’t work, but she could see several holes in the wallboard, like it had been punched. “What happened to the walls?”

Lisa came back and leaned into the room. “What do you mean?”

“Those holes.”

She chuckled. “Jeez, I forgot all about those. Yeah, you had a little bit of a temper as a kid. Big fan of throwing tantrums—chairs too, if they were around. Come on.” She walked across the hall, but Grace stepped inside to investigate further. How else would she remember? “How old was I when I did that?”

Lisa returned. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe twelve? Thirteen? That’s probably right because that’s about the time I moved out.” She nudged her. “Guess you really didn’t want me to go. Dad never even fixed the holes. He didn’t care. Now, come on, the tour continues.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“I was, like, twenty; it was time, that’s all. But I came back to visit a lot.” Lisa steered her to the other side of the hall, presenting her bedroom with a sweep of the arm. “And this is me,” she said. It was a large bedroom with a dormer window, like Grace’s. A mound of blankets sat atop a sheet-less, queen-sized mattress in the center of the room. The wallpaper behind the bed was ripped off in sections.

“This was Mom and Dad’s room. I’m redecorating in here as well. Gotta get that damn paper down and then I’ll paint.”

Grace studied the fragments of tiny blue and white flowers on the walls, looking for memories before glancing through the double doors to the left that opened into an adjacent smaller room. An easel stood in the center, a cup of brushes and a bucket of acrylic paint tubes on the small table beside it. Several canvases, some painted, some blank, lined the wall. The afternoon sunlight flooded the small space through the two windows facing the backyard. Grace walked into the room. “You’re a painter?”

Lisa shrugged. “I try. I’m not as good as Mom was, but I like to think I’m an artist.”

“Can I see some of your work?”

She shook her head quickly. “Oh no. Nothing in here is ready for anyone to see. And it’s a mess. Let’s go.”

At the bottom of the stairs, large pocket doors closed off a room to their right.

“What’s in here?”

“Too much.” Lisa opened the doors a few inches. It was nearly impossible to enter with boxes piled high, a desk and built-in shelves barely visible behind them.

“There’s a lot to do to fix up this place. Our parents were kind of pack rats. I tend to clean by moving piles, so the living and dining room are pretty decent now, but I haven’t had the strength to tackle this room yet.” She closed the doors, and Grace wandered ahead of her back to the living room, touching, holding, examining everything—furniture, books, figurines.

“Are there any more pictures?”

“Not really. Mom and Dad had pictures of us all over the place, but they’re in storage. I guess we’re not big on photos.” Lisa called from the kitchen, “You hungry?”

“No. But I’ll take some water.” The nausea and cotton mouth had returned. She’d felt this way for days. Nurse Molly said it was the meds. She sat back on the couch, exhausted, and stared up at the water-stained ceiling.

The chime of a doorbell rang out slowly, eight notes climbing up and down a scale, the sound sparking something. It was connected to good things. It made her smile.

Lisa went to the door and Grace listened, unable to stand and look for herself. She heard voices without understanding their content until Lisa ushered two men into the room and subtly signaled Grace to sit up. Lisa’s face gave no hint as to their purpose, but those raised eyebrows must have meant she was surprised by their arrival. “Grace, these officers are from the Chikaming Township Police Department. They’re hoping to speak with you.”

A big man in a black leather jacket held out his hand. He was maybe forty, more belly than legs. “How you doin’,” he said rhetorically. His dark under-eye circles and scratchy tone mirrored her exhaustion. He looked serious, maybe angry. “Detective Bishop,” he said, his arm still outstretched toward her. She didn’t react quickly enough; he withdrew the hand, scanning the room.

A young man dressed in a police uniform followed behind. He was taller, fit, a little more fantasy cop than real cop. Dark hair, olive skin, a bright smile, perfect teeth. She slowly rose to greet him. But he seemed to be trying to control his demeanor, as if he wanted to emulate his partner’s stoicism. He wiped the smile from his face as their eyes met, and he offered his hand. “Hello, Grace.”

That voice. She stretched out her hand cautiously, watching his changing expression. He held her grip a little too long, staring into her eyes, studying her. “Do I know you?” she asked.

He looked over, and the big one, Bishop, answered for him. “This is Officer Hackett.”

Hackett
. It didn’t mean anything.

Lisa gestured to the men to sit, then joined Grace on the couch. Hackett grabbed the nearest chair, pulled out his pen and notepad, and looked to his partner.

“So I guess this is about the accident?” Lisa said.

“Accident?” Bishop said.

“Grace was in a terrible car accident a week ago on Red Arrow Highway,” Lisa said, perched on the sofa’s edge, her back straight, her hand patting Grace’s knee. “A deer hit her car and she ran into a tree somewhere near Warren Dunes State Park. We literally just got home from the hospital.”