Counting on Grace (21 page)

“Miss Lesley didn't do nothing wrong,” I cry. “You leave her alone.” And I go for Mr. Wilson, but Mamère grabs me as I fly by and pulls me right up close against her.

“Who is that girl?” Mr. Wilson asks.

Miss Lesley has stood off from him. “Take her out,” she says to my mother in a low voice.
“Go
on quickly. Grace, you keep quiet for once, you hear? I'll talk to you later.”

“Tais-toi,”
my mother spits in my ear.

She has strong muscles in her hands from years of cranking up the builder. Her fingers are wrapped so tight around the top of my arm that I'll be showing a bruise by morning.

That's the way we go up French Hill, her dragging me along behind like I'm nothing but some cart bumping over the rocks. We're all the way inside the kitchen before she finally lets me go.

“What is it?” Papa says.

“They're throwing the Trottiers out,” says my mother. “I warned that woman and warned her again. The boy could have done the sweeping. And Grace here was fixing to kill the overseer.”

I don't say nothing. All I know is I've got to see Arthur before he goes.

Nobody tries to stop me when I say I'm going to the Trottiers’. My father nods and my mother says, “Take her this.” She hands me a sack with a loaf of bread and some sausage. “It's not much, but they'll need food for the trip. Wherever she's going.” I'm staring at Mamère. “Get along with you, Grace,” she snaps. “They'll be halfway down French Hill by the time you get there.”

At the last minute, I decide to take the picture of me and Arthur standing together so I can show it to him. I won't let him touch it, but he needs to see himself whole again. This is what you look like, Arthur. Two fingers don't matter much. You still got everything else.

They're collected at the front door of their house, sharing out the bundles. Two people can't carry much between them. Arthur's got a sack over his shoulder and I can tell it's all books from the way the corners of them are poking at the burlap just like they're fighting to get out and get read.

“Miss Lesley's been here,” he says the moment he sees me.

“Hello, Grace,” says Mrs. Trottier.

“My mother sent you this.” I hand over the sack. “Food for the trip.”

“She is kind. I won't be able to pay everybody back,” she says with a fussing look on her face.

“We'll do without,” I say.

“Miss Lesley give us the train fare as far as New Hampshire. We're going to find Mr. Trottier's cousin.”

“Miss Lesley's leaving too,” says Arthur. “Mr. Wilson threw her out ‘cause she brought in Mr. Hine.”

“You're lying,” I spit, but inside myself I know it's true. The minute I saw snaky Mr. Dupree sliding around the edges of our classroom, I knew what he was there for. How is it that whole months can go by with nothing changing and then in this one day, I'm losing Arthur and Miss Lesley and my Sunday schooling? But I know I've got to stop the thinking about all that right now ‘cause Arthur and Mrs. Trottier are lifting their bundles and there's not much time.

“I've got something to show you,” I tell him.

“I'll go on ahead,” Mrs. Trottier says. “Train's not due for an hour. You take care of yourself, Grace.”

She puts her bundles down again and pulls me against her so my nose is smashed right into the old mill smell caught up in the cloth of her gray dress and the envelope
I'm holding is pressed between us. Then just as quick, she lets me go and starts down the hill.

“Bon
voyage
, Madame Trottier,” I call after her, and she waves one free hand, her body still leaning forward away from French Hill and this old mill house where nothing much good ever happened to her.

I lead Arthur back inside the kitchen. Someone else will be sleeping in here tomorrow night. I can stand Arthur not being in the mill with me, back to back sliding down the rows between our frames. I'm used to missing his eyes watching me between the spindles on cleaning day. But now even on Sundays there's going to be a huge hole where Arthur and Miss Lesley used to be. Like the hole Pépé left in the corner of our kitchen. And that one's still not filled. How many people do I got to give up?

“What you brought to show me?” he asks.

I can't wait no more. The light is fading and the lantern on the table is empty of kerosene.

I slide the photograph out, keeping a safe distance from him. “Mr. Hine sent me this picture,” I tell him. “You and me.”

He just looks and looks like he can't believe that's him staring back. I know what he's looking at. That whole complete hand of his hanging off the pocket of his overalls, same ones he's wearing now.

“I thought you should see yourself like this before you leave.”

He reaches out to take it, but I yank it away quick. “No touching. Mamère ripped up my other one.”

“Why'd she do that?”

I shrug. “She don't want people seeing me in my mill smock.”

“You look like you're fixing to fight someone,” he says.

“It's only two fingers, Arthur. You still got everything else.”

For once, he don't give no smart answers. He just keeps on looking like he's trying to make the picture stay in his brain. And right then and there, before I can change my mind, I decide to give him his half.

“You got your knife?”

He nods.

“Get it out,” I order, and I lay the picture flat on the table.

“What're you fixing to do?”

“Watch me.”

I fold the paper and slit it down the middle. We're still side by side, but now there's a line dividing us. It gives me an ache to see that.

“Here, take it,” I tell him, holding out his half.

“How about I take you and you keep me?” he says. “So's we don't forget.”

I know what he means, and for a second, I think he's right. We could hold on to each other that way. But then I shake my head. “I won't forget what you look like,” I say. “But now I've got me, I can't let go. I can't. And you need to do that too.”

He don't argue, but takes the picture of his old cocky self and slides it between the pages of one of those books of his.

I put my half back in the envelope and I know the
goodbye is coming right at us and I'd just as soon jump over it.

“Don't miss your train,” I say, and start up the hill to my house ‘cause my throat is shutting down like it's choked with lint.

“I'll write you a letter,” he shouts. “With my left hand.”

“You better,” I shout back. My voice croaks.

But I don't let myself turn around and look at him one more time. I'm practicing keeping the picture of him in my head.

Not letting yourself cry is a lot of work. It tires me out and now I just want to slip through the back window of our house and curl up in bed next to Delia.

I lean through and drop my envelope down behind the bureau.

The lantern's still lit in the kitchen and there are people talking around the table. I slip along the edge of the porch to listen. Seems Miss Lesley has marched herself up French Hill one more time.

“It's not enough,” my mother is saying. “Cuts her pay by fifty cents a week.”

“I've told you all this before, Mrs. Forcier.” Miss Lesley's voice sounds dull and tired. “You know how I feel about Grace's schooling. I've given up all my free Sundays to come in and teach her along with Arthur. I won't be here anymore and you can be sure the next teacher won't be
bothering. A teacher can make as much as twenty dollars a week. This would give her a real chance to get out of the mill.”

“What chance?” I ask, stepping through the door.

The three of them look up at me, but it's Henry's voice from the corner that speaks first.

“She wants you to be the teacher.”

“Not the teacher exactly, Henry,” says Miss Lesley. “A substitute just until the new one comes. The pay would be two dollars a week for now. I got Mr. Wilson to agree to offer you the position temporarily. He was in such a rush to fire me, he hadn't figured out who would be coming to take my place. It'll be a month or two before he finds someone. You could be teacher till then. Meanwhile you could be studying for the Normal School exam.”

“We can't give up the extra money now,” says Mamère, standing up to make herself more sure of what she's saying. “Just when we're getting caught up.”

“Papa has his old job back,” I say. Imagine being a teacher. Me. Even for a little while.

Delia is leaning against the doorframe of our room. “Grace ain't such a good doffer, Mamère.” When I open my mouth to snap at her, I catch her wink. “Valerie's fast. With Mrs. Trottier gone, Valerie could take Grace's place on your frames.”

“No,” says Papa. He rarely speaks up, but this time he backs my mother. “We are grateful to you, miss, but Grace works in the mill as a doffer. That's her job. If she were to come out of there, we might lose this house.”

“But don't you see?” Miss Lesley cries. “Grace would
still be working for the mill owners. Remember, they own the school and run it. And pay the teachers.”

There's a little silence while she gets to her feet. “I give up,” she says with a shrug. Me and Henry have heard her say that before in the classroom, but this time she sounds like she really means it. “I am sick and tired of wanting more for your children than you people want for them yourselves. I'm done.”

“Will we have school tomorrow?” Henry asks. He wants to go so's he can show off the new shoes Mamère bought him yesterday at the store. His first pair ever.

“I don't expect so, Henry,” Miss Lesley says. “Nobody to teach you. I'll be gone by noon.”

“Where will you go?” I ask.

“I have a sister who works in the mills down in North Adams. Right across the border in Massachusetts.”

“Père Alain's sister lives in a convent in North Adams.”

Miss Lesley nods. “I'll move in with my sister and her husband for now. Who knows, Grace? Maybe I'll be doffing myself before long.”

“No doffing down in that mill, miss,” my father says. “It's called Arnold Print Works. It's where our cloth goes to be printed.”

The way she stares at my father, I can see she didn't hear a word he said. Her eyes are getting all shiny. I don't know who she feels saddest about—me or her or Arthur. Or the whole collection of us that spent so many Sundays huddled round those desks together.

The train whistle blows. “There goes Arthur,” I say, looking at her.

“Walk me down the hill,” she says, holding out her hand. I'm too big to be holding somebody's hand, but I take hers.

“Grace, you got that laundry downstairs to hang out,” my mother says, but I pretend I don't hear.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Forcier,” says Miss Lesley. “I hope you're able to keep up your reading. You too, Henry.”

“Thank you, miss,” my father says, but we don't look at him. Suddenly, I don't like the family God give me. Me and Miss Lesley walk out the door together. If we started running right then, I bet we could make it onto Arthur's train.

But I know I can't twist together a new family the way I make cotton thread from a bunch of flying ends. Miss Lesley has her sister. Arthur and his mother got each other. I can't make them stay with me.

At the bottom of the hill, she pulls my notebook out of her bag. “You put that somewhere safe.”

I hug it up close to me. “I give Arthur a picture Mr. Hine made of him. It shows him with both his fingers.”

“What will become of Arthur?” she asks out loud, but I know she's not ‘specting me to come up with the answer. She's talking to God or the wind or the trees.

“He should have gone to Massachusetts. You said they don't let kids like us work in the mills down there.”

“I told Mrs. Trottier that, but she is so sure that this cousin is going to help them. He lives in Manchester, New Hampshire.”

“How far away is that?” I ask.

“Other side of Vermont and then north. The Coolidge mill in that town has got one of the biggest spinning rooms
in the world. Arthur and his mother are going from the frying pan into the fire.”

I don't know what she's talking about and she can tell. She give herself a little shake. “Grace, I tucked Mr. Hine's address in the front of your notebook. When you finish your life story, you find a way to get it to him. But don't you mail it from here. Not with Mr. Dupree watching everything you do.”

“You wouldn't be leaving if Mr. Hine had never come.”

“You're right, Grace. Sometimes people trying to do good can make trouble all their own without thinking. I never should have pushed Arthur as hard as I did.”

I don't have no answer for that.

“Did you read my book?” I ask.

“I did. Your handwriting's clear enough even though the letters lean the wrong way.” I open my mouth, but she goes right on. “I marked the spelling errors and corrected the grammar.”

I wait for more. Finally it comes.

“You've got your own particular writing style, Grace. It sounds just like you.”

“Is that bad?”

She smiles a little. “No, it's fine.”

“Did Mr. Wilson really say I could be the teacher?”

“A substitute. Just until he finds someone else. It would be a start for you.” She shivers as if suddenly she's cold. Then she takes me by the shoulders. “But it's for your mother and father to say. Don't get foolish ideas in your head, Grace, the way Arthur did. You pay attention to those bobbins, you hear me?”