The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1) (13 page)

Mama shrugged,
turning on the tap to run a dishrag under it. She brought the wrung-out cloth
back to the table and began mopping up the spilled coffee. Her hands moved with
small, efficient strokes.

“Where’d he hear
it?”

Grace whirled
her head at the echoed question. Nancy poised herself in the large archway
between the living room and the kitchen. Grace’s older sister wore her clothes
for working down city: a smart navy-blue skirt suit handed down from Aunt Mary,
accessorized with a tiny perky hat. In her manicured hand, she clutched her
matching pocketbook. Without glancing at Grace or Mama, her eyes flung
steak-knives straight at Papa. “How does Father Fredrick know that you’re a
cheater?”

Grace’s eyes
opened wide as Nancy took two long steps into the kitchen. Her tall sister
ended up standing nearly nose-to-nose with Papa. Nancy laid a mocking finger aside
her smiling lips. “I don’t know, Papa. Could it be the fact that you’ve got a kitten
living in the cottage behind our house?”

What is Nancy
doing?
Grace couldn’t believe what she saw. Of all her siblings, only Ben had ever
taken a stand against Papa.
And he left once he had done it.

But Nancy… Why
would Nancy, of all people, burst out like this? Nancy had always been content
to escape the house when things got bad; to fling off responsibilities onto Grace’s
thin shoulders; to hole up in their shared bedroom, door locked, reading the
latest edition of
Film Weekly.
She nor Lou had ever seemed to share Grace’s
concern for Mama or anyone else in the family.

But here Nancy
braced herself, angry-eyed, a derisive smile turning up the corners of her lacquered
lips, raising her plucked eyebrows. Grace chanced a look over at Papa,
wondering what he would make of this phenomenon… and what he would do about it.

He showed her
soon enough. For an infinite moment, Nancy and Papa stared into each other’s
eyes, seeming to dare the other to back down. But neither did.

“Get out.” Papa gnashed
out the words, fists shaking. “Get out before I do something I don’t want to
do.”

Nancy’s sneer
grew. “What are you going to do, Papa? Kill me? Oh, wait,” she mock-gasped.
“That would ruin the family reputation, wouldn’t it?”

His hand shot
out then, that Italian palm, meaty as a sausage, and smacked Nancy’s mouth.
Head thrown back for a moment, Grace’s older sister didn’t even wince. A thin
stream of blood threaded down her split lip, but she grinned through
pink-tinged teeth. It looked like she’d eaten deviled ham from a can and
forgotten to swallow.

“Made you feel
manly, didn’t it?” Nancy scoffed, letting out a little snort of a laugh. Papa
seethed, jaw popping.

Frightened, Grace
watched as Nancy turned her back on Papa and sauntered from the kitchen, moving
toward the stairway. Nancy’s eyes didn’t flicker once toward either Grace or
Mama. She wiped the rivulet of blood with the back of her hand as she walked,
probably trying to avoid getting stains on her blouse.

Papa gave Mama a
glare of disgust and stalked out the screen door. Grace shrank back as he
passed, but he shoved her aside anyway. Mama had stood motionless during Nancy
and Papa’s exchange, coffee-soaked dishrag in hand, but when the door slammed shut,
Mama regained mobility. She took wooden steps over to the kitchen sink and
rinsed out the dishrag with slow handwringing.

Nerves tingling,
Grace glanced out the screen door. Sure enough, Papa marched across the back
pasture.
Toward Gertrude’s cottage,
ached Grace. Her father would take
his comfort from the arms of a permed blonde to whom he’d made no sacred vows
and who had never sacrificed her body to bear him children. Grace left the
kitchen, taking the stairs to her shared bedroom.

She could hear shuffling
inside the bedroom. Nancy had shut the door, but the lock had never worked for
as far back as Grace could remember. She gave a slight knock, then squeaked
open the door and entered the dimly-lit room.

Nancy stood before
the four sisters’ common closet, pulling her few skirts and dresses off the
hangers. She looped each over her arm and deposited them on the bed before
moving to the room’s sole bureau, a beat-up hand-me-down from Mama’s family.
Yanking open a drawer, Nancy’s nimble fingers pulled out camisoles, underwear,
stockings, garter belts. She gathered them all in a messy ball and stuffed them
into the open carpet bag sitting on her bed.

Grace watched
silently for a moment.
It’s like when Ben left for the first time, years
ago.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

Nancy didn’t hesitate
or look at Grace. “Leavin’.” She gave the heap of clothes a final shove and
buckled shut the carpet bag. “Shut the door, kid.”

Grace nodded and
obeyed, closing the door with a gentle click, feeling the cool brass knob yield
to her pressure. “Where’ll you go, Nan?” she said softly.

Her sister
glanced at her, jaw set like cement. “Richard’s got a place now. Above Barry’s
auto garage.” A smile hardened on Nancy’s lips. “He’s been pushing me to marry
him for who-knows-how-long. I’ve been putting him off, telling him I need more
time.” Nancy snorted. “Well, I guess now’s the time, huh, kid?”

Grace’s eyes
widened. “What about the priest? Father Frederick wouldn’t marry you just like
that, without Papa and Mama-”

“I didn’t say
anything about Father Frederick, Grace,” Nancy interrupted. “There’s a Justice
of the Peace, you know.”

No priest
blessing the Sacrament of marriage? Grace couldn’t believe her sister would do
such a thing. “But Mama-”

“I don’t really
care what Mama thinks, Grace,” Nancy huffed, glaring at her for daring to
object. “Mama and Papa were married by the Church, and I don’t see that it did
them any good.”

Grace hung her
head, studying her fingernails.
The whole family… everything… is just
fallin’ apart.
She felt Nancy’s hand squeeze her shoulder then and looked
up to see her big sister’s toffee eyes fastened on her face. “I gotta do what’s
best for me, kid,” Nancy explained, her voice a little softer. Her hand dropped
off Grace’s shoulder. “Hey, at least you’ll have more space now, huh?”

Grace managed to
nod, blinking back the stinging tears. There would only be her and Lou sleeping
in the bedroom now. But instead of relief at the thought of no longer being
squashed together with three sisters, Grace felt only an ache. “Good luck,” she
offered.

“Thanks, Grace.”
Nancy picked up her bulging floral bag, and Grace stepped away from the door. She
opened her mouth to say good-bye, but the words wouldn’t creep out her throat.
“See you, kid,” Nancy said and was gone.

The room was so
silent that Grace could hear the tick-tick-tick of the old mantle clock
counting the seconds on the desk. She moved with noiseless feet to her bed and
perched there.
I don’t feel anything,
she thought wonderingly.
I know
I’m sad and hurt and all that, but I just can’t feel it anymore.

Though Grace had
been on the verge of crying only moments before, she now sat tearless and
dry-spirited. No sound came from the kitchen below the thin floorboards; Grace
vaguely wondered whether Mama had seen Nancy leave or if her older sister had
just slipped outside without saying a word to the woman who birthed her, who
raised her.

She didn’t raise
us. We raised ourselves!
The truant thought sneaked through Grace’s mind.
Acutely conscious, she felt the bitterness rise up as she remembered Mama all
during her growing-up years: colder than the blocks that the ice-man brought on
Tuesdays, less caring than a cowbird was for its young.

The room felt so
empty. Evelyn had left, too. Aunt Mary had taken her namesake to live with her
and Uncle Johnny today. Grace looked at the two double beds, one of which she
sat on, made so neatly that a quarter could bounce on them. Then her eyes went
to the big closet, where the four sisters’ clothing had fought for legroom. It
was more than half empty now; Evelyn and Nancy had taken all their things.

Evelyn’s saddle
shoes were gone from their place beneath the bedside table. Somehow, that made the
emptiness unbearable. Bending over, Grace pulled off her own shoes and placed
them in that spot.

O
n Monday
morning, Emmeline had just finished crimping the crust of an apple pie when the
phone rang. She wiped her hands down her bibbed apron, brushed back the wisps
of hair from her face, and picked up the black receiver.

“Mrs. Kinner?
This is Doctor Philips’ office.”

Emmeline’s
fingers gripped the phone, knuckles bleaching as she anticipated what words
might come next. “Yes,” she swallowed, “this is Emmeline Kinner.”

“Doctor Philips
would like you to come in for another consultation.” The starched voice paused.
“He’d like to be sure that everything is going as it should.”

Going as it
should? But nothing was going as it should.

Emmeline’s mouth
parched. She forced herself to swallow, nearly choking, then asked in what she
meant to be a calm tone, “When would the doctor like me to come in?”

“When it’s
convenient for you,” the nurse replied.

Emmeline barely
heard the times and dates offered next. Her mind had turned to wood, it seemed.
When she didn’t reply to a question, the speaker on the other end said, “Mrs.
Kinner? Are you alright?”

Lord, help me.
“Yes,” she
managed. “Yes, I’m alright. What… What are the possible appointment times
again, please?”

The nurse
rambled off a list of available days in the next week. Then she added, “Or you
could come in today. Doctor Philips has an opening this afternoon at one
o’clock.”

“Yes,” Emmeline
answered. “I’ll come today.”

B
ehind his
massive oak desk, Doctor Philips tapped his fountain pen against his lips. In
the silent moment, Emmeline remembered the medical man once telling her that he
didn’t like to write in pencil, ever; it seemed too changeable. “When I write
something,” he’d said, “whether prescription or diagnosis or symptoms, I don’t
intend to alter it.”

Clutching her
small black purse in her lap, Emmeline crossed her ankles and tried to appear
as serene as possible.
Oh, God of my fathers, You alone are in control.

Doctor Philips gave
a final tap, and leaned back in his padded chair. “Mrs. Kinner,” he began,
“this is a most difficult conversation for me to have with a patient whom I’ve
known for as long as you.”

Emmeline could
not reply, could not even nod.
I know what you’re going to say…

The doctor
cleared his throat. “As I informed you at your last visit, your pregnancy seems
at an end.”

Emmeline felt
the word
seems
like a jolt. “Seems?” Her gaze sought the doctor’s. “Do
you mean… Do you mean that I
am,
in fact, still pregnant, then?” Hope
stretched its wounded wings in her heart, despite the doctor’s grim expression.
Her hands shook; she gripped her purse tighter to quiet them. “I thought… the
bleeding… I thought that I’d already lost the baby?”

The doctor’s
shoulders lifted and fell with a sigh. “Losing. Lost. At this point, we can’t
be certain which it is.” He looked straight into her eyes, compassionate but
unflinching. “Mrs. Kinner, please prepare yourself. I am certain that your body
is aborting this fetus. What you’ve related to me – the experience you had the
other night – only confirms my belief.”

“Is there no
chance at all, then?” Emmeline heard herself ask.

Doctor Philips
bushed his eyebrows together, his mouth relaxing a little. “Not much of one,
Mrs. Kinner.” He shook his head. “I would be a cruel man to let you think that
there is. I would rather prepare you for the inevitable.” He leaned forward in
his chair, searching her eyes with his.

Her breath came
slow and shallow. “So I will never have children, Doctor?” She stared down at
her white knuckles, firmly clinging to the purse for safety.

Doctor Philips
paused. “Only God knows that, Mrs. Kinner. But, speaking as your doctor, no, I
don’t think so.”

“I see.” She stared
down at her lap, feeling his kindly gaze on her.

“H
ey, Mr. K. is
really booking it today,” Paulie observed, looking down the hallway. He carried
Grace’s books in his hands once again, grinning.

Grace tried to
find a polite way to tell him to give her back her books and get lost.
I
don’t want Paulie finding out where I live,
she thought, her eyes following
Mr. Kinner as well. He really was in a hurry. He practically ran down the
corridor, not seeming to pay any attention to the stares of other teachers or
the surprised looks of students.

“Must be in a
hurry to get home.” Paulie grinned, showing off those dimples.

“Where are ya
going, old boy?” Teddy Bulger’s chipper voice sounded right behind Grace. She
felt her face growing warmer as the number of boys around her increased.
How
can I escape?
But Paulie blocked her way – not meaning to, of course – from
the front and now Teddy came alongside her, freckles shining on his oily face.

“Walking Grace
home,” answered Paulie, keeping her books tucked securely under his arm. He
didn’t look ready to give them up anytime soon.

Grace stood
miserably, ignoring the boys’ conversation until she heard her name again. “Well,
I’m walking Grace home right now,” Paulie said to his friend. “I can come over
to help you with your essay right after that.”

Teddy turned
curious eyes toward Grace, and she could just hear his thoughts:
Why would
he want to walk her home?
But Teddy didn’t say anything out loud. He
shrugged and said, “Okey-doke. See you, Paulie.” Hefting his own load of books
under his arm, he trotted toward the main entrance.

This is it, Grace.
This is when you make Paulie give you back your books and flee.
But even as the
thoughts ran through her mind, Grace found that she didn’t want to say them,
not in her heart.

Especially when
Paulie turned his broad smile back to her. “Ready?” he asked.

Grace nodded,
the faintest smile touching her own lips.

S
arah pressed a
hand to her back, feeling every surge of the pain shooting up her spine. Biting
her chapped lips, she bent once more to the task before her: scrubbing the
kitchen floor on her hands and knees. “Blast that girl,” she muttered. If Nancy
hadn’t been so fresh with Charlie the other night, Charlie wouldn’t have told
her to high-tail it out of the house.

And Sarah
would’ve had just a little more help around here. “Not much, though,” she
grumbled out loud. Nancy had always been the independent sort. Not lazy,
exactly; just bent on doing what she wanted, when she wanted. Lou acted
similarly. And, in some ways, Sarah had always admired her twin daughters for
that streak of selfishness.
Least they grab what they want outta life.
Unlike me. Unlike Grace.

Just at that
moment, the screen door banged. Sarah picked up her head to see Grace entering,
flushed and hot in the Indian-summer weather. “Don’t slam the door,” Sarah
huffed.
How many times do I have to tell the girl?

“I’m sorry,
Mama.” Grace stood just looking down at Sarah, lunch pail dangling from one
hand, books cradled in the other arm’s crook.

Pathetic. Just
like me.
“Well, don’t stand there like a pelican. Get changed. I need your help with
supper,” Sarah snapped, not feeling the least bit bad about it. Fact was,
lashing out at someone felt kinda good, especially when you knew that they
weren’t the type to bite back.

Grace opened her
mouth, then closed it. “What?” questioned Sarah. She shifted back on her heels,
feeling the ache rip down her spine.

Her daughter
seemed hesitant. With a slight clink, Grace set her lunch pail down on the
kitchen counter. “I… I got a lot of homework, Mama.”

Did Grace think
of nothing else but school and homework and singing? Didn’t she understand that
Sarah needed her help? Didn’t Grace realize that Sarah had no one else upon
whom she could depend? “You can do that later if you want,” Sarah answered,
lacing the words with sarcasm. Grace might as well know now. “This’ll be your
last few months of school anyway, so I don’t see why you’re all worked up about
your homework.”

She shot a
glance straight into her daughter’s eyes, willing the innocence out of them,
before turning back to her scrub bucket. Sarah dunked her bristle brush and
tore away at the floor. She let a couple of minutes pass before looking up to
see the effect her words had.

Grace turned
pale, her eyes two blue holes in a white-clouded sky. “Whatcha mean, Mama?” she
nearly whispered.

A painful
pleasure throbbed through Sarah as she knew that she’d hurt Grace. Sarah thrust
the brush deep into the bucket, splashing soapy water over the edge. “Just what
I said. I guess you know about the baby coming in February.”

Grace stared,
but Sarah thought she saw her head bob a tad in acknowledgment.

“Well,” Sarah
continued, scrubbing the wood as if her life depended on it, “I’ll be needing
you here once February rolls around.”

“But…” Grace
looked like a sunfish some cruel boys had left to flop on a summer riverbank.
“But I have to finish school, Mama.”

A fifteen-year-old
daughter telling her mama what she had to do! Sarah sat back on her haunches,
looking at Grace, scrawny and threadbare, and her heart softened just a bit.
Then she heard Charlie’s car pulling up the long drive, grinding through the
stones in the dirt. A bang of one car door, then another. Laughter followed,
high and nervous and quickly hushed. Sarah’s mouth hardened into a thin line.
“I need you here, Grace. There’ll be no arguing about it, is that clear?”

Grace began
nodding, tears pooling in her eyes. Sarah didn’t feel the kind of satisfaction
that she had thought she’d feel, but she went back to scrubbing. Without
looking at Grace again, she said, “Go on now and change your clothes. I need
your help with supper.”

“No.”

Sarah whipped
her head up, sure she’d heard wrong, though the word had been said in such a
strong, unmistakable voice.

Grace stepped
forward, coloring rising in her cheeks, dashing away tears with the back of her
hand. “No, Mama. I’m not gonna quit school, no matter what you say, and I’ve
got homework tonight!” With a glare that seared her mama, Grace dashed from the
kitchen.

Sarah heard her
daughter’s feet thud up the stairs and then the bedroom door shut with a loud
bang. The kitchen stayed silent for a long while, the only sound being the
weeping that shook Sarah’s shoulders.