chapter sixteen chapter sixteenA children’s tea at the Carlyle hotel on the Upper East Side was not the kind of activity Bobbie Jo Marcum would normally have in mind for a Sunday afternoon. But today’s Bobbie Jo was not the same woman as the Bobbie Jo of a month ago, who’d spent most Sundays listening to Rascal Flatts while leafing her newsprint-stained fingers ever deeper into The New York Times. The Bobbie Jo of today sat across from a little girl dressed in a red plaid jumper over a neat white shirt with a Peter Pan collar. Atop her head, Grace wore a wide-brimmed yellow hat with a red ribbon, which she stubbornly refused to take off.
The room was filled with such hats. The children’s tea was a theme-inspired meal based on the Madeline series of books by Ludwig Bemelmans. The familiar tale about that smallest of French schoolgirls, who lived in a little brick house in Paris, and whose parents were always “away,” had thrilled Grace as much as it had Jo, who, as a foster child sleeping in a series of trundle beds, had once incurred nearly three dollars in fines for keeping Madeline’s Rescue under her pillow rather than returning it to the library.
Jo gestured to the man who’d just gathered a new bunch of girls on a plush carpet to read. “Do you want to join the group, honey? Looks like he’s going to do Madeline in London.”
“Nah,” she said, swinging her legs as she reached for a miniature burger. “He didn’t do Madeline and the Bad Hat nearly as good as Cousin Jessie. And that’s my favorite—because of Pepito.”
“Pepito?!” Jo pulled a mock grimace. “When you’re a teenager, Gracie, remind me to keep you away from psychopaths.”
“What’s a s-aye-co-path?”
“It’s someone really scary. Like a teenage boy.”
“Pepito isn’t scary!”
“Gracie, honey, do I have to remind you that he sets a cat loose among a pack of dogs?”
“That was before.”
“And he builds a guillotine for chickens?”
“He says that he’s sorry.” She stopped swinging her legs long enough to lean into the table, waving her half-eaten teeny burger at Jo. “And Madeline forgives him and tells him he’s not a bad hat anymore.”
Jo took another sip of lemonade and narrowed her eyes at Grace, wondering if it was too early to worry about this tendency to go for the bad boys.
Jo slid her cup back on the table. She needed to take it one nightmare at a time. “Well,” Jo said, “my favorite character is that mutt that pulled Madeline from the river. What was that pup’s name, now? Something ridiculously Fifth Avenue—”
“Genevieve.”
“Ah, yes. Genevieve.” In Kentucky, dogs were called Rover or Pooch or Butch. Princesses were called Genevieve.
“Ooh, I love Genevieve, too! And Miss Clavel let Madeline keep her!”
“And all her puppies.”
Yes, all those sloppy puppies in that old house in Paris, covered with vines. How Jo had yearned for such a place, while wearing stranger’s hand-me-downs, and devouring the stories under worn bedcovers. She’d wanted to be transported there, where she could pretend that she wasn’t really an orphan—that her parents were just rich and busy and mysteriously away.
“Do you need some more tea, Aunt Jo?” Grace reached for the perky white teapot. “I’ll pour it for you.”
“Fill her up, kiddo.” Jo slid her delicate china cup within Grace’s reach. “I’ve gone plumb dry.”
Gracie lifted the teapot. Holding the lid with her other hand, she poured the tea—well, lemonade—in the general direction of Jo’s cup. Fortunately, the linen tablecloth was very absorbent.
Jo took a sip of the strongly sweetened brew. The way they both were drinking, they’d have to make another trip to the ladies’ room soon, and not just to peruse the bunny-with-umbrella wallpaper, designed by the same man who’d authored the books. On the table stood a three-tiered platter with a pretty lineup of miniature food. Jo picked up one of the shrimp arrayed in two straight lines. “Hey, this is the smallest.” Jo held up the shrimp. “Do you want to eat Madeline?”
“I like Pepito’s veggies better,” said Gracie, seizing a slim sliced carrot. “Especially the dip.”
Jo popped the shrimp in her mouth. She’d been trying to get Grace to eat sliced carrots and celery with ranch dip at home—to no avail—but serve the same thing up on silver and call it “Pepito’s crudités” and suddenly it was meal-worthy. Kate would appreciate that.
Kate, who was finally home with her kids, neck-deep in domestic suburban life again. Kate and Paul had come a long way, if that heartrending scene on the lawn was any indication, but Jo knew it was just the beginning. Apparently, even the truest of loves needed tending.
“Well, sugar,” she said, finishing a quick prayer, “my favorites were the teeny burgers. Not enough for this Southern girl, though—I could have eaten ten dozen more. But I was saving room for one of those.” Jo nodded discreetly toward the next table, where a redheaded little Madeline and her mother, in vintage Chanel, hunkered over a heaping bowl of ice cream. “What do you think, should we get the Eiffel Tower Hot Fudge Sundae or the Petite Banana Splits Fontainebleau?”
Grace craned her neck in a very unladylike way to get a good look at her neighbor’s Eiffel Tower sundae. Jo spotted a Fontainebleau a few tables over and pointed that out to her, too.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Jo said, as Grace bit her lip in indecision. “I’ll get one, and you get the other. Then we’ll share.”
“That’s what me and Cousin Jessie used to do,” Grace said, making an excited squiggle in her seat, “whenever we went to the Dairy Princess at home.”
Jo paused with the teacup halfway to her lips. “Home” for Gracie still meant back in New Jersey, at her grandmother’s house. Jo felt a twinge in her chest, like the sink of a sharp splinter.
“Well, kiddo,” Jo said, clearing the husk from her voice, “I can eat twice as much as skinny Cousin Jessie, so you’d better be quick with your spoon.”
Waddling out of the hotel six thousand calories later, Jo gamely suggested a few blocks of walking. Motherhood could pack on the pounds more easily than two weeks’ worth of late-night take-out. So they braved the frisky wind and strolled toward Central Park. Gracie buttoned her blue wool Madeline coat right up to her neck, and Jo wrapped herself in her cashmere pashmina. Skipping along in her Mary Janes, Grace followed the skittering of the leaves along the sidewalk. Ablaze with russet and gold, the trees of Central Park rustled in the wind as the feeble November sun warmed their heads. Winter was soon to come, but right now New York City was as lovely as it could get.
As they crossed Fifth Avenue, Gracie slipped her hand in Jo’s. Grace’s hand was weightless—so small, so warm, and slightly damp.
And though she strolled on a busy street in a busy city, with yellow cabs rushing by, and trucks rumbling over the pitted streets, and double-long buses squealing to a stop, Jo experienced a sudden, muffled silence, like a cocoon—like the drift of a soft, familiar blanket around them.
No reason to rush home.
Jo leaned down to catch the little girl’s eye. “Hey, Gracie, what do you say we work off some of that ice cream in that park over there? I hear it’s got a kickin’ twisty slide.”
Grace burst into a smile, and then darted toward the opening in the stone wall. Jo followed her through the gap, watching the ribbon on the little girl’s hat flying in her wake. Gracie raced for the park bridge, only to squeal in delight as she spotted the granite spiral slide.
With a twinge of guilt, Jo flicked her wrist to glance at her watch. Grace’s cousin and grandmother—Jessie and Mrs. Braun—were due to visit today, within the hour. Sarah was crashing at Jo’s apartment so she could let the Brauns in should Jo and Grace be late, but Jo’s concern extended beyond the threat of tardiness. Jo was looking forward to the visit with about the same enthusiasm as she was looking forward to her “performance review” at work on Monday, and for much the same reason. She’d spent the last weeks trying to do two very important things: land a new client, and try to make a home for an orphaned little girl. She’d bobbled the first, and the jury was still out on the second, though her spare room was starting to look as if it had been conquered by a tribe of fluffy bunnies.
As she hauled her Kentucky butt around the park, chasing Gracie from slide to stone bridge, Jo pushed the guilt from her mind. She and Gracie were having a wonderful day so far… and a pretty darn good week. Gracie had only walked in her sleep twice; she’d started to expand her food choices beyond sliced apples and macaroni and cheese; and there’d only been one tantrum, over the wrong brand of toothpaste. But Jo had a terrible dark Southern sense of foreboding about the upcoming visit with Nana Leah and Cousin Jessie. It would be the first time Gracie had seen them since Jo had swept her away from her home in Teaneck.
Jo remembered her own “family visits.” She closed her eyes and saw her twelve-year-old self on the third Sunday of every month. She’d made a point of getting filthy by the creek, and wearing her most tattered clothes. She’d listen for the crunch of wheels on the graveled drive, the signal that Aunt Lauralee had arrived in her blue pickup truck. Then Jo would slouch into the parlor late, glare at her aunt from under overgrown bangs, and secretly hope Aunt Lauralee would stop looking at her watch long enough to notice Jo’s Dickensian appearance. What she really longed for was a sudden change of heart—that Aunt Lauralee would take Jo back to the neat little ranch house and her four rambunctious cousins, the only family Jo had left.
No—there was no use rushing home today.
Gracie paused at the edge of a skateboard park, where she watched what appeared to be a gang of young Goth pincushions risk total paralysis on skateboards. (“Look, Aunt Jo, psychopaths!”) Despite the Mary Janes and plaid jumper, the little girl had more than a bit of her mother in her, and Jo suspected that after today a skateboard would be on her Hanukkah wish list. Veering away from the show, Grace managed to be in just the right place when a kid abandoned a swing, and, seizing it, she called for Jo to push her—which she did, until Grace was flying back over Jo’s head.
By the time they tumbled out of the taxi much later and headed into Jo’s apartment building, the yellow bow at Grace’s throat had come undone and she’d scraped the knee of her tights, but she was pink-cheeked and chattering all the way up the elevator to their floor. Jo’s stomach clenched more tightly each time the bell rang, marking the passing of another floor.
The minute Jo swung the door open to her apartment, Grace tore away from Jo’s side.
“Nana!”
Mrs. Braun was a hefty woman, incapable of sudden moves. As Gracie hurled toward her, the elderly woman shuffled forward on the couch in an effort to brace her legs to stand. Grace threw herself at her before she managed. Laughing, Mrs. Braun wrapped her plump arm around Gracie’s back and pulled her onto her lap.
Jo felt that sliver of a splinter slide a little deeper into her heart.
“Mrs. Braun, Jessie,” Jo said, as she tossed her keys in the bowl by the door. “Are we late? How long have y’all been here?”
“No, no, you’re not late.” Jessie jolted off the chair and then shoved her fingers into her jean pockets. She looked bony, and her hair was in desperate need of an appointment at Bangz. “We’re early. My aunt couldn’t wait. She was nervous about the traffic. She said in this part of town it would take an hour to find a parking spot. Your houseguest—Sarah—was kind enough to let us in.”
Jo met Sarah’s eye. Sarah shrugged where she sat curled in the corner of the couch, looking fragile but serene after the disastrous visit with Colin in L.A. “I offered tea,” Sarah said, “but for ten minutes I stood in front of your stovetop, and I still couldn’t figure out how to turn the thing on.”
“The dang thing’s computerized,” Jo said, sweeping up Grace’s discarded hat. “I’ll get it started in a minute.”
Mrs. Braun had managed to pull Gracie away from herself long enough to get a good look. Gracie unbuttoned her blue wool coat, smoothed her hand over her red plaid jumper, and wiggled her Mary Jane–clad toes. She sat inches from Mrs. Braun’s face, grinning, her body pliable and molded to her grandmother’s form.
“So you went to Central Park, did you?” Mrs. Braun asked. “And you went to a playground with a twisty slide? And before that, you were eating with Madeline?” Mrs. Braun’s grip on Gracie tightened. “You’ve been having quite a time for yourself here, haven’t you, Gracie?”
“Hey, do I get a hug?” Jessie dipped to her knees and opened her arms. Gracie slid off her grandmother’s lap and flung herself at Jessie. Jessie squeezed her tight, then launched into one of those kiddie monologues that Jo knew she would never, in all her life, master.
“So how’s my kitten-girl, huh? You’ve been causing problems for Aunt Jo, I bet. Sure, you’ve been nothing but trouble, putting tacks on her chair and glue in the locks and playing tricks with the toothpaste, haven’t you? What? You haven’t? Well, then, who are you? You can’t be my Gracie-girl, then. Did the gnomes come and take my good girl away and leave you instead…?”
All the while, Gracie smiled and shook her head and laughed and lost her little fists in Jessie’s hair. Jo unwound her pashmina and reached for Gracie’s discarded coat and the jackets Sarah had left on the back of the couch, all the while struggling with a strange feeling just by her heart, an aching, lonely little twist.
When Jo hung the last hanger onto the pole, she made a beeline into the kitchen, as far away as she could get from the Norman Rockwell scene. “Anyone have a tea preference?”
“You got Lipton?” Mrs. Braun asked. “Tell me you got Lipton. I can’t stand that fruity stuff.”
“Lipton it is.”
Sarah piped up. “Got any coffee?”
“You, Sarah? Coffee?” Jessie sank back into the couch. “I had you pegged as a green-tea type.”
“I hate the herbal stuff.” Sarah pulled the mass of her hair off her neck and braced it atop her head, with her elbow resting on the back of the couch. “Give me coffee, straight up. The stronger the better. At the camp we’re spoiled—we get Burundi beans from the hill plantations—costs a few francs for a kilo.”
As Jessie and Sarah chatted about free-trade coffees, Jo pulled down the decidedly non-free-market coffee beans she had and poured some in the stainless-steel grinder, an act that couldn’t drown out the sound of Mrs. Braun chattering.
“Let me look at you now, Gracie. Go ahead, stand in front of me. Look. Look! You’re up to here now. That’s a lot bigger than you were last time I saw you. Jo, what are you feeding this kid? She’s shot up like a rocket. Are you eating steak every night and finishing your vegetables, or are you sneaking sandwiches when Aunt Jo isn’t looking?”
“I ate Pepito’s crudités today.”
“Did you, now? Well, that must have helped. Or does Aunt Jo have you on a bed where she ties up your arms and legs every night and stretches you a bit? Is that what she’s doing?”
“No, you’re being silly, Nana!”
“I think that’s why you’ve grown three inches since I last saw you! I just can’t get over you. And look at your dress. Jo, how’d you get this kid in tights? Remember Passover, Jess? We tried to get her in tights, and, oh, there was no putting those on your legs—no, sir.”
“Nana, I was just a baby then!”
“Oh, you’re not a baby anymore, sure, not anymore. Now here you are all prettied up and going to teas like Eloise. Madeline? Well, then, like Madeline…”
Jo shoved the stainless-steel teapot under the Kohler faucet and pushed the knob so the water would come out fast and loud. That aching little twist by her heart was coiling into something slit-eyed and shameful. This was Gracie’s family. Of course Gracie would be thrilled to see them again. Of course Gracie would liven up and laugh and loosen up into her own little-girl self, and wasn’t that a hundred times better than what Jo had dreaded from this visit—a full screaming red-faced throw-the-macaroni-across-the-room tantrum?
She clattered the teapot on the stove to boil just as the coffee began to percolate, and then she forced herself to look into the living room. She watched Mrs. Braun pull a tattered, stuffed empire penguin from a bag. Gracie’s eyes widened; then she pressed the stuffed animal hard against her face.
Jo watched, with a shiver of worry.
“It’s one of Grace’s favorite stuffed animals,” Jessie explained as she sidled up by the kitchen island. “Rachel bought it for her years ago, after her first trip to Patagonia. My aunt has spent the past weeks in knots of worry, sure that Gracie was crying herself to sleep every night, missing it.”
“Grace never mentioned it, not once.”
“That’s funny.” Jessie shoved thin fingers into the hip pockets of her skinny jeans. “She couldn’t sleep without it at home. Screamed for it every night, even if it fell off the bed.”
Jo turned her back to pull open a cabinet. “You hankering for Lipton, too?”
“Whatever you got.” Jessie planted a booted heel on the lower rung of the chair, her face turned away to the scene in the living room. “Jo, she sure looks happy.”
“Yeah, well, I cut her a Prozac before you came.”
Jessie started.
“I’m kidding.” Jo pulled down four oversized mugs. “Though I might not have been if I’d listened to that therapist.”
“Therapist?”
Sliding the cups on the counter, Jo tugged open the silverware drawer, debating how much of the truth she should burden Jessie with. Oh, hell. “After Gracie’s first serious meltdown,” Jo said, “I had enough sense to seek professional help.”
“Meltdown?!”
“What, she didn’t melt down with you at all? She never threw her macaroni and cheese across the table? She never ate cardboard? Never got caught wandering around like a blind pig in the middle of the night?”
Jessie found sudden interest in the pattern on the polished granite countertop.
“The shrink said it probably had been going on for weeks.” Jo placed a spoon in each cup and darted a glance toward the living room, as Gracie burst into high, tense laughter. “Don’t worry—I said no to the drugs. For Gracie’s sake. I’ve yet to decide whether I need them myself.”
“Raising a child is a full-time job,” Jessie murmured, her gaze scanning the room with its Glasswrap and covered outlets. “I can’t imagine how you’re doing it and working, too. You’ve gone to a terrible amount of trouble.”
“She’s my best friend’s daughter.” Jo pulled out a few tea bags. “And, for whatever reasons, this is what Rachel wanted.”
Jessie tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, then ran her fingers over the counter’s ogee edge. Back and forth. Back and forth. “It is really strange. Rachel always talked about you as this go-go material girl. No time for commitments.”
Jo had opened her mouth to retort when Gracie’s sudden, sharp laugh stopped the words in her throat. This time, Grace’s laugh was higher and tenser than before. Sarah caught Jo’s eye. Sarah had heard that quavering pitch in Grace’s voice, too—the day before yesterday, right before the toothpaste incident.
Jo took three steps into the living area and made a quick assessment. That penguin—full of memories—was probably the source of the distress. Gracie needed a quick change of focus.
“Hey, kiddo,” Jo said, “why don’t you bring your grandmother up to see your bedroom? You can introduce your penguin to all those rabbits. Then you can change into your Eloise outfit. Or show her your Tinker Bell costume from Halloween.”
Gracie slipped off her grandmother’s lap with a bounce and seized the older woman’s hand. “C’mon, Nana, come see my room. I’ve got a ’puter of my own. Just a baby one, not like Aunt Jo’s, but it plays Ping-A-Pig and Typing Torpedoes.”
“Goodness, Jo,” Mrs. Braun said, as she pushed herself off the couch. “What a place you’ve made for this girl! Call me down when the tea’s ready.”
Sarah watched the interaction with a steady gaze, then exchanged a glance full of meaning with Jo. Sarah had proved to be a great help during the toothpaste incident. Her aura of calm helped coax Grace out of her tantrum and revealed to Jo the oasis of serenity Sarah must be in the refugee camp.
“Coffee smells good, Jo.” Sarah pulled the cashmere throw across her shoulders, uncurled herself from the couch, and joined Jessie at the kitchen island. “Quick, too. It’s a treat for us at the camp, because it takes so long to brew. We have to grind the beans with rocks.”
Jessie laughed a nervous little laugh, and then she stopped abruptly. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Sarah hoisted herself onto a stool, the wooden beads at her wrist clanking. “Takes a lot of firewood to boil the water, too.”
“Hold on to your wallet, Jessie.” Jo placed the sugar bowl next to the milk pitcher. “If you let Sarah tell you stories, she’ll have you writing a check before the day’s over.”
“Oh, I’d write you a check,” Jessie said, shrugging. “But it would bounce as soon as it hit the table.”
Jo caught sight of a bottle in the glass cabinet just by the stove. “Hey, girls—the devil’s on my shoulder. How ’bout a Mexican coffee? What do you say?”
“Not me,” Sarah said. “A glass of that and I’ll be like the drunken uncle, snoring on the couch.”
“I’d love to,” Jessie said, managing a small smile, “but I’m driving.”
“Sugar, one small cup in a two-hour visit doesn’t make a drunk.”
“Yeah, but I don’t even want to be buzzing, not when Gracie’s in the car.”
“Bunch of Girl Scouts.” Jo dropped the tea bag into a cup and grabbed another. She tore open the wrapping and was reaching for a third when she paused, her hand hovering over the third cup.
Not when Gracie’s in the car.
“Jessie… are you planning to take Gracie out to dinner or something?”
“Oh…” Jessie stiffened. “Shoot.”
“Because that’s not such a good idea. Grace needs to keep to her routine and get a good night’s sleep for school tomorrow.”
Jessie leaned back against the wrought-iron backing of the barstool. “Hey, Jo, I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. We did make some plans, but…”
“Listen, sugar, Gracie’s your cousin. I may be the legal guardian, but, trust me, I’m not going to play this as if I’m a divorced mom, negotiating with her ex about visitation rights. By all means, take her out, do something special, but just tell me ahead of time. Sarah will back me up on this: Gracie doesn’t take well to change these days.”
“Amen,” Sarah added.
“You know, this whole situation just doesn’t make any sense.” Jessie leaned her elbows on the counter. “It’s just one of a lot of ridiculous things Rachel did. And not the most insane, either.”
“Hey, it’s a molehill, not a mountain.” On the stovetop, the teapot started to burble. “Just get her home by seven-thirty.”
“This is not about taking Grace to dinner, Jo. That’s just the problem.” Jessie let out an exasperated-teenager type of sigh that shuddered her entire body. “God, this is so hard. I don’t even know how to say it. So I’ll just say it. Jo, this is about taking Grace home.”
Jo stared at the tea bag in her hand, waiting for Jessie to continue. The wrapping bore the familiar red logo. Inside, there was that green tag at the end of the string, the kind she’d seen so many times hanging, brown-stained, off the edge of her mother’s own cup in the evenings, after a long day at the factory.
“What do you mean,” Jo asked, tearing the top of the paper, “you’re going to take her home?”
The teapot started to wheeze. A soft whistling that, as Jo stood frozen over the empty cups, built up to a scream.
From upstairs, Mrs. Braun’s faint voice, “So the tea’s ready?”
“Soon, Aunt Leah.” Jessie came around behind Jo and shut off the gas. “Listen, Jo.” Jessie wrapped a dish towel around the teapot handle and hefted it to the counter, where, with quick, jerky moves, she sloshed boiling water into everyone’s cup but Sarah’s. “I know this might seem sudden to you. Out of the blue.”
“Out of the blue.”
“Like, all those weeks ago, when I dumped Grace on you—I feel rotten about that. I just put on her coat and shoved both of you out the door, and I apologize for that. I didn’t handle it well. I never meant to do it with so little ceremony, without giving you the papers and all that, without preparing you… well, for Gracie. And all her quirks.”
“Quirks.”
“Try to put yourself in our shoes, Jo. Life was just crazy.” Jessie used the dish towel to vigorously dry the spots she’d spilled on the counter, leaning in close, elbows flying, as words tumbled out of her. “We’d just buried Rachel. My uncle was bedridden, and my aunt was half out of her mind with worry. And there were bills, and paperwork, and the fuss of settling Rachel’s estate, and sorting her athletic equipment, and donating her clothes to the local Jewish Community Center. And for my aunt, just getting out of bed in the morning was difficult. We just didn’t handle it well. We haven’t handled a lot of things well. When you showed up that morning,” Jessie continued, “well, it was just a dream. We so needed help. Gracie was getting pushed aside, over and over, because we were so overwhelmed with Leah’s doctors’ appointments and Abe’s mobility issues. And there you were, to take on the responsibility.”
A brain freeze. That’s what this was called, Jo thought, this strange inability to comprehend what was being spoken to her. It was what kept Hector, for all his talents, from being a project manager; he said that standing in front of all those suits put him in a brain freeze every time. Until now, Jo hadn’t really understood what he was talking about. Jessie was chattering on—babbling—and though Jo could hear the words, she couldn’t completely comprehend. The thought that kept overwhelming Jo was that Latoya was coming tomorrow, and Jo had to remember to tell her to start Grace on two-digit subtraction so the little girl would catch up to the other second-graders.
“I know you didn’t expect the responsibility, Jo. I know you thought the whole thing was a mix-up.” Jessie threaded the dish towel through the handle on the refrigerator door, tugging the ends even. “I saw it in your face that day. I know Rachel didn’t give you a clue until you got one of her letters.”
“Making me Grace’s guardian,” Jo said, through lips gone strangely numb. “Her legal guardian, fixed in ink.”
“Rachel made some crazy choices.” Jessie ran her fingers through the thatch of her hair, now falling completely out of her ponytail. “I just can’t believe what she wrote in mine. But this thing with Grace, this tops them all.”
“Jessie,” Sarah interrupted, “I’ve been here three days, and I can tell you that Rachel made a smart choice. Jo’s been amazing.”
Jo sent a silent hug her way.
“I don’t mean any disrespect.” Jessie paced the length of the island, swiveling on the toe of her sneaker at the demarcation between carpet and tile. “You have done such an unbelievable job, I can tell. The arrangements you made, the therapist, even selecting a Jewish school for Grace—I can’t tell you how much that means to my aunt.” Jessie paused and met Jo’s gaze across the length of the island. “It’s just that we—my aunt and myself—figured it was time to relieve you of this responsibility, a responsibility that probably should never have been yours. Maybe Rachel… wasn’t thinking straight when she wrote the letter to you. She couldn’t have been. After all, Gracie still has family. She still has us. We thought today might be a good day to… Well, not too much time has passed since we sent her here, so it would be like a little vacation to Grace. Just a little time away from home. Even the lawyer suggested that now would be a good time—”
“Lawyer?!”
Jessie froze. The blood left her face. She hugged herself, tightly, and turned away to avoid Jo’s eye. “I… wasn’t supposed to say anything,” she mumbled into her hand. “It was just a consultation. To talk about… options.”
Options.
“He told us… it was best to be amicable. He said we should work with you. Do what’s best for Gracie. Contesting a will takes time…”
Contesting a will.
Jo reeled away from the island, then swiveled on one foot to turn her back to Jessie, to options, to lawyers. She braced her hands on the opposite counter. Her fingers changed color before her eyes, went white around the edges as she leaned harder upon them, to keep herself from hitting the floor. Black spots exploded in her vision, but she couldn’t faint now—she couldn’t faint now—not even in a Southern kind of way. She had to keep her wits about her and try to figure out what was going on.
Here was the first simple truth: Life would be so much simpler without Grace. Without Grace, Jo could bring the full force of her concentration to work again. She could find a project for that Indian singer she’d contacted about the Mystery project. She could remove the baby gates that kenneled the condo, reclaim the spare room as a repository for her dry cleaning. She could call up that guy in Accounting with the crest of silky dark hair and bring him home to the massage oils going stale in her bedside drawer and have acrobatic sex with him on the stairs.
Here was the second simple truth: Grace was an orphaned little girl who clearly loved her family. Grace still referred to her nana’s house as “home.” And, unlike when Jo was orphaned, Gracie still had a family who wanted her.
It all made perfect sense.
Just let Grace go.
It was the right thing to do.
But here was the last simple truth: For reasons she didn’t completely understand, Jo’s whole body, spirit, and mind balked fiercely at the idea of some lawyer telling her—Grace’s legal guardian—that the best thing to do would be to slip Grace’s arms through her Madeline coat, pat her on the cheek, and let her walk out the door with the Brauns.
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me,” Jo said, through her teeth, “that you came here on a lawyer’s recommendation, thinking you’d bring Grace home today. Without even calling me. Without even discussing it with me.”
“I know, I know. I’m not the bad guy here, Jo, believe me! I know we should have talked with you first.” Jessie shoved the sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows and paced in a tight circle behind her chair “Believe me, I wanted to. But it’s been back and forth with my aunt and me, back and forth. I kept telling my aunt that maybe we shouldn’t bring it up yet, that we should let Grace stay here a little longer… and then she’d argue with me. We’d make plans to talk to you, and then something would happen—a bad blood test for her, or my uncle nearly slipping in the driveway—and she’d concede a few more days. But the issue kept coming up. She won’t let go of it. She insisted on seeing the lawyer.”
Jessie gripped the back of the stool, bracing herself to continue. “For the past weeks, my aunt has done nothing but worry, worry, worry. She can’t cope with the empty house. It’s not like she doesn’t have enough to deal with, but the house just isn’t the same without Grace in it. Now that Rachel’s gone… well, Grace is really all that’s left in my aunt’s family—she’s the only grandchild. And though my aunt is grateful that she’s had a few weeks to put her own house in order, now that things are calming down, she really wants Gracie back.”
Sarah stood up and fetched one of the teacups. She brought it to Jessie, urged her to sit down, and then placed the cup into Jessie’s hands. Jessie curled both hands around the warmth, her shoulders sinking. All the while, Sarah’s practiced gaze swept over Jessie’s pale face, tangled hair, rib-fitting sweater, and heavy eyes.
Sarah gave Jo a long, meaningful look as she rubbed Jessie’s back. “Your aunt isn’t handling Rachel’s death very well, is she?”
“No,” Jessie conceded, after daring a sip of the hot tea. “None of us are. Aunt Leah and I, we’re just trying to pull things together, one issue at a time. Up until we walked into this apartment building today, I thought I’d convinced her not to bring this up. Honestly, Jo, my aunt thinks Grace’s stay here is a mistake. She just can’t wrap her mind around the fact that Rachel gave custody to you, and she won’t accept it—”
“But Rachel did give me custody,” Jo insisted. “Legal custody, which will take a heap of time to contest.”
Jessie flinched.
“And Rachel did it,” Jo persisted, “because of all you’ve been telling me—because of the pile of issues your aunt and uncle are dealing with.” Information-gathering. That’s what she needed to do. Gather all the facts before making a decision that her heart was resisting with all its might. “Your uncle—is he still bedridden?”
“He’s better. He’s using a walker now.”
“And Leah,” Jo insisted, “is still fighting diabetes.”
“She’ll deal with it for the rest of her life. But all that doesn’t matter. We’ll cope with that. Because I’m in the house now, permanently.”
“Taking care of Abe and Leah?”
“And Gracie,” Jessie added, “when she comes back.”
Sarah stopped rubbing Jessie’s back for a moment. “I thought you were looking for a job? You told me you wanted to be a teacher.”
Jessie shrugged, finding interest in the tea bag floating in her cup. “I’ll wait for the right position. Family comes first.”
“So I’m to understand,” Jo said, “that you’re taking care of two elderly people, and now you want to add a child to that?”
Jessie’s chin tightened, in a way achingly similar to Gracie’s. “I’ll manage.”
“My lawyer,” Jo countered, “might disagree.”
Then, abruptly, a wail emerged from Gracie’s room, high-pitched and piercing. The door to Gracie’s room swung open, so hard that it banged against the wall. Gracie tore out of the room, a blur of plaid. She screamed as she ran down the hall to the bathroom, and then she slammed the door closed behind her.
Mrs. Braun shuffled out of Grace’s bedroom, befuddled, grasping the doorjamb for balance. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t understand.”
Jo strode into the living room and glared past the rail. “Did you talk about taking her home?”
“I said nothing,” Mrs. Braun said. “I didn’t even suggest it!”
“Then why is she so upset?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Mrs. Braun shuffled to the railing and grasped it, out of breath. “She was showing me her room. The dolls that blink. The computer. That Barbie you bought her—oh, Rachel would have your heart on a platter if she saw that, Jo. She’s got a purple blanket on her bed, so I mentioned her room at home, that we’d done a little redecorating—”
Sarah, from behind Jo, hissed in a breath.
“—we got her a purple cover with the penguins on it, two things she loves, I couldn’t believe it when I saw it in Target. Then—this.”
“Change,” Jo said, understanding. “You changed things.”
“She just collapsed. Right in front of me. Never seen her do that. Not even when…” Mrs. Braun covered her mouth; then, using the railing for balance, she shuffled down the hall toward the bathroom. “Gracie, love, Gracie,” she said, her voice quavering. “Let Nana in now. Be a big girl—”
“Mrs. Braun,” Jo said, forcing her voice even, “I suggest you leave Grace alone for a while—”
“But—”
“She’ll come out of it.” Jo planted her fists on her hips. “And we have to talk.”
About change. And a seven-year-old orphaned girl.
“She’s crying,” Mrs. Braun said. “I can’t leave her crying alone in the bathroom.”
“Maybe I can help.” Sarah slid off the barstool and let the blanket fall to the floor at her feet. “Grace and I had a good time yesterday, pretending her Barbie was a doctor and her stuffed animals the patients.” Under the scrutiny of three women, Sarah shrugged. “I have some experience dealing with kids who are recently orphaned.”
Sarah glided across the room, swept up the stairs, and laid a hand on Mrs. Braun’s back. Mrs. Braun left with some reluctance. Sarah sank into a curl against the bathroom door, whispering soft words Jo couldn’t quite hear—words that seemed to have a calming effect on the sobs.
“I never saw her like that,” Mrs. Braun kept saying, as she made her way across the room to sink heavily onto one of the island stools. “One minute, she was fine, and then the next, boom!”
“It’s the change,” Jo explained, shoving a teacup toward Leah, as her mind—snapped awake—raced on how to handle what was sure to be a very difficult situation. “You went and made changes to her bedroom.”
“She loves purple. She loves penguins!”
“Maybe before.” Jo shoved the sugar and creamer down the table. “But now change is a very bad thing. She’s plumb full of it.”
“Don’t I know it,” Mrs. Braun exclaimed, tugging her tea bag in and out of the hot water. “But after today, that will be done. When she gets home, everything will go back to normal.”
Jo tugged the dish towel off the handle of the refrigerator and tossed it across her shoulder. “Okay. First, we have to talk about that. About the idea that you’re just going to take Gracie home today.”
Jessie stood up. “Jo—”
“Because, with all respect, Mrs. Braun, I just can’t let that happen—no, ma’am. I don’t give a fig about that lawyer’s recommendation. The last thing Grace needs right now is being yanked out of another home.”
The memory hit her, full-force, the memory of Jo’s very first foster mother. We can’t handle her anymore. She doesn’t get along with any of the kids. She goes her own way, and laughs when I suggest otherwise. She won’t respond to me at all.
Jo turned her back to the room, trying to contain the anger, because it wouldn’t help the situation, it wouldn’t help Grace. Jo glared at the stone-tiled backsplash with its edging of green glazed tiles, the ones the designer had chosen to bring out the sage in the granite countertop. She pressed her palms so hard on that countertop that they began to throb, as the hurting words played back in her head.
You need to take her away. Today.
“I don’t understand.” Mrs. Braun sounded baffled. “Jessie, you told me Jo would agree, that it would be a relief for her, that she didn’t expect to have custody. I thought this was settled.”
“Aunt, don’t you remember? We talked about this in the car—I suggested we wait another week.”
“Why another week? A week is forever in a kid’s life. Gracie should be back with her family.”
Jo closed her eyes. And saw, in her mind, the montage of foster homes, one trundle bed after another, one weary, well-intentioned foster mother after another, one school after another. Jo always felt like the mutt in the dog pound, shuttled from one shelter to another because no one really wants someone else’s old dog.
“I agree,” Jo said suddenly, surprising herself. “Grace should be with family.” She twisted to look at the two women. Mrs. Braun squeezed out her tea bag against the spoon and placed it on the saucer. Jessie looked pale and tense. “I agree,” Jo repeated, “that, in a perfect world, that’s the best possible thing.”
“I always knew you were a sensible girl, Jo,” Mrs. Braun said, clattering her spoon on the table. “I’m glad it’s settled.”
“But you have to be strong and healthy enough to take care of her. I mean really take care of her. Drive her back and forth to softball games. Bring her to the county fair. Help her with homework. Go clothes-shopping.”
“Jessie’s good at shopping,” Mrs. Braun said, over the edge of her teacup. “She’s always trying to get her into dresses, don’t know how you did that, Jo—”
“And I don’t mean just for a few weeks or a few months,” Jo continued, pressing against the island counter. “I mean for years and years to come. It’s not fair to Grace to take her home, only to have to send her away again.”
“We’ll manage.” Mrs. Braun waved her wrist, waving away the trouble. “We’ve always managed, haven’t we, Jessie?”
Jo caught Jessie’s gaze before Jessie could drop her lids over her eyes, hiding her thoughts. Clearly, Mrs. Braun did not realize the extent of the burden she was putting upon the frail shoulders of a twenty-two-year-old girl. Mrs. Braun, like Gracie, had not yet truly absorbed the extent of the changes in her life since Rachel’s death.
That’s what was going to make this so hard, Jo realized. It was inevitable when a mother—or a daughter—dies. Denial was a powerful tool to stave off the grief, to stave off the difficult process of accepting change.
Sometimes it takes a whole lifetime to come to grips with the loss.
“It’s the changes that got me in a knot, Leah,” Jo said, carefully, swirling her cup. “I know what it’s like, being shuttled around from one home to another.” Never knowing, when the social workers show up, if they’re just checking up on you, or if you’re going to be sent away because you spit out your peas at the dinner table. She swallowed a dry, growing lump in her throat. “It’s a hell of a way to grow up.”
A memory struck her like a bolt of lightning.
Rachel, lying on the couch with her legs hiked in the air after coming back from her first bout at the fertility clinic, grinning as she enjoyed a final beer, while Jo sucked on a Marlboro, shaking her head.
Rachel, I still don’t understand you. You’re going to be hugely pregnant—you can’t skydive anymore; you can’t hike over the tree line, and that’s your last beer. Why are you doing this?
Baby fever. I caught it from Kate.
Well, sugar, that’s one fever I’ll never catch.
Oh, Jo, don’t rule it out so quickly. I think you should adopt.
A child, Jo. A child. Who’d know better than Bobbie Jo Marcum how to take care of an orphaned little girl?
With trembling hands, Jo sipped her tea. It scalded her tongue. She sipped it anyway, to hide her face and the tumbling realizations. She had convinced herself that Rachel had chosen her because—more than any of Rachel’s other friends—Jo could afford to raise a child. Now Jo realized that money had nothing to do with it.
Rachel knew that this situation was going to happen. Rachel knew how much her mother loved Gracie, how insistent her mother would be about being the sole guardian. Rachel knew how soft a touch Jessie was, how devoted to family, how easily she subsumed her own desires. Rachel, losing weight in her bed, had had plenty of time to think about what to do for little Grace—sweet Grace, forgotten Grace in the whirl of doctors’ visits and home health aides and prescription changes and mountains of laundry. Rachel knew her death would bring a whole new set of problems she couldn’t even imagine.
But Jo could imagine them. Jo knew what happened to orphaned little girls. Who better to take care of an orphaned little girl than a woman who’d once been an orphaned little girl herself?
She looked over the rim of her teacup at the two women sitting in front of her. Her heart moved. Both loved Grace, that was clear. They wanted her to be back in their home, back in their family—even to the point of consulting a lawyer. Two openhearted, well-meaning women sat before her, but they did not completely understand the effect of their own actions on Grace’s well-being—and couldn’t, not in the way Jo did.
“I’ll tell you one thing, ladies.” Jo slid the cup back on the counter. “Grace is a lucky girl to have so many people who love her.”
In the silence, they heard Sarah’s quiet footfall through the living room.
Jessie glanced up at the bathroom door. “Grace isn’t crying anymore. Is she coming down, Sarah?”
“Not right now.” Sarah’s face looked strangely bright. “She needs a few minutes.”
“Why was she crying?” Mrs. Braun asked. “What was all the fuss about?”
“She kept saying something about ‘lots of tots.’ ” Sarah crouched to pick up the blanket she’d left on the floor and then swept it around her shoulders. “She kept saying she didn’t want to go back to ‘lots of tots.’ ”
Jessie exchanged a guilty look with Mrs. Braun and muttered, “Did we use them too much?”
“No, no.” Mrs. Braun shook her head. “She needed to be with other kids. That’s why we sent her there.”
“All those doctors’ appointments.” Jessie sank against the back of the barstool. “And the physical therapists.”
“No, no, Jessie, don’t think that way,” Mrs. Braun insisted. “It wasn’t good for Grace to be alone all the time.”
“I was late once—”
“She liked the place, she did.” Mrs. Braun’s voice caught. “She told me she liked it. She told me she liked the computers.”
Mrs. Braun’s chin started to tremble.
“Listen,” Jo said, taking a deep breath, summoning her inner executive warrior. “We don’t need a lawyer to work this out. We’ll decide, together, what is best for Gracie. But not today, not right now. Okay? Today is a visit, just as Grace expected. Can we agree on that much?”
A wave of relief passed across Jessie’s face. She leaned in to her aunt, put her hand on her shoulder. “Auntie… I think Jo’s right.”
“But she belongs home.” Mrs. Braun pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and pressed it against her cheek. “She belongs with her family.”
Sarah spoke up, suddenly. “Grace told me one more thing, Mrs. Braun. Something she was very sure about.”
Jo heard the creak of hinges. She glanced up to see, through the balusters, the door of the bathroom widen just a crack. Wide enough for a little girl’s face to peep through, wide enough to show one pleading, tear-filled eye—blinking and fixed on Jo.
“For now,” Sarah said, “Grace would like to stay with Aunt Jo.”