CHAPTER NINE

GRACIE

As Gracie stood at the door and waited for Ada to arrive, absurdity sent darts into her psyche and threatened to upend what peace she had. How wild was it to invite Ada to move into the house before Gracie was settled herself? How careless to jeopardize Ada’s housing situation? Letting Ada move in before Gracie was estabblished was reckless. She had been reckless enough with her own life. Now she was pulling Ada into the madness.

But it was too late now. Around noon, Ada pulled up, her car packed full of her things.

Ada had waited until after her midterms to tell Uncle Rand that she was moving and where. Gracie had offered to be moral support when she told him, but Ada had turned down the offer. That answer dissolved the knot in Gracie’s stomach because she didn’t want any more anger from Uncle Rand. She had stolen his mother’s house, and now she was stealing his daughter.

In under thirty minutes, they had unpacked Ada’s car and carried everything upstairs to the other bedroom on the second floor. Ada brought a few pieces of furniture, and Gracie was glad to add a few newer pieces to her mismatched stuff.

Gracie’s wooden box caught Ada’s eye as she was setting down a three-legged wooden table.

“Hey,” she said with a grin, “I have one of those too. The stuff Gran kept …” She shook her head. “Maybe we should go through our boxes together and compare notes.”

Gracie fought back the prick of tears. “I would love to, but I don’t have the key.”

Ada eyes softened. “It wasn’t with the house stuff?”

“No. And Gran never gave it to me. I guess she figured I knew it was mine, and I was living here at the end.”

“And you went through everything?” Ada asked quietly.

“I did, and I don’t know where else it could be.”

Ada looked at the box a minute longer. “I’m sure it’ll turn up.”

Once they moved in all the things Ada wanted in her bedroom, everything else went up to the third floor.

On one of their trips, Ada asked, “Why didn’t you move up here? It’s the biggest bedroom in the house.”

Gracie looked into the empty room where Gran had quickly declined until she went into hospice. “I’m not ready.”

Instead of speaking, Ada just nodded in agreement.

In her room once again, Ada began to unpack. “I need to have this place in some sort of order when it’s time to go back to school. At least get my desk set up.”

“Then let me help you,” Gracie said and began hanging Ada’s clothes in the closet. “What did Uncle Rand say?”

Ada let out a huff. “You would’ve thought I was moving in with the world’s most notorious criminal.”

Gracie laughed. “In his mind, you are. I’m a thief.”

She gave Gracie a lopsided grin. “You said it right. In his mind, you are. But you are not, and hopefully he’ll recognize that.”

“I don’t know. We were never close.”

“No, but you could have been if he wasn’t always so difficult.” She began unloading a box of her college textbooks. “Gran didn’t have much to do with him either.”

Gracie lifted a dress from the pile of clothes she was working through. “This is nice.”

“You can borrow it if you like. It should fit you. Maybe for your lunch date with Clarence.”

Gracie scowled and hung the dress up with more force than necessary. She was getting very close to regretting telling Ada about Clarence. She hadn’t meant to tell her about him at all, but having family again, family she could confide in, had loosened her tongue. “It isn’t a date. It’s supposed to be a working lunch.”

“Any food with a cute man is a date.” Ada came over and removed the dress from the closet and held it up to Gracie. “It’ll fit. You’ll look great in it.”

Gracie pushed the dress away with a smirk. “Clarence’s interest in me is this house.”

“He could be interested in you,” Ada said, shaking the dress at Gracie.

“Why would he be?” She pulled the dress from Ada’s hands and dropped the hook of the hanger back on the bar.

Ada gaped at her. “Because you’re smart, successful, and pretty.”

“I am not successful,” Gracie said, lifting another dress from the box. It was cottony soft under her fingers.

“Why aren’t you?” Ada grasped her shoulders and turned her so she could look in her eyes.

“Do you know how close I was to being homeless?”

“But you aren’t. And that isn’t a measure of success.”

“I couldn’t pay my bills.” I still can’t pay my student loans. Her voice warbled and her vision blurred with tears. “If I hadn’t come to take care of Gran, I would have been living out of my car.”

“Your father wouldn’t have allowed that. Gran wouldn’t have either.” Ada sat her down on the end of the bed and stood in front of Gracie with her hands on her hips. “Did you know that Gran asked me what I thought about you coming to stay with her?”

The memory of that phone call flashed in her mind. Gran had called sounding completely normal, until she asked Gracie to come and stay with her as a caregiver. Gracie, the least responsible member of the family. She had bit her tongue to stop from asking why Uncle Rand wasn’t coming to care for her. Or even Natalia. People who were in Philly who could come without having to uproot their whole lives. Gracie had been angry that somehow this unpleasant task had passed to her because people felt she wasn’t doing anything else important.

Which she wasn’t. Nothing more than bouncing from job to job and avoiding bill collectors. Oh, to take that anger back. “Gran knew about my money problems?”

“I think she suspected. But she asked you because she wanted you here. And that’s another thing that makes you successful. Gran wanted you around. You know she didn’t deal with foolish people. Hence her relationship with my father.”

“I never understood how that relationship broke down. How I inherited the house and not Uncle Rand, her oldest child.” The words came out in a rush after having held them in for so long.

Ada stilled for a moment before she sat next to Gracie. “It makes me sad that you’re missing so much of this story. Your story.”

“It was so hard being a part of this family. With my mother gone.”

Ada nodded, her eyes soft. “My dad kinda went off the rails when your mother died. At least that’s what Gran said.”

Gracie looked up at her. “Really?”

“They were very close. He took his job as big brother seriously. He had even planned to come down to Richmond when you were born.”

Gracie shook her head. Uncle Rand grieving? But he disliked her so much. “That’s hard to believe.”

“Gran said he stopped talking about your mother after the funeral. Like it hurt too much. He still doesn’t talk about her.”

“I can imagine.” Being an only child, she had no concept of losing a beloved sibling. But she did understand loss. Gran’s death nearly crushed her.

“I heard him and Gran arguing about you one day,” Ada said quietly.

“Me? Why?”

“Gran was trying to get him to acknowledge that you were Auntie’s daughter. That you were a piece of her. My father yelled at Gran.”

Gracie pressed her hand over her mouth.

Ada chuckled. “I was hiding behind the door, wondering if Gran was going to wallop him. Instead, she just said, ‘She’s a part of Rochelle, and she needs you.’”

“Did Uncle Rand say anything?”

Ada shook her head. “He started crying.”

They sat there for a moment, Gracie too overwhelmed to speak. Could Uncle Rand’s behavior be the same as her father’s? Both of them distancing themselves from her because of her mother, not because they didn’t like her?

Gracie’s phone rang, bringing them both back to the present. She glanced at it. “Clarence.”

Ada grinned. “Reschedule your date, and then try on the dress.”

It wasn’t until the clerk at the city’s Permit and License Center told Gracie that she would be notified by mail about the status of her rezoning application that Gracie realized she wasn’t getting any mail. Not even her own, which wasn’t more than bills that had followed her from Richmond. She needed to find out why as soon as possible in case one of Gran’s creditors was trying to contact her estate. While the clerk entered her information into the computer, Gracie googled the nearest post office. When the application was submitted, she texted Ada and told her that she was going to the post office before she got home. Ada texted back and asked Gracie to grab a change-of-address form.

The post office, a two-story brown brick building, looked like it used to be a historical mansion. Gracie chuckled as she stepped inside the quiet lobby. Now she was thinking that every building had undiscovered history. The floor was tiled with large black-and-white tiles. She resisted the temptation to try to get to the counter by only stepping on black squares, and walked to the counter.

A cheerful man greeted her. “How can I help you?”

“I recently moved, and I’m not getting mail at my house. I’m not sure how I didn’t realize that sooner.”

The man nodded. “What’s your address?”

She handed him her ID. “The house used to be my grandmother’s before she passed, so she may be listed as the addressee.”

The man gave her a sad smile. “I’m sorry for your loss. I recently lost a family member too. Grieving is rough. That’s probably why you didn’t notice you weren’t getting mail. Let me check on this.”

“Thank you,” Gracie said. Grief did erase one’s logical thoughts. There were days after Gran died that the world could have burned down around her and she wouldn’t have known it. It had gotten better over time. Better in the sense that the grief wasn’t continuously in her thoughts. The pain was still as sharp as when Gran first passed.

The man returned with an armful of mail. It was in bundles secured with rubber bands. Gracie gasped. “Is that all mine?”

“Yes, ma’am. It appears someone put a hold on your mail delivery. But you were correct that you are not the addressee. I just need you to prove that you are authorized to pick up this mail.”

Gracie reached into the folder she had taken to the Permit and License Center. “I do have proof.” She handed him the document that named her as the executor of Gran’s estate.

The man slid the bundles across to her. “Here you go.”

Gracie thanked him and lifted them from the counter. She managed to get back to her car without dropping any of it. She dumped the bundles on the front passenger seat and stared at them. There was at least nine months’ worth of mail there. She bit her lip. It might take her that long to go through it all.

Ada gaped when Gracie carried all the mail inside. “What’s all that?”

“Mail,” Gracie grunted. “Apparently Gran put it on hold. Probably before she—” Gracie swallowed. As Gran declined, Gracie had lost track of time. Days were a blur. Their routine continued to grow narrower as months passed. First it was church, the doctor’s office, Ms. Lila’s house, and the park across the street. Then it narrowed to the doctor’s office and the park. Ms. Lila started coming to them. Then it was nothing. Gran was too weak to come down the stairs.

One day stood out in Gracie’s memory: the day she and Gran went to the lawyer’s office to add Gracie to the deed.

Pushing the pain aside, she carried the mail upstairs and gingerly placed it on her feeble coffee table. She stood over the pile for a second, expecting the table to collapse under the weight.

Ada followed her up the stairs. She peered over Gracie’s shoulder. “Need some help?”

“No. I’ll take care of it.”

Ada frowned at her. “It’ll go faster if we both work on it. A lot of it is probably junk. Let’s have some food delivered and knock this out.”

Gracie studied Ada. She seemed serious. But why would anyone want to help her with this if they didn’t have to? “If you really don’t mind.”

Ada pulled out her phone. “I don’t. How about I order from that Greek restaurant down the street?”

Gracie smiled. “Okay.”

Ada proved to be as dedicated as she said she was. They had sorted the real mail from the junk mail before the food arrived. But by then, Gracie’s nerves were so frazzled that she wasn’t sure she could eat. She had seen two letters from the Office of Property Assessment in the pile of mail she had sorted.

The Office of Property Assessment handled real estate taxes. Taxes Gracie hadn’t paid and didn’t know when the last time they were paid. She almost opened the envelopes but decided she should fortify herself with food first.

They chatted while they ate, but the conversation was seasoned with sadness. Every single piece of mail was a pin in their hearts. A reminder that Gran wasn’t there anymore. Gracie was half tempted to tell Ada not to worry about sorting through the rest. She didn’t think Ada’s heart could take it, and Gracie’s couldn’t take much more either. There was no sense in both of them being in pain.

But Ada rose and cleared away the food containers. “Okay, let’s start opening these envelopes.”

Gracie rose. “You don’t have to help with that part. You’ve done so much already.”

“I’m not doing anything, Gracie. I want to help you.”

Gracie squirmed. People normally didn’t want to help her. “Okay.”

They grabbed butter knives to use as makeshift letter openers and went to work. Gracie lifted out the letters from the Office of Property Assessment and opened them.

The house’s property tax for the previous year was overdue. The current year’s taxes were due soon. She let out a groan.

“What is it?” Ada moved to look at the letter in Gracie’s hand.

“The taxes for last year haven’t been paid.”

“Oh no.” Ada said. “But it should be pretty easy to explain why they’re late. You were kinda busy.”

Gracie nodded. Maybe there was a way to plead hardship. Paying off both years would take a huge chunk out of her funds. The taxes were her responsibility, not the estate’s. The estate had plenty of money from Gran’s life insurance policy to cover the bill. But she couldn’t see Uncle Rand agreeing to let her use it.

There were a few other bills that she had to take care of in the pile, like the small balance on Gran’s filtered water delivery account. That she could handle. She could not financially, or emotionally, handle any more surprises in this pile.

Ada had grown quiet, and the silence in the room seemed to press against Gracie’s skin. Like a physical presence. She looked to find Ada holding a card, with tears streaming down her face.

Gracie moved to sit beside her and took the card from her hand. It was a get-well card from one of the members of Mother Bethel.

“Gran was the best,” Ada sniffled. “So many people loved her.”

“She was amazing.”

“Sometimes I wonder why God—” She snapped her mouth shut.

“I know. Me too,” Gracie said, draping an arm around Ada’s shoulder and joining her tears to her cousin’s. Gran seemed so close in this moment, yet so far. But a memory of Gran rippled to the front of Gracie’s mind. “Remember Gran used to say, ‘God’s business—’”

“‘—ain’t your business,’” Ada finished.

They both chuckled. “I asked God ‘why’ a lot during the time that Gran was getting sicker. But Gran kept telling me that. That God has His own ways of doing things that we may not understand.”

“I really don’t understand this,” Ada said, wiping her tears.

“Me either. And I don’t like it.”