Bone Dust White (28 page)

“You’re not a cop, are you?”

“Only a lowly paramedic.”

“It’s Jared, isn’t it?”

He nods and she makes some small talk, but Grace can tell she wants to ask why they’re hanging out there together. Grace waits until the waitress is out of earshot before speaking again.

“I think Tempi likes you.”

“You know her?”

“Sometimes she’d keep an eye on me when my mom was out. When it was quiet I’d sit at the counter and do my homework.”

“She doesn’t remember you?”

“That’s probably because I’m not a man.”

“She’s a bit old for me.”

“Don’t let her hear you saying that.”

Grace is halfway through her Coke when she pulls the coffee tin out of her bag and wipes it down using napkins from the dispenser. The lettering has rusted away in places but otherwise it’s the same.

Jared leans forward. “So open it.”

Grace’s eyes glaze over with a thin skin of tears. “Not sure I can.”

Jared pushes the tin closer to her using the tip of his index finger. “Come on. You dragged me all the way out here.”

Grace pushes it back toward Jared and asks him to open it for her. She leans back in her chair. “Just tell me what’s inside.”

Jared lifts the lid. There are a few pieces of cheap jewelry, some unpaid IOUs, and at least ten tightly rolled bundles of money. He picks up a small leather-bound diary and flicks through the yellowing pages. It’s full of dates and notations that make no sense. He puts everything back before replacing the lid. “Do you want to tell me what all this means?”

“When my mom left I wanted to believe that something happened to her. That she’d have never abandoned me like that. That she’d never leave me alone in a place like this.”

“Well, given how much money is in here, I’d say she fully intended on coming back.”

“Yeah. Who’d leave that behind?” Grace glances beyond Jared, her eyes on the entrance. She pulls on her coat and puts the coffee tin back in her bag. “I’ve got to use the bathroom.”

She walks back to the counter, oblivious of the half-lidded eyes tracking her progress. Instead of following the signs to the bathrooms, she heads out the front door, hopeful that Jared’s back is still turned. The temperature has dropped further and the parking lot is icing over. What little light there is is flat so there are no shadows. Skirting past the diesel pumps, she ignores the men filling up their tanks. The doors to the portable toilets continue to flap about chaotically in the wind. She hears someone retching behind the only door that’s firmly shut. She crosses the parking lot, passing within the shadow of the trucks.

The sky is darkening in the distance as the light fades and a snowstorm closes in on Collier. With her red coat wrapped around her, Grace stands in front of her former home. She lets her bag slide from her shoulder and the deep snow muffles the sound of its fall. Leaving it behind, she takes only the lighter fluid and a box of matches. This time the doorknob gives way with a twist of her wrist. Grace wades through the rubbish in the main room and takes hold of the blanket that is draped on the sofa where she once slept. Holly Hobbie is printed on one side, a patchwork quilt on the other. It stinks of damp and mildew. Holly’s white face is tinged gray like she’s shadowed with two days of beard growth.

Back in the bedroom, it’s too dark to see properly. She walks to the opening in the paneling and reaches in again. The bundle weighs less than a sack of flour and she’s just able to stuff it into the deep pockets of her coat. The bottle of lighter fluid snaps open easily but she spills some of it on her hands. The smell reminds her of family barbecues but it’s always her aunt and uncle who are there with her. Her mother is nowhere to be seen. She splashes the liquid over the bed and floor, making her way through the small mobile home, tripping on unseen things in the dim light as she goes.

With the wind coming up behind her through the open door, the matches only flare up before blowing out. She pulls the door shut and stands just inside. The next match sizzles and lights. The smell of sulfur hits her nose. She lights more and lets them fly. Some burst into flame and others go quiet. She sets the box alight and tosses it onto the sofa. Bright-colored flames leap upward in the darkness. Above the kitchen sink the ceiling catches on fire and around her the walls blister and melt.

She’d been excited when she told her mother about the girls she freed from the container on the back of the truck.
We have to help them, Mommy.
But her mother slapped her hard and screamed in her face.
What have you done
?
You’ve ruined everything. What have you done?

Grace is on her knees when the door bumps into her back. She feels a hand grab her roughly on the arm as she’s twisted back, around and out.

Jared drags her down the short set of steps. The wind and smoke swirl around them in a spiraling panic. He yells at her to get up, but her legs won’t work properly. He stumbles across the yard with her in his arms.

They fall and land in a heap on top of her bag. The coffee tin digs into her ribs and her face is buried in the snow. A bout of coughing forces her to her knees. Jared pounds her back and kneels next to her. He’s telling her that
I’ve got you
and that
you’re safe now
but she can’t speak. Her tongue feels too large for her mouth and her throat is sore. Looking over Jared’s shoulder she catches sight of the burning trailer and on top of her crying and coughing she begins to laugh high and loud.

Jared pulls her up to standing and grabs her bag. He tells her that they’ve got to go before someone sees them, and when she doesn’t move fast enough he carries her across the dark, icy lot—past the flapping restroom doors, past the city of trucks, past the icy diesel pumps, and past the long row of Harleys.

They hear voices and hide in the shadows between the parked cars. He holds her close, crushing her against his chest. He whispers for her to be quiet and loosens his grip. Grace rests the side of her head against him and feels his heart beat beneath all those layers of fabric. They wait for a group of men to board their bikes and ride away. The men brag about this and that as they smoke cigarettes and stagger around drunk. Grace spots the tall reedy one that shoulder-checked Jared. He’s kicking in the side of a car with his steel-toed boots and laughing but there’s no joy in the sound. One in their number points to the back of the lot where black smoke billows up high and disappears in the storm clouds, but they can’t be bothered to raise the alarm. They rev their engines and drive away. Through tears, Grace watches their lights streak like comet tails on the darkened highway.

Jared bends low and asks Grace if she’s okay. His face is cast in shadow, his voice quieter than it was before.

She holds on tighter.

He peels her arms away. “I need to get you home.”

She says something too soft for him to hear.

“What was that?” he says, bending low once more.

Grace doesn’t hesitate. She reaches up and kisses him on the mouth. There’s the briefest taste of tobacco and he’s gone, backing away from her with a pained expression on his face.

“No, Grace. I told you before. We can only ever be friends.”

*   *   *

Within easy reach of the headlights the flurries fall thick and bright, but they barely have time to settle on the windshield before they’re flicked away by the wipers. Beyond the blinding white flakes the view is endless black. To go out on a night like this would be like falling off a cliff. Nobody would find your body until spring. The wipers start to stick to the glass and Jared cranks up the defroster. The low hum of the fan, the rattle of the truck, and the soft melody of the song playing on the radio fill the cab but Grace finds no comfort in the words or the hum or the rattle.

She moves her lips the bare minimum to get the words out. The acrid stench of smoke coats her like a second skin. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want anything more to do with me.”

“Come on, Grace. I’m not like that.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’ve never given you any reason not to trust me.”

Grace turns away and blinks into the falling snow. The interior lights illuminate her profile. Her narrow chest heaves up and down with each breath. She wants Jared to hold her in his arms like he did back at the truck stop, but she knows he isn’t going to come near her ever again. Her face is a scrunched-up mess of nerves when she turns toward him.

“You have to promise.”

“Promise what?”

“Promise that you’ll be a proper friend to me. That you’ll always be there for me.”

Jared lets out an anxious sigh. “Of course I promise, but I can only do my best. I’m not perfect, Grace. You’ll have to take me as I come.”

21

Unused to the noise of traffic right outside the windows, Grace hasn’t been sleeping well. She burrows her head deeper into her pillow. The previous evening her aunt presented Grace with a schedule for her mother’s funeral.

“There will be a short service at the crematorium at four, and after that Martha Nielson has offered to have us over for an early supper. It will be just a few people. We’ve decided to keep it simple.” Her aunt had gone on to tell Grace about her doctor’s appointment in the morning, mentioning it in an offhand way that was at odds with her tremulous voice. “I think it’s a good idea for you to come with me since I’ve had some tests done.”

From the bedroom Grace can smell freshly made coffee and eggs cooking on the stove. She hears her aunt’s footsteps, the hum of the television news, and the sound of the refrigerator door being opened and shut. She rolls over onto her back and pulls the quilt upward so it’s covering her neck. Almost hidden, she holds it there and waits for the panic to pass. It feels like a low-pressure ridge is settling between her throat and her heart. It’s not the service at the crematorium or having supper at Martha Nielson’s house that worries her. It’s the doctor’s appointment that’s kept her up half the night.

Elizabeth comes into the bedroom. Dressed in a dark woolen skirt and jacket, she looks like she’s going to church. She says her usual
good morning
and sits down on the edge of the bed. They’ve been tiptoeing around each other since the day they argued about Arnold’s truck. Elizabeth shakes Grace’s leg and tells her to come get some breakfast before it’s cold.

Grace takes her aunt’s hand and squeezes it. “What if we just hide out here all day?” she says, hopeful to the last.

Elizabeth gives her niece a tidy little smile. “It’s a nice thought but I have this feeling life will come knocking on our door whether we like it or not.”

*   *   *

Elizabeth is tired so she lets Grace drive to the hospital for the appointment with the oncologist, but she fidgets in her seat and insists on instructing Grace as to which roads to avoid so they won’t get caught up in the traffic around Old Town.

“Dr. Fischer has a hearing problem,” says Elizabeth as she indicates to Grace to take a right at the next intersection. “He refuses to wear a hearing aid. He ends up shouting all the time because he can’t judge how loud his own voice is anymore.”

Her aunt doesn’t exaggerate. In his office Grace jumps up in her seat each time the doctor opens his mouth, and next to her she sees her aunt doing the same thing. An enormous man, Dr. Fischer dominates his side of the desk. Grace looks upward into his elongated face and dark eyes, waiting for something resembling good news to come out of his sausage-sized lips, but he says all the wrong things: inoperable, prognosis isn’t good, chemotherapy.

He finishes going through the test results and snaps the file shut. “Elizabeth,” he booms. “You’re going to have to fight hard if you want to beat this.”

“But you’ve just said it’s inoperable? I don’t understand.”

Dr. Fischer brushes away his previous prognosis with a smile and a fresh flurry of bellowing. “Those are all just statistics, Elizabeth. You can beat this. You’re better than this.”

Elizabeth isn’t convinced. The cancer has spread beyond her stomach and is inching its way into her other vital organs. “I’m tired. I can’t spend the rest of my life fighting against something that’s going to kill me anyway.” She gathers her things, signaling her niece to do the same. “I’ll take pain medication but nothing beyond that. I watched my mother suffer through two rounds of chemo. It didn’t make her live any longer.”

They are waiting for the elevator when Grace realizes she’s forgotten her gloves in Dr. Fischer’s office. He’s still at his desk. She asks him the one question she still wants answered.

Six months if we’re lucky
echoes down the corridors.

The doctor tries to persuade her to speak to her aunt but Grace isn’t convinced he knows what’s best.

Grace finds Elizabeth outside the elevator door doubled over, her face contorted with pain. “Promise me, Grace. You won’t let me die here.”

*   *   *

In the living room of the tidy little bungalow on Spruce Street, Martha Nielson has built a shrine dedicated to her dead husband, Walter. There are pictures of him everywhere. In the presence of so many of his keepsakes it feels as if they should be mourning Walter rather than Leanne. Grace examines his photographs closely. She remembers him well—how the swell of his belly had pinned her to the ground and the way his swollen lips had smothered her cries.

There’s a voice at her shoulder. “He’d have been fifty-nine last Saturday,” says Martha, clutching on to Grace’s arm. “The kids came over and we had some cake.”

Grace rests a hand on the edge of the display. Birthday cards sit as bookends to an urn. Amazed that such a big man could be contained in such a small way, she asks Martha if the urn contains her husband’s ashes.

Martha runs her fingertips down the side of the pewter vase. “Yes, he’s still here with me. I couldn’t bear to have him buried alone.”

Grace’s mother had been nothing more than skin and bone. Grace imagines the crematorium delivering what’s left of her in a thimble.
We’re very sorry, Grace, but this is all there was.