Finding Gracie's Rainbow (32 page)

“
That’s not what’s
bothering you.” Kim studied her hard. “What else happened
today?”

“
I just need some space.”
Gracie stood and walked around the couch as she looked over at Kim.
“Every time I come home, Jackson is either here or on his
way.”

“
Have you told him this?”
Kim watched as Gracie absently straightened the cushions on her
couch.

“
Not exactly,” she
admitted as she sat back down. “I don’t want to make him
angry.”

“
Because of how Mark
treated you.” Kim went and sat down beside her. “Jackson isn't
Mark; just tell him how you feel. He isn't going to beat on you
because you make him mad.”

“
I have trouble wanting to
share my feelings with anybody.” Gracie looked down at her
feet.

“
But you need to tell him
before you start resenting him.” Kim stood up. “I think I hear the
troop coming down the court. Do you feel a little better
now?”

Gracie nodded her head as
Bea came running into the house with strawberry ice cream dripping
down her chin. Sammie walked in behind Bea and looked over at her
aunt as she heard everything that Annie had told Kim. She glanced
down at the book that Gracie had laid down on the table. “Are we
reading again?”

“
I always read it’s just
normally what we publish.” Gracie turned the book over in her hands
after picking it back up.

She looked up to see
Jackson staring at her strangely before sitting down beside her. “I
have a feeling that we need to talk.”

“
Later,” Gracie said as
Bea came back into the room from washing her face.

Annie was watching her from
where she stood in the doorway. She had asked for tomorrow off
because she needed to do a few errands, but if she could draw
Gracie out enough to get some information from her, then it will be
worth taking less on her paycheck.

The next day, Annie was
sitting at the kitchen table with a file from work open in front of
her writing everything that she could remember from when Bea was
talking about the time she had spent with her father. She stopped
and looked towards where Gracie was sprawled out on the couch
reading. She cleared her throat, and Gracie glanced over at
her.

“
Gracie, I hate to do
this, but I’ve been assigned to Bea’s case and need to ask you some
questions.” She had already talked to Susan and was horrified at
the same of things that she had learned.

“
I wasn’t there.” Gracie
frowned as she went back to the book.

“
You still need to answer
some questions.” Annie was hitting her pen on the file as she
talked.

Gracie sat up and placed
the book on the table in front of her. “You don’t give up. Do you?”
She stood and walked to where Annie was sitting.

Annie tried to smile at
her. “Not if I want to get paid for missing going into the office.”
She looked down at the file. “I do feel a need to tell you that
these questions date back to when you were married. We can go into
the office if you want.”

“
Why?” Gracie asked her
angrily as she stared across the table. “And I don’t want to go
into your office.”

“
We want to destroy Mark’s
character.” Annie looked back down as she tried to use her most
soothing voice. “When did you start dating him?”

“
Freshman year of high
school,” Gracie watched as Annie penned in her answer. “We were
married after I graduated.”

“
When did he start beating
on you?” She looked over to study Gracie’s face.

“
After we were married.
Where are you going with this?” Gracie had tried for the last nine
years to forget about her marriage.

“
I have to ask these
questions, Gracie.” Annie stood, walking to the refrigerator to
grab some cold sodas. “The next question my boss added because of
Susan’s testimony. So please don’t get upset with me and do take
your time to answer to the best of your ability.” She placed a soda
in front of Gracie before she sat back down. “Are you
ready?”

“
Do I have a choice?”
Gracie pushed the soda from one hand to other as she waited for
Annie to continue.

Annie sat there trying to
figure out a way to say what she had to in a way that wasn't too
personal. “They want to know your experiences with having sex with
him.”

Gracie’s eyes shot wide
open as she pushed her chair away from the table. “They have no
right to ask that. How could they?” Gracie frowned, turning around
to see Paige staring at them from the front door. “I'm not going to
give them what they want.” She walked out the back door; watching
as Bea and Garrison were swinging.

Paige walked out to the
backyard and looked at Gracie worriedly. “She's just doing her job,
Gracie.”

“
That makes me want to
answer their question.” She said sharply as she frowned. “I don't
want to remember.”

“
But you haven't forgotten
either.” Paige sat down in one of the deck chairs. “That is the one
thing you haven’t discussed with anybody; including me.”

Gracie looked at her
agitated. “I don't want to discuss it now.” Her eyes were wet as
she talked and Paige stood, walking over to hug her.

“
I didn't come over to
hear about it.” Paige looked over to where Bea was and smiled. “I
just wanted to spend some time with you while you were on
vacation.” She looked back over at Gracie with concern on her
face.

Annie walked out to them
then. “I am sorry.” She looked directly at her. “They just want to
collaborate your story with Susan’s.”

“
Seriously, I'm not in the
mood to discuss that topic with anyone.” She had emphasized the
word anyone as she spoke.

“
Not even Jackson?” Annie
asked when Paige looked at them puzzled.

“
Definitely not,” Gracie
looked at her angrily.

“
Did I miss something
again?” Paige asked as she watched Gracie storm back into the house
slamming the door behind her.

“
You might have.” Annie
mumbled under her breath. “They're going out tonight.”

“
Really?” Paige raised her
eyes as she smiled at Annie. “Oh,” she said as she thought about
whatever Gracie was keeping secret.

“
I didn't feel comfortable
asking her tell me about it, but I had to.” Annie stared at Paige
as she continued. “If she doesn’t give me something to write down,
somebody else will pay her a visit to get the
information.”

“
I don’t understand why
they have to ask her that.” She looked to the door as she
talked.

“
They want to kill his
character.” Annie answered.

“
His character? It sounds
to me like it's more her character than his.” Paige was angry as
she thought about what Gracie was probably thinking. “Can’t they
just go on what Susan has told them?”

“
I wish.” Annie turned to
walk back into the house as Paige followed her. She looked at
Gracie who was scrubbing the counter.

Gracie turned to look at
them as they watched her. “What exactly do I have to tell
you?”

“
How he treated you.”
Annie walked back over to her file and picked up her
pen.

Gracie walked over to the
couch and sat down. Just thinking about the way she had been
treated was enough to upset her. That was why she had never talked
about it before. She looked up at Paige before focusing on Annie.
“This is hard.”

Paige went over and sat
down beside her. “It's okay, Gracie. Take your time.” She squeezed
her hand as she continued. “Maybe now that your life is moving
forward, you should talk about the past to get it out of your
system.”

“
That isn't something you
forget, Paige.” Gracie focused her attention on her feet. “He would
always beat me first.” She was frowning as she talked about it.
“Maybe that did something for him.”

Annie and Paige sat there
and listened as Gracie told them everything.

“
I was always too tired to
fight him.” Gracie felt the tears stinging her eyes. “I guess you
kind of say he forced himself on me.”

“
You never told anybody
about what was going on?” Paige asked as looked over at
her.

“
I was four hundred and
fifty miles away from my family. Mark’s family was Amish, and he
took me to their village. There was no phone, no cars, and no way
for me to communicate besides mail. I wrote letters home, but I
don’t think they were ever sent.” Gracie stood as continued. “I
tried very hard to forget what Mark did to me. At the end, his
sister noticed that I was trying to do chores with one arm, and
that was when Mark's family realized what was going on.” She paused
as she looked out the window to check on Bea. “His mother saw all
the bruises on my back and by then I had suspected I was pregnant.
His mother called his father in, and they decided to get me out of
there. They took me to a hospital, and I gave them Mom’s number, so
they could call her. The next five months were a blur.”

“
What happened then?”
Paige asked as she had never known about Mark’s history. He had
told them that he was from Pennsylvania, and that was all the
information that he had given to them.

“
He found me when he came
back down to his uncle’s house.” Gracie sat at the table with them.
“Mark had rented an apartment and made me go with him. That was a
week before Bea was born. There was no phone, so I couldn't call
anyone.”

“
Why didn't you just
leave?” Annie frowned as she continued to write.

“
He said that if I didn’t
go with him that he'd find Sammie.” Gracie looked over at Paige as
she confessed. “That was the reason why I agreed to marry him.
Sammie was a little younger than Bea is now when he started. .
.”

“
Started what, Gracie?”
Paige didn't like where this was going.

“
Mark wasn't a good
person.” Gracie felt the tears in her eyes as she stood back up. “I
didn't want him touching Sammie. I had broken up with him a week
before this happened. He saw Sammie at one of those dances where
Jackson and I competed. He never went to any of them until that
night, and I guess he didn’t appreciate the way that I was dancing
with Jackson.”

“
I heard about those
dances. Jackson said you could dance better than your brother or
sister.” Annie had placed the pen down and looked towards Gracie as
she spoke. “Susan had a different story, but the outcome was the
same.”

“
Now that you’ve unburied
all of that, I'm going to try to forget it again.” Gracie looked at
them, not too happy with having told them about herself. “I didn’t
like it then. I didn’t want it then, and I don’t want it
now.”

“
I wouldn’t tell Jackson
that.” Annie said as she listened to her roommate.

“
Why would I tell Jackson
anything about it?” She asked as she looked over at her. “I took a
vow of celibacy, so there's no reason for him to find out.” Gracie
had taken the vow with Kim as an excuse not to get involved with
another man. She walked to her bedroom and shut the door leaving
Paige and Annie looking at her in disbelief.

“
I never knew.” Paige felt
sorry for Gracie as she spoke under her breath.

After Annie finished
writing in her file, she picked it up looking over at Paige. “If I
had gone through what Gracie did, I probably would've done the same
thing. That does explain why she didn’t want to get involved with
anybody. I'm going to put this in my car and lock it up.” She
looked at the file and then the clock. “Better yet, I'm taking it
to the office. Are you staying for a while?”

“
Sure. Go on, I’ll watch
the children.” Paige looked down the hall before walking to the
back yard where Bea and Garrison were still playing. After watching
them play for a few minutes, she decided to call Kim. What Gracie
had said affected her, and she couldn't deny the need to talk to
her best friend.

After Kim stepped outside,
Paige excused herself and walked to Gracie’s bedroom.

“
Go away.” Gracie looked
up at her from where she lay.

“
I can’t.” Paige sat down
on the bed next to her. “You have a date tonight.”

“
So?” Gracie laid her head
back down and stared at the ceiling.

“
You didn’t even tell me
about you and Jackson.” Paige was smiling at her as she tried to
make Gracie think of something else.

“
It's been a rough week.”
Gracie finally sat up with her knees folded upward as she looked at
Paige. “A really rough week.”

“
Well, if you're serious
about not talking to Jackson about what you just told us, then we
need to think happy thoughts.” Paige pushed a curl from Gracie’s
face. “Where are you going?”

“
Red Lobster, we're taking
Annie and Christian. Oh, my God.” Gracie jumped off the bed as
Paige stared at her.

“
Annie and Christian?”
Paige felt like there was a lot she had missed since Monday. “Who
is Christian?”

Gracie peeked around the
bathroom door. “Christian is the detective friend of Jackson’s that
brought Bea back to me.” She came out of the bathroom smiling. “I
think Annie has a crush on him, and she has no idea what we have
planned.”