Healing Grace (2 page)

“Yes, thank you, I’m fine. Last occupants apparently left in a hurry,” she replied.

“Um, right. I guess the place is a mess. If you need help with anything…” His voice fell away. Grace guessed the “you can call me” would be meaningless, and not just to her. His sallow face paled. Perspiration trickled down his temple, even though the air was cool. His left arm and leg started to quiver. Sweat rolled past the startling white rictus of a scar on his temple along the premature age line around his eyes and dripped down his jaw onto his faded navy shirt labeled “Sleeping Bear Dunes.”

Grace slumped against the doorframe, breathing shallowly, trying not to scream or burst into tears. God’s sense of humor escaped her. Why did he insist on making her the butt of a cosmic joke? The last few days had only been a calm moment in the midst of a virtual hurricane. This man, God all but screamed in her inner ear. This is why I brought you here. For your touch.

She willed the voice into silence and shuttered her heart. No.

Grace locked eyes with the man on the porch until the silence became uncomfortable.

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

“Yes.” The word came out more clipped than she’d intended; ice instead of pleasant. “How may I help you?” As she spoke, she blinked away the thought that his eyes were the color of the Morning Glory pool at Yellowstone. Jonathan’s eyes had been a mossy brown. Grace looked down at the child. He stood behind the man’s legs, clutching the bag to his chin, and peeked back at her with an anxious expression creasing his forehead.

Really, God? Is it necessary to punish me this hard?
Grace bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted sweet rust. But she would not, not,
not,
let anything touch her heart. Ever again.

The man urged the child forward.

“Give Mrs., ah, Mrs. …”

“Runyon.”

“…Runyon the bread.”

The miniature grubby hand thrust the pillowcase in Grace’s direction.

“Good job, Eds. I’m Ted Marshall,” he said, apparently recalling they had not exchanged names. “And this is my son, Eddy.”

Eddy stuck his head sideways from around the side of his father, eyed her solemnly, and then disappeared again.

Grace took the bundle. “Nice to meet you both. I’m Grace Runyon.” She did not offer to shake hands. Although running away from Woodside more than likely lessened the strength of the gift, she wasn’t taking chances. Besides, it was strictly forbidden to let strangers know what happened there—sometimes. “Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”

“I—can—work a bread—machine.” He wobbled and reached a hand out to steady himself against the jamb.

She reached out anyway, stopping just short when he held up the same hand to ward her off. “I’m all right. Just give me a second.”

“Um, thank you, Mr. Marshall, and Eddy, for the bread. Would you like to come in and sit for a minute?” The case felt cozy in her hand, warm from the fresh-baked loaf and the child’s hand.

“Ted. Call me Ted. We have to get back.” He straightened using the crutch. “I have an appointment, but thanks anyway. We’re over there”—he indicated a hedge of tall scraggly bushes— “on the other side. At the house.” They turned and clumped across the gray-green cupped porch boards. Eddy looked back through the open door. Grace followed his gaze to the abandoned toys piled in the middle of the room. He turned and bent to grasp his father’s crutch to help him manipulate down the steps.

Ah. “One of the brothers” now made sense. She watched, her mouth pursed. How old was the child? Maybe four? Too young to have to help a parent like that.

She looked up at the ceiling of the living room, free of webs but showing cracks in the white paint. “I will not, Lord! No! You brought me here for a reason, but not that. Please, not yet… I want to be free for a while! Away from sickness and everyone else’s hurt. Let me heal myself, first.” Sinking down and slapping the T-shirt against the smooth floorboards, she hunched up her knees. Staring at nothing, she let her forehead rest against her wrists and rocked.
No tears. You promised. No feelings. If you don’t feel, you can’t hurt.

A long time later Grace ate dinner, butter melting on the re-warmed slice of bread. She sat at the now shiny chrome kitchen table, occupied with thoughts about her visitors. Ted was obviously the former occupant. Her medical curiosity took over and thrust back the emotion that threatened her slim self-control. What was the nature of his illness? He had received some terrible injury, evident in the scar on his head, but was it related to the need for a crutch? Usually a head injury didn’t count as “ill” like the real estate lady said.

Well, her neighbors were none of her business. She took her dishes over to the sink and ran some water. Not that sweet little boy with the poignant eyes. Certainly not his enigmatic father. And no way was she interested in knowing where Eddy’s mother was. If she didn’t get to know them better, it would be easier not to care. If she didn’t care all that much, she wouldn’t feel obligated to help them. If she didn’t try to help them, she wouldn’t fail. If she never had to fail, she couldn’t be hurt by it. If she wasn’t hurt, she’d win. If she beat the emotion game, maybe someday she could blend in here, her new home, and nothing could drive her away.

When she accidentally splashed suds on the wall next to the sink, she picked at a bubbling daisy. Underneath, the walls had once been sunny yellow.

Grace was not surprised to find Eddy behind the polite ring of the doorbell at seven-thirty the next morning. She offered the soulful, long-lashed child toast and jam, some of her tea, a share of the morning paper, which he declined with a swift shake of his silken head, and a freshly-washed toy from the box near the door.

He drove the beat-up blue police car across the living room floor, making wonderful sounds. “I’m glad the rug is gone. Now we can drive straight.” He didn’t look up at Grace, too rapt with his play.

“It was dirty and mousy. I’m trying to clean it up.” She smiled at his antics while she sorted through some laundry. “But I may have to throw it away.”

“We always had mouses. Trigger helped clean ’em up.”

“Trigger?” Grace looked back from the hall where she was headed with a stack of folded towels.

“My kitty. Daddy said she was fast on the draw!” At this, he did look up at her, smiling wide, big-eyed and dimpled, innocent as the sunrise. He let go of the car and came toward her. She stiffened. Memories of another little boy threatened to overwhelm her.

Peace, Grace, peace. It was long ago. You don’t have to go there again. You cried enough back then.

“Can I see my room?” he asked, smile gone.

She was probably scaring the poor kid to death. Forcing a smile back on her face, she said, “Sure! Which one?” and followed him down the hallway alongside the wide staircase she had yet to scrub, to the second door on the left, the one across from the kitchen. It was little-boy-sized with a closet under the staircase that tunneled through the house. Eddy went to sit on the floor in front of a dusty window which looked out on a sorry playhouse in the backyard.

“This is where my bed used to be.” His voice cracked and he sniffed. “You don’t know where Trigger is, do you?” Fat tears rolled faster and faster down his thin cheeks.

The clump-clump of a heavy tread on the porch steps and a shadow crossing the other window signaled another visitor, saving her from doing more than patting the child on the shoulder for a moment. A different man, an older version of Eddy’s father, stood outside.

“I’ve come to see if Eddy is here.”

They both heard the snuffling sounds coming from inside.

“I’m sorry he bothered you.” The man made no effort to introduce himself, and Grace was too uncomfortable in his stern presence to demand his name, although she didn’t doubt that he was Ted’s brother, Randy Marshall, the name on the mailbox of the house next door.

“He’s not bothering me. He came to visit me earlier. I hope that was all right with his father?”

The man did not rise to her bait. She gave it one more try. “Yes? He is welcome to stay here for a bit, if it would be easier for you.”

“No. He knows he no longer lives here. Eddy!”

Grace jerked her head as he called past her into the house. He stood with fists planted firmly on his hips, his expression stony and distant.

This was not a happy person—not at all. Should she let Eddy go with him? “He’s not in any trouble, I hope? Or am I?”

A sarcastic eyebrow raise was his only response. The child came running, picked up his police car and skipped through the door, but not before thanking her with his expression: the faint flash of a dimple and blink of long, black, damp lashes. He did not appear fearful of the man, so she decided the situation was, again, none of her business. It was not her problem to care who watched over her neighbor’s son.

* * * *

Grace continued to fold laundry into piles on the coffee table, the easy chair, and the arm of her “new” sofa. These lulling, comforting routine motions of dealing with familiar activities helped ease her into accepting this place as home. She’d tied some brown-striped sheets as slipcovers for a couple of mismatched chairs from her favorite store—the resale shop. She wondered what the local gossips had to say about her. What would they do if they really knew her and what she’d done?

Her simple touches coordinated the furniture well against freshly-painted beige walls. Her walls in Tennessee had a touch of gold in the paint, but that formality wouldn’t work here. At least the room no longer smelled of cigar smoke, vomit, and mouse urine. She wondered who had smoked the cigars.

The old brown and tan braided wool carpet was sacrificed to the mouse droppings, and with it gone, she’d done her best to clean and wax the narrow planked oak floors. At one time a dog had obviously occupied the place, one which did not always make it outside to do its business. She put an end table over the biggest black stain. The drapes were gone, revealing the beautiful wood casement around the windows. The corner of one window was cracked. How much would it cost to replace the whole thing? Mundane thinking kept the other whispers at bay; the ones that reminded her of her calling, of her purpose in Michigan. She struggled to tune them out with busy work. Exhaustion would quell the dreams. At some point she’d see what kind of work she could do here. Absolutely nothing to do with the medical field, though.

A ray of brilliant sun beamed though the low cloud bank at that moment, glancing off the glass on the coffee table and stinging her eyes. She closed them.
No. I told you. No.

She ached from washing and polishing the sashes and the panes and flexed her shoulders. Think about something else, Grace, girl. Get your mind on anything else but what you’d done before.

Yeah…let’s see. Maybe she could offer her services as a professional decorator. She chuckled. There were houses like this in her home town. They came from a kit and were personalized later. Marie had been exceptionally chatty at the library, filling in the gaps about Ted’s grandparents leaving the main house to their daughter and son-in-law’s growing family and building this place next door. There were more touches, personal ones, made through the years in wood paneling in the living room and plastered ceilings and light fixtures. Two square rooms on the second floor looked out over the slope-roofed front porch. There was a walk-in pantry behind the kitchen and a miniature bathroom stuffed between it and Eddy’s former room.

Grace could not bring herself to take one of the bedrooms upstairs for her own. Ted and the Mrs. must have occupied one of them. Just a feeling, but it was enough to keep her away. Besides, how would she carry furniture all by herself? The cupboards in the kitchen were plentiful for her needs. The former pantry was large enough for a single bed and comfortable.

A week after his initial visit, Eddy’s father limped up the walk on her side of the hedge and found her in the yard, puttering in the late afternoon sunshine.

That hedge was not big enough. Maybe she could install a fence? An electric one with…

Was he attempting to be friendly? She could assure him she was fine and send him away…

Surely he didn’t need anything. He lived with his brother, didn’t he? She had nothing to offer, nothing, nothing, nothing. Please, don’t ask me…

“Hello, there. Nice day for a walk,” she said when he came within hearing range.

“Hi.” Ted settled both hands on top of the single crutch and let his gaze roam the yard. He shifted feet awkwardly. “I hope you’re doing well.”

She assured him she was.

“Um, Shelby is in the hospital. They think it might be food poisoning. She’s the only sitter Eddy’s ever had. I called around but it’s such short notice. There’s no one else to ask. My brother, Randy, you met him the other day… Well, he’s out of town on business. I’d take Eddy along to the clinic, but this is a long test. I don’t—”

Then, please, don’t. “That’s all right. What are neighbors for?” She returned his tense smile while mentally hearing fingernails across a classroom chalk board. “He’s welcome to come here for the afternoon. I’m not—I’m not doing that much, anyway. I’m not an ax-murderer or child molester, either, in case you were wondering.”

His eyes did not crinkle at the corners, like happy people smile. Too much brotherly love? His skin looked papery. She forced herself to stop her automatic clinical analysis. Should she ask who Shelby was? Folks around here were so familiar with themselves they forgot others didn’t know them. Not that she wanted to. Know them.

Ted leaned against a pillar on the porch. “Okay, thanks. And I wasn’t wondering. I saw you go into the library. I don’t think ax-murderers read much.”

After he returned to his side of the hedge, Grace stalked into the house, slammed and locked the door, crawled into bed and held her stomach until she fell asleep.

When he returned the next day with Eddy in tow, he dug in his hip pocket for a slip of paper, which he held out to her with a shaky hand. “Here’s my cell phone number and the number where I’ll be if you need anything. I should be back by four-thirty if the taxi is available. Eddy will eat anything you give him. He’s a good kid, generally.”