State of Grace (32 page)

“This isn't so bad,” I thought.

“That's because you haven't turned over,”
came Grace's voice, once again in my head.
“In just a second, the air currents are going to force your body to flip over. And when that happens, it's going to all come at once. All of the sound is going to come all at once. It will feel like you're running into a wall of sound. But, I'm here to help. I'm here to absorb the impact of this.”

I was about to answer when my body slammed into something and then was jerked upward as if I were a fish that had just taken the baited hook. The sudden rush of sound was deafening. I felt the impact in my joints.

“Let me,”
Grace screamed, her voice sounding like mine when as a child I would talk into the box fan in my window. I tried to close my eyes, but the wind forced them painfully open.

I tried to shut out everything and focus on my memory of her face as she had looked on the roller coaster and in her school
picture. I imagined her outfit, her pants, her button-down shirt. I thought about her eyes and her hair. And then, suddenly, it all just stopped.

“How about that?”

I blinked and looked around. I was standing at the foot of the roller coaster. It wasn't nearly as tall as it had been only moments before. In fact, it was now, I realized, only a couple of stories tall. People screamed in fear and delight as one of the other coasters rushed past.

“We made it,” I said aloud and patted my chest and thighs and head.

“Yeah. Wanna do it again?”

I realized that the speaker was talking to me. I turned and looked up into the face of a dark-haired man. He grinned down and ran a hand through his wind-blown curls. His blue eyes twinkled. He raised his eyebrows and then looked down at his watch. On his hand glinted a gold wedding band.

“We're not supposed to meet the kids for another half-hour,”
he said.
“We can ride it again and still have time to get a funnel cake.”

I blinked and looked around in confusion.

“I . . .” Although I didn't recognize this man, somehow I knew that he was my husband. I looked at him more closely. He looked familiar. He grinned at my scrutiny.

“What?”
he asked and reached out for my hand.

For once, I didn't worry about germs or contamination.

“Nothing,” I said and shook my head in surprise. “I just . . . you're so handsome.”

His grin grew wider.

“Thank you,”
he said and I could tell he genuinely meant it.
“It's nice to hear after a decade.”

I quickly did the math in my head. If we had been married for ten years, then we had gotten married when I was twenty. Had I gone to college? Had I graduated? Before I had time to think more about it, my husband leaned down and kissed me first on the top of my nose, then on my cheek, and then on my lips. It was a tender kiss that started out sweet and quickly became passionate. I felt my
body respond, and rather than being frightened, I was thrilled at the feeling. I felt alive and eager in a way that was unfamiliar but very pleasant.

“What say we put the kids to bed early tonight?”
he whispered in my ear.
“And then we go to bed early, too?”

I leaned into him and inhaled his soapy, starchy smell. His heart thudded slowly and rhythmically against my cheek.

“I'd like that.” I was about to say more when I heard the words,
“Mommy! Mommy!”

I pulled away from the embrace and turned to see three children—two boys and a girl walking toward us. The girl was clearly the oldest. She was tall for her age, which I guessed to be nine or ten. She had long blond hair that was pulled back in a banana clip. Her green eyes were large and round. She was going to be a beautiful woman, I thought.

The boys were, I somehow suddenly knew, eight and six. And they looked like their father with dark, curly hair and blue eyes. I studied them in amazement, astounded that these creatures came from my body. I wanted to touch them, squeeze them, feel their bones under their skin. I felt my love for them almost bursting through my chest.

The youngest one waved something over his head as he broke into a run.
“Mommy!”
he cried.
“Mommy, look!”

I knelt and he rushed into my arms for an enthusiastic hug. He smelled like cotton candy and little-boy sweat.

“I won,”
he yelled.
“Look what I won!”
He pulled back and thrust a small, cheap stuffed monkey in my face.
“I won this at the baseball game,”
he said proudly.
“I knocked down all the bottles.”

“With a little bit of help,”
said the girl. I looked up at her. She was trying to pretend she was bored and too old to be at the amusement park with her family, but I could tell she was having a good time. I pulled the boy back to me for another hug and he allowed me to hold him for several seconds before pulling away.

“Can we go to the fun house?”
It was the older boy. I stood up and looked at him. He was quiet, I knew, and thoughtful.
“It's back there.”
He turned and pointed in the direction from which they had come.
“It takes two tickets.”

“Lead the way,” I said and felt a strong hand slip into mine.

We walked that way, hand in hand behind the children. I smiled happily at everyone. I was normal, I realized. I had a handsome husband who loved only me, three beautiful children, and we were spending the day at the amusement park. I found myself laughing out loud.

The man in front of the fun house looked us over and held out his hand in a bored gesture that indicated he had performed this transaction millions of times.

“Five people, ten tickets,”
he said in a raspy voice.

I looked down at his upturned hand. The palm was large and calloused. The fingers were short, blunt, and smeared with something that looked like ink or grease. Without flinching, I placed the tickets in his hand.

“Enjoy,”
he said automatically before turning his attention to the teenaged couple behind us.
“Two people, four tickets.”

I turned as if to say something to him but felt the older of the two boys grasp my hand and tug me forward.

The fun house was like one I had gone to when I was seven. My parents, Natalie's parents, and Grace's parents had planned a multifamily vacation to Six Flags Over Texas. We had carpooled down to Dallas, where we walked the route taken by JFK the day he was assassinated. I remembered, suddenly, standing on a downtown street corner looking up at the window in the book depository from which Oswald fired the shots. Our parents had stood solemnly behind us speaking in low tones.

“Come on,”
the boy said, jerking me both literally and figuratively out of my reverie. We walked awkwardly on the tilting floor that rocked back and forth like flat mechanical waves and stumbled clumsily into the room of mirrors. Once inside, he dropped my hand and ran forward. I followed, my eyes trained on his small form as he navigated the confusing labyrinth. Behind me, I could hear the youngest boy chattering happily to his father.

“Mom, look,”
my daughter said, and I turned. She moved to stand next to me. She pointed at the mirror.
“We look like sisters.”

I turned my gaze to the mirror and saw for the first time what I
looked like as a happily married woman. The image that greeted me made my heart stop. It was Grace. The face that stared back at me was an adult, full-grown Grace. I blanched and stepped backward, running into the mirror behind me.

“Mom, what's wrong? Are you okay?”

Immediately, I heard the familiar sound of deafening silence. It was the sound of the clearing the day I found Grace's body. It was the sound of the wind as I fell from the roller coaster. It was the sound of everything and nothing at once.

I stared at the image in the mirror and it stared back at me. I blinked and she blinked. This wasn't my life—it was Grace's. Grace's memories of Dallas. Grace's family. Grace's handsome husband. None of it was mine. It was all hers. I was the one who had died.

I shook my head and watched as Grace's image in the mirror opened her mouth and began to scream.

Chapter 25

It was the scream that woke me—and, presumably, Toby, who leapt to his feet and began to bark furiously in all directions at once. I lay still, my heart pounding, listening to him. Though loud, the sound was reassuring. This was real. Toby was my dog. This was my cabin. It was my life. What had just happened was a dream.

The cabin was gloomy with the light of early dawn and the fire, which had burned so cheerily the night before, had gone out. The room was cold and I rolled onto my side and pulled my legs toward my chest. My body shook, though I wasn't sure if it was from cold or from the nightmares. I felt strange, confused, discombobulated. The dreams, both of them, had seemed so real. Grace had seemed so real. And, in the second dream, she had taken over my body. She had been that real. How often, I wondered, did she do that? How often did she take over when I was asleep? The idea scared me.

I reached out to Toby for comfort, shushing him and making kissy noises to bring him closer. He barked once more and then padded over to me. He sniffed my face and neck and then shoved his cold, wet nose against my cheek. I reached up and pulled him down, wrapping my body around his. He groaned dramatically but endured my neediness.

We stayed like that for more than an hour, me pressed against him, my pulse slowly returning to normal. By the time I trusted myself to get up, the sun had crept over the mountains and was shining brightly into the living room. I pulled myself into a standing position and debated turning up the heat versus building another fire in the fireplace. I arched slightly to stretch out my lower back and then bent down to pull a couple of twigs
from the stack of tinder next to the fireplace. Using the poker, I churned up the ashes until I had a small pile of red-orange coals. I placed the tinder on top of them and then blew. Clouds of ashes billowed up, but the coals glowed brightly. I blew again and watched as one of the coals flamed to life. I moved the twigs on top of it and then slowly, as the fire caught, fed larger and larger sticks to the flame until the fire was strong enough to add a small log. There was something satisfying about building a fire.

Toby watched and then followed me into the kitchen. Although I would have liked to think he came to keep me company, I knew that he was hungry. I looked down at him for several seconds and then opened a can of dog food and chunked it up into his bowl. He sniffed it with curiosity, then turned and walked back into the living room. I stared down at the unappetizing brown mash for a moment or two before turning to the cabinet and taking out a box of Raisin Bran. I poured some into a bowl, splashed in some milk, and spooned the first couple of bites into my mouth as I wandered back out into the living room. The computer screen was alive with flying toasters.

I thought again about the dreams and what Grace had said as I hung from the roller coaster scaffolding. She knew I was hiding something from her. She knew that I was communicating with someone and was keeping it a secret. I searched my mind to see if she was paying attention, but all I felt was quiet satisfaction. She had made her point and now, she was waiting to see what I would do. I could also sense that she was tired—that her invasion of my body and my dreams had worn her out as much as it had me. I took a spoonful of cereal and chewed thoughtfully. Perhaps she needed rest. Perhaps I could exploit that weakness.

I stared again at the computer and remembered suddenly my correspondence with Tommy the night before. Although the thought of communicating with him scared me, something told me it was important. I wondered how long it would be before Grace was asleep or not paying attention. Perhaps I could distract her by typing a long e-mail to Adelle. But then, suddenly, I didn't care what she knew. This was my life, not hers. She could invade my
thoughts, invade my dreams, but at the end of the day, I was the one who was in charge. It was my body and my life—no matter how strange others might think it to be.

“Just do it,” I muttered to myself as I sat down and wiggled the mouse. The screen immediately came to life and I clicked on the AOL icon. Two minutes of hissing and beeping later, the computer was connected to the internet.

In addition to the unread e-mail from Adelle, there was a reply from Roger and one from Tommy. I took a spoonful of cereal and chewed thoughtfully. I didn't want to start out with Roger's e-mails, nor was I sure I wanted to see what Tommy had to say. I clicked on Adelle's message.

                
Hey. Hope all is well. Florida was great. Sun, sand, and fun. I even tried parasailing. Not quite what I anticipated, but a good experience. How are you?”

One thing that was both endearing and frustrating about Adelle was that she never used a greeting or a closing on her e-mails. She said what she wanted to say and then was done. I asked her once why she was so brief and she said it was because she was too busy to worry about such niceties. It made sense, but it always felt like her messages were rushed and somehow unfinished. Today's was no exception. I clicked on the pictures she had attached and waited as they loaded. Suddenly, there she was, smiling at the camera, waving, splashing in the water and flying (at least I assumed it was her) through the air. The last picture appeared to have been taken from the back of the motorboat.

“Wow,” I said to Toby. “You should check this out. She looks great.”

Toby raised his head from where he was curled into a ball on the couch, sighed deeply and put his head back down. I began to type.

         
Adelle:

                
Great pictures. You look fantastic. Florida agrees with
you. I can't believe you went parasailing. Call me this weekend?

                
Love,

                
Rebecca

Next, I clicked on Roger's e-mail. It was a response to both of my angry e-mails.

         
Rebecca:

                
I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't given your e-mail address to anyone, nor do I know anyone named “Thomas Anderson.” There are a lot of things I am, but a liar is not one of them. Well, at least most of the time it's not. But in this case, I'm telling the truth. I didn't reveal your identity to anyone.

                
Rog

         
P.S. The fact that you falsely accused me means you have to make it up to me by coming to visit.

I immediately hit the reply button and hammered out a terse response.

         
Roger:

                
He already told me that he got my information from you. And it had to be you because no one else, aside from Adelle, knows who I am. I've accepted the fact that what's done is done, but don't ever do it again, okay? I have all the friends I need. Oh, and my answer regarding visiting you and Gus is still “no.” I don't have anyone to watch Toby, so I can't come.

                
Rebecca

Finally, I opened the e-mail from Tommy. The time stamp showed that it had been sent shortly after he received my response the night before.

         
Birdie:

                
I know you said you don't want to talk about it and I respect that. I'm sorry to have bothered you and brought all of this stuff up. I am just tired of dealing with it on my own.

                
Tommy

“I knew it!”
It was Grace. I could feel her anger.
“I could tell something was up—that something was upsetting you. I should have known.”

“It's not like that.”

“Really?”
Grace asked sarcastically.
“What's it like, then?”

“He understands what I went through,” I said. “From a point of view that no one—not even you—can appreciate.”

“You don't know him,”
Grace said
“And you certainly don't know him like I know him.”

“What do you mean?” I asked aloud but there was no answer. She was punishing me with her silence. “Grace . . . goddammit, what do you mean?”

I stared at the computer. Grace was right. I
didn't
know him. But, I wanted to, didn't I? I wanted to be able to talk with someone who understood how I felt and what I experienced. Natalie had tried several times—both immediately after the murder and later when we were older. But no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much I wanted to open up to her, to share what I was going through, I couldn't. I couldn't in high school, or when she came to see me in college, or when she came to me for help that last time. I had failed Natalie just as I had failed Grace. And keeping it all inside was becoming too much.

“I don't want to do this alone,” I said softly. “I don't want to have to spend the rest of my life having your dreams for you. It's not my fault what happened. It's not.”

I thought about all the times Natalie had tried to talk about what had happened. I thought about the loneliness of my life. I had no one. No one had experienced what I had. No one knew the anguish and trauma—no one except Tommy. I thought about what
he said about finding her body. He knew what that felt like—the shock, the fear, the revulsion, the guilt. He was someone I would never see . . . someone I would never have to look in the eyes. It was words on a computer screen. It seemed like my only salvation. I took a deep breath and began to type. I felt Grace's disapproval but, didn't care.

         
Tommy:

                
I have to admit, I don't know what to say, nor am I sure why I'm writing back. You shocked me with your confession about finding Grace and I'm still not sure how I feel about it or how to respond. It was upsetting, to say the least. I appreciate your honesty and I don't think less of you for running away, although I still don't know as I really understand
why
you ran away. I say that, but the more I think about it, I guess it doesn't really matter. It's in the past. Do you ever wonder what happened that night? I pray that one day they are able to catch the bastard who did it. Until then, I guess we'll just have to live with the questions.

                
I don't have any answers.

                
Birdie

I hit Send and leaned back in my chair.

“Don't you think it's just a little bit weird that he would contact you out of the blue and then right away admit all of this stuff?”
As she spoke, Grace's voice became louder, more insistent.

“This doesn't concern you, Grace,” I said tightly. “I don't need your help. This is about me for a change. So will you please mind your own business? For once?” The room echoed with the shouted words. Toby sat up, startled. I pushed my chair back from the computer desk and stomped into the kitchen where I threw my cereal bowl into the sink.

“Aghhh!” I yelled at the empty room. “Just go away! Please? I didn't tell him too much. I didn't tell him anything . . . and even if I did, it's none of your business. I'm tired of living in fear. You're
dead, Grace. And I'm sorry. But I'm tired of feeling responsible for it! And I'm tired of my life being consumed by your death.”

The room was silent. Angrily, I turned and strode out of the room. I paused at the computer when I saw that Tommy had already responded.

“I don't want to deal with any of this right now,” I muttered as I climbed the stairs to the bedroom. Grace was silent, but I could feel her anger as I adjusted the water in the shower. I could tell she was waiting, biding her time. I climbed into the shower and relaxed slightly under the spray of hot water. Still, my mind raced. Grace was dead. And now, suddenly, the only other person who understood what I was going through—the only other person who had experienced the same thing—was trying to reach out to me. But then there was the niggling of doubt, of fear. Grace was right. He was too open, too in tune with what was going on in my head. It had to be a trick. But, what if it wasn't? He had come to me before, when I had been at my most vulnerable and lonely. He had been there then, so why wouldn't he understand?

“You want to know why I'm concerned?”
Grace's taunting voice broke into my thoughts.
“Ask him about the knife.”

I opened my eyes with a start.

“What do you mean?”

I felt her mental shrug.

“Grace?”

When her voice came again, it was soft and childlike.
“Just ask him about the knife. Ask him where it came from. He knows, you know. It was his.”

I could hear nothing but her voice and the sound of the shower. Suddenly, I had an image in my head. It was of Tommy, the way he looked the summer of Grace's murder. I saw him from a great height, a height that I recognized as the Nest. But it wasn't something I had seen before. These were new images. Grace's images. I was watching the scene from Grace's eyes.

It was morning and below us, seventeen-year-old Tommy stood muttering to himself. In his hand, he held what appeared to be a hunting knife in a leather scabbard. I watched as he walked over to
the large rock I had once tripped over and tore open my knee. He sat down. I couldn't make out what he was saying. All I could hear was the shower . . . or was it the summer buzz of insects? The sounds merged.

I watched in fascination as slowly, reverently he slid the blade out of the cover and examined it, running his thumb along the razor-sharp edge. Slowly, he shifted it from hand to hand. In Grace's memory, it felt large and heavy. At some point I knew she had held it, examined it. The blade was sharp. The smell of leather had filled her nostrils. In our shared memory, I could smell the leather.