Five Grace
Geny looks around, trying to spot her husband in the chaos of the crowd, I assume.
I find him first. His eyes blaze into mine and my insides quake.
He’s aged well. All that boyish charm I fell in love with subtly tucked behind the more mature features of a man in his late thirties.
A man I thought would be mine forever. But life had other plans.
Geny finally finds Wyatt and leans toward me. “I’ll be right back, okay? Stay right here.”
She hesitates but pulls away to go to Wyatt and her children.
“Grace? Grace Chandler?”
I turn and I’m suddenly face to face with Frank Gibbs. Sheriff Frank Gibbs.
“That’s me,” I say.
“My God in heaven. It’s really you. I can’t believe it.” He runs a hand through his hair, only just now starting to thin.
I’m suddenly thankful I decided to wear a jacket that covers my arms, so he doesn’t see the goosebumps that break out under his stare.
I don’t respond. I meet his eyes and try to stand tall as I tune into some of the chatter around us.
I’m saved from having to say anything more by Eloise James, an old friend of my mom’s.
She steps right in front of Frank and scoops my hands into hers.
“You’re really here. Hunny, where have you been? Your family buried you . . .” She turns to Frank. “Sheriff Gibbs, how could this have happened?”
Frank’s eyes go round and he takes a step back. “I—”
“You identified her body, did you not?” This comes from another a voice. A younger woman steps forward. I recognize her but I can’t put my finger on who she is.
He nods. “Yes, I did. I thought—”
“Did you not verify what you thought?” the woman asks.
I subtly free my hands from Eloise’s and back away. She doesn’t notice, her full attention on the sheriff and the woman shouting at him. People begin to step closer to the altercation. A chorus of questions erupts around him.
“Hey.” Geny grabs my shoulder. “Wyatt and the kids are going to ride with his parents to the cemetery. I’ll drive us.”
And there it is. The first spoken acknowledgment of her relationship with Wyatt.
My hands tingle, and I clench and unclench them to shake the feeling away.
All the things I didn’t know about my sister.
All the things she doesn’t know about her husband.
I just nod and follow her to her car, leaving Frank Gibbs to the wolves.
They might be late to arrive by the looks of it.
Geny drives a maroon SUV fit for a mother of sporty boys.
There’s a baseball mitt and a crumpled fast-food bag in the back seat.
Some kind of tropical scent meant for summer wafts from inside.
It’s a warmer day, but the smell is off-putting for fall.
This isn’t at all how I imagined my sister’s car would look. Or her life, for that matter.
The Geny I knew would drive a robin’s-egg blue Fiat with a soft flowery scent from a source you wouldn’t see.
She’d have books in the back seat and a cross hanging from the rearview mirror.
She might have a family, but honestly, I’ve always struggled to see her with one.
But here she is. Living a life the opposite who I thought she was and with everything I had ever wanted.
I look over at her in the driver’s seat, and a smile pulls on my lips. She glances over and catches me staring.
“What?” she says.
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “This is just really fucking weird.”
She winces. She’s always hated when I cussed. I used to do it just to annoy her, but that wasn’t my intention this time.
“It’s very weird.” Her eyes flip between the road and me. “I have so many questions, but I don’t know where to start. I’m trying to wait until this is over to bombard you, but it’s hard.”
I nod. “I know this has to be a lot. I can imagine you have a lot of thoughts and a lot of emotions. But we have time. I’m not going anywhere.”
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and keeps her eyes on the road.
I watch as a tear slips from her eye and trails down her cheek.
A lump forms in my throat and I turn toward the window.
I let myself get lost in a bit of nostalgia.
The roads I used to run every morning. The stores and the homes I traveled past a million times when I was young.
I never thought to look at them back then. Not the way I do now, studying the details and admiring every one. The chipped paint. The cracks in the sidewalks. The missing shutter. The flaws are only visible up close. Everything looks so quaint and perfect zoomed out.
Raven, Michigan, is like that.