Chapter Thirty-Eight. Grace #2
Forget anything I ever said about Rose’s father and his money. I stare at her, dumbfounded. How did she do that so neatly? I can’t protest because it’s not charity; it’s the very least that Lena could do, really, now that she’s married into a fortune.
“Thank you,” Cooper says fervently to Lena.
I hope he doesn’t plan to be too nice to her. But that’s Cooper, full of second chances.
“Yeah, thanks,” I add, less graciously.
Thank you, I mouth at Rose, and she beams. Little Miss Fix-It, in her element.
“I ought to run down and tell Joan what’s happened, and check on Maggie and the baby. She lost a lot of blood, but she’ll be all right. The baby’s small, but he’s healthy.” Ma looks at Joe uneasily. “I don’t like to leave you kids alone with him.”
He’s not any more monstrous than he was yesterday. But now it’s all out in the open, and honestly, it’s very satisfying.
“I tied him up tight,” I assure her. “We’ll be okay.”
“I’ll stay with them,” Lena offers.
Ma doesn’t seem to find that much consolation.
“I’ll come with you,” Cooper says. “I want to get my old sling from when I hurt my shoulder in football camp sophomore year. I’m thinking maybe my arm isn’t broken, just sprained.
” That might be the scotch talking. I’m sure Ma will make him get it checked out.
They’ll want to take Maggie and the baby to the hospital, too, when they can be moved. I’m glad she made it through.
We all made it through.
Cooper waits till Ma heads outside, and then he tugs Rose into the lobby, where he thinks we can’t see.
But I have a prime view as he tangles his good hand through her hair and kisses her senseless.
Rose kisses him back enthusiastically, heedless of Lena and me gawping. I glance away, but I’m grinning.
I guess Cooper could do worse than my best friend.
“Don’t go anywhere till I get back, okay?” he says to her. “I hope your dad won’t decide it’s too dangerous for you here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Rose vows. “What do you think, Grace? Will I fit in at Greeley High? I’m going to ask Auntie if I can live with her.”
I swallow my smile. It wouldn’t do to let on how happy I am to hear it. “I’ll coach you, so they won’t know what a snob you are. I mean, I’ll know, but—”
“You’re going to have a college fund and a European tour.” Rose beams. “You can’t give me a hard time about being rich anymore!”
“I absolutely can, and I will, until you start scrubbing your own commode,” I point out.
“I’ve gotta go. Play nice, you two.” Cooper brushes another kiss over Rose’s forehead and ducks out into the rain.
“What do you think?” Rose whispers. “Is Daisy gone? Do you think she’s at peace now that everybody knows the truth and Joe’s going to prison?”
I gaze in the big brass mirror. I’ve been scared of it for months, ever since I started seeing a reflection that wasn’t mine.
I only see myself now: my birth father’s freckles and honey-colored hair, and my first mother’s brown eyes, set a little too far apart.
Her ambition. Her anger, too.
Will I always feel this angry?
Crack.
That sounded like—
Rose and I dart back into the library. Lena stands in front of the fireplace, holding Dad’s hunting rifle. “He attacked me!” she says. “I had to defend myself!”
I glance at the man I thought was my father.
What’s left of him. His head—
I vomit right onto the new Oriental carpet.
“Rose? Is everyone all right?” Ella calls from the stairs.
Rose swallows hard. “We’re fine! Stay upstairs! I’ll be up in a minute!” She fishes a handkerchief out of her pocket and hands it to me. “Grace, don’t look. Lena, if you expect anyone to believe that story, you’ll want to untie him.”
I look anyhow. Lena kneels next to Joe, unfastening the wet twine around his wrists.
She has to really work at it. It’s safe enough to glance at his shoes, isn’t it?
Those polished Oxford loafers that always crunched across the pea-gravel path, making my stomach sink because I never knew what mood he’d be in.
My eyes travel up to his gray trousers. The higher I go, the more they’re splattered with red and pulpy pink and some white bits like cauliflower—
I retch again.
Rose rubs my back and pours me a little scotch. “Here, rinse out your mouth.”
“That’s a very expensive scotch,” Lena says.
“You killed him,” I croak. My throat is sour and aching. How can she be so calm? She just killed a man! He was unconscious!
“He had to pay for what he did to Daisy. And me … and you,” Lena adds hurriedly.
“Daisy had her whole life ahead of her. She was funny and tough, and she could sing like édith Piaf. We were going to run away once I turned eighteen and Joe couldn’t haul me back.
We had it all planned out: We’d hitchhike to New York.
Work as waitresses in a diner and get some rattrap apartment.
At night, Daisy would sing in a nightclub, and I’d dance.
Eventually, we’d go to Paris. She never got to do any of that.
I had to do it all on my own.” Lena’s face is a study in grief, unfeigned this time.
Rose makes a little sound. “You were in love with her.”
“Does that shock you?” Lena gets Joe’s hands free, and he sort of plops sideways onto the floor. I gag, take a very small sip of scotch, swish it around my mouth, and spit it back into that fancy crystal tumbler.
“No. Just—be good to my father.” Rose sighs. “He’s a romantic, you know.”
“I’m a practical woman, Rose. I intend to be very good to him,” Lena purrs.
Rose rolls her eyes. “There are two letters in Joe’s inside jacket pocket. They’re probably illegible now, but they’re mine, from friends at school. He—intercepted them. May I have them back, please?”
“Of course.” There’s a rustling and then Lena hands Rose the letters. They’re a sodden mess, pink with rain and blood. Rose tosses them into the fire.
“He’s gone.” Lena sounds as though she can’t quite believe it. “He can’t hurt any of us ever again … I thought I’d be happier.”
She stands, wiping her grisly hands on a sage-green monogrammed handkerchief. Somehow, her dress is still nearly spotless. “Well? Are you girls going to rat me out?”
“I heard the gunshot and came into the library, and he was already dead. I can’t speak to what happened before that,” Rose says.
Lena turns to me. “Grace?”
I clutch the crystal tumbler. My dad—the man who raised me—is dead.
I gave up so much to keep Stanley, in order to get away from Dad. Since I turned thirteen and Dad turned all his anger on me, I’ve been focused on that one goal: Get out.
Now they’re both dead and I’m still here. I’m free.
But I’m still angry. With both of them, and with Lena, too. My face feels flushed, my muscles tight. Like I could swing that poker at the wall for all I’m worth. It would feel good to break things. It would feel great.
“I’m not going to turn you in.” I hesitate. “He’s gone, but I’m still so angry. Will I always feel this way, do you think?”
“No,” Rose says. “I think you’ll find new things to be angry about.”
“I hope not.” I parrot what the man I thought was my father always told me, growing up: “Nobody likes an angry girl.”
Rose wraps her arm around me, and I let her. She grins up at me. “Who says?”
THE END