Aunt Elizabeth stood with the severed ponytail in her hand and stared at Gracie. Sinking onto a kitchen chair, she dropped the scissors and ponytail, covered her face, and wept. “I can’t do this!” She sobbed harder than Gracie. “I can’t! God, why did You do this to me?”
After a few minutes, Aunt Elizabeth stopped crying, wiped her face, gathered up the ponytail, and pitched it into the trash can under the sink. She tossed the scissors back in the drawer. “No use crying about it. It’s done. We can’t undo it. Let’s have breakfast, shall we?”
Aunt Elizabeth didn’t say another word until she stopped the car in front of the school. She didn’t look in the rearview mirror either. “Remember who you belong to, Grace. Go on, now, or you’ll be late.”
Gracie fingered her hair as everyone stared at her. Miss Taylor grimaced. At recess, the girls laughed. “What did you do to your hair? You look awful!” A couple of boys came over and said she looked like a short-haired mutt. Miss Taylor blew her whistle, and the boys scattered.
When school ended, Aunt Elizabeth stood outside the door. They went to a beauty parlor, where Aunt Elizabeth introduced Gracie to Christina Alvarez, who was going to fix her hair.
“I can make this good.” Christina sat Gracie in a big black leather chair and pumped a pedal to raise it. “Do you want it shorter, or shall I work with it at this length?” She was looking at Gracie, but Aunt Elizabeth answered.
“Short and easy.”
Christina met Gracie’s eyes in the mirror and leaned down, whispering, “What about you, Grace? Do you want it shorter?” Gracie shook her head slowly. Christina’s cheeks dimpled when she smiled. “All right, then. We’ll work with what we’ve got.” She turned the chair and lowered it, washing Gracie’s hair in a sink hung on the wall. Towel-drying it, Christina fluffed Gracie’s hair again. “People pay a lot of money to have curls like you do.” She talked as she combed, snipped, styled, and snipped some more.
“There!” She put her hands on Gracie’s shoulders and they both faced the mirror. “What do you think?”
Aunt Elizabeth tossed the magazine back on the stack and stood beside them. She looked more relieved than pleased. “Much better.”
“Wash-and-wear hair.” Christina winked at Gracie. “Just shampoo, rinse, and towel-dry. Use a pick to get rid of any snarls—” she handed Gracie a white plastic comb with wide teeth—“and then fluff it up with your fingers. Easy breezy. A couple of minutes, and you’re ready to roll.”
Life settled into a routine. Sunday, church. Monday through Friday, school, after-school care, homework. Chores every day of the week. On Saturday, Aunt Elizabeth put on jeans, a T-shirt, and plastic clogs and went outside to work in her garden. She expected Gracie to help. Sunshine was good for the soul, she said, and the vegetables and fruit good for the body. Aunt Elizabeth grew squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and bell peppers. She also had fruit trees: apricot, nectarine, cherry, and apple. Gracie liked being in the yard. Sometimes her aunt would sit back on her heels, dab perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand, and look happy. Aunt Elizabeth was pretty when she smiled, her face smooth and peaceful.
Mrs. Spenser came to visit. Gracie could tell the two women liked each other. They hugged at the door and kissed each other’s cheeks. Aunt Elizabeth offered Mrs. Spenser tea and cookies, and Mrs. Spenser said yes. “Is Grace any trouble?”
Mrs. Spenser laughed. “Never. She’s good as gold. You shouldn’t worry so much.” She saw Gracie standing in the entryway and beckoned her. She ran a gentle hand over Gracie’s hair. “I just wanted to stop by to see how you two are doing.”
Aunt Elizabeth told Gracie to go play in her room, then invited Mrs. Spenser into the kitchen.
Had Aunt Elizabeth forgotten all of Gracie’s toys and dolls had been left in Tennessee? Everything had been put in boxes and put on the same truck that took Mommy and Daddy’s furniture. She could find things to do outside. As she came down the hallway again, Gracie could hear the two women talking. Aunt Elizabeth sounded angry again. Gracie ducked around the corner into the living room. If she opened the glass door, her aunt would hear her. So she sat on the sofa.
“Leanne wouldn’t listen. I knew the first time I met Brad he was trouble. You know how you can sense that sometimes.” Mrs. Spenser said yes, she did. “Well, she went out with him anyway, and it wasn’t long before he got her pregnant. I told her not to add another mistake to the one she’d already made. He’d already cut her off from friends, and he didn’t like me. Of course, he said it was because I didn’t like him, which was true. Why wouldn’t she listen to me?”
“People in love seldom do.”
“If you can call that love.” Aunt Elizabeth spoke in a sneering tone. “She said he needed her. He’d been waiting for her all his life. He knew just what she wanted to hear. He was like our father, handsome and charming. A devil! He made my mother’s life a living hell and ours right along with her. I reminded Leanne how we grew up, but she couldn’t see the similarities. She said Brad wasn’t anything like our father.”
“Do you think he killed her? Is that what you’re thinking?”
“The coroner ruled her death an accident. But how do you fall that hard unless someone shoves you? At least he felt guilty enough to blow his brains out.”
“Beth!”
Gracie heard a teacup set heavily in a saucer. “I know. I know!” Aunt Elizabeth gave a sob. “God says to forgive, but I hope Brad is burning in hell. Forgive? I just . . . can’t.”
“Not in our own strength.”
“I left Tennessee when they got married. Did I tell you that? I didn’t want to stay around and watch what I knew would happen.” Aunt Elizabeth sounded as though she was crying. “But I should have stayed! Maybe she would have left him if she’d had some place to go. Now, it’s too late. Leanne is dead, and I have the child that made my sister give in to that son of a—”
“You can’t blame the child.”
“I know that in my head, but every time I look at her, I see him.”
“Isn’t there any of your sister in her?”
“She cries a lot.” Aunt Elizabeth’s voice was despairing. “And she hides.”
“Hides?”
“In her closet. Every night.”
Gracie bowed her head.
Before Mrs. Spenser left, she went down the hall to Gracie’s bedroom, then came out again and into the living room. “There you are.” She studied Gracie with a troubled expression. She gave Gracie a firm hug. Her eyes were moist when she straightened. She and Aunt Elizabeth spoke softly at the front door, and Mrs. Spenser hugged and kissed her, too. As soon as the front door closed, Aunt Elizabeth came into the living room. “Were you listening the whole time?” Gracie didn’t answer. Aunt Elizabeth’s shoulders drooped slightly. “So now you know everything, don’t you?”
Yes. Gracie knew. Aunt Elizabeth was glad Daddy was dead, and she didn’t like Gracie because she looked like her father.
When Aunt Elizabeth tucked her into bed that night, she ran her hand gently over Gracie’s head. She searched Gracie’s face, her eyes shiny with moisture. “Try to stay in bed tonight.” Gracie turned away before the door closed. She stared through the curtains at the streetlight. She waited for a long time, then took her pillow and went into the closet. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she sat with her knees pulled up against her chest. She put her head down, wanting to wail and scream for Mommy, but didn’t dare make a sound. Her breath came in little hitches of pain.