The Truth About Grace Read online

  THE

  TRUTH

  ABOUT

  GRACE

  A sequel to The Pecan Man

  Cassie Dandridge Selleck

  Copyright 2018 Cassie Dandridge Selleck

  All Rights Reserved

  Although portions of this novel have been inspired by places and events of the author’s youth, the story itself is a complete work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Published by Obstinate Daughters Press, Lady Lake, Florida 2018

  Edited by Patricia C. Walker of Obstinate Daughters Press

  Other works by Cassie Dandridge Selleck

  The Pecan Man

  What Matters in Mayhew

  Volume One of the Beanie Bradsher Series

  Available on Amazon.com

  Dedication

  In memory of Laurie Dawn “Petey” Dandridge

  and Jamey Lea Jones.

  This novel is dedicated to families struggling with

  the heartbreak of addiction and to the professionals

  who help them.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my own Obstinate Daughters Patti Walker, Katie Emily and Emily Selleck. You keep me sane, grounded, motivated, and laughing at every turn. I am proud of the strong, beautiful, obstinate women you have become.

  Special thanks to Patti Walker, Senior Editor of Obstinate Daughters Press, and my own personal editor. Her incredible editing skills and keen awareness of character and plot have made crucial differences in the story, and I am profoundly grateful.

  A huge shout out to my writers group, Gainesville Poets and Writers, whose input is invaluable.

  Special thanks to Jani Sherard and Fern Musselwhite for your thoughtful insight and encouragement, as beta readers and friends.

  To my besties Teresa Renfrow Masters and Julie Williams Sanon, thanks for loving me exactly as I am and being my biggest cheerleaders. I love you so much!

  And to my husband Perry, thanks for your patience and support. Most of all, thanks for “coffee with love” in the ‌mornings. You are my heart.

  Lastly, I’m sending a special message for one of the loveliest women I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. To Evelyn Duffy, the mother of my son-in-love Peter: thank you for raising such a beautiful man, and for loving my daughter “so stinking much.”

  Prologue

  Ora Lee Beckworth

  In the summer of 1976, I hired a homeless black man to mow my lawn and tend my gardens, such as they were. My neighbors were none too happy with my choice of employees. He carried pecans he’d collected in a bag hung from the handlebars of the rickety old bicycle he rode. They called him the Pecan Man and thought he had an air of something sinister. I just thought he looked hungry and offered him a job. His name was Eldred Mims. I called him Eddie. Blanche, my housekeeper at the time and employee for many years afterwards, warned me about sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. I took that as a challenge and pressed on.

  I’d been widowed less than a year, but Blanche had been raising five children on the salary I paid her, plus Social Security benefits, since her husband died in 1970. Her oldest, Marcus, was in the Army, in basic training at Fort Bragg. Patrice was a senior in high school with a promising future. Her twins Re’Netta and Danita were twelve and Grace, the youngest, was only six.

  In early fall, Grace, a beautiful child with the sweetest nature I had ever known, was raped by Skipper Kornegay, the son of the local police chief. I was stunned when Blanche, fearing repercussions from townspeople and mistreatment of her child, refused to report the assault.

  I had lived through the civil rights protests in the South and was opposed to Jim Crow laws and segregation, though I can’t say I was active in the movement. I certainly disapproved of the mistreatment of other human beings; it went against everything my Methodist upbringing taught me about Jesus Christ. But Walter, my husband, had a business to run, and it was never a good idea to discuss religion or politics, so I mostly stayed out of it.

  If it had been the 1950’s or even the 60’s, I might have understood Blanche’s concern, but this was 1976. The times were changing, I thought. Surely Blanche could trust that her child would be treated fairly and receive justice for such a brutal crime. It took some time and a change of perspective to make me realize how wrong I was.

  At the time, though – despite my misgivings – I went along with her decision. It was simply not mine to make. At least that’s how I consoled myself back then. We told no one about the rape, not even her own children. We did our best to control a tidal wave of lies that began with this: It was just a dream. But everyone knows control is an illusion.

  Eldred Mims was the one who’d found Gracie bleeding and crying in the woods and brought her home to us, but he disappeared shortly afterwards, and we did not see him again for several weeks. When he returned, we invited him to have Thanksgiving dinner with us. It was the first time Blanche’s family shared the meal with me and I was looking forward to the company. Afterwards Eddie, not knowing we’d kept it a secret, let it slip to Marcus that his baby sister had been assaulted. Later that evening, Marcus ran into Skipper coming out of a local pool hall. The details are too many to describe here, but when it was over, Skipper lay dead in the woods, stabbed multiple times with his own knife.

  For reasons only he knew at the time, Eddie confessed to Skipper’s murder. Now, twenty-five years later, Eddie has died in prison, and I knew he was innocent all along. Days before Eddie’s funeral, wanting to clear my conscience and Eddie’s name, I dictated a confession of sorts to my dear friend Clara Jean Smallwood. She worked as the personal secretary to the Honorable Harley Odell for as long as I can remember and up until he retired just before the turn of the millennium. Harley and I had been friends since elementary school – long enough for me to call him by his childhood name, Poopsie, and long before we were integrated in the South. Of course, just because Clara was a legal assistant doesn’t mean the confession was anything official. I just wanted to get the story told so the families affected by my actions could finally know the truth.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen to me and, quite frankly, I’m not sure I care. I’ve been alone for so many years now, I’ve grown weary of my own self. Truth be told, I was alone most of my life, despite a great deal of civic and social interaction. It’s why I kept Blanche working full-time up until the day she died. I didn’t need a housekeeper, or a personal assistant as she came to be. I just found things for her to do because I liked having her around. Besides Poopsie, she was probably the only real friend I ever had. I think I expected she would end up caring for me in my old age. But here I am now, outliving them all.

  I don’t want to be alone anymore. I’ve been having spells that scare me half to death. I’m afraid I’ll fall down the stairs and lay there for days in my own waste before anyone finds me, dead or alive. I’m starting to understand how Eddie could have found prison a relief, though I wish to everything holy that life had given him better options. I wish I had given him better options. But I didn’t. I let him carry a burden that belonged to people who ought to know better, myself included.

  There were so many lies told, so many mistakes made – far too many lives sacrificed. And the one who got the worst of it all was Gracie. In trying to protect her – as we believed in our hearts we were doing – we pushed her aside, and the consequences have been devastating. I told all the story I knew to tell. It’s time for others to speak. It’s time we learned the truth about Grace.

  Part 1 – March 2001

  1 – Grace

  What the hell does she want from me? That’s what I wann
a know. Does she expect me to throw my arms around her neck and shout hallelujah?

  I gotta stop thinkin’ about all this. It’s exhausting. Here I am, the mornin’ after we buried Mr. Pecan, alone in a white woman’s kitchen. It feels like home somehow, or at least familiar. I put on a pot of coffee and sat back down at the table to rest my eyes.

  I was still sitting there, my head on my arms, when I heard her tiptoeing down the stairs. Her house so old, all the floors creak no matter how soft you step. Miss Ora don’t weigh a minute; she tiny and shriveled up even more than I remember.

  “I smell coffee,” she said.

  Her kitchen ain’t changed much over the years. The cabinets are still the same – solid wood doors painted white. But I can reach the ones above the counter now. Those thin china plates with the silver and white flowers are no longer off limits to my wandering hands. I made jelly toast this mornin’ and used what Mama called Miss Ora’s “good china.” There was a part of me wanted to drop it into her porcelain sink, just to see it shatter. I could have lied and said it was an accident. Wouldn’t be the first lie told in this kitchen. After I washed and dried that little plate, I traced my fingers over the tiny flowers, felt their thin outlines rise up off the plate. I looked closer at it then and saw my own face staring back at me. My eyes were wide like I was surprised to see myself. I hugged the plate to my chest and put it back in the cabinet where it belonged. Decided I didn’t need Sister griping about me messin’ with Miss Ora’s things.

  She and Aunt Tressa are coming back sometime this morning. They told me last night before they left. I don’t remember everything that happened last night, but I know one thing. I don’t ever want to feel that way again – like the room is closing in on me – like all I gotta do is let go and it’ll swallow me up. There been times I didn’t wanna live no more – even thought about killin’ myself – but I’m scared I’d mess that up too.

  I lifted my head from my arms and studied her. Then the memory just about knocked me over. Me sittin’ here in her kitchen the day after I was raped. This right here is where my whole life shattered. Not out there in the woods behind town where that white boy raped me, though that didn’t help none. No, it was right here where my mama broke me. Just a dream, my ass. I was a baby, barely six years old. I remember wakin’ up and wobblin’ into the kitchen. It was the first time I’d ever spent the night at Miss Ora’s house. Mama was there cooking breakfast, so I sat down at the table and fell back asleep until Miss Ora came down and woke me up. I was sore all over, including in a place I ain’t never felt pain before.

  Sittin’ here now, the pain was so real I almost flinched.

  “Are you all right, Gracie?”

  I took the cup she offered me. Her hands were shaking.

  “Fine, thanks,” I said, but I didn’t really mean it and she could tell.

  “You stayed the night,” she said. She has a habit of sayin’ what’s obvious.

  “Patrice made me. I didn’t want to.” I wiped at my eyes with both hands. I’d cried so much the night before, they were dry and crusty and itched like hell.

  “I’m glad you did. I rarely have the pleasure of company in the morning. I was so used to Blanche being here…” She caught herself then. I could tell she was embarrassed. “I miss her.”

  I nodded. I miss her too, but I wasn’t in the mood for bein’ sentimental.

  She raised her cup under her nose and said, “Smells just like your mama’s.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Not like the kind she made at home. Smells like your coffee to me.”

  “Grace…”

  She sat down in the chair beside me. Her cup rattled on the saucer.

  “Grace,” she began again, “I want you to know that I’m sorry for what happened. No, let me say that differently. I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry you were hurt by it. I’m sorry we let you down. I want to tell you the whole story, but I’m also very torn by what I believe is an obligation to your mama…”

  “My mama is dead.” I sat straight up in my chair and pointed my finger first at her, then at myself. “You don’t owe the dead, Miss Ora. The way I see it, you owe the livin’, and that’s me.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

  Every time I think I have my head wrapped around the truth, I find something else to twist back in shape. “Why’d y’all lie to me? That’s the first thing. I tried to ask Patrice about it last night, but she swears she didn’t know.”

  “She did not know.”

  “Because if she did, then even her taking my children when Mama died takes on a whole new meaning.” Patrice has been mad at me for so long, it just feels like part of who she is. Who we are. I always felt like I was raised by two mothers, and I disappointed ’em both.

  Miss Ora shook her head back and forth a long time. “She absolutely did not know. We told no one.”

  “That judge asked me about it, too. Did he know?” I asked.

  “Poopsie?”

  “Say what?”

  “Judge Odell. Poopsie is what I called him.”

  “Yeah, Odell. You know he paid for me to go to rehab one time?”

  She nodded. “I did know. I had a trust fund set up for you and he was the overseer. I rescinded it when we lost track of you for so long.”

  I had to sit with that one for a minute to figure out what it meant. This is what I’m talkin’ about – I have to rethink every truth I thought I knew. Can’t rely on a damn thing.

  “You mean you the one paid for my rehab?”

  She nodded.

  “And all this time I thought he was just a nice man.”

  “He was a nice man,” she said. “He was a good friend of mine, and he had suspicions, but he never knew what happened to you.”

  “Was? He dead, too?”

  “He is,” Miss Ora stood and picked up her coffee cup. “A lot of people had to die before I could tell this story.”

  She walked into the kitchen and slid her cup and saucer into the sink. Then she turned around and faced me.

  “Truth is, I could go to jail for telling it, so don’t just assume I’m doing this for myself. For my conscience? Maybe. But more likely for my eternal soul. It's certainly not a convenient story to tell.”

  She came back to the table and sat down beside me. “Grace, honey, we can’t go back, but we can go forward. I’ll do anything I can to help you get well, as long as you are trying to get well.”

  “I ain’t tryin’ to be sick, that’s for sure.”

  “Are you staying at your mom’s house still?” she asked.

  “Yeah, Patrice had it fixed up for me.”

  “Could you do something for me? I mean, could you consider doing something?”

  This woman takes the cake, I’m just sayin’. I swigged the last bit of cold coffee from my cup.

  “What is it?”

  “Could you stay here a while? I mean stay here. Could you move in here for just a couple of weeks until we see what happens?”

  “I don’t need to be babysat, Miss Ora. I ain’t using.”

  “I didn’t say you were.” She stopped and wrung her hands like she was putting on lotion. “I just… I mean, for once in my life I don’t want to be alone. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, and I know that sounds selfish, and way too much to put on you, but still…would you?”

  I was still shaking my head over this when I went back to my room. I’m still mad, too. But, I spent a lot of time at this house when I was a girl. It was Miss Ora got me hooked on reading. My very first addiction, I guess you could call it. That ain’t even funny, but there it is.

  I guess I’ll get Patrice to take me back to Mama’s house this afternoon so I can pack my bags. Looks like I’ll be moving in with an old white woman for a while.

  2 – Patrice

  I left my sister at Miss Ora’s house last night. It was against my better judgment, but my opinion was ignored, as usual. Aunt Tressa is going to meet me there later t
his morning. Feels odd to call someone you barely know something so personal. Aunt Tressa. That’s how Miss Ora introduced us yesterday at Eddie’s funeral. “Girls, I want you to meet your Aunt Tressa. She was your mother’s sister.”

  Now, as far as we knew, my mother never had a sister, or a brother, either. For that matter, she had no father. Hers left right after she was born. But, with that one introduction, an entire family was revealed to us. Just like that. Sometimes I wonder what Miss Ora could possibly be thinking. With all that Southern upbringing, didn’t anyone ever teach her the art of subtlety? Apparently not.

  It’s hard to complain about her, though. She’s the reason I’m an attorney now. Obviously, I did the work, but she made it possible and, despite what feels like an enormous betrayal right now, I owe her a lot.

  I wanted to crawl back in bed this morning and just pretend like none of this happened. Shawn and Rochelle put that notion straight out of my head. There were lunches to pack, homework to sign. I went from being a single career woman to a surrogate mother the day my mother had a stroke and never woke up again. She was, for all practical purposes, the only mother they ever knew, but they were not hers either. I have been raising my sister’s children for the past three years.

  They were full of questions this morning. So much for pretending.

  “Who was Eddie again?” Rochelle asked at breakfast. She is tall and wiry for a twelve-year-old. I plan on pushing her toward law school in the future. I’ve heard you can tell what a child’s purpose in life is by how she is as a child. Rochelle is all elbows and knees and endless interrogation.