“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.
Light shone under the closet door. She hadn’t heard Aunt Elizabeth come into the bedroom or click on the light. She waited, holding her breath in fear, but Aunt Elizabeth didn’t open the doors and tell her to get back in bed right this minute. Nothing happened. The light stayed on—a soft, warm glow, not the bright white of the one on the ceiling or the lamp on the nightstand.
Tentative, curious, Gracie carefully opened the sliding door a crack and peered out. Someone sat on the side of her bed. He smiled at her, but didn’t say anything. She felt him telling her she could come out. He wouldn’t hurt her. The fear went away, and she came out. The man didn’t look like anyone she’d ever seen before. He glowed. She stared at him, wide-eyed. He rose, towering over her like a giant, but she wasn’t afraid of him at all. Instead, she felt loved. He sat in the chair by the window, and she climbed back onto her bed, sitting in the middle. He talked to her gently, words of comfort in a language she’d never heard before, but somehow understood. She didn’t know who or what he was, other than he was her friend and she didn’t have to fear him. He told her she could go to sleep now without worrying about tomorrow. Tomorrow would take care of itself, and he would be watching over her. When she lay down and pulled the covers up, he sang over her.
Aunt Elizabeth awakened her in the morning. “You slept in your bed. Good. Time to get up for school.”
Gracie’s friend came back again that night. This time she came right out of the closet and climbed up on the bed. He didn’t say as much, but she felt he didn’t mind when she whispered to him about school and missing Mommy and Daddy and what Aunt Elizabeth had said to Mrs. Spenser. He didn’t hush her or tell her to go to sleep. He listened, his soft, cozy glow making her warm inside.