Finding Grace Page 3

  There’s a curtain around Granny’s bed. Mom pulls it back. Granny is lying under a brown blanket and she’s asleep. Quite honestly, she looks the same as ever. Her mouth is open and she’s snoring. I admit that a teeny tiny bit of me is disappointed. I didn’t want to see anything really scary, like tubes going in and out of her (like I saw on TV once), but she doesn’t even look sick.

  “There’s really no point staying,” the nurse whispers behind us. “She’ll sleep until morning. And you must be exhausted. You’ve been here all day.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Mom says. She leans over the bed and kisses Granny. “Bye, Mother. I love you.”

  I kiss Granny too. The smoke smell is gone and she smells quite nice. Even her orange hair doesn’t look all that bad today.

  “Nurse, nurse,” calls the old woman in the other bed, loudly this time.

  The nurse rolls her eyes, which shocks me. I thought all nurses were supposed to be like Florence Nightingale. “I’ll be there in a minute, Mrs. Markham,” she says.

  On the way out, I notice that Mrs. Markham has a lot of flowers, arranged in vases on a shelf and on the little table beside her bed. A woman in a suit is just coming in, carrying more flowers and chirping, “Hi, Auntie!”

  In the elevator, Mom leans against the wall and says, “Let’s not go home right away. Let’s go to a restaurant for supper.”

  Did I hear right? We never eat in restaurants, except on very special occasions. It costs way too much.

  “You pick where,” she says.

  I think about Jake’s Steakhouse and The Pancake Palace. My mouth waters.

  Then I think about Mrs. Markham’s flowers.

  “If we didn’t go to a restaurant, could we use the money to buy Granny some flowers?” I ask slowly.

  Mom’s eyes fill with tears and her voice comes out kind of hoarse. “Of course we could.”And she adds, “Oh, Hope, you’re so much better than I am. I don’t deserve someone as special as you.”

  There it is again: Mom’s dark secret.

  • • • • •

  Jingle sleeps with me, not close enough to touch but draped over my feet. He wouldn’t eat his dinner and he stalked around the apartment, yowling at nothing for hours. Mom says this may be the first night in his memory that he has spent without Granny. She says that cats sense things.

  “It’s okay, Jingle,” I whisper, reaching down to pat his thick fur. He hisses and scratches my hand. I go to sleep thinking about Granny.

  • • • • •

  Mom comes into the living room really early in the morning, when it’s still dark, and sits on the edge of the pull-out couch.

  “I’m awake,” I say. “I heard the phone ring.”

  “It was the hospital,” she tells me. “Granny had another stroke. A big one this time. She’s gone, Hope.”

  It takes me a second to understand what Mom means.

  Then I burst into tears.

  Dear Grace,

  Do you believe in heaven? I don’t know if I do or don’t. I’ve never even been inside a church and I don’t have a clue about that kind of stuff. Right now I really, really want to believe.

  I’m so scared because I just can’t imagine living without Granny. Sometimes she did embarrassing stuff, and I’d roll my eyes and she’d get mad. Now I just wish I could take all that back. Granny has been in this apartment forever, and she was always the same. She was never sick, or lying down, or not happy to see me. I’m so worried that somehow this is our fault. Would Granny have died if we hadn’t moved in here and made her life so crowded with our problems?

  It makes me feel sick how much I miss her. Why did she have to die?

  Your best friend,

  Hope

  • • • • •

  Dear Grace,

  Mom could only think of three people to invite to Granny’s funeral service: Mrs. Pingham, Mrs. Tomlinson, and Mrs. Ladner. They are Granny’s only friends, and they always got together once a week to play bridge.

  Maybe not having a lot of friends runs in our family. Look at me. And then there’s Mom who has boyfriends but no real friends.

  A fourth person showed up, a man in a black suit. He stood quietly at the back and I kept peeking at him. He was bald except for a fringe, but he had a dashing black mustache. I made up a story that he was a long-lost relative of Granny’s, but Mom said that his name was Mr. Pinn and he was Granny’s lawyer. He gave Mom a card and told her to call him. He’s quite good-looking up close, with very twinkly blue eyes, but unfortunately he’s too short for Mom.

  Granny was cremated, which means BURNED. Mom says it’s what Granny wanted, and I hope she’s right. It’s awfully final.

  The service was at a funeral parlor. I hated the man who was in charge. He talked in a yucky voice, and he mixed up Granny’s name and called her Lillian Janice King instead of Janet. Granny would have been wild.

  Afterward no one knew what to do, so we all (except Mr. Pinn) went to The Pancake Palace, where I had peanut butter-and-banana waffles and a chocolate milkshake.

  I threw up everything when I got home.

  Granny’s ashes are in a box. Mom says that one day we are going to go to New York City and scatter them from the Empire State Building. I absolutely cannot picture this, but she says Granny’s dream was to go to New York City and see a play on Broadway, but she never made it. For now, I make Mom keep the ashes in her bedroom where I can’t see them. But I can’t stop thinking about them.

  It seems like all Mom and I do is cry.

  Your best friend,

  Hope

  • • • • •

  Dear Grace,

  Jingle died yesterday. He stopped eating four days ago and already you could feel his bones under his thick fur. Mom took him to the vet and the vet said he was really, really old and his kidneys were failing. He put Jingle to sleep. Failed kidneys might be the official reason, but Mom and I think he stopped eating because he couldn’t bear to live without Granny. I know how he felt.

  Your best friend,

  Hope

  • • • • •

  Dear Grace,

  There’s only one week left of school. Mom phoned Mr. Hubert and told him I’m too upset to go. The class made cards and Miss Noonan dropped them off at our apartment. I don’t feel like looking at them, but Mom says to save them because one day I will want them.

  Mr. Hubert said that next year I have to do something called remedial math, but because my reading, writing, and verbal skills are so strong, I get to pass into grade six. Whew!!!

  Your best friend,

  Hope

  P.S. I don’t have to see nasty Barbara until September!

  • • • • •

  Dear Grace,

  Mom and I got in a horrible argument about Granny’s bedroom. Her bed, to be exact. I refuse to sleep in it. I know I’ll have nightmares.

  “It’s silly to keep sleeping in the living room,” Mom said.

  “Then why don’t you sleep in Granny’s bed and I’ll have your bedroom?”

  She gave me a long, hard look. “Sometimes, Hope, you say the craziest things.”

  Me? Crazy? If Granny were here, she’d say, “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  Your best friend,

  Hope

  Chapter Nine

  Yesterday, Mom found the card that the lawyer, Mr. Pinn, gave her in the bottom of her purse. She phoned him and made an appointment to see him this afternoon.

  “Can I go too?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said.

  “What do you think he wants?”

  Mom shrugged, but her cheeks were pink and she seemed excited so I guess she was hopeful.

  Please let it be good news.


  So now I’m waiting for Mom to come back. I hear her key in the door (I have strict orders to keep it locked when I’m home alone), and I jump up from my book to let her in.

  “Well?” I demand.

  “Put the kettle on,” Mom says, “and make some tea and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  This is totally maddening, but the tea is finally ready and we sit down across from each other at the kitchen table.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Okay what?”

  “Granny left a will. She had a tiny bit of savings. Enough to pay the rent for a few more months.”

  “We won’t have to move right away,” I say.

  “That’s right.” Mom takes a sip of tea and I see that her hand is shaking. “But there’s more, Hope. Mr. Pinn says the last time he saw Granny, about ten years ago, she told him she had purchased a life insurance policy.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that when she dies, a sum of money goes to her beneficiary. I’m pretty sure the beneficiary would be me.”

  I digest this astounding news. “How much money?”

  “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know for sure if she took the policy out. He has no paperwork for it. He suggested we look through Granny’s things to see if we can find something.” She blinks back sudden tears.

  I gulp down the last of my tea. “What exactly are we searching for?”

  “Official-looking papers.” Mom wipes her eyes. “They might say Sun Life at the top. Mr. Pinn says lots of people take out life insurance policies with that company.”

  It’s like a treasure hunt.

  I leap up. “We can start now!”

  • • • • •

  Mom goes right to the big old roll-top desk in the living room. It’s our best bet. I tackle Granny’s dresser in her bedroom. There are five drawers, all of them sticky and hard to pull out.

  The first drawer is full of panties, slips, and stockings. It’s embarrassing to paw through them. I would be mortified if someone touched my underwear, and I can imagine Granny peering over my shoulder with her lips pursed. It also makes me feel a little sad because the truth is, Granny’s underwear is very plain. I’ve seen Mom dressing up to go out on one of her dates and she has gorgeous things: black slips, bras with lace, and silky stockings.

  Flannel nighties fill the second drawer.

  The next two drawers are stuffed with cardigans – all the same but different colors. I pull all of them out. They smell of cigarette smoke. The wool has gone pilly, and one cardigan is missing three buttons.

  The fifth drawer is empty except for a plastic bag containing the pieces of the Royal Doulton figurine I smashed. Cripes.

  No official papers of any kind.

  Mom appears in the doorway. “Don’t put Granny’s clothes back in the drawers,” she says. “We’ll donate them to the thrift shop.”

  I know Granny’s dead, and I know she’s never coming back, but I feel sick when Mom says that.

  I don’t tell Mom that the thrift shop won’t want most of this stuff. She’s been crying again. Tears have left a smudgy trail through the powder on her cheeks. She watches me while I stack the cardigans in a neat pile.

  “Did you find anything in the desk?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Just a lot of old bank statements and stubs from bills. Envelopes. And elastic bands. Granny had eight unopened packages of elastic bands. Now, why would she want all those elastic bands?”

  Her voice goes funny and her shoulders collapse. “I can’t face this right now,” she says. “I need to go out.”

  My heart sinks. I know exactly where she means, and I don’t want to go.

  Chapter Ten

  We walk along our street, past two more apartment buildings and some tall, narrow houses, to the park at the end of the block. It’s not a real park, just a big square of grass, one city block long on each side. There are some trees in the middle, a play area with swings, a teeter-totter, and a roundabout.

  It’s not a great day to go to a park. It’s damp and chilly, and even though it’s June, it doesn’t feel like summer. The park is empty except for two girls in puffy jackets. I’ve never seen them before. They look about my age and they’re sitting on the ends of the teeter-totter. One girl is perched in the air and the other has her feet resting on the ground. They’re not going up and down, they’re just talking, and the girl in the air is swinging her legs back and forth.

  Mom and I sit on a bench. I’m wearing a T-shirt and pedal pushers and I’m freezing. Beside me, Mom twists her hands together. She’s only wearing a sleeveless dress and one of Granny’s thin cardigans, but Mom never feels cold.

  The girl in the air glances over at us. She has short black hair and a thin, pointy face. She leans forward and whispers something to the other girl, who has long blonde hair, almost to her waist.

  I feel my cheeks turn red. I’m positive she said something about us. “Let’s go home,” I say.

  “We just got here,” Mom says.

  She has this weird thing about parks. She likes to go and just sit in them. And she drags me along. I’ve probably been to Stanley Park more than a hundred times. We go to lots of smaller parks too, scattered all over Vancouver.

  Mom especially likes parks with playgrounds. I swear she knows where every playground in Vancouver is. When I was little, I loved it. She has a big map of Vancouver, and she would spread it out on the table and pick a park to go to. We would pack a snack of cookies and juice and walk or take the bus. We went every Saturday. I would play on the swings and the jungle gym and scream, “Look at me! Look at me!”

  “I see you,” she’d say.

  When I got a little bit older, though, I realized that Mom wasn’t just watching me. She was watching all the kids who came to the playground.

  I don’t play on the equipment anymore. I usually take a book along, but Mom still stares at the other kids.

  It’s creepy. It’s like she’s looking for someone, but I haven’t the foggiest idea who. Why does she do this?

  Now she’s watching the girls on the teeter-totter. I pray that they don’t notice, but they do. The girl with the pointy face calls out, “Only monkeys stare!”

  I am suddenly spitting mad at Mom. I stand up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home. I’m not going to spy on people with you anymore. It’s sick.”

  I march off. When I look back, the girls have moved farther away from Mom, to the swings, and they lean their heads close together and burst out laughing. Mom is still sitting on the bench and she’s still staring.

  Doesn’t she get how crazy she looks?

  Dear Grace,

  These are the things I want if Mom gets any life insurance:

  The entire series of Famous Five books by Enid Blyton

  A transistor radio

  Roller skates

  A bicycle

  A trip to Disneyland. Miss Noonan told us about Disneyland. They’re building it right now and it won’t be open until July 1955. More than a year! But I don’t mind waiting. It’s going to be the coolest place on earth!!!

  Your best friend,

  Hope

  P.S. Three more days ’til my birthday.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mom and I spend two more days searching for the life insurance policy. The first day we look in all the obvious places. The next day, we look in some not so obvious places, like under the towels in the cupboard in the bathroom, and behind the boxes of cereal in the kitchen.

  We forget about eating dinner until almost nine o’clock, and then I make peanut butter sandwiches for both of us. Mom eats the middle, but leaves the crusts. She kisses me good night and disappears into her bedroom. I pull out the living-r
oom couch into a bed, get settled, and open my book, but I fall asleep before I get to the bottom of the page. The next thing I know, I look at my watch and it’s past midnight, and I have to go to the bathroom desperately.

  The door to Granny’s bedroom is partly open and the light is on. On my way back from the bathroom, I peek inside. Mom is sitting on the edge of Granny’s bed. She’s holding a big brown envelope. The floor is covered with heaps of clothes, shoes, hatboxes, and bags.

  “Mom? What are you doing? It’s the middle of the night.”

  Her eyes are wide, staring. “Oh – you scared me. I decided to take everything out of Granny’s closet. In case we missed something.”

  I look at the brown envelope. “You found it!”

  She looks me straight in the eye without blinking. “No, I didn’t. There are just some of Granny’s old letters in here. Nothing important.” But she’s shaking. There are beads of sweat above her lip and she’s as white as a ghost. Something is wrong and I feel scared.

  “Are you sick?”

  “Of course not. Go back to bed, Hope. Please.”

  “But – ”

  She closes her eyes. “Please,” she whispers.

  I go to bed, but I can’t get to sleep.

  That thing where Mom looked me straight in the eye without blinking? I do that too – when I tell a lie.

  So Mom was lying.

  What did she find in that envelope that she doesn’t want me to see?

  I wiggle around on the couch, trying to find a spot where the metal bits don’t jab me. I toss and turn. I can’t shut my brain off. I roll over on my stomach, and these are some of the crazy thoughts leaping around in my head like jumping beans: