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Part One
All You Left Behind
Chapter One
Grace
Grace Dawson is a liar.
And that is the gospel truth.
That I’m so good at it is no consolation. You’d think that as the days turned into weeks, then months and then years, it would get easier to stand in front of the mirror and look myself in the eye, but that’s not the case.
I do it. I tell that woman with the sad eyes looking back at me that she did the right thing, the only thing she could have done at the time.It was another lifetime, I tell her.Move on, for God’s sake.
Then I swipe on some lipstick and paste on a smile. Greet the day.
I pop into my aunt’s house on my way to work. Make her some tea and sit with her for a few minutes until her home health aide comes in for her shift. Auntie Viv is not long for this world, but still I won’t tell. And if I won’t tell her, which would be as good as putting those words into a vault, then I suppose that I am planning on taking this secret to my own grave.
Settling back behind the wheel again, the bright morning sun catches on that diamond. It’s heavy on my finger and glitters in a way that’s garish. I have to remind myself that a normal person would see that sparkle as a promise of good things to come.
I didn’t want to say yes when Jack asked me. I wanted to tell him the truth, give him an out, let him know exactly who I am, but the words died on my lips. I couldn’t believe my own ears when I heard myself say yes.
Yes, I’ll marry you, Jack.
My teeth clench as I pull into my spot in the faculty parking lot thinking back on it. It was another Hallmark movie-worthy performance on my part. Have I become so good at faking it that people can’t see even the slightest trace of sadness in my eyes? Given that despair is my default mode nowadays, it’s hard to believe that I’m still capable of keeping up this charade.
To everyone in this town I am Grace Dawson, beloved high school teacher. I’m the plucky, optimistic educator amid a sea of ready to retire cranks. The one who spouts positivity until I’m blue in the face. The one who always gives her students a safe haven, a shoulder to cry on, or tough love when it’s called for. To my adoring fans I march to the beat of my own drummer. I look on the bright side and I dream big.
Not everyone is a fan. No, the few remaining members of the old guard on the school board would like to see me gone. They’re all fire and brimstone, spouting nonsense about how I promote reckless and promiscuous behavior among our town’s youth. Do my students see me at Church on Sundays? Rarely. But I’m not working the pole at the local strip club either. The school district’s teenage pregnancy and high school drop-out rates were far above the national average long before I came onto the scene, but some people are always looking for a scapegoat.
They don’t approve of the books I pick to read in class, they don’t approve of the uniforms I signed off on for the dance team, they don’t approve of the way I dress, the way I teach—the complaints they’ve lodged are too many to list. Let’s just say that they’ve tried to bully me into leaving for years but I’m not going anywhere.
It’s not that I want to stay here. This isn’t exactly some cosmopolitan mecca. It’s a small town without the small-town charm and appeal you read about in those cozy romance books.
When you’re born and bred somewhere you get used to it, you stop seeing your surroundings with fresh eyes. But I’m not from here so I see it all. I see the unkempt front yards, littered with boats that haven’t been out on the river in years and rusted-out cars that will never be fixed. I see the storefronts that were shuttered years ago on Main Street with the fadedFor Leasesigns still taped in their dirty windows. I see the same look of desperation that I wear mirrored in the eyes of the working-class people of this town. From their appearance you can tell that some of them have given up entirely. Not Grace Dawson, though. I’m an outsider. I’m not like them.
Jack thinks this ring will lure me up to Pittsburgh, that I’ll give up my job in this underperforming school for the greener pastures of a better district. That’s what being married to him means, doesn’t it? That I’ll leave this place, free myself from the ties that bind me to this town.
Standing on the bank of the river, I pick up a rock and toss it in. She’s not here and neither is he, so why do I stay? It’s not like I can’t be found. A few keystrokes on a computer, that’s all it would take in this day and age. I don’t need to stay close to the address I wrote on those forms so many years ago.
This isn’t even the same river.
It looks just like it, though. When I lay back on the grass I can remember what it felt like to be there with him. When I wade in up to my ankles I can imagine those nights spent swimming, taking risks for the first time in my life. When I feel the freezing rain and the wind biting my skin in the dead of winter, I remember what it felt like to mourn, the devastating physical power of grief.
“Will you wait for me?” he used to ask.
“You know I will. How can you even ask me that question?”
With both of my hands in his that last time, he took a step back and raised his arms out to the side. “Look at you. You’ll have guys beating a path to your door once I’m gone.”
I pulled out of his grasp and wrapped my arms around my middle. “Don’t say that. It’s not true.”
He came closer, turned me around so I was facing the water and wrapped me up in his arms. “You don’t see what I see, Gracie. I don’t know why that is, but I’m going to make it my life’s mission to change what you see when you look in the mirror.”
It’s not like I thought I was an ogre or something. I knew I was pretty, knew men looked at me. But I was never comfortable in that skin.
I decided way back when that pretty girls come in two varieties. There were the girls who owned it, the ones who flaunted their beauty and might even use it as a weapon. They were the queen bees, the ones who slayed men and left them battered and bruised in their wake. And then there were girls like me. The ones who couldn’t get a handle on it, who never learned how to harness the power their beauty could wield. It brought me unwanted attention when I was a kid, so I grew up viewing it as a weapon that men could use against me.
