Page 9 of Holding Grace

“How did you end up here, Grace? Why did you leave without saying anything?”

I looked down at the glass of water I held and sighed. Where did I even start?

“It’s not a short story, Michael. I’m sorry for what I did, but I don’t know that you really want to know the why. It had nothing to do with you, or Jamey, or anybody at the pub.”

Michael looked at me intently as he shook his head at my words. “You’re wrong, Grace. I do want to know. I’ve run it over and over in my head. I need to understand.”

I’d told myself earlier that I owed it to him to explain, but I hated the thought of him knowing the truth. I didn’t want him to see my life for the messed-up chaos that it was, but did it really matter? It wasn’t like he’d be sticking around anyway after tonight. Knowing the truth would give him just one more reason to go.

Tell him, I thought to myself. Tell him, let him run in the opposite direction, and get it over with. Why drag it out?

I took a sip of water, then set it aside and started talking.

Chapter 5

Michael

For a few seconds I thought Grace would refuse to tell me what had happened. Then she set down her water and launched in.

“I have a half-brother named Ellis who’s two years older. We have the same father, different mothers. My dad was never married to either my mom or Ellis’s mom, he’d just sort of be with one of them for a while, then get mad or ‘tired of her bullshit’ as he used to say, and go be with the other one. It wasn’t normal but it was our life.”

Grace shook her head like she was shaking away what she’d just said, then went on.

“Ellis and I didn’t really grow up as siblings, but my mom died when I was 14 and I went to live with him and his mom and our dad. Ellis had always resented me and my mom, so as you can imagine, me moving in didn’t go over well.”

“When I was 17, Ellis’s mom and our dad took off to go live somewhere in Mexico and left me with Ellis to finish my senior year of high school. He was furious but they said that if he wanted to keep living in the house, he had to be responsible for me. He couldn’t afford to move out, so he was stuck with me. They sent money for expenses every month, but it was never enough. Ellis would work sometimes, but he’d always quit or get fired over something stupid. I was already waiting tables on the weekends at a place near our house and I started picking up shifts as a cook during the week to make some extra money to cover the bills. Anyway...”

Grace shifted, pulling her feet up to sit cross-legged in the chair.

“Fast forward about a year or so. I found out the money Ellis should have been spending for the house and food, he was spending on some illegal street racing team. He’s always loved anything that goes fast, and the more dangerous, the better. I don’t know if he was betting on races or funding a car or what, all I know is that’s where the money went. A few months after I found that out, my great aunt – my mom’s aunt – passed away. I’d only met her a few times, but I was her only living relative and she left me some property in her will. I don’t know how much it’s worth, but apparently, it’s pretty much. It was put in a trust for me for when I turned 21.”

Grace stood up and took her glass of water to the sink in her little kitchen area to dump it out, more for something to do, I suspected, than because she was done with it. She set the glass down more carefully than required, then turned to lean back on the counter.

“The inheritance made Ellis hate me more than he already did. He was furious that she’d left it only to me, and not to him. It didn’t make sense since he wasn’t even related to her, but in his eyes, I’d gotten something that should have been his. He demanded I sell the property and give him “his part” of the money, but I was only 19 at that point and, like I said, I couldn’t even have it until I was 21.”

“Around that same time, one of Ellis’s friends, Seth, started coming around more. We’d talk sometimes and he was nice to me and eventually we started dating. Ellis was...less awful when Seth was around, and I’d thought that maybe things were finally getting better.”

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