Hadley & Grace(70)

Mattie looks sidelong at her, the color of her eyes so like Frank’s that Grace needs to make a concerted effort not to react.

“It seems like it happens all the time,” Mattie mumbles, looking back at her knees. “It’s like the crappy people of the world have all the power because . . . well, because they’re crappy.”

Grace nods. It’s a hard truth she wishes Mattie would never need to learn.

The door rattles. Grace ignores it.

Mattie wraps her arms around herself as she bends over her thighs so her chest is on her knees.

Hadley knocks. “Really? Are you kidding me? How old are you, twelve?”

“I wish I was better,” Mattie says so softly Grace almost doesn’t hear.

Grace rubs her back.

“Like you,” Mattie says.

Grace shakes her head. She wants Mattie to be nothing like her.

“Last night, you weren’t even scared,” Mattie goes on.

Grace rears back. “Are you kidding? I was terrified.”

“You were?” Mattie says, her eyes flicking sideways.

“Of course,” Grace says. “The only difference between you and me is I’m older, so I know sometimes there’s no choice. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared. And when I was your age, I’d have done exactly what you did: tried to sweet-talk my way out of it.”

Mattie looks away, and Grace feels her shame. She didn’t tell Grace that’s what she did, but Grace knows it nonetheless. It’s exactly what she would have done at that age if some guy was holding her by the neck.

“You know you have to come out at some point,” Hadley says through the door. “I have your son.”

They ignore her.

“Grace?” Mattie says.

“Hmmm?”

She hesitates, and Grace waits her out, watching as Mattie sucks in her bottom lip, then eventually blows it out. She pushes her feet out in front of her and swishes them back and forth like windshield wipers. The toenails are painted midnight blue, most of the polish chipped off. Finally, she pulls her feet back in, wraps her hands around her knees, and says, “You ever feel like there’s another you?”

Grace lifts an eyebrow.

“You know, like hiding inside you?”

“You mean like behind my kidney or gallbladder?”

Mattie doesn’t smile. Her eyes study her knees as her head shakes back and forth. “No. Like there’s this really great person buried deep inside, and she really wants to get out, but she can’t because you’re already this other person, and I don’t know, it’s like she’s in the way or something, blocking the better you from getting out?”

Grace doesn’t answer, the question so close to her own thoughts it startles her, though she’s always posed the question slightly differently, often thinking of herself as “the girl who might have done something wonderful,” wondering who she might have been had her grandmother not died and had she not made the mistakes she made, if things might have turned out differently and if she could have turned out to be more than she is.

“Not someone else,” Mattie goes on, struggling to put her thoughts into words, “but a better version of yourself, one who’s stronger, and who, you know, does things right?”

“My grandmother used to say, ‘We all have a backbone. Up to you to learn how to straighten it.’”

Mattie gives her a thin smile. “I think I would have liked your grandmother.”

“She definitely would have liked you,” Grace says, and she gives Mattie’s shoulder a nudge; then she leans forward, her elbows on her knees, and she says, “I’m going to tell you something, something I haven’t told anyone.”

Mattie glances over, and Grace holds her gaze for a beat before turning back to look at her hands. With a deep breath, she says, “My name isn’t really Grace.”

Mattie turns her whole head to look at her.

“My name is Savannah,” Grace goes on. “Savannah Grace Swift.” She feels a tug at her heart, the name like a ghost, her mother’s spirit so close it takes her breath. Growing up, Grace’s name was one of her favorite things, one of the few things her mother had left her. Savannah Swift. It was just so darn beautiful.

“Savannah?” Mattie says. “That’s pretty.”

Grace nods. It’s been a long time since she recalled that name or the time when she used it.

“There came a point when I needed to let it go,” she says. “The name and the girl that went with it.”

Grace can tell Mattie wants to ask why, but she doesn’t, and Grace appreciates it. It isn’t something Grace likes to talk about.

Instead Mattie says, “So you gave yourself a new name?”

“More like a new start. I moved to California, and I began again as Grace.”

“And it worked?”

“I suppose. I mean, I was still me, and I still had all the memories from my life before, along with the regret for some of the things I’d done. That stuff doesn’t go away. But no one in California knew who I was before, so I was able to start fresh, move past it, and decide who I wanted to be from that point on.”

Mattie is listening hard, her eyes narrowed tightly on Grace’s. “So, you lied about who you were?”