Honey Girl(67)

In the kitchen, Kelly is already up. He’s got the radio on the local pop station and the griddle going on the stove. “Howdy, ladies,” he says, giving a little salute. If he notices their red, puffy eyes or the way Mom holds tight to Grace’s hand, he doesn’t say a word. “I got French toast coming up if anybody wants.”

Mom smiles. “You sit down, Porter. You want orange juice? Or mimosas?” She shakes her head. “Okay, that was a terrible suggestion. We’re having orange juice.”

Grace smiles, a small little thing. “Okay. Orange juice it is.”

Kelly sings along to the radio.

“And tada!” he yells, waving the spatula. “How many do you want, Porter?”

“Two, please.”

He slides two on her plate along with a bottle of syrup. He slides two more onto Mom’s plate and pecks her on the lips. Out of the corner of her eye, Grace watches him wipe her eyes and fix her hair.

“Everybody good?” he asks, silverware hovering over his plate.

Mom nods, and Grace hesitates. Let go of that control for a little bit, Mom said.

Let go, Grace Porter, she thinks. You can’t control everything. You’ve seen that.

“Kelly,” she says. “Mom said—she said you knew some people.”

He tilts his head. “Sure. I know a lot of people. Can you narrow it down?”

Grace peeks at Mom, who stuffs French toast in her mouth. “I’m eating,” she says unhelpfully.

Grace sighs. Meera once said the Grace Porter she knew wasn’t a coward. Well, Grace has been having a hard time remembering that version of herself.

Let go.

“Therapists,” she says bluntly. “If you know anybody that I might be able to talk to—I would, like, appreciate it. It would be cool to find a Black woman, but if you can’t—” She shrugs. “As long as they’re good. Please.”

Mom’s hand finds hers under the table and squeezes.

“Yeah,” Kelly says, regaining his composure. “Yeah. Let me make a few calls, okay? Absolutely.”

“Cool,” she says.

Back upstairs in her room, she sends out a mass text in the group chat.

Grace
7:32 a.m.
life update: in florida with my mom.
maybe gonna have my eat, pray, love moment???
will report back soon.
She opens up the chat with just Ximena and Agnes.

Grace
7:35 a.m.
i’m the shittiest person alive but
idk how long i’ll be gone
colonel def won’t keep helping with rent
i might have an idea
She pauses. She opens the group chat again.

Grace
7:38 a.m.
meera if you want my room it’s yours
i know you’ve been dying to move away from home
just ask ximena and agnes about it, okay
She sighs, fingers trembling as she holds back from spilling it all in the text box. She wants to. She misses the comfort of her friends. She misses how that felt easy, too.

Grace
7:40 a.m.
i’m gonna figure my shit out hopefully
love you guys so much it hurts
She turns her phone off. She has so much work to do.



Sixteen


Time passes strangely when you don’t have a routine or a grand plan.

Grace spends her mornings in the groves. Sometimes it’s her and Mom. She talks about the things Grace did not notice during her sporadic visits in the years before. The changes to the fresh market, the weird yuppies that have moved to downtown Southbury, Mom volunteering at the yearly circus that’s put on by the fire station.

“What do you do?” she asks, peeling a small, bruised orange she’s saved from the ground. “Walk the tightrope?”

“Look,” Mom says. She puts down her basket and picks up three, four, then five oranges. “I was the opening act.” She laughs and starts to juggle.

Sometimes it’s just her and Kelly. They don’t talk much. Thankfully, he knows not to ask about school or jobs or her summer in New York.

Sometimes he asks about her favorite planet (Venus) or if she’s ever seen Halley’s Comet.

“That only comes every seventy-five years,” she says quietly. “The last time was 1986.”

“Oh shit,” he says. “I could have seen that.”

“Probably. What were you doing in 1986?”

He gives her a mysterious smile. “That’s a long story, Grace Porter. You up for another lap around the groves?”

She finds herself spending chunks of time in therapists’ offices. The first one is an older white woman named Barbara-Jean Marie, who wears a long denim skirt and Skechers and baubles for earrings.

“So, tell me a little about yourself, Grace,” she says, hands tucked under her legs. Her gold-rimmed glasses make her eyes look huge.

Grace fiddles with the frays in her jeans. Her foot taps an anxious rhythm. “You can call me Porter if you want,” she mumbles.

“Porter?” Barbara-Jean Marie crosses her legs. “That’s your last name, isn’t it?”

She shrugs. “Colonel—my dad—he’s military. Guess it just kinda stuck.”

“Ah,” Barbara-Jean Marie says. She writes something in her notebook. “So, from a young age you were exposed to the imperialistic ideals of the American military regime. Talk to me about that.”