Stolen Grace Read online

  Sylvia sighed and slipped down into the bucket of the leather passenger seat. She had underestimated Jacqueline’s fierce loyalty to her parents. “So where is he? Where is LeRoy now?”

  Jacqueline shook her head sadly. “I’m so sorry, honey, but LeRoy had a fatal accident.”

  Sylvia felt her nose prickle, her eyes mist. “What happened?”

  “Loretta had cancer and was having radiation treatment, paid for by your father. She was exhausted and in and out of the hospital. It was your dad’s idea to send LeRoy off to summer camp. Fun for him, he thought, and a break for Loretta. At least, that’s what Loretta told me. LeRoy went to one of the lakes to a swanky, expensive camp, I can’t remember the name. The only trouble was, he made friends with a group of bullyboys. You know, troublemaker, show-off types? The boys sneaked off to swim one evening and LeRoy didn’t come back. The boys said he’d swum off onto that platform float thing—you know, the thing with oil drums, used for sunbathing? They found his body the next morning, washed up on shore.”

  “Oh my God. Where had the camp leader been all that time? How did they let something like that happen?”

  “Things were different back then. In those days, children ran around more freely—there were less rules back then.”

  “True,” Sylvia said despondently. “What a tragedy! You think those boys did it, then?”

  “Maybe they were horsing around. Only the Lord knows what happened—a mystery, never to be solved.”

  “What? They didn’t do an autopsy? What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that his mama, my friend Loretta, passed away thirty odd years ago, very soon after the tragedy, so I never did get to ask her details. At the time, she was so destroyed by his death, plus the fact she was weak and dying from cancer, that she didn’t want to discuss it with no one. Maybe those boys were innocent, maybe they weren’t, but we’ll never know for sure.” Jacqueline swerved the Oldsmobile hard to the right, catching the sidewalk and bumping back down again. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Didn’t Daddy do anything? Didn’t he sue the summer camp for negligence?”

  “I surely don’t know the details. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I never thought it my place to ask.”

  “Nobody told Mom about LeRoy? Even after he died?” Sylvia glared at Jacqueline, accusation dancing in her eyes.

  “Sylvia, honey. I’m sorry. But what was I meant to do? Get a big wooden spoon and stir up trouble? Your mama was happy. She had no idea that LeRoy existed. It was not my place to go round stirring up no trouble. If your Daddy wanted to tell me bout LeRoy, he woudda. But he never did, not even after your mama died. So I kept my pretty little mouth shut.”

  Sylvia tried to process all this information. Her dad must have been riddled with guilt. His own son dying because of his bright idea to send him off to summer camp. And she, too, had left Grace with Ruth, neither of them imagining, in their wildest imagination, what ills could befall their child. Her father’s suicide was making more sense every day. Guilt. Remorse. The feeling of culpability. Knowing that your choice had fatal consequences.

  One split-second decision could ruin your life and the life of the person you made that decision for. Grace. LeRoy . . .

  Both victims of one, fatal choice.

  Sylvia propped her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees, and began to sob quietly.

  Jacqueline took one hand off the steering wheel and laid her elegant fingers on Sylvia’s head. She stroked her hair softly. “I know, honey, I know. It’s a very, very sad story. And I can imagine what’s going through your mind right now about Gracie. But as God is my witness, I have a very strong feeling that you will find her. You have to have faith, honey. You have to keep strong. For Grace’s sake.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Grace

  Grace was hiding in the bathroom. When she last saw Mama Ruth, Ruth was sipping a cocktail by the bar, watching the sunset. Grace pretended she was tired and wanted to go to bed early. Ruth was talking to a man in Spanish. Of course. She didn’t speak to anybody in English anymore. She’d been flirting with this same man for a few days already. His name was Lucho. He was one of the surfers. Ruth was even spending nights with him. Grace didn’t mind him too much because he bought her candy and took her swimming. He was okay, she decided. Ruth thought he was the Bees Knees. She laughed a lot when she was with him and Grace had seen them kiss. Not a smoochy kiss, but still.

  Grace had enough time. “Mama Rocío” was busy. Unless she came up to the bathroom to be sick. She often did that. She’d stuff her face, especially with ice cream and sweet things, and then she’d vomit afterwards. Grace didn’t understand why she did that, but one thing she knew for certain—it was Mama Ruth’s Big Secret.

  She unrolled the recording pen from her nightgown. The battery was almost dead. She’d have to find a secret place to charge it—she knew about charging batteries; her dad had taught her. She’d need to charge it with Lucho’s computer. She’d do it tomorrow when he was surfing.

  She pressed down on the pocket clip to record:

  “I have to whisper. Because if Mama Ruth, oops, Mama Rocío hears me, I know she’ll take this pen away from me.

  Today she gave me another haircut. Even shorter. Boy, do I look like a boy! That sounds funny, ‘boy do I look like a boy.’ But it’s true. Every time I look in the mirror, I get a big surprise. I miss my mom and dad. Mommy passed away. Ruth told me. She said that Mom was in a car accident and died instantly which means she died straight away and felt no pain. I cried and cried for a week without stopping. She—Ruth, I mean—wants me to call her Mommy but it feels funny. She says that Daddy might come out and see us and that Daddy will grow to love her more than he loved Mommy. I don’t think so.

  Yesterday, she was speaking on the phone to a doctor. She was talking in Spanish. But then she also spoke English. I can understand quite a bit but I can’t say much. I can say perro which means dog and osito de peluche which means teddy bear, but it doesn’t sound as cute. She says she’s going to Rio de-something-or-other but it’s a secret. I heard her talking in English to someone else and she was talking about plastic surgery. About her nose. The same thing that Mommy did with Pidgey O Dollars! I miss him. I hope the Bogeymen decided they didn’t like him anymore and gave him to a nice little girl. That’s what Ruth says could happen. She says there are children in Rio who live on the streets in boxes and in garbage. She says that one day she might get me a baby brother from the garbage and wash him and then I can have a brother all for myself.

  She says that soon Daddy and her will be together. She thinks Daddy is very cute. But right now she likes Lucho the surfer boy. He comes from Colombia. He said that when he was a little boy they had guns at school and it was very dangerous. Mama Rocío says that if she goes to Rio de what’s-it-called, Lucho can look after me here in El Salvador and he’ll buy me lots of candy and I can do anything I want. I can stay up late.

  I’m still not used to my new name. I guess Adela is okay. I keep forgetting things. Yesterday I forgot how to say, ‘brush my teeth’ in English and I said limpiarme los dientes instead. Nobody speaks English here. Mama Rocío never speaks English to me anymore. Only sometimes, if we’re alone. She says it’s time for me to go to school but only if I promise not to tell anybody my secrets. She said if I talk about my old Mommy, the Bogeymen will take her out of Heaven and take her down to Hell where there’s fire and where the Devil lives, so I mustn’t ever talk about her to anybody.

  I wonder if I go to school there will be guns, like at Lucho’s school. Mama Rocío says I’m Catholic now—she gave me a gold cross to prove it. She says in a few years I’ll get to wear a long white dress and take Communion and then I’ll be like a princess. Wait! I can hear her. I hear footsteps—”

  Grace was in the bathroom. She could hear Ruth tiptoe into the bedroom. She was calling. “Adela, mi amor? Are you there?”

  Grace hid the pen under a towel and scuttled over to the toilet. She p
ulled the chain.

  “Adel-La? What are you Doo-Wing?’ Her voice sang like the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Ruth entered the bathroom, stared at Grace for a second, and then her eyes swept about the room. Grace could feel her heart go boom. It felt hot and poundy—her tummy was doing somersaults. Her little hands were sweaty and as sticky as lollipops.

  “Adela? What are you doing in here?”

  “Nothing.”

  Ruth came close. Her breath smelled of cocktails. “Well you must be doing something.”

  “Nah-ah.”

  “Are you lying to me? You know what that cross around your neck stands for, don’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It means you’re a good little Catholic girl who always tells Mommy the truth.”

  Grace stood still. But she let her gaze wander for a second to the towel. But then quickly looked at the floor.

  Ruth turned her head. “Have you done something with that towel?”

  “Nah ah.”

  “Because if you are lying to me you know what will happen, don’t you?”

  Grace remained silent.

  “I will take Carrot and your other bear to Rio with me and give them to the poor street children.”

  Grace could feel a trickle of wee-wee running down her thigh. She looked down at the floor and saw a tiny puddle of yellow that had appeared like magic—a splash of lemonade.

  “Oh nooo! Not again! Adela, what is wrong with you! Stop already with this piddling business. I’m getting so tired of changing your sheets in the middle of every single goddamn night! I thought you wanted to be a big girl, not a little baby! Do you want me to put you in diapers? Do you want to wear big, ugly, padded diapers like a baby? Because if you don’t stop already with these uncontrollable waterworks, that is exactly what I am going to have to do. Act like a baby and I’ll treat you like a baby, little Missy!” Ruth raced toward her, scooped her up and plunked her on the toilet. Grace’s skinny little bottom sank down the hole in a big U. It felt like a giant bucket and she was scared she might plop to the bottom. She concentrated but no wee-wee would come. What had been inside her body was already on the floor.

  “You’re like some pissing machine! It’s so gross. You have to learn to be a grown-up, okay?” Ruth was frantically mopping up the puddle with a big wet cloth.

  Grace wriggled about on the huge seat and tried to get comfortable. It was pinching her. She hoped Ruth wouldn’t touch the towel where the pen was hidden—then she’d really be in trouble. She’d change the subject. “Why are you going away?”

  “Because I have a little problem with my nose, baby. I have a deviated septum and can’t breathe properly.” She was now rinsing out the smelly cloth under a hot tap and mumbling, “Gross, gross, gross. I am so not cut out for this parent shit!”

  “Are you going to have plastic surgery like Pidgey O Dollars?”

  “What? Where did you hear that?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Have you been spying on me? Have you been listening to my private telephone conversations? Have you been eavesdropping?”

  Another trickle of wee-wee came out, luckily straight into the toilet this time. “No.”

  “I think you have, young lady. I think you’ve been listening to my private conversations! And you know what happens to naughty, spying, eavesdropping girls, don’t you?”

  “The Bogeymen?” Grace whispered.

  “That’s right!” Mama Ruth cried, washing her hands with soap for the third time. “The Bogeymen come and take little girls like that away in the night when it’s dark. Snatch them from their beds when they’re fast asleep. And they take them and throw them on big, stinking piles of garbage onto the streets of Rio where there’s no food. No nothing!”

  “But then you can come and find me? Can’t you? If the Bogeymen take me to Rio and you’re going to Rio too, you can come and look for me.”

  Ruth suddenly changed from Dragon Face to Cheshire Cat Face. “You know what, baby? You are funny. So so cute! You are so adorable I could eat you. Now wipe your tush, then wash your hands—”

  “Are you going to wash my hands for me?” Grace remembered how good it felt when her Real Mom washed her hands.

  “No, you’re big enough to wash your own hands. Hurry up now and we’ll go downstairs for dinner. Guess what, baby?”

  “What?”

  “Tonight you can eat as much ice cream as you like.”

  THEY WERE SITTING at the table, eating dinner on the beach. The floor was a bed of sand. There were candles and it was now dark. The sand wasn’t hot beneath Grace’s feet the way it had been earlier that day. It was cool. Lucho was with them. He was wolfing down a tamale saying, “Está bonissimo. Bonissimo!”

  Grace knew that the wee-wee puddle had made Ruth forget about what was hidden under the towel. The cocktails she had guzzled had also made her forget—Ruth was a bit woozy, her eyes glazed. But Grace was aware that she might remember any moment. She needed to go back upstairs and hide the secret pen in a new place, before it was too late. But if she left the table, Ruth would get suspicious and the Dragon could return.

  Grace watched Lucho eating. He was as hungry as a lion. Ruth would, as usual, pay for his dinner. She always paid for everything. Grace had never seen him with money. He wore red swim shorts that came above his knees, and he surfed all the time. How could he carry money when it would get lost in the waves? His chest was always bare, bald. Not like her dad’s that had a few soft hairs like a cuddly bear. No, Lucho was smooth. Smooth as a boiled sweet. The hair on his head, though, was shaggy and black, and he had big brown eyes. Like Bambi’s. He had long, long eyelashes but when he came out of the water, all wet, he looked like a black Portuguese water dog. He shook like one too. She’d seen those dogs on YouTube. Droplets of water like lots of glittering diamonds and goldy-black sand like golden nuggets, would fly from Lucho’s body. Her Real Mom had told her that when dogs shook themselves they moved hundreds of miles an hour. So maybe Lucho was more doggy after all. Not like a deer, except for his eyes. He laughed a lot and Grace liked it when he was around because it meant that SHE was in a good mood. He was twenty-four. Grace knew because she asked him. Her Real Mom told her it was rude to ask women their age or older men, but it was okay to ask boys how old they were. Grace figured that Lucho was still a boy because he played video games with her and giggled a lot. So she’d asked him his age.

  One day, she thought, she would marry Lucho.

  But that was her secret.

  She didn’t want to tell HER because she might get jealous.

  Grace was also eating a tamale because if Lucho liked them, then she knew they must be good. She decided that she would always order whatever he ordered.

  Mama Ruth was eating a hamburger. She had her mouth full and said in Spanish, “Adela wet herself again. She’s like a leaking hot water bottle. I don’t know what to do.”

  Lucho winked at Grace and said, “What’s that pretty blouse you’re wearing? You look like a little princess tonight.”

  Ruth looked at him and knotted her brow. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “What you said, Rocío, has no place at the dinner table,” he replied smoothly. “I was admiring Adela’s lovely blouse. As I was saying, Adela, you look like such a pretty princess tonight.”

  Grace blushed and jiggled about in her chair.

  Ruth glared at her. “Stop swinging your legs, baby.”

  “Bathroom Mommy,” Grace said in Spanish. She couldn’t say the whole sentence yet. She knew she wasn’t allowed to say one single word of English in front of Lucho. She wasn’t even allowed to speak Spanglish. She didn’t dare. Just in case. Just in case her Real Mom was sent to Hell to live with The Devil.

  Ruth rolled her eyes. “Go, GO! Hurry to the bathroom, I don’t want to be cleaning up any more stinky mess.”

  Grace jumped off her chair. She ran from the beach into the guesthouse and up to her room. She now had a bedroom of her own because Ruth
shared a room with Lucho.

  Grace dashed into the bathroom and took the secret pen from under the towel.

  She ran to the bed and pulled apart the Velcro on Carrot’s back, took out the nighty and quickly rolled it around the pen. She pushed it all neatly back inside, pressed his back together again and, just to be sure, popped him under the bedclothes.

  CHAPTER 24

  Sylvia

  Sylvia lay stretched out on the wall-to-wall carpet of the living room floor, giving her back a break from the soft mattress of the guest room. She was staring at the ceiling, transfixed by a fly meshed in a spider’s web. The spider was busy with her legs, spinning and rotating the helpless fly in a threaded whirl. On a normal day, Sylvia would have been glad to see one less fly buzzing around the house, but now she felt sorry for the creature. Only a spider, she thought, can make a fly helpless.

  She hadn’t heard from Tommy for three days. He’d been gone for nine. She knew she shouldn’t be worried; he’d warned her that he could be out of reach at times but she, like the fly, felt helpless. On two occasions, she’d been a click away from booking herself onto a flight to join him, but she wasn’t even sure where he was, which country he was in. Was he still in Guatemala? Had he crossed the border to El Salvador or Belize? Besides, she was still waiting for her new passport to come through. She’d paid for the expedited service and was expecting it any day now. And Agent Russo had pulled some strings to hurry things up.

  The FBI had sent alerts out to all the border crossings for Ruth and Grace but Sylvia had been online—getting a fake passport would be easy for Ruth. Right there on the Internet were websites offering false documents. For less than a thousand dollars you could have a brand new passport and pay by Western Union, Moneygram or a bank transfer. The passport could be ready in less than a week, sent to you, courtesy of UPS or Fedex. Simple! Sylvia was amazed such companies existed. There they were, blatantly online, breaking the law. If businesses could disappear into thin air (surely the police must be trying to stop them?) then a woman and child traveling incognito was, by comparison, a piece of cake.