Gracie had told me that her dad did some kind of woodworking. I figured the building was his shop. He spared no expense. It was ginormous. Had two garage doors and everything. I thought of my dad’s auto shop. He made so little do so much.
Three manly figures, Gracie, and another small female stepped out of the building. One of the men draped his arm around Gracie’s shoulder. She shrugged it off and stepped away. He replaced his arm and forcefully pulled her closer. She didn’t resist that time. The men laughed over something. One staggered a bit. My heart was racing so fast I could hardly keep my head still enough to see through the small crack.
I didn’t recognize the men, except one. Our Mayor. Matthew McCrowe. He was the one with an arm around Gracie. My blood boiled. What the heck was he doing there so late? They stood around and laughed a couple more times. They’d been drinking; I could tell.
At that time in my life, I was innocent as a baby. I wouldn’t know evil if it stared me right in the face. My assumption most people were looking out for each other was dead wrong. I believed the best about everybody and figured there was more to every story. When I saw our Mayor McCrowe standing there, I tried to rationalize what I was seeing. Not let my mind go to the gutter. Surely, there was a sensible explanation.
The small party moved into the house, the laughter disappearing with them. The summer song filled the void. I tried to still my breathing. My intuition was firing off warning flags like an automatic assault weapon. There was nothing normal, nor right about what I’d just witnessed.
My daddy was a man of high moral character and had taught me well. He insisted all things be done “in the light of the sun.” Meaning, don’t do things under the cover of darkness. He had whipped me the first time I snuck out with Gracie. That was the last time he’d taught me a few things before he passed. And the intended lesson didn’t stick.
I remembered him leaning against the edge of my bed. Teary emotions had laced his words, “Son, if ya gotta do it in the dark, what you doing most likely ain’t right.”
Here I was, spying on people in the darkness. A twinge of guilt ate at me.
And here were three men, one our town’s leader, doing something in the dark. I didn’t understand what I was seeing. But I shut down the red flags, shut down the memory of my Daddy, and shut down the guilt eating at my heart. Gracie would explain it all tomorrow, I was sure.
The next morning was Saturday, and Gracie walked to our house for breakfast, like she did every Saturday. I didn’t get a lick of sleep so I poured myself a second cup of coffee and sat next to Gracie at the table. She loved Mama’s pancakes, but they sat on her plate, untouched. The butter and bacon had congealed. Red circles around the edges of her eyelids suggested she didn’t get much sleep or she’d been crying. Maybe both.
When Mama asked if she was feeling alright, Gracie said, “Just my time of the month.” I knew it was an outright lie.
I waited till Mama left to go yard-saleing before asking Gracie any questions. When the front door closed, I confessed I’d broken a rule and told her what I saw.
She laughed it off, waving her hand. Said her dad was showing the Mayor and another guy in public office some of his projects. For some reason, he insisted Gracie be along for the tour. The other girl was her friend who was spending the night. She just forgot to text me.
When I asked why the Mayor put his arm around her, she shrugged. “They had a little too much to drink, I suppose.”
I believed her. Told you I wouldn’t recognize evil if it stared me in the face.
That was when Gracie started slipping away. She missed our meetings by the river more and more often. The circles under her eyes grew darker, and she became a walking zombie. Anytime she did make it down to the river, she’d fall asleep. Sometimes, she’d wake in a fit of terror, and I’d hold her until she stopped shaking. I began walking her to her property line because she was too scared to go alone.
Gracie and I were never “cool” by any stretch of the imagination. But suddenly, she was in with the popular crowd. She started going to parties, and she’d beg me to go too. I was worried about her going alone, so I drove. And I drank.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out why the cool kids liked Gracie. Apparently, she’d been a supplier for some time. She brought a scale with her to a party and started measuring out little plastic bags of weed, dealing the stuff. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The saying “love is blind” is as true as the Bible itself. I rationalized away her decisions. Thinking if I could be there with her, I’d keep her safe. I tried to talk to her about it, but she waved me off again and laughed. Told me to “loosen up” and “have some fun for once.”
So I did.
Got my first DUI at the age of seventeen.
When the government took the privilege of driving away, she found someone else to take her, and I got left behind.
One night, after she hopped in the car with Graham Jenkins and a few other kids, I stormed down to the river mad as a hornet. I broke a rule and texted her:“River at 10 in the morning or we’re done.”
She came. Her hair was a mess, and she smelled of alcohol. She buried her hands deep into the hoodie pocket, hugging herself. We sat in silence for a while, and I put my arm around her. She rested her head on my shoulder. Moaned and threw up twice.
I held her hair back and prayed, wondering what the heck I’d gotten myself into. I loved her, yes, but she was hurting bad, and I had no idea what to do to help her. In that moment, I allowed my heart to entertain the idea maybe those men I saw in the darkness harmed her. My heart thrashed in my chest at the very thought, and my stomach clamped down on my breakfast.
When Gracie was finished, I handed her my water bottle, and she nestled in next to me on the hammock. “Gracie,” I whispered into her hair, “please talk to me. You’re not okay. You can’t tell me you are anymore.”
She sighed. I couldn’t see her face from the angle she was laying, but I felt her shoulders shake a couple times as she suppressed emotions springing-up from deep within. “If I tell you, you’ll hate me. I hate me.” Her sweet southern voice was low and sullen. The bitterness in her words indicated the depth of her belief in them.
I tightened my arm around her. “I promise there is nothing you could do to make me hate you.” I pleaded with her, knowing in my heart she was slipping away, and this could be my last chance to talk honestly with her. “Please tell me.”
The warm breeze blew above and below the hammock. It rocked us. The silence was so long I wondered if she’d fallen asleep.
“I’ll tell you, but you gotta turn the other way. I don’t want you to look at me.”
As much as I wanted to protest, I didn’t. She set me up on a stump a few feet away from the hammock and made me face the river.
