I reached across the table and took her hands in mine. And she let me. “I’m so sorry about Dan. He was very kind. How did he die?”
“Enlarged heart. He died with a damn smile on his face,” she said, proudly.
“Did you love him?” I knew I had no right, but I was dying to know.
“He was good to me.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I loved him in my own way.”
“Yeah?” I was getting choked up again.
Her eyes met mine. “Yeah. But not the way I loved you.”
“Grace . . .”
“What the fuck happened, Matt?”
“I don’t know anymore. I thought I knew. Elizabeth just told me she sent you a letter?”
“I got one letter from you, maybe in ’99 or 2000. The rest of my calls and letters went unanswered.”
“Elizabeth wrote that letter, not me. I swear to God, Grace, I never would have ignored your calls.”
“Well,” her voice got very quiet, shrinking in on itself. “It’s too late now, isn’t it?”
“Why? Why does have to be too late?”
“I would say fifteen years is pretty late. So much has happened to us and . . .”
I squeezed her hands. “Let’s get a piece of pie or pancakes or something, like we used to.”
“Are you insane?”
“Yes,” I deadpanned. “We need to get out of this place.”
“I don’t know . . .” She withdrew her hands from mine.
I looked at my watch. “Breakfast for dinner?”
She ran a hand across her face and sat up straight, putting some distance between us. I couldn’t tell if she was contemplating the idea or trying to think of a nice way to say no. I searched her eyes and she smiled. “Okay. I’ll go with you, on one condition.”
“What’s that, Gracie?” She laughed at the nickname and then her eyes started welling up again. “Please don’t cry,” I said.
“We have to forget for a little while who we are to each other. No talking about the past. That’s my condition.”
“Deal.” I left a fistful of bills on the table, grabbed her hand, and pulled her toward the door. But just before we left, I turned to her. “Wait. Let’s do a shot first. We’re young, the city is ours, you don’t have to wake up early tomorrow to teach, and I don’t have an asshole for a wife. ”
“Sure. Why not?” Her cheeks turned pink. She suddenly seemed happier, younger. And though I had promised her we wouldn’t talk about the past, I couldn’t help but feel like we had traveled back to the best time of our lives.
We each had a tequila shot, left the bar, and found a little twenty-four-hour diner. “I think I want pie,” I said as we stared into the refrigerator case.
“Me too. You wanna share a piece?”
“Let’s share two pieces,” I said, practically daring her.
“You’re talkin’ dirty now. I like it. Let’s do a slice of chocolate cream and . . .”
“A slice of peanut butter?”
“That’s so perfect. I’m gonna eat the crap out of that pie.”
God, I loved her. “Same here,” I said.
We ordered and then sat in a green vinyl-upholstered booth. She traced the sparkles in the retro tabletop with her finger. “So, how are Andrew, your dad, and Regina?”
“Great. My dad will never retire. He and my brother are partners at the same firm. Andrew and Monica have two kids and a big house in Beverly Hills. Regina is the same, except her face is tighter.”
Grace laughed but then her smile faded. “I’m sad to hear about your mom. I really liked her. I felt like we were kindred spirits.”
I thought back to the days before I lost my mom. She asked me what happened with Grace, and I told her it just didn’t work out. I was confused as to why my mother was bringing Grace’s name up after so many years had passed. She had no idea Elizabeth and I were having marital problems, but it was like she wanted me to know she still thought of Grace. I think she must have felt that they were kindred spirits, too. Elizabeth was never close to Mom, even after knowing her for a decade. One visit, and Grace was in my mom’s heart forever.
“Yes. She went peacefully. My dad actually came to see her before she died. It was heartbreaking because, after all they went through . . . she still loved him. That’s why she never remarried. I think, once everything was stripped away and he saw her near the end of her life, he loved her, too. At least, that’s what he said to her. If he didn’t mean it, at least my mom died believing it. I came to respect him more after that.”
“I can understand that.” She said it as if she spoke from experience.
I took a deep breath. “Let’s talk about something happier.”
“I followed your career for a while and saw that you won the Pulitzer. What an amazing accomplishment, Matt. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. It was unexpected and hard to appreciate because, I think, at the time, I was in a really dark place.”
“That was before your mother got sick though, right?”
“Yeah. She got to see me accept the award. She and my dad were really proud.”
Grace was so interested, so compassionate. I thought I had made up all those things about her in my mind. How fitting her name was. How real, beautiful, and genuine she was in the flesh. All those times I had stared at her photos and wished I could hold her, touch her, or just see her in person, in color, here she was, just like I remembered.