“You did what!?” Grace was incredulous—so much so that she couldn’t take in what Gregory had just told her. He shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands. His mouth moved, but no words came out. “How could you lose all our money playing poker? You don’t even gamble!”
“I don’t. I didn’t. I mean—I played with Joe and some of his friends one night for fun. I won a little bit. Then Joe’s friends invited me into a bigger game, and I won a little more. I kept playing, and I kept winning, and then I lost.”
“You lost all our money?”
“Not then. I decided to keep playing till I won it all back, then stop. Only I never did. I won, but never enough. I know I should have quit. But I kept thinking I had to break even if I played long enough.”
You fool! Grace thought. You utter fool! Her steely eyes never left Greg’s face as he ploughed desperately on. “The more I lost the more I had to make back. I cashed in the bonds. And our retirement CD. I maxed out the credit cards. Now there’s nothing left.”
“How much do you owe?” Grace spoke through lips so stiff they would barely move.
“Nothing. I paid it all off.”
“With everything we had.”
“I’m sorry…I wish I could tell you…”
But Grace wasn’t listening. An overwhelming anger had closed her ears to anything he said or might ever say again. She’d been angry at Gregory before. The night he’d broken their engagement, two days before the wedding, she’d been angry. Enough to throw his ring at him, then a vase, then the table the vase sat on…
On their twenty-fifth anniversary (he’d changed his mind, and they’d married after all) Gregory had asked her for a divorce. She’d dumped a glass of champagne down the front of his tuxedo and followed it with a full bottle. Grace remembered how she’d felt then. Of course he changed his mind again, and they had stayed together.
Oh yes—she’d been angry at her husband before—but never like this. She had no desire to yell or throw things. A shell of ice had closed itself around her, propelling her to quick, efficient movements: Calling her niece, arranging to spend the night, packing two suitcases, walking out of the house. She was vaguely aware of Gregory imploring her to stay, making promises, at some point actually crying. But he was no longer part of her life.
Grace decided to take a bus instead of a taxi. Money would be difficult for awhile until she figured out exactly where she was. Besides the bags didn’t seem heavy at all. Anger had given her strength she didn’t know she possessed. Her mind worked quickly, ticking off what could be salvaged. She had a savings account in her name only. Gregory wouldn’t have been able to touch that. There was the property in Alabama, also in her name. She could sell that. Perhaps even live there.
Grace saw a bus stopping, climbed aboard and sat down, a slender, graying woman who might have been attractive if her face had not been so carefully expressionless. Now a cold smile broke that lack of expression. Why, she wondered, was anger so maligned? There were even classes in managing it. Why she had never felt better since anger swooped down to manage her. How quickly its healing, cleansing touch had liberated her from that miserable mess of a marriage and that miserable excuse for a man.
Exalted and uplifted, she arrived at her niece’s front door.
Heather greeted Grace warmly. She had questions, but the look on her aunt’s face told her now was not the time to ask them. She led the way to Angela’s room. “Please stay as long as you like,” she urged. “Angela comes home once in a blue moon—and she never says overnight.”
“Thank you, dear,” Grace replied. “But I want to find a place of my own as soon as possible.” Heather wondered about Gregory but didn’t ask. Her questions would be answered in time—and she didn’t think the answers would be pleasant. Right now she sensed that her aunt would like nothing better than to be left alone, so she went out, closing the door noiselessly behind her.
Grace did, indeed, want to be alone. She spent a few moments just relishing her freedom. If only she’d known long ago how sweet it would be. What she’d felt in years past had been only rage, burning hotly and dying quickly. This new, wonderful anger did not burn but cooled and soothed. It would strengthen and sustain her through any problems that might lie ahead. It wrapped firm, gentle arms around her, and she leaned on them…
It occurred to Grace that she might start looking for somewhere to live right now. There were better sources than the telephone book, but it would do to begin with. She opened the bedside table drawer.
Instead of a phone book Grace found a picture album. She began idly leafing through it. These pictures were not new to her, as she had copies of most of them in her own album at home. Not home, she reminded herself. That place where I used to live.
There was a shot of Heather and Angelo, newly married, at their wedding reception. One of Angela’s first birthday party…another of Angela at the zoo. A family picture, herself and Gregory included, at a picnic on the beach. She turned a few pages, going back further in the photo history. Here were studio portraits of her mother and father. A snapshot of Ryan, her oldest brother, on his motorcycle. A picture of all four of them standing in front of the new house…how exciting that had been… Her grandfather, young and strong. She remembered him only as an old man in a wheelchair. On the opposite page was a picture of her grandmother, Geraldine. Grace had often been told she resembled her grandmother, and she was flattered to think so. Looking closely at the picture she could see it—level brows, firm lips, firmer chin…
Geraldine and her husband had once been, if not rich, quite well off. Then, just before the Great Depression, her grandfather had made bad speculations in the stock market and lost all their money. He had a stroke then, which put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Grandmother Geraldine, who had never worked a single day outside the home, suddenly became the sole support of an invalid husband and four children under twelve. She took in sewing as long as there was anything to sew, and washing as long as there was anything to wash. She picked apples and sold them, and when no one wanted apples she baked pies and fed her children.
Grace suddenly wanted to turn the page, but Grandmother’s eyes held her. Surely she only imagined the disapproval in them. You had children. I don’t have children. It’s different!
“Is it? You took a vow, for better or worse.”
But I’ve never had the better, only the worse! She managed to turn the page. There was another picture of Grandmother, standing beside her wheelchair-bound husband.
“Duty is an old-fashioned word. But when anger drops you, it may be all you have left.”
NO! That can’t happen. I won’t let it happen. But she felt the cooling, cleansing anger draining away.
She clutched it tightly, trying to shore it up with memories of Gregory’s past stupidities. The time he’d gotten them lost in the New Mexico desert and driven three hundred miles out of the way because he was too stubborn to believe the map or to ask directions. The time he’d gotten drunk at the McManus’s party and thrown up on their expensive carpet, and Mrs. McManus had assured her, with furious eyes and through clenched teeth, that it was nothing really. Grace certainly needn’t have it cleaned (she had, of course, and the stain hadn’t really come out, and they’d never been invited to the McManus house again). The time he’d driven carelessly through a red light and totaled the new car, and then she’d found out he hadn’t changed the insurance over. The time…
It was no use. The album dropped from Grace’s nerveless fingers. She fell back on the bed, her anger-fed strength gone. For a long while she just lay there, realizing her new-found freedom had never been anything but an illusion. Then another feeling, drab and bitter, stiffened her spine and lifted her up. She put the picture album back in the drawer and closed it gently. Grandmother, I don’t think I like this much—but I guess I’m you after all…
Heather said good by to her aunt, knowing her questions would never be answered, but that they weren’t important now. Grace carried her suitcases--much heavier this time—to the nearest bus stop and waited for the bus which would take her…home. Yes, home—to the life she’d almost escaped and the husband she’d bound herself to. Anger isn’t meant to last, she reflected. Duty is made of steel.
Grace lifted her chin to the world and smiled at it. In that moment she was Geraldine’s twin.