Tending to Grace Read Free

plate with my thumb as she pulls a wheel of cheese from the refrigerator and cuts a pie-shaped slice and hands it to me. I slather the bread with a quarter inch of the sticky spread. I close my eyes and bite.
    Yeast and whole wheat flour mingle in my mouth with something sweet, heavy, and slightly bitter—not honey, but pretty good. The old woman looks over at me.
    â€œMolasses,” she says. “Ever had it before?”
    I shake my head.
    â€œOnly one way to eat homemade bread—smothered in molasses.” She dips her finger in the jar and scoops out a lump of molasses and plunks it in her mouth.
    I check the cheese for mold and place a sliver on my tongue. A sharp, dry taste fills my mouth, much better than Velveeta.
    She pours two cups of tea and sits one down beside me. She slurps at hers like a child eating soup. I watch her and then, daring myself, take a slow sip. The tea tastes the way it smells, very close to root beer.
    â€œThat’s sassafras,” she says. “It’s good for you.”
    It’s not coffee, though, I think. Agatha stops talking and we eat in silence. As dusk comes and the temperature drops, she drags two rocking chairs over to the fireplace and lights a fire. She sits down and watches the flames. I think about my mother and try to rock my anger out.

15
    She has no toilet.
    How can anyone have no toilet? Is it legal to have no toilet?
    â€œI turned the pipes off,” Agatha says. “I can’t afford no plumber.”
    In the backyard, behind a chicken coop with several clucking chickens, sits an outhouse surrounded by a thicket of weedy lilacs. It has a plank door and a window that faces east. It tips to the left.
    â€œThis is my old girl, Esther. She’s near a hundred, you know. Imagine her tippin’ over with me sittin’ inside. Now that would be a sight, wouldn’t it? So I treat her real nice, give her a name and everything, so she holds herself up proper.”
    She laughs at the way I’m looking at her. “Never used an outhouse before?”
    I shake my head.
    â€œThe only problem is late at night when it’s real cold and you want to get out there and back in bed real quick. Other than that, it’s pretty good. Lots of fresh air, anyway.”
    I can’t imagine why anyone would want a window in an outhouse. Anyone could peek in. And worse, I see as soon as Agatha opens the door, are the two seats, side by side. Who would want company in there?
    At least she has a roll of toilet paper on the wall. It sits under a narrow strip of golden flypaper, nearly covered with a pepper shaking of dead flies.

16
    As night falls, something cries out from under the refrigerator.
    â€œDon’t be worryin’ none,” she says when I jump up from my rocking chair. “That be the cricket. Keep you up at night, I ’spect, if you’re not used to hearin’ critters.”
    She walks over to the refrigerator and kneels down. “I ain’t figured how it knows when it’s dark. Crickets chirp at night. It must be dark all the time under that icebox, but he knows just when night comes because that’s when he starts singin’ for me. Quite amazin’, if you ask me.”
    She laughs and stands up and refills our tea.
    â€œAny c-c-coffee?” I ask.
    â€œNever drink the stuff,” she says, sitting back in the rocker. I bring my tea back to my chair and listen to the cricket and the sounds of our rocking.
    Mostly, I want my mother. I want to run after the boyfriend’s car and tell her I’d be no trouble in Vegas, no trouble at all. The boyfriend wouldn’t even know I was there. I picture myself running after them. I’m so close, I’m reaching out to my mother. But she is looking away.

17
    Agatha hoists the window open in the tiny room that is to be my bedroom. A hole stretches across a quarter of the screen.
    A full moon rises and I can see a slight outline of the mountain