The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain Read Online Free Page B

The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain
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radio. Life will be noise with no sense. I can’t. If I say that then I’ll cry. So I don’t think about her standing at the door watching me close the gate. I paint out her face, the corners of her mouth pointing down, and her eyes, that look scared for the first time that I can remember.
    Mum is sitting at the kitchen table when I get there. Worry has dug trenches into her face.
    â€˜Mum, I’ll work for free at the nursery.’
    â€˜Gracie, I need someone responsible.’
    â€˜I will be, Mum.’ I hold out my hand to her and she takes it.
    Most people wouldn’t describe my mum as gentle. If you saw her in the supermarket, speeding down the aisle withthe shopping trolley, you’d definitely think, get out of that woman’s way, quick, like before she runs you over.
    But if you’ve ever seen her at the nursery, you’d say something else. There you’d see her touching the leaves of the agapanthus, looking for signs of disease. You’d see her putting her finger into the soil around a potted plant, testing to see if it’s thirsty. She touches me when I’m sick and I feel like one of her plants, her hands lightly checking my temperature. She’s slow and kind then, like now.
    â€˜We’ll see how it goes, Gracie,’ she says. ‘If the Championships mean that much to you, I’ll try to find a way.’
    I hug her.
    We rent a video tonight. I curl up on the couch with my head on Mum’s lap. I tell her about Jane and hear her reply echoing through her belly: ‘It will be all right.’ I move closer to her and squash the feeling that someone is nibbling slowly at the corners of my life.
    I wish Dad was here, watching horror films with Mum and me, three voices shouting at the woman about to be attacked, ‘He’s behind you!’ I know Dad wants to be here. I know he misses us like crazy too.
    Â 
BILL FALTRAIN
    I’m lost. Not in the geographical sense, I’ve always been good with maps. I’m in Bendigo, trying to convince a school librarian that she needs a set of Geological Explorer books to really make her resource centre the learning hub she’d like it to be. Kids will spend their lunchtimes in this room if only she has these books on the shelves. I look at her and think, I haven’t been home in months. I should walk out of here and drive. I should get on the freeway and go without stopping.
    In my mind Gracie is hugging me, yelling at me about soccer and boys and books. I can’t get on that road, though. I’m lost in my heart and that’s the worst kind of lost to be. I feel like a sailor at the turn of the century, moving across oceans and discovering new lands. I’m looking desperately at the horizon, searching for a point to fix my sights on. The sea seems to stretch out forever. The sky is dark; I know there’s going to be a wall of water, powered by winds, and it’s going to be unstoppable. I want to shelter Gracie. I want to protect her from the waves.
    How can I protect Gracie when I can’t even take care of myself? I look at her and I see the person I was, years ago. She has my smile; it’s a little crooked on one side. Her shoulders are the same shape as mine. But Gracie has a whole life ahead of her. Mine’s half over and I can’t work out what I want as the ending.
    I should go back to Gracie and Helen. There was a time when that was all I wanted. I kept leaving little pieces of myself whenever I went away, though, and less and less of me went back to them. I didn’t laugh as much with Gracie. I didn’t tell Helen what I was thinking anymore. It’s not like I’ve left all those pieces in the one place, either. They’re scattered and Ican’t remember where. I’m always looking for what will make me whole. What will make me happy?
    Somewhere along the way I started to think it wasn’t Helen anymore. She hasn’t changed. Her laugh
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