Brazen Virtue

considered Kathleen the stable one, the reliable one, while being able to smile and think of Grace as amusing. They’d enjoyed Grace’s creativity without being able to understand it. Kathleen, with her conventional marriage, her handsome husband and son, was easily understood.
    True, the divorce had shaken them, but they were parents, loving ones, and had been able to shift their beliefs enough to accept, while harboring the hope that in time their daughter would be reconciled with her family.
    Now they had to accept that it would never be. They had to face that their older daughter, the one they’d pinned their first hopes on, was dead. It was enough, Grace had decided. It was more than enough.
    So she didn’t mention the mood swings, the valium, or the resentment she’d discovered had been eating her sister from the inside out.
    “She was happy here, Gracie?” Louise McCabe sat huddled beside her husband and tore a Kleenex into small pieces.

    “Yes, Mom.” Grace wasn’t sure how many times she’d answered that question in the last hour, but continued to soothe. She’d never seen her mother look helpless. Throughout her life, Louise McCabe had been dominant, making decisions, executing them. And her father had always been there. He’d been the one to slip an extra five dollars into a waiting hand, or to clean up after the dog had had an accident on the rug.
    Looking at him now, she suddenly realized for the very first time that he’d aged. His hair was thinner than it had been when she’d been a girl. He was tanned from the hours he spent out-of-doors. His face was fuller. He was a man in the prime of his life, she thought, healthy, vigorous, but just now his shoulders were slumped, and the liveliness that had always been there was gone from his eyes.
    She wanted to hold these two people who had somehow made everything come out right for her. She wanted to turn back the clock for all of them so that they were young again, living in a pretty suburban home with a scruffy dog.
    “We wanted her to come to Phoenix for a while,” Louise continued, dabbing at her eyes with the ragged remains of the tissue. “Mitch talked to her. She always listened to her dad. But not this time. We were so happy when you came to visit her. All the trouble she’s been having. Poor little Kevin.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Poor, poor little Kevin.”
    “When can we see her, Gracie?”
    Grace squeezed her father’s hand, watching intently as he spoke. He looked around the room, trying, Grace believed, to absorb what was left of his older daughter. There was so little here, a few books, a pot of silk flowers. She held on to him, hoping he didn’t see how cold the room was.
    “Tonight maybe. I asked Father Donaldson to come by this afternoon. He’s from the old parish. Why don’t you come upstairs now, Mom, so you’ll be rested when he comes? You’ll feel better when you talk to him.”

    “Grace is right, Lou.” And he’d seen. Like Grace, he had an eye for detail. The only spot of life in the room was the jacket Grace had negligently tossed over a chair. He wanted to weep for that more than anything else, but couldn’t explain it. “Let me take you up.”
    She leaned heavily against her husband, a slim woman with dark hair and a strong back. As she watched them go, Grace realized that in grief they had shifted her to the head of the family. She could only hope that she had the strength to pull it off.
    Her mind was dull from weeping, cluttered with the arrangements she’d already made and those yet to be settled. She knew when the grief ebbed, her parents would have the comfort of their faith. For Grace, it was the first time she’d been slapped down with the knowledge that life wasn’t always a game to be played with a grin and a clever brain. Optimism wasn’t always a shield against the worst of it, and acceptance wasn’t always enough.
    She’d never had a full-power emotional blow before, not personally or professionally. She’d never considered that she’d led a charmed life and had never had patience with people who complained about what fate had handed them. People made their own luck. Hit a rough spot, coast for a while, then find the best way out, she’d always thought.
    When she’d decided to write, she’d sat down and done it. It was true she had natural talent and a fluid imagination and willingness to work, but she’d also had an innate determination that if she wanted something