In the Image of Grace (26 page)

I stood unsteady on my feet as Reginald gripped my
sweater pulling me in towards his body. In my ear he said, “It will
just look like the two of you ran away together.”

Chills went down my spine. My stomach dropped as I
was told my fate.

I attempted to run, but since Reginald had such a
grip on me I didn’t get anywhere. He wrapped his arm around my
upper body and dragged me into the kitchen. My legs stopped
working. They didn’t want to lead me to my death. Reginald dragged
me to the corner of the kitchen where there was a wooden block
holding the steak knives. He pulled out the largest one. As he was
doing so I was reaching towards the spoon rest on the stove, the
only thing slightly in my reach. Out of the corner of my eye I
could see him grip his hand around the handle of a knife. That was
when I grabbed the porcelain spoon rest, bent my arm at the elbow
and smacked Reginald as hard as I could with it.

My assault caught him off guard. He made a grunting
noise as I heard the spoon rest crack against jaw. He loosened his
grip around my upper body some and I dropped myself to the linoleum
kitchen floor, crawled a few feet and got up to run.

I then felt a horrific pain rip itself all the way
from my shoulder to my lower back. I immediately dropped to my
knees. I tried to stand back up, but fell forward onto my hands. My
head was than violently whipped back by Reginald grabbing a fistful
of my hair.

He then let go and shoved me all the way to the
ground by way of stepping on my back causing pain to surge through
every ones of my limbs because he was standing on the wound he had
just given me. I clawed at the ground and tried to get away, but I
was very quickly losing the little bit of energy I had. Reginald
then drove the knife into my shoulder blade, preventing me from at
least using the one arm to crawl away. I screamed out of pain and
for help, hoping maybe one of the few that milled around out front
could hear. Reginald then had my hair again and started slamming my
head into the floor. It was like he didn’t want to kill me right
away. He wanted to torture me a bit before he actually did away
with me. I started to see black spots and thought I was going pass
out for a moment, but then I tried to focus all my energy. I had to
live. I had to let the world know what he did to our mother.

Despite the searing pain filling my body I somehow
climbed to my feet, spun around to face Reginald while he still had
a grip of my hair and kicked him in the gut, then kicked the hand
he was holding the knife in. The knife went flying and the look of
anger on his face went straight to hatred. He gritted his teeth and
growled. He lunged on top of me, knocking me flat to my back,
straddled my waist and started throttling me again. As I was about
to slip into unconsciousness I heard a loud cracking sound. All of
a sudden Reginald fell on top of me. I heard the cracking sound a
couple more times, then a loud metallic plink. Reginald’s body was
then rolled off of me. I started gasping for air trying to breathe
again. I felt a warm hand on my cheek and looked up to see Jeremy’s
face. It was dirty, streaked with blood and he was missing his
glasses again. I rolled onto my stomach. It felt so much better
than lying on my back.

“Careful,” Jeremy said kneeling next to me. I could
see his hands were trembling.

I turned my head to the left and saw Reginald lying
there. His eyes were open and looked at me, but it appeared that he
wasn’t really there. Jeremy gently placed his hand on my cheek
again. I laid there a while before I spoke. “I thought you were
dead,” I mumbled to Jeremy in a raspy voice that hurt my
throat.

“So did he, he was going to kill you.”

“Is he dead?”

“I think so,” Jeremy said.

“What did you hit him with?”

“Stop talking, just lay there and rest, but I did hit
him with the tire iron he hit me with.” Jeremy stopped talking for
a few seconds and then again said, “He was gonna kill you.”

“You saved my life yet again,” I stammered out in a
whisper.

Jeremy bent over and kissed me on the check. He
always seemed to know exactly what to say.

A large plate of strawberry pancakes was placed in
front of me on the table. It was topped with a ginormous dollop of
whipped cream and looked delicious. Everybody else’s food looked
equally delicious. Jeremy had an omelet stuffed with an incredible
amount of meat and Isabelle had French toast with peaches. The
restaurant was warm and inviting. The clink of coffee cups and
cutlery partnered with the smell of pancakes and fresh morning brew
was comforting.

Jeremy took a bite out of his food. “You’re right
this is pretty good.” He raised his fork with some chunk of meat on
it, his arm in a cast. The same arm he got shot in. When Reginald
attacked him he put up his arm in defense and Reginald whacked it
with the tire iron and broke it clear in half.

It had been some weeks since everything happened. We
were all still getting over our injuries, physical and
emotional.

Reginald died that night from blunt force trauma
brought on by being clobbered in the head three times with a tire
iron. His death saddened me in a way because he was the only person
we knew as a father, but I knew we would be able to go on and fully
live our lives. Our mother’s bones were properly removed and sent
for DNA testing and as I already knew, it was Grace Fernando. She
too died from blunt force trauma. I was happy we found our mother,
but it was bittersweet. Clarissa recovered just fine. The doctors
were surprised by her quick recovery. She was still getting some
needed rest that morning as we sat there eating our scrumptious
breakfast.

We went to stay with Helen and Robert. Once they
heard what had happened they graciously took us in. It was nice
having people that actually cared about us. The only drawback was
that I was hours away from Jeremy, but he came up on the weekend.
If he couldn’t get his mom’s car he just took the train. Helen and
Robert let him sleep on the couch, as long as there was no funny
business. That was how Robert phrased it. It made me smile.

Within the past couple of weeks I actually smiled a
few times. Things were still rough going, but life seemed to be
heading in the right direction. I no longer had the dreams. I heard
what Grace was telling me and she and Elizabeth helped us discover
the truth, they helped us find the answers through my dreams. We
still had so many questions. I was hoping they’d be answered in
time, but what I did know was somehow we were all connected, my
sisters, mother and I. We were our mother, but yet we were
ourselves. I figured I could live with that.

I looked over at Isabelle. A smile was across her
face and a cup of coffee in front of her on the table. She was
comparing notes on the food with Jeremy, so I switched my gaze to
out the window. I watched a group of high school kids leaving the
restaurant. They looked around our age. As they walked past the
window I noticed one girl in particular. She wore a navy coat, with
some jeans and Buck Baylor’s. Long shiny hair fell down her back
and played on the breeze. She laughed at what one of her friends
was saying. I watched her light step as she glided across the
parking lot. It seemed she felt my stare because she turned and
looked at me through the window. We locked eyes. My stomach
immediately dropped and checked itself out of my body. I was
staring into my eyes, into the eyes of Grace.

###

Some say Charlotte Ann Schlobohm is just a
fictional character, but that is not so. She is the author of this
young adult novel which is about events in her life. When she is
not writing, she enjoys hanging out with her sisters and seeing her
boyfriend's band play.

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