The Time Keepers

Chapter 65

CHAPTER 65

W HEN B ?O STILL HASN ’ T RETURNED HOME BY 10:00 P.M., D INH urges Anh to tell Sister Mary Alice.

“She will be sleeping,” Anh says nervously, but without any other options, Dinh and she rap on the sister’s door.

The first thing that Sister Mary Alice does is tighten the sash of her bathrobe and then head to her desk to find her address book. In precise delicate penmanship she has two numbers written under Grace and Tom Golden, their home number and the number for the Golden Hours. She gestures for Anh to come inside her room, and they call the store first, hoping that Jack will just pick up and tell them that B?o was only running a bit late.

But no one picks up at the store. So Sister Mary Alice calmly dials the Golden house.

“Grace, it’s Sister Mary Alice,” she begins slowly in a measured voice. “I’m sorry to be calling at this hour, but Anh is here with me, and she’s concerned B?o isn’t home yet. She glances at the clock on the wall. “Anh says he’s typically back home by eight on the nights he works at the store.”

She hears a rustle on the other end of the line. “And Jack didn’t answer the phone?” Grace inquires. “Tom says Jack usually works until ten or eleven some nights.”

“No, I tried there first, but no one picked up.”

“That’s very strange,” Grace says, her voice revealing her concern. “Tom says he’s going to head down to the store just to check. It’s not a problem.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’d go with him, but I have to head over to the high school to pick up Katie.”

Sister Mary Alice thanks them and hangs up the receiver. She turns to Anh and tells her that Tom is heading over to the Golden Hours. “Don’t worry,” she pats Anh’s hand gently. “He’ll be there in only a few minutes and I’m sure he’s going to tell us everything is okay.”

The Pontiac station wagon slowly pulls up to the entrance of Bellegrove High School, where strangely, Grace, doesn’t seem to see any of the students congregating. As she drives toward the back, where she expects there will be open parking spots, she sees a huge crowd of students and even some parents amassed by the rear wall. She parks the car, grabs her handbag, and gets out.

“Oh, heavens, has something happened?” She catches Leslie Francis and her daughter Caroline’s attention as they try to hurry to their car. Leslie’s face turns white.

“What is it?” Grace leans in, concerned that a child might have been hurt. But there are no ambulances or paramedics by the crowd. “Is everything okay, Leslie? I hope no one’s hurt.…”

Caroline is squirming next to her mother, her eyes unable to look up and meet Grace’s.

“Well, we should be going,” Leslie says quickly. “Good to see you, Grace.”

Caroline follows her mother’s lead and quickly heads in the direction of their car.

It is only when Grace is a few steps away from the crowd that her eyes land on the graffiti on the wall, where she sees her daughter’s name scrawled in white paint. And then, most painful, the horrible word connected to it.

She feels the weight of stares on her, but she pushes past the crowd that has congregated with voyeuristic curiosity on how she’ll react. But she doesn’t care. Her first instinct is to find Katie.

Linda Atkinson’s mother tells her she thinks Katie is inside. Grace sees Linda is standing with a bunch of other girls, but not with her daughter.

Inside the school, in a dimly lit corner, just outside the girls’ bathroom, Grace finds Katie with one of her old friends from elementary school, Rachel, who is rubbing her back and holding another tissue out to Katie to wipe away her tears.

Katie looks up. Her expression is raw with vulnerability. “Mom …” she sobs, her expression falling, her cheeks streaked red from crying. She rushes toward her mother and falls into her open arms. She is heaving, trying to catch her breath.

Grace holds Katie tightly to her chest, her nose buried into her hair, and tries to calm her.

“Let’s walk out the front entrance,” she says gently. “You can wait there, and I’ll get the car.”

Her daughter looks like a little girl to her again, one grateful for her protection. She hates to think that a hateful teenage prank could bring them closer. But when Katie squeezes her hand, as if beseeching her not to leave her, Grace tightens her grip around her daughter’s fingers, a silent language between them, letting her know that everything is going to be okay.