At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories) - By Barbara Bretton Page 0,31

Island, sneaking down to Portland, getting wasted at work when his father wasn't looking. They could talk all they wanted to because it didn't matter to Gracie. She knew the real Noah.

"Sit down, missy," Gramma Del said one evening in mid-July when Gracie was particularly eager to run to Noah's arms. "You eat so fast you'll make yourself sick."

"Sorry," Gracie said, chastened. She tried not to glance over at the anniversary clock on the credenza. "I'm starving!"

Gracie ate dinner every night with Gramma Del unless Doctor Jim kept her late at the animal hospital. Gramma Del was in frail health but her spirit was as strong as ever. She kept busy knitting scarves and mittens for the church's winter carnival and playing cards with her friends, women she'd grown up with right there in Idle Point more than eighty years ago. Del's friends took good care of her. They even kept a close eye on Gracie, much to her chagrin. Suddenly Gracie's blameless life had become a crazy quilt of white lies and half-truths. She hated sneaking around but if that was the only way she could be with Noah, then that was what she'd do.

At least she didn't have to worry about what Ben thought. Her father and his wife du jour were working for a shipbuilding firm up near Calais on the Canadian border. He'd been good about sending home money each month, which meant he wasn't drinking at the moment. Gracie was learning not to expect too much of her father. Gone were the days when she would bring home bouquets of A's and academic awards and wait, almost dancing with excitement, for her father to suddenly realize what a gem of a daughter he had. Of course that never happened. Ben remained as remote from Gracie as he ever had, but at least now it didn't hurt quite as much as it used to.

She was finally coming to terms with the fact that she would never have the happy family of her dreams. "You're not responsible for your dad's failings," her high school guidance counselor had said to her last year when Ben didn't drive down to see Gracie awarded with the New England Merit Students Award of Excellence. "Don't waste your time trying to straighten up his life; spend your time learning how to live yours to the fullest. Perfection isn't possible, Gracie, but excellence is."

She thought of those words every time she found herself envying someone for the things she didn't have. Sometimes it even helped.

"Marie outdid herself with this casserole," Gramma said, reaching for the salt.

"It tastes just like yours," Gracie pointed out. She pushed the salt just out of reach.

"That's because she finally followed my recipe." Gramma Del knew she was the best cook in Idle Point and she wasn't above reminding people every chance she got. "I don't know what took that woman so long."

They both laughed at Sam the Cat who meowed for her own serving of mac and cheese.

Gracie cherished her time with her grandmother. Maybe she didn't have a normal family, but no girl had ever had a better protector than Gramma Del. For as long as she could remember, Del had been the one person she could count on. Gramma Del was the one who'd taken Gracie with her to an AlAnon meeting in the church basement a few years ago, where Gracie began to learn that she wasn't to blame for her father's unhappiness or his drinking or his string of bad marriages. Del had put aside her pride and sat there with her granddaughter even though that kind of public display went against everything she believed in. Gracie doubted she could ever repay her grandmother for that gift.

If only she could tell Gramma Del about Noah. That would make life almost perfect. There were times when she thought she would die if she couldn't share her happiness with someone. She knew she couldn't tell her father. The memory of the night of the kindergarten Christmas play was still too vivid for her to be able to pretend he would understand. She would never forget the look of surprise, then resignation, on Mrs. Chase's face when Daddy threw the sweater at her.

Whatever bad blood there was between him and the Chases, it still ran deep and hot. She'd asked him once, a few years ago, about that night but he'd looked at her with a blank expression on his face and said, "Graciela, I don't know