Stages of Grace - By Carey Heywood Page 0,25

make as much as I do, but he is able to pay half of our rent which makes me feel like I can save again. We never had joint accounts. That’s one thing my mother had been adamant about when we moved in together. She thought that was something we should wait to do until after we were married. While Jon was unemployed, it had not mattered much to me, but now that I am saving, I’m happy that Jon is not privy to the amount I’m able to put away.

We share cooking duties, flipping every other night and whoever doesn’t cook, cleans. I may use more pans than I need from time to time. I’m still angry. Even after all of this time and even though things are so much better, Jon has never really apologized to me. I hold on to the pain and the shame he made me feel almost as a method of protecting myself from caring for him again. I don’t think I will ever be able to put into words exactly how permanently he has hurt me. When he speaks to me, if he speaks to me, all I can hear is the roar of him not saying he is sorry.

To me, it’s a sign of weakness that he cannot admit what he did was wrong. As though not drawing any attention to it will make it like it had never happened. That he thinks I will somehow forget. That’s where he is wrong. I will never forget.

~*~

I am in the kitchen making dinner when Jon walks in one day from work. Jon checks our mail on the way home each day since he passes the bank of mailboxes on the other side of our building on his way back from the bus stop. I tense as he approaches me but then realize he is just handing me an envelope. Taking it from him, I see it is from the funeral home I had used for my parents. I am accustomed to receiving something from them, maybe quarterly, normally advertising specials on burial plots. Never too early to plan for the inevitable, I suppose. This envelope is different from all of the others, though. It is shaped liked a Hallmark card instead of the longer, thinner envelopes I received in the past.

Absentmindedly, I open the envelope and see that inside is another envelope addressed to me on behalf of the funeral home from a Kate Smith in Tampa, Florida. Smith was my mother's maiden name, but it is also such a common name it could be nothing. Curious, I turn the flame of the stovetop to simmer and sit at our small table before opening the card. Jon watches me, his brows furrowed. I shrug as I open the card, gasping as I read its contents. Jon sits next to me as I pause to look up at him with wide eyes before continuing to read.

"What is it?" he asks.

"Wait, let me finish."

I finish reading the card and immediately read it again. I drum my fingers across my lower lip as my eyes skim the page. Finally, I delicately set the card down next to me, looking up at Jon as I still drum my fingers across my lower lip. Incapable of speech, I push the card in his direction. I watch Jon's reaction to the card, seeing him look up to meet my eyes at the same place I had done the same.

"Are you going to call her?"

"I guess. I'm still just trying to wrap my brain around it."

"I'll finish dinner. Just take your time."

"You don’t have to." I move to stand but Jon shakes his head and goes to the kitchen.

I toy with the corner of the card, worrying it until the different layers of paper are exposed. The card is from my grandmother, my mother's mother. The grandmother I have spent my entire life thinking is dead. Her letter. Kate Smith. I practice saying that name in my mind. The letter from Kate Smith says that she had only learned of my parents’ deaths last year. She had attempted to locate me afterward without success when she had found their obituaries and from that was able to find the address of the funeral home. She sent the card with the hope that the funeral home would still have my contact information and would forward the card to me.

A grandmother. All this time I thought I was alone in the world. Why