She was what you’d call a handsome woman. Particular. Elegant. Grace was not the type to leave her house unbeautified. Hair forever coiffed in the style she’d had for the past thirty years. Timeless flattering suit skirts. A brooch pinned over her heart. Her mother taught her that once one finds a complimentary style, one must stick with it. She did not even own a pair of jeans. Slacks were to be worn under specific circumstances only. Grace thought of herself as enduring. Others saw her as tacky. But a woman approaching her seventies could not please everyone.
“This is such a lovely party, isn’t it, Henry?” She said to her husband. “Elizabeth’s a good hostess.”
Henry’s eldest daughter was in charge of Thanksgiving this year. They had been told not to bring anything. Simply to come and enjoy the food.
“Hmm,” Henry grunted and nodded. Grace refolded her hands in her lap, adjusting the sapphire of her engagement ring so it was in the middle of her finger. Her husband had not been particularly verbose that evening. Grace put it off as being uncomfortable after overeating. Then again, this was the first Thanksgiving after Marie’s death.
The party had moved from Elizabeth’s modest dining room and into the more spacious den. Grace was not fond of the color scheme. When Elizabeth and her husband, Joel, had moved in, Grace put together a binder of suggestions and gifted it to her stepdaughter. Elizabeth thanked her, but the advice was never used.
The house was crowded with over twenty people in attendance. Almost half were conveniently children. Grace liked children, and there was the old reoccurring sorrow she’d never had any of her own. Grace was not a woman to make a fuss. She’d married her first husband, William, right after college. No children followed, only William dropping dead from a heart attack at thirty-two.
A teen girl sat next to Grace, joining her in the quieter end of the room. Grace didn’t know her name, but from her hair and the shape of her jawline, she assumed she was one of Marie’s relatives. The girl started to eat Italian cookies from her plate.
“Did you enjoy the food?” asked Grace. She was making conversation. Sitting in silence wasn’t polite. She’d been raised to have manners.
Unlike the girl, who answered through a mouth full of crumbs. Grace thought about telling her how unladylike that was. But no one else had come over to talk with Grace. One must take one’s company as one can.
Henry’s son Ricky was speaking to his father. Grace believed parents should not have favorites, but as a stepmother she was allowed to. Ricky had been ten when Grace married Henry, young enough that she’d hoped he would’ve formed a son-like attachment to her. Such a sweet boy. She remembered the hand drawn Mother’s Day he’d given her, her first ever. I love you Aunt Grace. From Ricky. All the children called her Aunt Grace. The title had been Marie’s idea.
Grace brought up other topics with the girl, her travels, what did she plan for school. The girl answered her questions yet did not ask Grace any in return. She was not a woman who eavesdropped, but Grace tried to listen to what Henry and Ricky were talking about. She heard the name of a man Henry had worked with for years.
“Henry, did you say that Jack’s going to Florida?” Grace stretched her neck towards the conversation. Not to be intrusive or grotesque, to show she was really listening.
Henry raised a finger towards Grace. A request for silence. Ricky, her dear one, kept his face towards his father.
* * *
Grace walked to the kitchen. She had yet to talk to Elizabeth, to thank her for working so hard on dinner. Marie had always cooked Thanksgiving. From the turkey down to the famous strawberry cream cake. The cake’s absence was noticeable on the dessert table. No one had wanted to bake it, not without Marie’s hands to do so. Elizabeth had been good to step up. She’d been so close to her mother… Grace would offer to help wash the dishes. Protect her hands with the yellow rubber gloves and scrub, scrub, scrub.
Elizabeth was having an intense conversation with an older woman as they cleaned. With a jolt, Grace recognized it was Marie’s sister, Adaline. Grace hadn’t noticed her at the table. Why did Grace find her appearance so jarring? They’d never spoken a word to each other in twenty-five years. She didn’t matter. But Adaline knew things about Grace. She was Marie’s sister, her confidant. A woman who would know more about Grace than she ever would in return.
Grace was not a woman to dwell on the past. She cleared her throat.
“Do you need help with the dishes?”
Adaline glanced in Grace’s direction. Elizabeth kept washing.
“… she didn’t approve of the idea. But the plan was how we got through it,” said Elizabeth. The plate clinked into the drying rack.
Her aunt rubbed Elizabeth’s arm. “You have to do what you need to do.”
“Elizabeth,” said Grace. “The casserole was delicious.”
Elizabeth sprayed the sink.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” added Grace. She rolled her rings with a manicured nail.
“I think we’re all set,” said Adaline, the first time she’d spoken directly to Grace.
Elizabeth dried her hands. “Thanks for everything, Aunt Addie.”
* * *
This Thanksgiving had been an unusual one, Grace remarked as such to her husband on the drive home.
“Thanksgiving was Marie’s holiday,” said Henry.
It was true. Five months after she married Henry, Grace had Thanksgiving at Marie’s new house. Unusual, yes, to dine with your husband’s first wife. To have her serve you mashed potatoes. To eat together at the same table. Henry and Marie had wanted to be the divorced couple who stayed friends for their children’s sakes. Marie had even been the one to make Grace and Henry’s wedding go smoothly.
Grace knew she was lucky. Marie signed the divorce papers as soon as she could. Grace got to be a June bride for her second wedding. Henry’s child support and alimony payments were generous, perhaps a little too generous. Grace kept that opinion to herself. How would Henry have reacted if she said the checks seemed more like assuaging guilt than a kindness towards Marie?
The children were not disruptive before the ceremony. But once they were in the church… Henry was the groom, he had other responsibilities than to mind his brood. As the bride Grace was aware of everything. Harry had taken off his tie and couldn’t find it. Elizabeth, always the leader, sat quietly while her siblings misbehaved. Grace thought she and Harry should have known better. They were young adults then. Henry had found Abigail out smoking with her elder cousins in the parking lot. Jennifer whined like a much younger child that her shoes were too tight. Ricky crossed his arms and buried his chin in his chest. Grace was an understanding woman, but this was her wedding! A much nicer one than her first. Harry was his father’s best man. Her new stepdaughters, junior bridesmaids and the flower girl. And Ricky was to be the ring bearer. He had told Grace how excited he was.
Grace paced in the waiting room and picked at her veil.
“Could you please get your brothers and sisters to behave,” she had asked Elizabeth. The girls were a close little trio, and the bookending boys would follow their sisters. Grace was an only child. She had wanted a little sister once.
“I don’t think anything’s wrong,” said Elizabeth.
Someone, after all these years Grace still doesn’t know who, called Marie. She got the children into order. Marie was not dressed for church. Faded sunhat on her head. Her top showing off freckled shoulders. She still wore her apron, speckled with layers of paint. Ratty old sandals revealing her bare toes.
“I talked to the kids,” she had said. “Everything will be fine.”
Grace thanked her. She was an accommodating woman, the sort who could be friendly to her husband’s ex-wife. Harry found his tie. Elizabeth smiled. Abigail never smoked again. Jennifer’s shoes fit her properly. Ricky smiled as he carried the rings down the aisle.
Before she left, staying for the ceremony would’ve been too much, Grace watched Marie stroke Ricky’s head.
“Remember our agreement?” she had whispered to her son.
Grace thought of her wedding to Henry fondly. The ceremony marking the first moment she’d felt like a real partner to him. All the photos showed a happy new family. Besides, the only person to really dampen the day had been Grace’s father. Who before taking his daughter’s arm said he was glad her mother wasn’t here to see this.
* * *
Jennifer’s birthday was a week into December. Henry considered himself a lucky man since all his children ended up in the same area. Grace loved watching him play with his grandchildren. He would get on his hands and knees to play at their level, even if his arthritis flared up. Henry never missed a baptism, dance recital, game, or any chance to spend one on one time with them. He was the best Grampy. Like her stepchildren, the grandchildren called her Aunt Grace. She had hoped for a grandmotherly nickname when the first was born, but why change what has been perfectly fine for a decade at that point?
The party for Jennifer was small. Just parents, siblings, and in-laws. She and her husband had recently welcomed a surprise second child. Little Matthew was not quite four months. When the pregnancy was announced, Grace had shared her concern about Jennifer’s age. Would the child be healthy?
Jennifer scoffed. “I’m thirty-seven not forty-two.”
Everyone laughed. Forty-two. Grace had been at that age when she married Henry. Possible motherhood was fading away, but not completely gone then. There were a few hopeful weeks, then a return to regular monthly disappointment ‘til menopause. Jennifer just picked a random age. Grace’s stepdaughter had not meant the barb. She knew it in her heart.
Grandchildren were everywhere. The elder ones gathered around Henry, asking him for advice. They really listened to him, their eyes revealing only true interest. No pacifying an old man. Henry was so wise. Grace had been drawn to that from the start. The younger children ran wild, playing games Grace found indecipherable.
She was surrounded by familiar faces. Some she had been around for a quarter century. Harry. Elizabeth. Abigail. Jennifer. Their spouses. But where was Ricky? Grace decided to ask around.
She went to Harry first. Ricky followed him around like a puppy. Don’t all little boys worship their big brothers? Harry was tall, taller than his father. Grace needed to look up to speak to him.
“Harry, where’s your brother?”
Harry didn’t answer. “Cassie, don’t put that in your mouth!” He swooped down to pop a crayon away from his niece.
* * *
Abigail was pouring drinks at the minibar. Of the girls, Grace believed she was closest to her middle stepdaughter. Grace gave Abigail some practical lessons before she went off to college. It was unfortunate, but she was the plainest of her sisters. Her body was shaped with emphasis on the wrong parts. Grace had taken her shopping for graduation. Bought her clothes to flatter what she had.
“Learn to do your hair and face right, dear, and your figure won’t matter,” Grace had said at the tea house afterwards.
Abigail did wear the clothes. Grace had seen photos as proof. Yet not when she was around. And years later, she found the blouses and skirts in a pile for donation.
A cocktail shaker was between Abigail’s large hands. Grace wanted to give her rings, more than a wedding band, to make them daintier.
“I thought Ricky was coming to the party,” said Grace.
“Hey Dad,” said Abigail, as she poured into a stemmed glass. “I’ve got your martini.”
Grace wanted to tap Abigail on the shoulder, to make sure she had heard her. Grace had been raised to think that was impolite. Crass people touched each other to make a point. Instead, Grace waited patiently for Abigail to attend to her.
That moment never came.
* * *
Malcolm, Jennifers’s husband, brought Grace a cup of tea. He told her that Ricky was unable to attend his sister’s party due to work. He could not stay long to chat. He needed to change his baby’s diaper.
Grace was not a woman to mope. What was the point? Life changed whether you wanted it to or not. Her mother always said that regrets were a poison. Regret was not what bothered Grace, absence did. She thought through the haze of Marie’s final days and funeral. Grace did speak to her stepchildren, told them how she had lost her own mother, at a far younger age than all of them.
Jennifer announced she needed to go upstairs and let the baby nurse. Her older sisters guided her on each side. Sister-in-law Becky too. Malcolm’s mother was invited as well. Protectors and escorts. These women retreated into a collective privacy, as old and essential as Eve herself. One that Grace wasn’t invited to share.
Grace wouldn’t have gone. Not to feel the remnant envy of motherhood. Just to be asked would’ve been nice.
* * *
Before dessert, before Abigail brought out a shallow imitation of her mother’s strawberry cream cake, Grace had tried to spend time with the younger grandchildren. She would learn about their games, what television shows they watched, she wanted to be someone they loved.
She ended up overhearing Elizabeth’s daughter and Harry’s youngest son talking about her.
“She’s not really our aunt,” said Kaitlyn. She was exactly like her mother. An authority on all despite her position in the birth order. “She’s just the lady Grampy’s married to.”
“So she’s not Nana’s sister?” asked Steven.
Kaitlyn rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”
* * *
“Is there something going on with the children?” Grace asked Henry once they returned home. They were always the children, not his children, and definitely never our children.
Henry poured himself a nightcap. “They’re grieving their mother.”
“I know, but I thought they were acting strange.” Grace could have used a stronger word. They are acting difficult. Rude. Insulting. She declined, as Grace was not a woman to start a fight before bed.
Henry swirled the ice in his glass. “Don’t think on it, my dear.”
* * *
The next morning Grace called Ricky. It was a Saturday. He should be home. She left two voicemails, and she attempted to leave a third, but the tape ran out.
* * *
Grace felt a wave of loneliness. She wished for the first time since her marriage to Henry that she had more female friends. There were a few she exchanged Christmas cards with, but none she could call unexpectedly. Grace let her girlhood and college friends drift away. They hadn’t liked Henry. Never tried to understand their love story. I can’t believe you did that to another woman. Grace hadn’t started seeing Henry for sex. That would have been wrong. Low of her to do. It was love. Love was pure and good. Love overcame everything. And Grace was the love of Henry’s life. He had told her so himself.
Who else could she talk to? Her parents were dead, cousins far away by space and years. Maybe Marie had been her friend. Her only one. Not a usual friendship. They never went and spent time together on their own. Neither one bought the other any gifts for birthdays or Christmas. Yet the two had talked. More than just pleasantries. Longer than the polite minimum of time. Marie sent flowers and a kind note when Grace’s father passed away. When Marie was sick and none of the daughters were around, Grace did laundry for her. Folded, ironed, and put away. Wasn’t it meaningful? Wasn’t that real?
* * *
There had been Henry’s birthday dinner a month after Marie’s death. The five children treated their father to an evening out at Antonio’s in town. Grace disliked Antonio’s. The restaurant cooked her steak wrongly every time. All the dishes were oversaturated with butter. She’d get a salad, but it was a gamble if the greens would be wilted or not. It was a relief to let Henry enjoy his birthday without her.
He came home scarcely two hours later, storming in while Grace watched QVC. He muttered something under his breath. He stood by the bar cart and poured himself a drink.
“What happened?” Grace had asked.
Henry knocked back two whiskeys in quick successions.
“Henry!”
The glass shattered against the wallpaper. He had thrown it across his body dismissively. Whiskey drops rolled down to the floor. For the first time Grace was afraid of her husband.
She sat motionless on the sofa, hands clasped over her pounding heart. Henry had approached her then, slowly. He kneeled.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and kissed her hand like a supplicant.
“Would you please tell me what happened?”
He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “Nothing for you to worry about, my love.”
Grace did not ask again. She was not a woman who pried.
* * *
The cold shoulder continued. It was not just the girls or Harry and Ricky. All of Grace’s stepchildren decided to pretend she didn’t exist. How juvenile. They ignored her at church, at the grandsons’ basketball games. Grace had spoken and asked questions, and none of her stepchildren replied. No one met her gaze. The children moved around her like she was a piece of furniture. The five of them had closed ranks, only allowing their father inside.
Her husband seemed content to leave the relationship between his wife and children as is. Grace supposed inaction was easier for him. Henry only benefited from this status quo, and Grace was forced to acquiesce.
Well, she could play their game. Christmas was approaching. The occasion for another family dinner. Harry and his wife were hosting. Grace was not the sort of woman to be drastic. No screaming or crying, or worse, complaining to Henry outright. If she did, the stepchildren had their victory.
There was Marie’s famous strawberry cream cake. She was the only one who made it best, as she had created the recipe. Grace had eaten it many times over the years and knew what the cake was supposed to look like. Always covered in pink vanilla frosting with sliced strawberries in a circle on top. Three layers connected by cream cheese frosting. The cake itself was again vanilla, dyed pink by maraschino cherry juice. Grace was certain the recipe required a splash of liquor. Perhaps sherry?
Grace was an ingenious woman. She had cookbooks and a grocery store a short drive from the house. She could experiment. She’d always done well in chemistry at school. This cake was nothing and everything. The children could not ignore Grace taking from their mother. Again.
* * *
When Henry was out, Grace got to work. She’d bought an apron for the task. A nice one with pockets. Marie would have appreciated her practicality. Grace went through old family albums to find a picture of the strawberry cream cake. The frosting had to match. Fruit sliced correctly.
On the fourth try, Grace made her perfect cake.
* * *
The Christmas Eve dinner was what Grace expected it to be.
The grandchildren ate at various mismatching card tables set up in Harry’s living room. Different heights produced amusement over the placements of serving dishes. Holiday standards played on the radio, and the lights of the tree cast a colorful warm glow. To be festive, Grace wore a red skirt suit with a brooch depicting a miniature nativity scene pinned to the lapel.
The adults in the family were at the table in the kitchen. If Grace had planned the dinner, she would have put the grandchildren in there and let the adults dine in the living room. While the kitchen was spacious, the living room was far better. Harry and Becky told Henry that the kids needed more space than adults. How considerate of them.
As Grace anticipated, her stepchildren continued to deny her existence and her husband went along with this shunning. Grace had been placed between Jennifer’s husband Malcolm and Ricky. Malcolm decided to be polite and asked Grace if she wanted a scoop of stuffing, or if she needed salt for her brussels sprouts. Ricky talked over Grace, around and under her as well.
Where was the little boy she used to read to?
Grace was not a woman who sulked. She nibbled at her plate and drank a half glass of wine. The stepchildren’s behavior was not her concern. Not until just before dessert. The strawberry cream cake, freshly made without Henry noticing, was in a hat box under the tree.
Henry had asked what it was when they got into the car.
“A gift,” replied Grace.
In the box, the cake rested on a glass stand that had once belonged to Grace’s mother. A classic pearlescent white, perfect for a pink cake. Grace had done so well, all the ingredients were correct, and the liquor was a tablespoon of amaretto. This insult to their mother was unignorable. Harry, Elizabeth, Abigail, Jennifer, and Ricky, had to say something to Grace.
While she was frosting the cake, Grace sent out a promise to Marie that after tonight she would never make the strawberry cream cake again. The recipe belonged to her. Grace was merely borrowing it.
* * *
Grace did not wait for the transition between the main course and dessert. She needed them all to be seated for the maximum effect. So as second or third servings were being finished, Grace got up from the table, no one commented, and fetched her hat box. She placed it on the counter and took out the strawberry cream cake and the beautiful stand.
Grace inhaled deeply before she turned around. She would not be smug. The cake was not a punishment, but a conversation starter. The best sort. Strong and undeniable.
“Everyone, I’ve made a special cake for dessert tonight.”
The stepchildren did not respond. No heads turned. No eyebrows raised.
Grace cleared her throat, just loudly enough. “I’ve made the strawberry cream cake.” She lifted the stand to make the point.
“That’s very nice, Aunt Grace,” said Becky, sweet as a kindergarten teacher. “Why don’t you put it down and I’ll cut it for you.”
Grace tried to smile. Becky, her silly little stepdaughter-in-law, talking to her like she was a senile dotard.
“I don’t want to do that,” said Grace. “I want my stepchildren to see their mother’s cake.”
That should’ve been enough. Invoking Marie was transgressive. Now the other guests and Henry knew Grace was trying for their attention. The daughter and sons-in-law adjusted themselves in their chairs, finally uncomfortable, but silent. They must have agreed with their spouses on some level. The cake started to tremble in Grace’s hands. The stepchildren ate and conversed with each other without a care in the world. There was no woman standing with a cake in the kitchen. What stepmother? Henry glanced between his wife and his children, crunching ice in his mouth.
A feeling Grace didn’t believe she possessed grew and grew. Unknown and shocking, like growing a new limb. Why, anger was delightful! Her mother taught her a woman never shows irritability. But anger was clarifying. Anger burned away all the nonsense. Anger traveled from her chest, down her arms, and into her hands.
Now Grace was a woman who could scream.
She hurled the cake and stand onto the floor. The glass shattered spectacularly. Shards glued together by pink frosting and bits of an untouched cake laid in a wide splatter over the linoleum and Grace’s heels. The kitchen had taken a deep breath and would not let it out.
The stepchildren turned and looked at Grace, blankly. Silent stares that cut like glass.
“Ha,” said Elizabeth, only Elizabeth, and then she and her siblings went back to eating.
Grace blinked. The surety of her anger was gone. She stood as if she was naked. What had she done? She’d turned into a silly old woman. Had Elizabeth spoken at all? Grace looked at her hands. The cake. Her eyes followed the pink. She turned her art into a mess. Oh, her mother’s stand… Another heartbreak. Grace could put it back together. She was allowed to have that, right? Becky appeared in yellow gloves and started picking up, trash bag in hand. Please stop! It’s mine! Nothing came out when Grace opened her mouth.
Henry went to Grace and grabbed her wrists. She slipped out of her shoes as he pulled her up.
“For Christ sakes, Grace! What’s wrong with you? You’ve ruined your stockings!”
* * *
Rachel Bolton is a busy writer with more projects than she has time for. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Apex Magazine, Women Write About Comics, Strange Girls, and more. She lives in Massachusetts with her cat. Follow her on Twitter/X and BlueSky @RaeBolt. rachelmbolton.wordpress.com.
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