After the Darkness

"Grace. My name is Grace."

For some reason, Cora Budds seemed to find this amusing. "Grace. Amazing Grace!" she cackled. "What you in for, Amazing Grace?"

"Um...fraud," Grace whispered. It still felt strange and embarrassing saying the word. "But it's a mistake. I'm innocent."

Cora laughed even harder. "Fraud, huh? You hear that, Karen? We got us an innocent con artist. We comin' up in the world!" Suddenly the smile died on Cora's lips. "Hey, wait a minute. Wha'd you say yo' name was again?"

"Grace."

"Grace who?"

For a minute Grace hesitated. Grace who? It was a good question. This whole situation was so unreal, it was as if her identity had already slipped away from her. Who am I? I don't know anymore. At last she said, "Brookstein. My name is Grace Brookstein. I - "

Grace didn't even have time to flinch. Cora's fist slammed into her face so hard, she heard her nose crack.

"Bitch!" Cora yelled. She hit Grace again. Blood gushed everywhere. Karen Willis continued reading her book as if nothing had happened.

"You the bitch that stole all that money!"

"No!" Grace spluttered. "I didn't - "

"My brother lost his job because o' you. All them old folks out on the streets while you and your old man were eatin' caviar? You oughta be ashamed of yo'self. I'm gonna make you wish you wuz never born, Grace Brookstein."

Grace clutched at her nose. Whimpering, she said, "Please. I didn't steal any money."

Cora Budds grabbed her by her orange prison shirt and yanked her to her feet. With one hand she slammed Grace's back against the wall, lifting her as easily as she would a rag doll. "Don't you speak! Don't you fucking speak to me, you rich white bitch." With each word, Cora banged Grace's skull against the wall, driving her point home. Warm blood seeped into Grace's newly short hair. She began to lose consciousness.

Karen Willis said in a bored voice, "Cool it, Cora. Denny'll hear you."

"You think I give a fuck?"

Sure enough, a few seconds later the cell door opened. Hannah Denzel, known to the inmates as "Denny" (among other things), was the most senior guard in A Wing. A short, dumpy white woman with beetle brows and an incipient mustache, she reveled in her authority and enjoyed making the prisoners' lives as miserable and degrading as possible. She surveyed the scene in front of her. Grace Brookstein lay slumped on the floor in a pool of blood. Cora Budds stood over her like King Kong with Fay Wray, only without the ape's tenderness. Grace was conscious but barely, mumbling something incoherent.

Denny said, "I want this mess cleaned up."

Cora Budds shrugged. "Tell her. It ain't my blood."

"Fine. She can do it. But make sure she does. I'll be back in an hour."

THAT NIGHT, GRACE LAY AWAKE, RIGID with fear, waiting for Cora Budds to fall asleep.

Earlier, she had mopped up her own blood, sluicing the floor on her hands and knees while Cora watched and Karen read her book. After an hour Denny returned, nodded a curt approval, and left Grace to her fate. Grace cowered on her bunk, waiting for Cora to launch another attack, but nothing happened. In a way, she wished it would. Nothing was worse than the waiting, the gut-twisting terror of anticipation. Finally, twenty minutes before lights-out, the cell door opened and Grace was summoned to the prison doctor. After a perfunctory cleanup she was given six stitches for the gash to her head and an ineffectual Band-Aid to help set her broken nose, then sent right back to Cora.

Grace pulled the blankets tightly around her. It had been a long time since she'd prayed, but she closed her eyes tight and opened her heart to the heavens.

Help me, God! Please help me. I'm surrounded by enemies. It's not just Cora. They all hate me, the other prisoners, the guards, Warden McIntosh, those people outside the courthouse. Even my own family has deserted me. I don't ask for myself, Lord. I don't care what happens to me anymore. But if I die, who will clear Lenny's name? Who will uncover the truth?

Grace tried to make sense of it all. But every time she found a piece of the puzzle, the other pieces drifted away from her.

Frank Hammond's voice. "Someone framed Lenny." But who, and why?

Why did Lenny make me a partner in Quorum and cut John out?

Where are the Quorum billions now?

The pain Cora's fist had inflicted was nothing compared with the pain of Grace's inner anguish. Being here, in this awful place, felt like a bad dream. But it wasn't. It was reality.

Maybe it was my life before that was the dream? Me and Lenny, our happiness, our friends, our life. Was it all a mirage? Was it all built on lies?

That was the greatest irony of all. Here Grace was branded a fraud and a liar. But it wasn't Grace who had lied. It was everyone else: her sisters, her friends, all the people who had eaten at her and Lenny's table, who had slapped them on the back during the good times, holding out their hands, vying with one another to pay homage to the king. Their affection, their loyalty, that was the lie. Where were those people now?

Gone, all of them. Scattered on the wind. Vanished into thin air, like the missing Quorum billions.

All except for John Merrivale.

Dear John.

GRACE WOKE UP SCREAMING. KAREN WILLIS clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Shhhh. You'll wake Cora."

Grace was shaking. Her bedsheets were drenched with sweat. She'd been having a nightmare. It started off as a beautiful dream. She was walking down the aisle on Nantucket, on Michael Gray's arm. Lenny was waiting at the altar with his back to her. John Merrivale was there, smiling, nervous. There were white roses everywhere. The choir was singing "Panus Angelicus." As Grace got closer to the altar, she became aware of a strange smell. Something chemical like...formaldehyde. Lenny turned around. Suddenly his face began to collapse, melting like a doll's head in an oven. His torso started to swell till it burst through his shirt, the skin ghostly white and goose-bumped. Then, limb by limb, the hideous corpse fell to pieces. Grace opened her mouth to scream but it was full of water. Great waves of seawater had flooded the church, sweeping away the wedding guests, destroying everything in their path, flowing into Grace's lungs, choking her. She was drowning! She couldn't breathe!

"You'll wake Cora."

It took a couple seconds for Grace to register that Karen was real.

"She gets mad when her sleep is disturbed. You wouldn't like Cora when she's mad."

After what had happened earlier, Karen's statement was so ridiculous Grace laughed. Then the laugh turned into a cry. Soon Grace was sobbing in Karen's arms, all the loss and terror and pain of the last six months flooding out of her body like pus from a lanced boil.

Finally Grace asked, "Why didn't you do something this afternoon?"

"Do something? About what?"

"About the attack! When Cora tried to kill me."

"Honey, that was nothing. If Cora'd tried to kill you, you'd be dead."

"But you didn't even move. You just sat there and let her assault me."

Karen sighed. "Let me ask you something, Grace. Do you want to survive in here?"

Grace thought about it. She wasn't sure. In the end she nodded. She had to survive. For Lenny.

"In that case, you better get one thing straight. Ain't no one gonna rescue you. Not me, not the guards, not your appeal lawyer, not your mama. No one. You are alone here, Grace. You gotta learn to rely on yourself."

Grace remembered her phone call to Honor.

When are you going to start taking responsibility? You're not Daddy's little princess anymore. You can't expect me and Connie to fix everything.