Instinctively Grace wanted to head to the library – Belle, the main woman in town that she went to, was almost always reachable there. Except right now she was in Golden Blends, the place Grace had just left and now refused to reenter. So Ruby was her next choice. She wheeled on her toes and set off at a full out run, going all of two steps before the first of her tears slipped down her cheek.
By the time she flew into Granny's Diner, she knew she was a sobbing wreck, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. She needed to talk to Ruby… and a place to hide! Only once she was inside with Ruby rounding the counter towards her, concern written all over her face, did Grace notice that at least four people had trailed her here and were about ten yards from coming into the diner.
"I can't talk to them," she choked out desperately to Ruby.
Still obviously wary and confused, Ruby nodded uncertainly, saying, "You can go sit in the washroom while I talk to them then. Ashley's already in there; tell her she can stay with you if you want her to."
No questions; just help the exact moment it was needed, and God bless Ruby for it. She nodded and darted into the washroom, not bothering to question any of it either. She made Ashley nearly hit the ceiling when she slammed the door closed behind her, leaning against the wooden surface and taking deep breaths with her eyes closed.
When she could gather enough breath, she whispered to herself, "Calm down, Grace."
"Sounds like a good idea," Ashley commented and Grace's eyes flew open as the woman asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
She didn't know Ashley, and even if she was a close friend of Ruby's, Grace didn't feel like divulging her suddenly even more tumultuous personal life to a near-stranger. But Ashley apparently had different ideas.
As she folded a white towel, Ashley raised an eyebrow and said, "Let me rephrase: what's wrong?"
Grace took a deep breath, releasing it slowly as she moved away from the door and the voices she could hear on the other side of it – Henry, Jefferson, Anastasia, and Will – towards Ashley and the basket of laundry she was folding. "Nothing so long as I can hide out for a second." And then came a not-so-subtle change in subject as she asked, "I thought you ran a mom's group or something instead of working here?"
"I do, but Granny's been a little short-staffed recently, so I volunteered to come back part-time until they can find a full-time waitress. Got any suggestions?"
Grace reached into the basket and picked up a towel – if she was going to be a refugee here then why not be a useful one? – as she answered, "No, sorry."
"Okay," Ashley eyed her again as she said, "In that case, let's talk about you. You're upset, and usually when you come around here looking this off-kilter that means you want – or at least need – to talk to someone. And, no," she added, seeing the dubious look on Grace's face. "You have to know better than to even think that Ruby would talk about what's confided in her by you or anyone else; I've just noticed the pattern."
There was a pause in which they both heard Jefferson raise his voice and Grace winced. Then Will chimed in with his two cents and finally… Anastasia's voice, loud and clear, "Well, maybe if you'd just let me talk to my own daughter!"
Ashley's entire expression changed, and Grace realized that somehow, some way, she knew. "Time for a new question." She pointed to the door, demanding, "Is that Anastasia Tremaine – ah, her surname may be 'Scarlet' now."
"You know her?"
"It's complicated."
"That seems to be the theme of the day!"
"She's your mother, right?"
"Apparently so."
"That's what I thought," Ashley nodded. "Well, it's what I always assumed anyway."
"How could you possibly know that?!"
"Like I said, it's complicated."
"Then somebody un-complicate something!"
Ashley winced away from the desperate pitch seeping into Grace's voice as she replied softly, "She's one of my step-sisters… Do you want me to go scope out the situation for you?"
Grace could feel another sob bubbling, but she didn't want to cry in front of this stranger, apparent step-aunt or not! "I… What's going on?!"
"I don't know, honey," Ashley said apologetically. "How can I help? Let me help."
Grace took a deep breath, forcing herself to pull it together and get her mind into gear. Someone had asked a question and she had to find an answer. Questions… Could Ashley answer the ones she had? "What went wrong in my parents' marriage; do you know?"
"They were too young and dumb to make it work, from what I heard," Ashley replied with a shake of her head. "Jefferson was twenty-one to Ana's thirteen and it didn't work. He didn't understand that she was still a child, that she wanted to go places, see things," she shrugged. "Live a life."
Grace guessed darkly, "And a baby got in the way of that, pushed her over the edge into leaving."
"I didn't say that," Ashley answered quickly – too quickly, Grace realized.
"Of course you didn't; no one would even if it is the truth."
"Looking back at it now, she was just a scared little girl who acted accordingly – too quickly, too rashly – and she paid for it too."
Grace swallowed, asking faintly, "When she came back to her mother… did she ever miss me?"
"I'm sure she did," Ashley replied, but Grace saw the look in her eye and guessed what it meant.
"She never even mentioned me, did she? Her," Grace winced. "Boyfriend or whatever he is didn't even know I existed."
Ashley was obviously scrambling to find a gentle way to answer the question as she replied, "Well, we weren't exactly close. She hated my father and I… didn't really have a good relationship with any of my step-family."
