"You ready for next week?" Kate asked, glancing at her passenger out of the corner of her eye as they drove home from the store.
"Yeah," Grace answered, confidently but unable to disguise the faint note of worry in her voice.
"High school's tough," Kate acknowledged, "but you'll do great. It won't take you long to settle in." And she meant it. Kate's observations of Grace over the past ten weeks had found the girl remarkably adaptable.
"What were you like in high school?" Grace asked, cleverly steering the conversation away from herself while at the same time sincerely curious.
"Pretty average, actually," Kate said. Suddenly she struck on what seemed an inspired idea. "Hey, why don't we look through some of my old yearbooks? You can laugh at my hair and everything."
Grace chuckled at that but agreed. Kate inwardly congratulated herself for thinking of such a great bonding experience. When they got home, Kate had Grace put the groceries away as she pulled out a box from where it had been buried in her closet.
"Come on, come on," she muttered, rifling through the box and tossing various memorabilia aside. She paused occasionally, smiling vaguely at the memories certain objects recalled.
"Find 'em?" a voice asked from behind her.
Kate jumped, upsetting the box and spilling its contents all over the floor of the closet – including four large books.
"I guess so," Grace commented wryly.
"You startled me," Kate explained, slightly embarrassed at her reaction.
"I can see that." Grace maintained her sarcastically-tinged tone, eyebrow raised in ironic superiority.
"Oh, be quiet," Kate groused, collecting the yearbooks and heading for the living room with Grace in tow.
They settled onto the couch, the first of the four books opened across Kate's lap. She quickly flipped past the first few title pages, stopping when she got to something interesting.
"That's my friend Ruthie," Kate laughed, pointing to a picture of a dark-complexioned girl making faces at the camera. "She was probably the most photographed kid at school. Always a cut-up, too." Kate was about to turn the page when Grace stopped her.
"Hey, is that…" She squinted closer at the brunette almost hiding behind Ruthie.
Kate groaned good-naturedly. "Yeah. I never did like having my picture taken."
They paged through the activity/student life pages, laughing at some of the photos as Kate indicated the people she knew. They giggled through the class pictures, Grace laughing hysterically at the hairstyles and Kate cringing at what had been the height of fashion. Kate's picture held particular fascination for Grace.
"Wow, you look…younger," she commented.
"Um, Grace, I hate to break it to you but I was younger," Kate replied with a smile and an attempt at imitating Grace's eyebrow action.
"Don't even try, Aunt Kate." Grace shook her head at Kate's effort, which had only resulted in her eyes bugging comically. "It's an O'Neill thing. And I know you were younger, thank you. I meant, you look…different. I don't know. Something about your eyes."
Kate looked into her own face – her open, smiling, honest face – and knew what Grace meant. There was an innocence there, a trust not yet broken. Wordlessly, Kate reached for the book dated two years later. Opening to the correct page, she showed Grace a very different picture. This Kate was hardened, scowling behind the smile she gave the camera. There was anger in her eyes, and fear. Clearly something had happened between her freshman and junior years and there were no prizes for guessing what.
"Aunt Kate," Grace spoke softly, "could I see a picture…" She trailed off, uncertain of how her request might be received.
Kate realized what she was asking, though, and nodded. "You deserve that much," she muttered bitterly.
Flipping a few pages in yet another book (her sophomore year, the year of the Incident), she located what Grace was looking for.
Grace leaned closer. She gazed into the smiling, dimpled face of a young blond boy. Brown eyes twinkled at her from under his curls, betraying no indication of the evil that lay beneath his friendly veneer. He looked every bit the proverbial boy-next-door, charming and attractive. She shuddered to think what he had done to Kate. She felt slightly nauseated as she realized that this cute, charismatic scum was the reason she existed.
"He's," Grace started, clearing the lump in her throat. "He's my…father."
It wasn't really a question and it wasn't really a statement. She seemed to be trying to come to terms with the fact in her own mind, as if maybe saying it out loud would make it easier to accept.
"No," Kate spat vehemently. "He's not. All he did was contribute a little DNA, and sperm doesn't entitle him to much. Ed O'Neill was your father, Grace."
Grace seemed to wrestle with herself for a moment before asking the question that had so far, though unuttered, defined their relationship.
"But who's my mother?"