Grace’s Story -An Excerpt

Grace Ann

In a farmhouse surrounded by acres of sweet corn on a warm summer’s day in late June, Grace Ann Chapman came into this world screaming.

Local paper birth announcements:

The community of Ridgeville Nebraska would like to welcome Grace Ann born June 22nd, 1974 to William and Martha Chapman. Congratulations on your healthy baby girl. 

Martha clipped out the announcement from the Daily Sun Newspaper and taped it into Grace’s baby book. 

William Chapman worked the land that had been handed down to him from his father. It was hard daily grueling work to keep the corn crops healthy and on schedule for harvest. He took pride in what his family had established over the past three generations of Chapman’s and did his best to keep it going. With the birth of his first child, Grace Ann he knew that there would need to be more children, he loved and adored his daughter but knew that a son would be needed to keep the farm in the Chapman name.

Grace Ann was a sweet helpful child that was always full of questions. Always asking why this or why that. When her brother William Joseph was born five years later, Grace became a little quieter, but still helped Martha clean and cook, just not asking as many questions. Two years later Grace’s youngest brother was born, Jonathan Michael was a loud baby he cried and screamed about everything. Grace tried to be helpful, but Jonathan’s constant crying wore on her, she stopped asking questions all together. 

Grace had a few classmates that she considered friends, although she wasn’t close to any of them. Shawna Wilson was a round faced, dark haired girl that talked all the time. She was what Grace called bossy, she was always directing how people should play. Grace and Shawna would walk to the general store after school and then over to Shawna’s house to play. On a particular spring afternoon after school they walked over to the general store as usual, Grace always had a few dollars from her allowance in her backpack, Shawna dared Grace to “Just take it,” Grace knew it was wrong to steal but she had a strange need to want to please Shawna. To fit in, to be accepted. So Grace did it. She slipped the Kit Kat into her jacket pocket and they walked out of the store.

The girls split the Kit Kat while they walked to Shawna’s house. It being Friday Grace was going to spend the night at Shawna’s, after having dinner with Shawna and her family Grace felt ill. She asked if she could call her dad and go home. Grace’s dad came and picked her up from Shawna’s house.

“So what’s wrong, why didn’t you want to stay the night at Shawna’s?” he asked as they drove home.

“If I tell you, will you promise not to tell mom?” William looked at his daughter, thinking this request over.

“Yes, it will be between me and you.”

“She made me steal a Kit Kat from the general store. I didn’t want to…but I couldn’t tell her no, I’m sorry dad.” Tears welled up in Grace’s eyes. The whole thing made her stomach hurt.

“Well, that is something, you know that even though it’s hard, you can’t let others, even friends, make you do things that you know are wrong.” 

“I know.” Grace dropped her chin to her chest and took a deep breath. A weight had been lifted, she now understood the concept of confession.

Grace’s first crush was on a boy in her class named Matt, she spent a lot of time daydreaming about running her fingers through his wavy brown hair, and wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Grace kept her fantasies to herself, playing scenes over and over in her mind. When she did find it within herself to talk to Matt he treated her as a friend, wanting to know if she thought that Tamera was ‘into him,’ her daydreams of Matt came to a quick end.

During the summer of Grace’s thirteenth year she met and spent a lot of time with Jenny Donovan and her older sister Rebecca; they had a lot to tell Grace about anatomy and sex. Grace found it enlightening, especially since her parents didn’t really go into detail about ‘the birds and the bees.` 

When Grace got her period for the first time her mother pulled out two books from way back when, one titled Where Babies Come From and the other one explaining the joys of your first menstrual cycle it was blue and had a rainbow with the figure of a girl dancing around on it. Grace read them and had a lightbulb moment, the biology of life made sense, she kinda wished her mom would have been able to just tell her. Jenny and Rebecca explained and sometimes demonstrated the how, where and what of sex.

Grace spent her time going to school, helping out around the house and working at the general store. She kept things simple, family, school, friends and work. Towards the end of her last year of high school things changed quickly. She started for a lack of a better word dating a ‘nice guy’ from school named James, he was cute, kind and ignited something within Grace. She couldn’t keep her hands off of him when they were together, his smell, his look, how she got butterflies in her stomach when he touched her. She loved it all, the anticipation of getting to see him, the adrenaline rush when he touched her, and ultimately the orgasms when he fucked her. 

She was hooked, and sex was the drug.

Once awakened sexually Grace had an inability to stay faithful. She enjoyed getting to know new people on a sexual level. She worked with a guy named Kyle and after many weeks of inappropriate flirting, she found herself with him in the back storeroom making out. Grace found that each person she was sexually involved with had something new and different to offer her.

When Grace turned twenty-one she made a decision, she would take the money that she had saved up from working at the general store and go see the world. One early morning in July of her twenty-first year she told her family goodbye, boarded a bus and left Ridgeville Nebraska.

Intertwined

Grace sat on the patio and lit a cigarette, she took a deep drag and exhaled. The first light of day had begun to show, it had been a long night. She looked down at her hands looking past the dirt and noticed that a few of her manicured nails were broken. 

I’ll have to trim them all down, she thought as she poured a glass of Jack and downed it.

She put out her cigarette and wandered back inside, she made her way up stairs shedding her clothes as she went, dropping them into the hamper next to the bathroom door. Finding her fingernail clippers she trimmed her broken nails.  

She stepped into the tub and turned on the water. Tears started to stream down her face as she slid down and sat in the corner, crying. 

“I’m so sorry, John.” She sobbed.

~ ~ ~ ~

Beep, beep, beep… Grace opened her eyes, the sunlight streaming through the window made her turn away. She got up and stumbled into the bathroom, catching her reflection in the mirror, dark circles under her eyes and a pale complexion, topped off with a frizzy mess of red hair. 

She splashed cold water on her face hoping it would wake her up. Grace slipped on a pair of dark jeans, a blue blouse, and grabbed a pair of tan flats as she headed downstairs to the kitchen. 

She poured herself a cup of coffee and pushed the blinking red button on the answering machine. “John it’s 9 am and you’re not here, where are you? Please call me.” His assistant Jenny said with a frantic tone in her voice.

Grace pushed the next button. “Hey John, it’s 4 pm on Monday and no one has heard from you since Friday. Let us know what’s up before we send a search party after you.” Mr. Renolds, John’s boss.  

Grace let out a sigh, as she pushed the delete all button.

~ ~ ~ ~ 

As she entered the garage and got into her car, she glanced over at John’s car. 

I’ll have to deal with that later, she thought to herself.

It was 10 am on Tuesday when Grace entered the downtown police station. 

“I need to file a missing person’s report.” She informed the front desk attendant.

The attendant handed her a form and told her to give as much detail as possible. Grace took a seat and filled out the form.

Missing John Summers age 45, 

height 6 ft, 

wt. 215 lbs, 

eyes brown, 

hair dark brown streaks of gray,

last seen Sunday April 27th.

Continued in Grace’s Story ebook available on Amazon and with Kindle Unlimited.