Finding Grace by Becky Citra Read Free Book Online

restaurant for lunch today. She wore her sunflower dress. He told her it will probably take a month to get the money. He’s going to contact Sun Life Insurance right away. He told Mom she should invest most of it (investing means that the money will grow even more!!), but Mom says we will spend some of it on treats.
    I get to join the swim team!

    Your best friend,
    Hope

    P.S. Guess what happened this afternoon. The doorbell rang and it was a boy from the florist shop with an enormous bouquet of pink flowers!! Mom says they’re carnations and that Mr. Pinn sent them because he feels bad about Granny. No one has EVER sent us flowers before!

    P.P.S. I wonder if eleven is too old to keep writing to an imaginary friend.

    Oh heck! Who cares?

Chapter Fourteen
    I’ve opened all the windows in the apartment and a fresh breeze is blowing in. Is it disloyal to want to blow all the stale cigarette smell out of the curtains and rugs? It’s not like I’m trying to get rid of Granny. She’s been gone for exactly forty-two days now and that’s a fact, and even though I still miss her tons, it doesn’t hurt quite as bad.
    I’m by myself because Mom has gone to Queen Elizabeth Park. I refused to go (it’s about time I took a stand). Music from the ice-cream man’s truck drifts up from the street. I dig six cents out of the jug in the kitchen and run out of the apartment and down the two flights of stairs. The ice-cream man knows me and hands me a lime Popsicle without me saying a word.
    I’ve had a lime Popsicle every day for three weeks now. I don’t think I will ever get sick of lime Popsicles! I sit in the sun on the steps outside the apartment building and lick it slowly.
    Summer is going by way too fast. One more week and July will be over. I get this knot in my stomach when I think about school starting again, so I think about the swim team instead. We practice every morning from six-thirty until nine o’clock. At first it was torture to get up so early, but now I kind of like it. I’m the only passenger on the bus at six o’clock and the driver and I have gotten quite friendly. When he sees me, he always says, “The early bird catches the worm,” which makes me think of Granny.
    Green lime juice is running down my arm. My Popsicle is collapsing and I finish it off in a couple of bites. I watch the postman. He’s swinging along the sidewalk toward me, whistling.
    I wait outside while he fills the silver boxes in the downstairs hall in our building.
    â€œSee you, squirt,” he says, bounding past me down the steps.
    Our old box belongs to someone else now and our mail is forwarded to Granny’s box. We hardly ever get anything, but I go upstairs and get the key and then come back down to check.
    Today there is something – a big square white envelope. It feels stiff, like there might be cardboard inside. It’s addressed to Granny and there’s no return address. I take it up to our apartment and put it on the kitchen table and stare at it. Up until now, when mail comes for Granny, Mom opens it. But I’m curious.
    I tear back the flap at the top of the envelope and slide out a photograph. It’s of a girl, about my age. It’s not the kind of picture you take quickly. Instead, it looks like she was posing for it. The girl is sitting on a chair and there’s a blue background, like a fake sky with painted clouds, behind her. She’s all dressed up in a navy dress with a white collar and white buttons down the front and she has curly brown hair and blue eyes.
    Who is she?
    I turn the photograph over.
    On the back someone has written in flowing handwriting

    Grace
    June 23, 1954

    Grace!
    June 23! My birthday!
    I feel like I have been punched in the stomach. I sink into a chair.
    Who is she?
    I turn the photograph over and study her face again. I have never seen her before in my life. Why did she have her picture taken on my