Circle of grace, p.37
Circle of Grace, page 37
Claire finished speaking, and Tess stepped forward. For a moment she stood looking into her daughter’s eyes. The eulogy had moved her deeply, and her heart overflowed with love and pride. She offered up a wordless prayer of gratitude for her daughter’s gifts, and then, in a trembling voice, turned to the others and read an excerpt from Grace’s last will and testament:
Dear ones—all of you—you made life worth living again. You gave me hope and a vision for the future, however long or short that future will turn out to be….You have been the catalyst in a significant transformation, helping me come to peace with myself…. And now that my time has come, I trust that all of you will be able to celebrate with me a life that was not lost, but regained at the end, and a faith that enables me to move on to whatever awaits me with confidence and expectation.
Liz picked up the urn and opened it. One by one, each of them took a handful of Grace’s ashes and, with simple expressions of love and thanks, scattered them to the winds that blew over the Blue Ridge.
When the urn was empty, Lovey moved front and center. Clutched against her chest she held the battered, dog-eared journal that had passed from one hand to the next over the past thirty years.
“This journal,” Lovey said shakily, “was a kind of lifeline that bound us together—Grace and Tess and Liz and me. We didn’t always tell the truth, but in the end this journal, and our friendship, drew us back together. And now we bury it. Its job is done, and we’ve all agreed that we don’t need it anymore.”
Tess motioned to Liz. They joined Lovey, and three hands grasped the journal.
A little to one side stood a large slab of rock, wedged from its place and propped on end with a tire iron. Hal and Bo had dug out a small crevice beneath it, and into that shallow grave Tess and Lovey and Liz placed the ragged book.
After a moment of silence the three of them stepped back. Tess reached out and linked hands with Liz and Lovey in a semicircle around the stone.
“This journal will stay here forever,” she said, “as a monument to a friendship as strong as these mountains, and as enduring.”
They gazed at the circle journal, nested below the rock. And then, without warning, the bar slipped, the stone slab crashed into place over the book, and the tire iron skittered out from under the stone.
In unison they whooped and jumped back, doing a little improvisational dance as the iron bar flew past their feet. Lovey tripped and fell into Liz, who took Tess down, too—all of them in a heap of arms and legs.
Liz grinned. “Guess Grace is done with that journal once and for all.”
Lovey struggled to her feet and tried to brush the dirt and grass stains off her pants. “Seems like she’s still here. Something tells me she’d really be enjoying this.”
At that moment the sun pierced through the clouds, and a shaft of light streamed over them like a gilded waterfall. Lovey shook her fist at the sky. “Turn the spotlight off, will you—at least until I get the mud off my butt.”
Tess chuckled. “She’s here, all right. She’ll always be here.”
She flung one arm around Liz and the other around Lovey. And there on the mountaintop, overlooking the eternal peaks and valleys of the Blue Ridge, they embraced in a circle of sunlight and laughed until the tears came.
READER’S GUIDE
1. Circle of Grace is a novel about friendship, about the power of honesty and vulnerability. And yet absolute honesty is a rare commodity. How and why do we put up fronts and pretenses? Are those pretenses ever justifiable?
2. Although Grace’s lies are the most significant, in what ways and for what reasons does each of the women lie in the circle journal?
3. Each of the main characters experiences significant failure in her life. What are the results of those failures? What good ultimately comes out of the experience?
4. A recurring theme in Circle of Grace centers on the question: “What is truth?” How would you answer this question? Could you agree with the definition the girls came up with for their Philosophy class? How might you refine, focus, or extend their definition of truth?
5. Grace goes through a serious crisis of confidence when she comes to grips with the truth about her father, whom she adored. Why then does she fall for Michael Forrester, who is so much like her father, and why is she unable to see the similarities until it is too late? What is the significance of Grace’s recurring dreams?
6. When the girls first meet in college, they seem to be very different. What draws them together then? And what connects them after thirty years?
7. Tess endures a crushing blow with the failure of her first novel and quits writing for seven years. What is the revelation that turns her creative life around, and how does that vision of creativity reflect the restorations that take place in her friends’ lives as well?
8. When Grace finally reunites with her friends, she comes to believe that Tess’s daughter Claire is the little girl she once gave up for adoption. Why is this belief important to Grace? How does Claire become a catalyst for Grace’s ultimate acceptance of herself?
9. How does each of the main characters grow and change throughout the course of the story? Which of the women do you identify with the most, and why?
10. Who in your life has been a circle of grace for you?
Penelope Stokes holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance Literature. In 1985, after twelve years as an Associate Professor of writing and literature, she left the university classroom to pursue a career in freelance writing. She has published eleven novels, including the critically acclaimed The Blue Bottle Club and several works of nonfiction. She resides in Danbury, Connecticut.
Also by Penelope J. Stokes
Delta Belles
CIRCLE OF GRACE. Copyright © 2004 by Penelope J. Stokes. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All poetry contained herein is the original work of the author and may not be used without permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stokes, Penelope J.
Circle of grace / Penelope J. Stokes.
p. cm.
1. Female friendship—Fiction. 2. Women college students—Fiction. 3. Women—North Carolina—Fiction. 4. Asheville (N.C.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.T6219C57 2004
813'.54—dc22 2003070120
eISBN: 978-0-7679-2401-6
v3.0
Penelope J. Stokes, Circle of Grace
