Suzanne Redfearn, Author of Hadley & Grace, interviews Hadley…and Grace

Suzanne Redfearn, author of Hadley & Grace, interviews Hadley…and Grace

Hello ladies, how does it feel to be infamous outlaws on the lam?

Hadley: I prefer to think of us as misunderstood opportunists.

Grace: (eyeroll) Speak for yourself. I’ve always been a fan of the great criminal masterminds of the world— Leonardo Notarbartolo, Anthony Curcio, Carl Gugasian.

Hadley: That’s what you’re calling yourself now? A great criminal mastermind?

Grace: We’re here, aren’t we? Close to a million dollars richer and not behind bars. That’s not nothing.

How would you explain your miraculous survival? 

Hadley: I can’t really. Each time I think about it, I’m stunned. Inches and seconds, that’s what it came down to each and every time, disaster diverted by a hair.

Grace: I don’t know. I think it was more than that. More like fate or destiny. My grandmother used to say, “The world works in mysterious ways,” and that’s certainly how it felt, like there was a divine hand guiding and protecting us.

What do your kids think about what happened? 

Hadley: Mattie, she’s my oldest, I think she’s mostly thankful. She was fifteen when we were on the run, old enough to know what was going on and to truly be scared by it. Skipper, he was only eight, and he sees things through a light-filtered lens, so I think if you asked him, he’d talk mostly about singing songs in the car and teaching Miles, who was just a baby, how to say, “ball.” He calls it our “road trip,” a nod to when baseball teams go on the road.

Grace: I don’t know what the kids think about it, but I know how I think about it in regard to them. Not a day passes when I don’t look at them and marvel how life turned out…then shiver when I think how it might have ended up had we not done what we did.

Hadley: (nod) That’s true. Like we hit the switch gear on the tracks a moment before our train went careening off a cliff.

Describe yourself in three adjectives:

Hadley: Oh, that’s hard. Let’s see…

Grace: (thumbs her hand at Hadley) Opinionated, annoying, loyal.

Hadley: (sticks her tongue out at Grace) Fine. And you are pigheaded, bossy, and the best person I know.

Grace: That’s not three words. That’s seven.

Hadley: Add condescending and a know-it-all.

What does your future hold?

Hadley: I hope more of what we have. All I ever wanted was to be a mom, and now I have four beautiful kids to look after and a home to take care of. I’m content.

Grace: Uh-uh. No way. Nice try. This one (she thumbs her hand at Hadley again) needs to find a man. There is far too much love inside her for it to be focused entirely on us. All that pent-up henpecking needs to be diffused, worn out on a good, solid, Y-chromosome, man. 

Hadley: Grace…

Grace: Nope. No argument. One of these days, Prince Charming is going to come galloping through our lovely little camp, and you, Hadley, are getting on that horse. 

Hadley: (eyeroll) Fine. Whatever.

Grace: Fine is right.

Thank you, ladies, for your time.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers