by Donna Hill
What Zoie had culled together was crazy, but in the back of his head he could see how easily it could be true. From what he knew of the Maitlands, they set themselves up as above reproach. They were revered in the community and always had been, and became even more beloved after the untimely death of their son. There had never been a hint of scandal connected with the Maitland name.
Now Zoie had her teeth sunk into this story, and he knew that she wouldn’t let go until her appetite for the truth was satisfied.
* * *
Zoie took her mother to her bedroom, sat her down, and then went to take the box of her grandmother’s journals and letters from the shelf in her closet.
“What the hell were you talking about out there? I need you to tell me right now what’s going on, Zoie!” her mother demanded.
“I will. I will. There are some things that I want you to see. Then we can talk.”
“Talk now!”
Her mother was visibly shaking.
She pressed her hand to her mother’s shoulder. “Mama, please,” Zoie said, trying to soothe her. “I’ll explain everything.”
Zoie opened the box and placed the journals on the small round table.
“What is all this?”
“Nana’s journals.” She took out the letters and placed them on the table as well.
The nerves in Rose’s face fluttered. She reared back in the chair. “Where did you get these?”
“In the attic. They were in a trunk tucked away behind some boxes.”
“You ain’t had no business going through Mama’s things.”
“I had every right when she left everything to me. I wasn’t looking for them. I was looking for anything to help me with the business.”
“So . . . what’s in them to make you say such crazy things?”
She’d marked the pages that were important and flipped to them in each of the journals. “Read them for yourself, Mama,” she said gently.
Rose huffed and with reluctance pulled one of the journals toward her. She cast Zoie a doubtful look, then began to read.
Zoie sat with clenched fists and listened to her own heart thudding in her chest as she watched her mother’s expression shift from outright denial, to confusion, pain, fear, and acceptance. Her mother’s sharp gasp confirmed to Zoie that what she suspected was indeed true.
Rose pressed her fingers to her chest as if to contain the flood of emotions that ran through her. Her breathing stopped and started as her eyes moved over the words her mother had written long ago.
Zoie couldn’t begin to imagine what her mother must be thinking and feeling. The enormity of the lie spanned decades, and her grandmother was complicit in its execution. That part she was still trying to wrap her mind around. This conspiracy between Nana and the Maitlands was inconceivable to Zoie—no matter what the circumstances were. And the fact that her grandmother, whom she adored, had been part of it tore away pieces of Zoie’s heart.
Tears slid from Rose’s eyes, even as her lips remained tightly sealed. Finally, she folded the last letter and slid it back into its envelope. She wouldn’t look at her daughter. Without a word, she got up.
“Mama . . .”
She brushed by Zoie and walked to the door.
“Mama . . . We need to talk.”
Rose turned, and the pain and disillusionment that haunted her eyes and weighed down her shoulders pushed back against Zoie with such force that she gasped for air.
“No. We don’t,” she said simply. She closed the door quietly behind her.
* * *
After a day filled with meetings and phone calls, Kimberly had never been more grateful to be home. There was a press conference scheduled for the morning, and Gail had set up a time with the local television station for her to do a public service announcement. She’d spent several hours fine-tuning what her message would be and several more reviewing a pro-bono case that she’d taken on. To say that she was exhausted would be an understatement. But the sound of her daughters’ welcoming voices gave her the shot of adrenalin that she needed.
At twelve, Alexis and Alexandra were on the cusps of teen-hood. One minute they were little girls who couldn’t find their favorite socks or finish their homework without her help or refused to go to sleep unless she sat on their beds and listened to every minute of their day. At other times, they were aloof and self-contained, and insisted that whatever it was, they could do it themselves, and why did she have to treat them like babies all the time?
Alexis, three minutes older than her sister, was the most outspoken and spontaneous of the two. Alexandra was the thinker and often had to rein in her sister’s ideas for pranks, which were many.
Together they were her heartbeats, and she would move heaven and earth to keep them safe and happy.
“Evening, Mrs. Graham,” Farrah said. “Dinner is in the warmer. Homework is finished.” She smiled at each girl in turn. “So I’m going to head home.”
“Thanks so much, Farrah.”
“Oh, Mr. Graham said he should be home by nine. Meeting.”
“Thanks.”
“Night, girls. See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Farrah,” they said.
She waved good night and let herself out.
The moment the door closed, Alexis announced with wicked glee, “Mom! Sandi has a boyfriend.”
“Oh, God, I hate you. Mommm!”
Alexis giggled.
“What did I tell you about ratting out your sister, Lexi,” Kimberly teased. She cast loving eyes on her mortified child. “Is he cute?”
Alexandra beamed. “Yes.” She stuck her tongue out at her sister.
“Oh, big deal,” Alexis said. “He has zits.”
“Does not!”
“Does too.”
“Girls! Can I at least get in the door and take off my shoes before we have a war of words? Please.”
“Sorry,” they harmonized.
“Thank you.”
They trailed behind her to her bedroom and plopped down on the area rug while she got out of her work clothes and changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt.
“How was your day?” she asked.
Miraculously, they were back on friendly territory and took turns talking about their day. Their change in attitude had as much to do with their raging hormones as it did with the house rule of no arguing in bedrooms. Bedrooms were safety zones, off-limits to feuding and arguments, and it was a rule that Kimberly and Rowan would not allow to be broken.
“Okay, let’s eat.”
“We’re not going to wait for Daddy?” Alexandra asked.
“Daddy has to work late. By the time he gets in, you two will be fast asleep.”
“Is he still working with the rescuers?” Alexis wanted to know.
“Yes. His company is helping to fix a lot of the equipment that was damaged.”
“But what if more buildings fall?” Alexandra said, the anxiety clear in her voice.
“That’s not going to happen, sweetheart.”
Both she and Rowan had spent days talking with their daughters about the tragedy of the World Trade Center. She wanted to shield them from the horror of what happened. Rowan believed that they needed to understand, as much as possible, what had happened to remove their fear rather than increase it. They met on middle ground, giving the girls the basics without going into depth about what had happened.
Kimberly still experienced nightmares about that day. She could have lost her husband. For more than a day she thought she had, and any time Rowan was late or unreachable, she had flashbacks to that horrific morning.
Rowan’s company InnerVision Technologies, had secured a contract to overhaul the computer routing systems for the Hanover Corporation, whose offices occupied the eighty-eighth to the ninety-first floors of Tower Two. He and his team were working in the building when it was hit.
Kimberly was in her Midtown Manhattan office, reviewing a case, when frantic shouts filled the corridor. Panicked, she ran out of her
office and collided with Felicia, one of the legal assistants.
“What’s happening?”
Tears filled Felicia’s eyes. “My God, the World Trade Center . . .”
Kimberly’s breath caught. “What? What happened?”
“They were just hit by airplanes!”
“What!”
Staff ran past them toward the conference room. Kimberly ran down the hallway, and when she got to the packed room, her colleagues stood frozen in fear and disbelief as they stared at the television screen.
The images were unreal. Smoke, plumes of white dust, running and screaming people, fire and police tore through the decimated streets in what looked like a war zone. The television reporter tried to maintain his composure even as explosions and fire engines screamed in the background.
He reported that two airplanes had stuck Towers One and Two in what was deemed a terrorist attack. And then the unthinkable happened. Tower One collapsed, as if it had imploded.
A gasp of horror reverberated in the packed room. The reporter became covered in soot and ash, and the screams from those on the ground swelled to a roar of sound.
Kimberly ran from the room back to her office to retrieve her cell phone. Her hands shook as she hit the speed dial for her husband, only to get an automated message stating that all circuits were busy. She tried repeatedly for more than an hour, alternating between attempting to reach her husband and Farrah as the chaos in Lower Manhattan grew. Then reports came in that the Pentagon was hit and another passenger plane had gone down in Pennsylvania.
She managed to drive home, using pure instinct as her guide because her mind was on finding her children and husband. The twenty-minute drive took more than two agonizing hours, and she literally collapsed in relief when she burst through the doors of her condo and found Farrah and her children. She hugged her daughters for so long that they finally wiggled away.
“Any word from Mr. Graham?” Farrah mouthed over the tops of the twins’ heads.
Kimberly shook her head no.
As the hours ticked by with no word from Rowan and the devastating news from the site grew more grim, Kimberly’s fears of the worst escalated. The girls constantly asking for their father only made the interminable wait that much more unbearable.
At some point, pure exhaustion kicked in, and she passed out on the couch with her daughters. Her cell phone finally rang at about three in the morning, jerking her awake.
The call was from a nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital. Rowan had been admitted. He was stable but had suffered a mild concussion and would be discharged later in the day.
For weeks after, they clung to each other more than ever, bound together in ways that they hadn’t experienced before. The tragic event brought them closer as a couple and a family.
It was also how Kimberly first became aware of Zoie Crawford. She religiously followed Zoie’s in-depth series on the attack on the Towers that infamously became dubbed 9/11, which was why she was surprised to open the paper one day and see someone else’s byline. Not long after, she understood why. The very thorough and tenacious reporter had been assigned to her.
When she heard the keys in the front door, the tension that stiffened her limbs and pounded in her temples eased, and she took a deep breath for what felt like the first time in hours. She got up from the couch and met Rowan before he had a chance to shut the door. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest.
“What is it, babe?”
She shook her head and held on tighter. “Just glad you’re home,” she said on a shaky breath.
Rowan took a step back and held her at arm’s length. He dipped his head. “Look at me, babe.”
Hesitantly, she lifted her gaze.
“Another episode,” he asked softly.
“Not quite. Just feeling . . . I don’t know—vulnerable, I guess. Momentary panic attack when I heard you’d be late. Silly.”
“Kim.” He looped his arm around her waist, and they walked together inside. “I went to see someone after . . . It helped. It really did. It’s been months now, and you’re still struggling with this. You need to talk to somebody.”
They sat down on the couch. Kim curled into the sanctuary of her husband’s body. “I can’t. Not now. Not in the middle of running for office. With all that we have going on, the last thing the people want is someone they think is unstable. I mean, let’s be for real, I wasn’t even there.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic. Shit like this hits people in different ways.”
“I know. I know. I promise that as soon as this campaign is over, I’ll see someone.” She lifted her face to him. “In the meantime, just keep coming home for dinner.”
Kimberly closed her eyes and listened to the soothing, steady heartbeat of her husband. As long as she had Rowan and her children, everything would be fine.
CHAPTER 19
For more than an hour, Zoie drove through the streets of her neighborhood, looking for her mother. After Rose left Zoie’s room, she’d gotten into her car and taken off. It was getting dark, and even though Zoie had grown up on these streets, they seemed suddenly unfamiliar, and she found herself driving in circles. Finally, she pulled over at a curb, took out her phone, and dialed the one other person she knew—Jackson.
“Z, what’s up?”
“I can’t find my mother . . .”
Twenty minutes later, Jackson pulled up behind Zoie’s car and got out. She opened her passenger door, and he got in.
Zoie wiped away tears. “Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. Tell me what happened.”
Zoie sniffed and told him what she’d revealed to her mother. “She just left. Wouldn’t talk to me.”
For several moments, Jackson remained silent.
“Say something.”
Jackson blew out a breath. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but how did you think she was going to react? Of course, she was upset. Wouldn’t you be? All these years, she thought the child she gave birth to was dead, only to find out that her own mother was involved in the cover-up.”
“I get that, but we were all duped. Don’t you think it messed me up, too? My grandmother? This is the woman that I trusted, adored. Why would she do something like that?”
“You may never know.”
“Oh, I’m going to know,” she said, the fire reigniting in her belly. “There’s no way I’m going to let this go.”
“Zoie . . .” He shook his head vehemently. “You will destroy too many lives. What about Kimberly? She has a life, a family, and a career. Are you willing to ruin that just to get a story?”
Zoie nearly leapt out of her seat. “Just to get a story? Are you kidding me? This is more than a story. This is my fucking life, Jax!”
“It’s not all about you, Z.”
Her expression softened. “I know it’s not all about me. I understand that. I do. But I also care about the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts.” She turned her head away and stared out the window.
Jackson heaved a sigh. He reached for the door handle. “Looks like you have it all figured out. Like always.” He opened the door. “I’m sure your mother will come home when she’s ready. And when she does, I hope you will consider how she feels.” He got out.
Jackson shut the door and strode to his car.
Zoie sat in aching silence while she watched him drive away.
* * *
She drove around for another half hour or so before finally giving up and returning home, relieved to see her mother’s car parked at an angle out front.
Zoie ran inside. The house was quiet. She walked through the ground floor and found it empty. She hurried out back and pushed through the screen door to find her mother and aunts sitting on the veranda sipping sweet tea.
“What are you in such a hurry about?” Sage asked. She brought the glass to her lips.
Zoie looked from one to the other. Her mother kept her focus on the newspaper on her lap.
&n
bsp; “Where’s that cute Jackson fella?” Hyacinth asked. “Always did like him.”
“You just gonna stand there?” Sage asked.
“I, um, wanted to talk to Mom.”
“Can’t you see I’m relaxing?” Rose said, her tone flat. “Heard enough from you to last me a lifetime.” She snapped open the paper and held it up to her face.
Sage’s thick brows rose. “Humph. What’s this all about?’
“Nothing,” Rose said and threw Zoie a warning stare.
Zoie swallowed. “I’m going to take a shower. Can I get anyone anything first?”
“Dinner’s on the stove,” Sage said. “Figure everything out with Mama’s accounts? You was up there a long time today.”
“Um, pretty much. Jackson was very helpful.”
“Always liked Jackson,” Hyacinth said again.
Zoie took a final look at her mother, who still refused to meet her gaze. She went back inside.
The journals, still open and spread on the table, stared accusingly back at her. She slammed each book shut, gathered the letters, and put them all back in the box. She didn’t want to agree with Jackson—or her aunt Sage, for that matter, who said early on that some things needed to be left alone. Maybe it would be best to leave the past buried, but that thing inside her, that thing that drove her, wouldn’t allow her to leave it alone, and that part of her would never be satisfied until she knew the truth.
As far as she could determine, the Maitlands weren’t the benevolent souls that they presented to the world. They used their money and their position to manipulate a young girl and her entire family in order to save face and their precious reputation. Not to mention the deal they had made to take in her grandmother as a young girl. Those truths left a really bad taste in her mouth. And she intended to show the world who the Maitlands actually were.
She opened her laptop to check her email, and the first message was from Mark, who wanted to check on her progress and get some assurances that she was still on track for the story. He went on to remind her how important this story was to the paper.
