by Donna Hill
She quickly shot off a response, letting him know that she would be meeting with Lou Ellen Maitland in the next day or two and that Kimberly Graham had invited her to the fund-raiser.
If she had any moment of hesitation about proceeding with this story, it went out the window as her determination was reignited with Mark’s message.
It was too late to call the Maitland home, but she would do that first thing in the morning and lock down a time and day with the matriarch.
She took her shower, went to get a plate of food, and returned with it to her room, but even as she worked at convincing herself that her quest was in pursuit of justice and truth, she couldn’t shake the sound of utter disappointment in Jackson’s voice or the look of anguish in her mother’s eyes.
* * *
“Maybe Jackson is right, Z,” Miranda said.
“Et tu, Brute,” Zoie said half in jest.
“I’m serious. Some things aren’t worth it.”
“Okay. What would you do if you found out what I did about your family; wouldn’t you want to know the truth? Tell me you wouldn’t.”
Miranda was quiet for a moment. “What I believe is that you should seriously think about the real reason this is so important to you.”
“The real reason? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“For years, you and your family have been at odds. Deep in your heart, you want them to embrace you, love you the way you think you need, even as all of you play this crazy game of emotional roulette. I think that underneath it all, you think that bringing this dark past to light will somehow prove to them all your worth, validate you, show them the you that has been there all along.”
“That’s not true,” she said unconvincingly.
“Okay. That’s all I have to say on the subject. So when will you be coming home?” she asked, switching subjects.
“Sometime next week. Since I clearly won’t be going to the fund-raiser with Jackson, you wanna go?”
“You’re going to need someone to whisper in your ear to keep you from doing something crazy. So yeah.”
Zoie laughed. “Cool. Anyway, I need to head out to the Maitlands. She was very clear that I had exactly a half hour.”
“Get going. Let me know when you’re ready to come back. I’ll book the flight and meet you at the airport.”
“Thanks.”
“And, Z . . . I know you don’t want to, but think about what I said. Okay?”
“I will. Bye, Randi.”
“Love you, too.”
Zoie gathered her things and got her tote.
* * *
Zoie pulled up to the ornate gate that shielded the Maitland mansion from the world. The home, which sat on several acres of lush land that butted against their own private lake, was once a plantation. She’d spent the better part of the evening reading everything she could find on the history of the property. Much to her disgust but not surprise, the original owners, the Maitlands’ ancestors, had enslaved hundreds of Africans over several generations. The land that was now green grass, towering magnolia trees, and perfectly manicured hedges was once covered with rows of cotton, sugarcane, and corn tended to by men, women, and children brought there against their will. It was no wonder that the generations after the emancipation had worked to distance themselves from the family’s ugly past. But as far as Zoie was concerned, no matter how much money they had—which they’d earned on the backs of slaves—or how much charitable work they engaged in, it would never be enough to make restitution for what the family had done. Because no matter what, they still continued to benefit from the atrocity.
She lowered her window and reached out to press the button on the intercom.
“Who is it, please?” came a disembodied voice.
“Zoie Crawford. I have an appointment with Mr. and Mrs. Maitland.”
There was a faint whirring sound, and the gates slowly opened inward. Zoie eased the car down the long, winding driveway. She finally pulled to a stop in front of the palatial estate, whose grandeur remained reminiscent of Gone with the Wind. She was momentarily intimidated by the looming white pillars and wraparound balconies, the pristine shrubbery, and the sense of immense power that lurked behind the massive doors. She drew in a breath of resolve and reminded herself of her intent.
She grabbed her tote from the passenger seat and got out in concert with the opening of the front door.
An older woman, complete in black dress and white apron, stood in the doorway. Zoie climbed the three steps.
“Ms. Crawford, Mrs. Maitland is waiting for you on the back veranda. Follow me, please.”
Zoie fought to keep her mouth from dropping open as she was led through the sprawling main level. The marble flooring, gleaming wood furnishings, sparkling chandeliers, and eye-dropping winding staircase took her breath away. The artwork that hung on the walls was worth a fortune, and even her amateur eye could detect that the paintings were all originals.
The housekeeper opened the back door to the enclosed veranda, which looked out onto a magnificent display of the lake. Ducks floated regally in the water.
“Mrs. Maitland, Ms. Crawford is here.”
Lou Ellen Maitland was adorned in a pale green suit that matched her eyes. Every inch of her was perfectly detailed as if she were preparing to sit for a portrait. She sipped from a tall glass of clear liquid, and Zoie got the sense that it wasn’t water.
Lou Ellen barely looked up. “Please sit, Ms. Crawford.”
“Thank you for seeing me.”
“Let’s not waste time on small talk.”
Zoie bit her tongue and moved to the empty white wicker chair opposite Lou Ellen. She settled down and took out her notebook and phone to record the conversation.
“No notes. No recording,” Lou Ellen said.
Zoie started to protest but knew that it would be pointless. She drew in a breath and returned her things to her tote.
“Now what exactly do you want to know about my daughter?”
Zoie folded her hands on her lap to keep from reaching over and strangling the smug look off of the face of Lou Ellen Maitland.
“Will Mr. Maitland be joining us?”
“No.”
Zoie cleared her throat. “Why don’t we start with the kind of child she was, the kinds of things you noticed about her at a young age.”
Lou Ellen pursed her lips. “She was no different from any other child. Kimberly walked and talked about the same age as any child her age. There was nothing particularly remarkable.”
This was going to be difficult. “I read in an article that she was considered a ‘change of life’ baby.” It was the first time that she got a reaction from Lou Ellen. Her cheeks flamed, and her lips tightened into a pucker. Zoie felt a moment of glee. “How did her birth later in your life effect the household?”
Lou Ellen lifted her chin and leveled Zoie with a hard look. “Kimberly’s arrival . . . was a joy to all of us. Her brother celebrated his nineteenth birthday when Kimberly was born. Things were certainly different in the house, hearing and caring for a baby after so long. I suppose Kim’s arrival made us all feel young again. Her brother absolutely doted on her.”
Zoie made a mental note about Kyle’s age. “I’d like to hear more about Kim’s relationship with her brother. I would think that a young man would have much more on his mind than spending time with an infant.”
“That was the kind of man Kyle was,” Lou Ellen qualified. “He was giving and had no problem devoting his time to people and causes and especially his family.”
“When Kimberly was growing up, was there ever an indication that she was interested in politics?”
“She loved whatever her brother loved.”
“Even with so many years between them?”
“Kyle was a charismatic young man. He spent a lot of time with his sister. When she was old enough, he would take her places. They were very close. I’m not at all surprised that she sought a career in law and now politics.”
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br /> “Did Kimberly have a lot of friends growing up? Was she interested in sports or the arts?” she asked, switching gears.
“Kim had friends, of course. She didn’t engage in sports.” She said the word as if it was hot sauce on her tongue. “She was much more interested in her studies and playing piano. She graduated at the top of her class in high school and college.”
“Um, I see you have a housekeeper. What about when Kimberly was a child?”
Lou Ellen’s nostrils flared.
“What I mean is, I know that you and your husband did a lot of . . . work in the community with committees and such, so I was wondering what role the staff may have had with Kimberly’s upbringing.”
“My staff did what they were paid to do, Ms. Crawford. If you are trying to imply something else, I suggest that you quickly rethink it.”
Zoie swallowed and tried a different approach. “Was Kimberly born here in New Orleans? I didn’t see any hospital records.”
Lou Ellen blinked rapidly. Her thin lips flickered. “She was not.”
“Oh. Where was she born?”
“In New York, actually. I, we were visiting there at the time.”
It was the first time Zoie saw a crack in the veneer.
“I believe your time is up, Ms. Crawford.” She pushed to her feet.
Zoie clasped the strap of her tote and stood. She extended her hand. “Thank you for your time.”
Lou Ellen briefly shook Zoie’s hand but did not return a response other than, “My housekeeper will see you out, Ms. Crawford.”
Zoie forced a smile. “Enjoy your day.” She turned and was surprised to see said housekeeper standing in the doorway.
She was hoping to get a glimpse of Mr. Maitland, but he was nowhere to be seen. When she got to the door, she turned to the housekeeper.
“Do you remember a Claudia Bennett who worked for the family?”
“Before my time.” She opened the door and held it, waiting for Zoie to walk out.
“Thank you.”
She was offered a tight, practiced smile, and the door closed before she hit the first step.
CHAPTER 20
On the ride home, Zoie replayed the very stilted interview. She was accustomed to manipulating her subjects into telling her what she wanted to know. Lou Ellen Maitland was not a typical subject. The only real time she faltered was when she was asked about where Kimberly was born. That tidbit of information was key. If it put her in New York at the time her mother was there, she was sure that was a major piece of the puzzle that she needed.
When she pulled up in front of the house, her pulse kicked up a beat when she spotted her mother sweeping the front porch. Zoie drew in a breath and climbed the steps. “Hey, Mama.”
Rose glanced up from her sweeping as if she hadn’t noticed that her daughter was standing there. “Hi.”
“Mama, I never meant for this to hurt you.”
Rose rested the broom against the side of the house. “But it did,” she said as if all the vitality had been sucked from her. “Can’t put the genie back in the bottle.” She lowered herself into a chair in a way that was reminiscent of a woman twice her age.
“I was sweet sixteen,” she began, in a voice weighed down by the burden of the past. “Mama would take me to the Maitlands’ house from time to time to help out when they were hosting one of their big parties.” A faraway look filled her eyes, and a storytelling quality laced her voice. “Walking through those doors opened a world I’d only seen on television and in the movies. I was mesmerized by everything in that house, and whenever I could, I would sneak and touch the soft sheets in the linen closet, the figurines on the tabletops. I could spend hours just staring at how the light danced on the crystal of the chandeliers. And I could get lost in the wonder of their library. My God, I’d never seen so many books in a house.”
A wistful smile tugged at her lips. Zoie, not wanting to break the spell of her mother’s story, very slowly eased into a chair opposite her mother. “Kyle Maitland fascinated me, too.” Her eyes flicked for a moment at Zoie, then glanced away. “He was like a movie star, a perfect addition to the magical world he lived in. He was always sweet to me, answered all my questions, and never got annoyed at having me around.” She linked her fingers tighter together. “He found me one day in the library . . .”
* * *
“You know my mother has a fit if anyone is in here.”
Rose turned, terrified. “Ohh, Mr. Maitland, I . . . I’m so sorry. Please . . . I’ll leave.”
Kyle chuckled. He held up his hands to halt her hasty escape. “It’s okay. Really. I always thought it was silly to have a room full of books and no one is allowed to read them. Too many things around here are only for show,” he added, and Rose heard the slight edge in his voice. “Kyle. Call me Kyle. The ‘Mr.’ is reserved for my father.” He walked fully into the library. “So, what do you like to read?”
Every coherent thought flew from her head. Standing in front of Kyle Maitland was like looking into the sun. “Everything” was the first word that came to her mind.
Kyle walked over to a wall of books. He reached up to the third shelf and plucked out a book. It was Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Rose couldn’t have been more surprised by his choice. Even she knew the book was about the life of a slave.
“Did you know the original Maitlands were slave owners?”
Rose swallowed. “No.”
He slowly nodded. “Yes. The upstanding pillars of society played a part in the ugliest period of American history. That’s our real legacy, how we built our fortune,” he added. His jaw tightened, and he exhaled a breath of regret. “Anyway”—he leaned his long frame against the wall—“I must have been about twelve or thirteen, and I snuck in here.” He looked at her and winked, and Rose felt her heart tumble in her chest. “I found a book about our family.” He moved over to another wall of books and removed a worn leather-bound volume and came to the rectangular cherry-wood table that took up the center of the room.
“Come. Sit.”
Rose snatched a quick look at the open door.
“Don’t worry. They’ve gone out for the morning. Some charity event. Sit.”
Hesitantly, she obeyed.
The gold lettering on the front of the volume was faded but clear enough to make out the title Maitland 1840–.
Kyle opened the heavy cover. The first page was the Maitland family tree, which traced back to the origins of the family in England and continued on to their arrival in New Orleans in 1840 and right up to the birth of Kyle.
He flipped through the pages, stopping at times to elaborate on a particular family member. He finally stopped on a page that looked like an invoice. What it happened to be, however, was an itemized list of Africans that had been purchased by Aaron Maitland. There were several more pages of “invoices” that detailed the purchases of human beings.
Kyle turned to another page, and there were several grainy sepia-toned photographs of rows of shacks fronted by lines of black men, women, and children. “These shacks used to be out back. Since torn down.” He heaved a sigh. “Doesn’t erase what once stood there.”
Rose felt such a tightness in her chest that she could hardly breathe. She wanted to get up and run away from this man who had a legacy of brutality and lack of regard for human life running through his veins. But then he said something that held her in place.
“The day I found this book, it changed my life, my entire outlook on the world, my family. I knew I couldn’t erase what my family had done to generations of innocent people, but I could at least try to set a new direction, and hopefully one day the legacy that I leave behind will somehow dim what came before me.”
“How can you do that?” she asked, finally finding her voice.
He closed the book. “Community work, getting involved in furthering the equal rights of everyone, voting rights in particular.” He paused. “Getting into elected office.”
Rose’s eyes widened.
“Like a senator?”
Kyle chuckled. “Not right away. I’ll start off local.”
He went on to tell her of his plans, the vision that he had of making life better. Rose wasn’t sure if it was then or during the many talks they continued to have that she fell in love with him.
“It was naïve, you know,” Rose said, looking at her daughter. “He was a man already, a white man, son of one of the wealthiest families in New Orleans. But I couldn’t help how I felt. Whenever I was at the house and could slip away, we met in the library and would talk and laugh, and he wanted to know everything about me and my family. When we . . . for the first time . . . it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.”
Rose lowered her eyes, suddenly ashamed. “It was only one time. How cliché. I was terrified and excited all at once. I was in love with this wonderful progressive, color-blind man, and I knew he would do the right thing, but that didn’t stop me from hiding it from Mama, until I couldn’t.”
Rose blinked back tears as she recalled the day Claudia pushed open the bathroom door and saw her daughter’s protruding belly.
“I’ll never forget the look on her face—the horror, the shame, the knowing.” Rose slowly shook her head. “I insisted that we loved each other, and it was the first and only time Mama ever hit me.” Reflectively, she cupped her cheek.
“You silly little girl. That white boy don’t love you, and even if he swears by all the saints that he does, he cain’t. You think that family gon’ smile and grin about having a colored daughter-in-law and a half-breed baby? Kyle is dey golden boy, and dey ain’t gon’ let nothin’ tarnish that gold. Nothin’!”
Rose twisted and untwisted, between her fingers, a piece of fabric from the skirt of her floral dress. “Mama did what folks did back then when a girl winds up in ‘the family way.’ She sent me away. No conversation. No tears. Put me on a bus to New York. Went to live with ‘cousin’ Phyllis. At least Mama said she was a cousin. I never asked from which side of the family. Cousin Phyllis got me into a special Catholic school for girls in . . . my situation.”
