by Joy Copeland
The rush hour was almost over, but the traffic was still heavy on the Washington Beltway. Coming from the right like a low-flying comet, a silver sports car moved suddenly into Zoie’s lane and cut her off. She braked, slowing the BMW from sixty-five to twenty-five, in an instant that seemed more like a lifetime. The offending car quickly darted into the far-left lane and then rocketed out of sight.
Zoie’s heart was in her throat. She couldn’t curse because she’d used up all the choice words on Ray. “Thank God these brakes are working,” she murmured as the blood drained from her head to her feet. “Thank God the car behind me wasn’t tailgating.”
The incident brought Zoie’s attention back to the road and to thoughts of what would happen to Nikki if anything were to happen to her. She had discussed raising Nikki with Tina, and Tina had agreed to take on the responsibility should it ever come to that. But since that conversation, Zoie hadn’t taken the necessary steps to finalize her wishes. If anything happened to her, the Benjamins would seek custody of Nikki on Elliot’s behalf. After all, officially he was paying child support. Zoie shook her head, trying to remove the morbid thoughts of her death and the uncertain fate of her child in those circumstances. It was all too gruesome, too complicated to fathom. The best way to handle it was not to die.
As she exited the Beltway at Connecticut Avenue, Zoie decided that she would go to her grandmother’s house since she had the car. She calmed her nerves after the close call on the Beltway. But thus far the day’s events stacked high in the negative column. She spent the early part of the day cataloguing her hunches and converting her fraud theory into analytic substance. She prepared a presentation tailored for a Board audience—a high-level presentation with clear decision points, one that could focus the members’ thinking and lead them to take action. Nowhere did she point a finger. But anyone with any intelligence could name the likely culprits. These were the things she was prepared to discuss with Ray that evening. Although Ray had admitted nothing, his behavior was that of someone who was guilty. He was someone who already knew the details of his shady dealings and didn’t need further elaboration.
With a sad shrug, Zoie resolved that she’d done what she could. It was a shame about Jahi. She so wanted to trust him, to hear from his own lips that he was innocent. Now she felt free to call him.
A distant flash of lightning lit up an early dark sky as the BMW pulled up in front of her grandmother’s house. Zoie looked up at the formidable structure on the upscale city block. She often wondered how her grandparents had been able to afford such a place or how welcomed they’d felt when they first came to the neighborhood. Back in those days, the block was predominately white. Zoie saw a light in the second-floor room that used to be her mother’s. The room was now Queen’s. A pale honey glow beamed from the oval window over the front door.
As Zoie exited the car, the trees swayed with unease, signaling that wind and heavy rain were not far off. A warm gust caught Zoie’s gauze jacket, ballooning it into a miniature parachute. She headed up the steep uneven steps to the covered porch. Deciding not to dig for the house keys hiding somewhere at the bottom of her bag, she was about to ring the bell when the wide door seemed to open on its own. Queen was standing in the doorway with a half smile. “Zoie, I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Hello, Queen. Sorry, but I didn’t call before coming. I made up my mind to stop by at the last minute.”
“No problem. We’re home.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I’ve got elephant ears,” Queen replied with a wide grin. “Except for the cars heading to the park, sometimes it gets so quiet around here. I get creeped out. That’s why I keep this.” Queen pulled a baseball bat from the umbrella stand.
“Oh!” said Zoie. “It’s awful dark out here. The porch light is out.”
“I can get my brother to take a look at it,” Queen said.
Zoie heard stories about caregivers who took advantage of their elderly charges. But from everything that she’d witnessed so far, Queen was one of the better ones. Frances Woods’s body might have failed her, but her mind remained clear and decisive. If there had been any difficulty with the situation, her grandmother, a strong-willed woman, would have made it known.
“Come on in,” Queen said.
“How’s she doing?” Zoie asked, gazing up the stairs to where she’d find her grandmother.
“Pretty well. No bad coughing spells today. She’s eating okay,” the woman answered with a sigh of mild fatigue. “Guess that medicine the doctor gave her for the cough is working. Go on up. She should be awake.”
Without further discussion, Queen disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Zoie climbed the grand staircase, listening for its familiar groans. No one could ever sneak up these stairs without being heard. Stopping at the landing, she reminisced about the time when the landing and its bench had served as her very special hiding place—her pretend castle on a pretend mountain. A place where she felt safe. Things were simpler in those days. At least they appeared to be. Her mother and grandmother had hid life’s painful details as best they could, but children knew when things weren’t right. Some things just couldn’t be hidden. Zoie wanted that feeling of safety for Nikki, a shelter from life’s distress. There was no need for a six-year-old to know all the details that complicated her existence.
Zoie found her grandmother in the bed, slouching in a seated position. Her head was slumped forward, her chin braced awkwardly against her chest, with her reading glasses precariously askew on her nose. With rhythmic snoring her grandmother looked uncomfortable but, at the same time, sort of peaceful. At first Zoie considered not waking her, but she wanted to adjust her grandmother’s head.
She came close to the bed and gently shook her grandmother’s arm. “Grandma.”
“Huh!” the older woman said, giving off a short snort, signifying that a good snore had been interrupted. She lifted her head slowly and in apparent disorientation swatted at the glasses. The glasses tumbled to the bed.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” Zoie said.
Almost ignoring that Zoie was in the room, Frances Woods looked down and closed the book in her lap, marking her effort with a deep sigh and two fingers left pressed between its pages to serve as a bookmark. “Whoa, I can’t seem to make it past a couple of pages without dozing.”
Zoie bent over and kissed her grandmother on the forehead and then smoothed the woman’s thick ruffled hair, a mass of light-brown hay dominated by silver. “So what are you reading?”
“Oh, some dry history about Beaufort County, North Carolina.”
“Ooh. No wonder you’re dozing off. You should try a good mystery.”
“This is a little dense. Ida got it for me. She knows I hail from the Beaufort region. And you know she’s got those library connections. If she thinks I haven’t read it, she will be upset with me.”
“Gotcha. Tell her to bring you a mystery next time.” Thinking of skinny old Ms. Bascomb, Zoie smiled to herself and maneuvered the small carved chair kept by the bed so that she could face her grandmother. The chair, undoubtedly an antique, was regular height, but its seat was better suited to a child or someone with a tiny rear end. Zoie could feel her grandmother’s eyes inspecting her, but she did not pass judgment on what Zoie was wearing or how her hair looked. Tonight there were no such comments.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” her grandmother said finally.
“Are you sorry I came?”
“Now you know I’m always glad to see you. I’m just surprised…that’s all. What brings you out tonight?” The wheeze that followed made it clear that the old woman was running out of breath. She strained to contain the cough that was about to erupt and to deliver her last few words before lapsing into a spasm. Zoie cringed. On her last visit, she witnessed her grandmother’s scary hacking fit. How her grandmother’s body withstood the fits, Zoie couldn’t understand, except to know that Frances Woods was one strong woman.
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nbsp; This time the coughs sounded less severe. The rumble deep in her grandmother’s chest indicated that the congestion was loose. Zoie waited for the coughs to subside before attempting further conversation.
“You okay?” Zoie finally asked as she offered her grandmother a sip of water from a bedside glass.
“Yeah, yeah,” her grandmother replied after swallowing a bit of water and seeming to have regained control over her breathing. Her voice was still hoarse.
“You asked why I came by. Well, I have my friend’s car today and figured I’d use it to come here,” said Zoie. “But how are you doing?”
“Doing better. Thank the Lord. Doctor’s got me on a bunch of new stuff for this cough. The different medicines are not too nasty. Queen’s got the whole protocol timed to the minute for when I take each medicine.” She pointed to a tray on the side table, which was lined with medicine bottles big and small. “Taking all this stuff makes me sleepy.”
Zoie examined the labels on several bottles.
“Tell me when am I going to see my great-granddaughter, Nikki?” her grandmother asked.
“It’s just two more weeks. Two more weeks and then I go get her.”
“You miss her, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do,” Zoie answered in a soft voice, thinking of her daughter’s hug.
“So did you get in much socializing while she was away? You’ve been a free woman this summer.”
Zoie’s mind skipped to thoughts of Jahi and the few times they’d been together over the past month. Jahi had always been a question mark. Now he was more so. She smiled at her grandmother. “Socially it’s been a quiet summer. It doesn’t seem to matter whether Nikki is here or not. My love life is still on hiatus.”
“You’re too young to be on hiatus or whatever you’re calling it.” Her grandmother tossed the book aside, seeming not to care that she was freeing her fingers from bookmark duty. “Well, I miss Nikki too. Please bring her by before school starts.”
“I’ve got to call Nikki tonight. I call her most every night, but tonight’s going to be tough.”
“What now?” said her grandmother.
“I told you about the dog situation.”
Her grandmother looked bewildered and then said, “You mean that thing between you and your ex-mother-in-law?”
“Ex-nothing. Remember, Elliot and I were never married.”
“Well, you lived together for years. Nikki is the women’s grandchild. Call it what you want, but you two have a family relationship.”
Zoie smirked.
Her grandmother continued. “Does this mean you haven’t told that child your decision about the dog?”
“Right,” Zoie answered, her voice dropping off, bowing her head.
“So Nikki still thinks she’s bringing the dog home?”
“What she thinks is that I’m still considering it. But, yes, I admit it. I’ve been too chicken to tell her.” Zoie rubbed her arm nervously.
“My, my. Shame on you, Zo.”
“Grandma, there’s been so much else going on.” Zoie sighed.
“How about bringing the dog here? Letting it stay here?”
“You mean so Queen can take care of it? Anyway, it’s not even a dog yet. It’s a puppy. No, Grandma. Thanks, but that would not be a good idea.”
Her grandmother put her finger to her chin and gazed off. “Well, you’ve got to do what you got to do.”
“Believe me. I’ve thought this through.”
“Zo, I just didn’t want to see my little Nikki disappointed. But the sooner you break the news to her, the better. She’s really bonded with that dog by now. That dog is her best friend.”
After all of Zoie’s soul searching, guilt still washed over her, but the guilt wasn’t powerful enough to make her change her mind. There’d be no dog in their DC apartment. Tonight she’d bite the bullet and tell her daughter her decision.
“It’s not just this dog thing that’s clouding your life, is it?” her grandmother asked, putting her age-freckled hand on Zoie’s.
“Things have been pretty crazy, especially the last couple of weeks.” There was a long silence. She considered how much to share with her grandmother. “I think the Foundation may be in some serious trouble. We could be having a mini-Watergate.”
“Humph! Folks can’t even do right when they’re giving funds to the needy.”
“I can’t tell you any more,” Zoie said, wondering if she should have said anything at all.
“That’s okay. All I need to know is that you’re not involved,” her grandmother said. “But since you’re their lawyer, you have to be involved.”
“I’m not involved directly. As the Foundation’s attorney, I’m trying to work it out. But there’s only so much I can do.”
“Friends of yours involved?” asked her grandmother.
“Possibly.” Zoie answered, thinking of Jahi.
“Mmm…well, you do the right thing. Don’t go trying to change the world singlehandedly. Remember Don Quixote?”
“Of course. You and mom took me to the play when I was a kid. Batting at windmills.”
“And you can’t make everyone else’s problem yours either,” her grandmother continued. “You’ve got your good reputation to protect and Nikki to worry about.”
“When this hits the fan, I might not have a job.”
“Don’t let that stop you from doing the right thing. You and Nikki can come and live here with me. I offered that to you before. This place is going to be yours anyway when I’m gone.”
Providing words of wisdom sapped her grandmother’s precious energy. After a few more exchanges, Frances Woods’s voice was just a mumble. Her heavy lids shut over her tired eyes. Zoie picked up the tallest brown glass bottle from the bed table and held it under the lamp. Its prescription label confirmed her suspicion: cough medicine with codeine. Codeine wasn’t exactly a bad thing when the alternative was a coughing fit. But the drug was a sedative.
Zoie went to the window to see if the rain had come and gone. The roof wasn’t wet at all. Perhaps the storm had passed them by.
Zoie lowered her grandmother’s pillows and saw to it that she was resting comfortably. Then she gave the sleeping woman a kiss on the forehead. On the way out of the house, Zoie spoke to Queen briefly about the cough medicine. Queen said, “I’m just going by the doctor’s instructions.”
After dropping off the car at Tina’s parking spot in Adams Morgan, Zoie walked home. The walk helped clear her head. She was dreading talking to Nikki. “Let me get this over with,” she said, once back in her apartment. With shoes off and a glass of red wine in hand, she called the Benjamins’ home. As usual it was Celeste’s sugary voice that answered.
“Oh, hello Zoie.”
“How are things?”
“Great. Today we went to the library to get some easy reading. We’ve been practicing, so she’ll be ready for first grade.”
“Good, good,” Zoie said, feeling a little guilty that she hadn’t lately made an effort to advance Nikki’s reading skills. The private kindergarten Nikki had attended in New York was very advanced, offering a curriculum that encompassed a lot of the first grade. Relying heavily on that instruction, she’d neglected to think about Nikki getting rusty over the summer.
“I hope I didn’t call too late.” It was another faint hope for further delay. Perhaps Nikki had fallen asleep.
“Nikki’s in her pjs, but she knew you’d call. Hold on…Nikki! It’s your mom!”
Celeste apparently put the phone down, because she was no longer attempting to make conversation. Zoie took two large sips of her wine as she waited for her daughter to take the phone. After a minute she could hear little screams of glee and the sound of the running steps coming from a forty-pound body.
“Mommy, Mommy,” came Nikki’s high-pitched voice, full of joyful exuberance. “I’ve been waiting for you to call. Why did you take so long?”
“Sorry, baby. I had some business to take care of for the office, a
nd then I went to see your great-grandma.”
“Oh. I hope she’s getting better, ’cause I don’t want her to die or something like that.”
“Me neither, baby.”
“My friend Mark’s grandmother died, and he had to go see her dead body.”
“How sad,” Zoie replied. They’d discussed death and dying several times over the years, and certainly they would cover it several times more.
“Yeah, I don’t want to be sad like that,” Nikki said.
“So tell me what you did today,” Zoie said, changing the subject.
“Grandma took me to the library. I borrowed twenty-five books.”
“Wow. Twenty-five books?”
“Uh-huh. The library trusts us. I just have to careful to keep them away from Biscuit because he might eat them.”
It was time to tell her. No further waiting.
“About Biscuit, baby.”
“Mommy, did you know that Grandma and Grandpa have given away all the puppies? But they’re not giving away Biscuit because he’s mine and I need to take him home with me and I’m teaching him not to eat the books or my shoes. When are you coming to get us?”
Zoie gulped the last of her wine. She expected it to be a difficult conversation, but it was on the path to being even worse than she had imagined.
“Listen, baby, we need to talk about Biscuit.” She tried to sound serious but to still keep her tone light. “You can’t bring Biscuit home with you.”