by Joy Copeland
“Zoie, this is Cassandra,” Elliot said. “Cassandra, Zoie.”
“You have a very special daughter,” Cassandra said with the most innocent smile. She was pretty, young, and most surprisingly black. Zoie wondered how much Elliot had told this woman about how and why their relationship ended.
“Mommy, she’s got my sister in her tummy,” Nikki said, running over and patting Cassandra’s belly as if to do so was the most natural thing in the world.
It took a while for Detective Marconi and his small entourage to wrap up their police work. When they were ready to leave, Phillip thanked them profusely for their efforts to find his granddaughter, without mentioning that it was Elliot who’d actually come through. As the self-appointed spokesman for the family, Phillip made a statement to local news reporters, thanking the police and all the volunteers who’d participated in the search.
Nikki was one exhausted little girl. She’d spent the night with the puppy under the bleachers with a flashlight, a jar of peanut butter, and a half loaf of bread. She even remembered to bring a knife to spread the peanut butter on the bread. She was a determined little girl. It had been a warm night, and except for some insect bites, Nikki had come through her adventure unscathed. Despite the excitement over her return and her mother’s acquiescing to letting her keep Biscuit, she couldn’t keep her eyes open. As soon as the sun began to dip, she fell asleep in her mother’s arms.
Zoie planned to take Nikki and stay the night in a nearby Ramada hotel. But Nikki’s reticence to be parted from the puppy changed those plans. That left few choices, one of which was to find a hotel that took dogs. There was no way that Zoie was going to leave Nikki at the Benjamins and go to a hotel alone. The Benjamins, in their awkward way, convinced Zoie to stay. She would sleep the night with Nikki in the child’s twin bed—with the puppy, of course. How could she stay in that house with Elliot and his new love? They would be right in the next room, the same room she used to stay in with Elliot when they visited all those years ago. Nikki is safe, Zoie told herself. I can deal with anything for one night. Haven’t I proved that at the Shelter?
As tired as she was, Zoie wasn’t ready to crash. When she was back home in her own comfortable surroundings, she’d sleep for twelve hours. With Nikki asleep in her room, Zoie sat with Celeste and Phillip Benjamin, picking at oatmeal cookies and making small talk until there was no more small talk to make. When the conversation traipsed dangerously close to topics of substance—explosive topics like Elliot—she excused herself and went to sit on the lighted front porch.
She settled into one of the Adirondack chairs and shook her head, marveling at how she’d endured the Benjamins. Tonight she was just too tired to fight. Her mind drifted back to the drama waiting for her back in DC. She hadn’t thought about that trouble in many hours. The mess she’d left seemed far away and inconsequential when compared with the safety and happiness of her daughter. But it was time to reconnect to the rest of her life.
She sent a text to Charles and Lena: “Nikki found safe. Details when I return.”
Soon Charles texted back. “Glad 2 see update on missing-child database. See you back here—SOON,” he said.
“Wow!” she said, reading Charles’s text. She realized that he’d been tracking her all along. She shrugged it off.
She checked her business messages. Everybody in the world was looking for her: members of the board, Regina, and Milton, of course. An e-mail announcing an emergency meeting of the Crayton Foundation’s Board for next week had gone out. Another e-mail gave the preliminary arrangements for Ray’s wake. So quick, she thought.
Her head was spinning. She called Milton’s direct line, hoping since it was late that he wouldn’t pick up. She lucked out and got his voice mailbox. She left a short message in which she apologized for her lack of communication, explaining that she’d had a major family emergency involving her daughter, and telling him to expect her back at work next week. Since she no longer trusted Regina, there was no one else to tell. After she ended the call, she wondered whether she should even go back to the Foundation. Financially she could survive until she got a new position. Would the Foundation even want her back?
Deep in thought she didn’t notice when Elliot came around from the back of the house and peeked at her from between the porch balusters.
“I thought you might be here,” he said. “Can we talk?”
What did he want? They hadn’t talked in years.
“Zoie, please,” he said, coming up the stairs and onto the porch. “Please give me a few minutes of your time.”
Zoie’s back went straight as Elliot approached. He sat in the chair next to her. Her fists tightened.
“Look, Elliot, today has been stressful and strange. The whole week has been strange. If what you’ve got to say to me is some bizarre stuff, I don’t want to hear it.” The energy reserve that had allowed her to stay awake and make the drive to Ohio was now depleted. She had no patience.
“I just wanted to say,” he stuttered, “that you’ve done a wonderful job with Nikki.”
“And you, of all people, thought I would have done otherwise,” Zoie hissed. “You’re telling me how wonderful my daughter is as if I don’t know that.” She rose and passed him, heading for the front door. He jumped up and grabbed her arm.”
“Let me go!”
“Zoie, please hear me out. You have every right to be angry. God knows I put you through hell. I was a fool. I’m so sorry. I was crazed and still an adolescent. I was afraid of losing my freedom. Afraid of responsibility.”
“You disowned your daughter, this wonderful child you speak of. How do I ever explain to her that you didn’t want her?”
“I know—I know,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “Someday I must tell her I was a fool and hope that she understands. I now know I made a huge mistake. Cassandra has shown me how wrong I was. The Wall Street thing. The feeling of self-importance. It was all so silly. So superficial. So false. I got carried away. I know that now. I think I’ve finally grown up. Zoie, I’m ready to be a father. Is there any way you can forgive me?”
“Forgive you!” Thoroughly disgusted, she stared straight into his anguished eyes.
“Yes, please forgive me. I’m begging you. For Nikki’s sake.”
His face contorted with pain. Had the man-child she had once loved finally matured? Today God had returned her daughter. God had done so by way of this imperfect man, the man who happened to be her father. Zoie knew that Nikki wanted this man in her life. But it was all too soon. Years of hating him had given Zoie a strange comfort. The hate had shielded her from more hurt. Alas, it also had shielded her from knowing more love. Now she didn’t know whether she could forgive him. She didn’t know whether her heart could open that wide. It certainly wasn’t happening today. She sucked her teeth and walked away.
Chapter 49
Everybody’s Got Questions
“Mommy, when am I going to see Daddy again?” The question came from the back of the BMW, where Nikki sat in her booster seat. It was the third time Nikki had asked that question or a similar one in the last half hour. Zoie’s responses had been evasive and noncommittal—ones unsatisfactory for the precocious six-year-old. Zoie was running out of bogus answers. Now she was annoyed that she needed to think up more excuses for something she didn’t want to happen.
“As I said, baby, your father is real busy. He may not be able to take off from work.” Her latest response was a rehash of her earlier answers.
“But he said he’d come see me,” Nikki insisted, using that particular child’s whine designed to grate on adult nerves.
Damn him!
The morning had gone smoothly, considering the happenings of the previous day. Elliot got up early and went to a local pet store. He bought a pet carrier and a pet gate for Biscuit. He also found a booster seat for Nikki. He presented them to Zoie with a sheepish smile, as if he were seeking praise for his actions.
But Zoie had no praise to give
. She managed a flat thank-you.
“Zoie, please…give some thought to what I asked you last night,” he said.
Zoie refused to look at him or to answer. All she wanted was for Elliot and the whole situation to disappear in a puff of smoke.”
When it was time for them to leave, the scene in front of the Benjamins’ house resembled a lovefest complete with a group hug and tears. Cassandra, the new daughter-in-law, got into the act. It was as if Elliot’s wife had been a part of the Benjamin clan for a decade, fully conversant in the family’s idiosyncrasies. Or perhaps it was just that pregnant women cried easily. Zoie couldn’t remember how she had felt carrying Nikki. The details of her pregnancy were overshadowed by the drama and hurt that accompanied it. Zoie’s memory of much of it was blocked for emotional self-preservation.
As the lovefest continued, Zoie stood as a bystander, watching as love was showered on her Nikki. She couldn’t participate and found it difficult to stomach it. She was still tired from the previous day’s drive, but pure disgust now supplied her with boundless energy to retake the road. She politely thanked the Benjamins for having Nikki for the summer and hustled the child into the waiting car.
“Gee, Mommy,” Nikki said. “Is this your new car?”
“No, baby. It belongs to your aunt Tina. I borrowed it. So that means we need to take good care of it.”
That morning Celeste seemed more of her old self. She’d always been a little loony in a way some considered endearing, but last night she’d been way off the deep end.
“I hope you’ll let Nikki come back,” Celeste said.
“We’ll see,” Zoie replied, forcing a smile.
The puppy was now safe in the pet carrier, which was sitting on a mound of towels and plastic to protect the back seat. “I’m glad Tina can’t see this,” Zoie said under her breath. While arranging the back seat, she resolved to have the car professionally cleaned before Tina returned from Florida.
The puppy whimpered for the first hour of the trip. Nikki calmed the puppy by sticking her small fingers through the carrier’s grate so that the puppy could lick them. It was an arrangement that suited them both. They were headed home, but where would home be? They couldn’t go back to Zoie’s apartment, not after the break-in. After telling the police what had happened, her apartment would become an official crime scene. And now there was the dog.
“Mommy, did you hear me?”
“I hear you, baby.”
“Can Daddy come for Christmas?”
“I don’t think so. Your father has his own life. At Christmas he’ll probably be at the home of Cassandra’s parents or back in New York.” Elliot, a nonreligious Jew, never objected to Christmas. He celebrated the secular version of the holiday with all of its commerciality—as long as someone else did the holiday prep work and he got gifts.
“Then, Mommy, when can I see him? Don’t you think the baby will be born by Christmas? Do you think the baby will be born on Jesus’s birthday?” Nikki asked with a yawn.
“Ugh,” Zoie said under her breath while rolling her eyes. She hoped that her disgust was not evident to her daughter. She hadn’t inquired about Cassandra’s due date. The date of the blessed event was something she didn’t care to know. “I’m sure your father will be in touch. He’ll let us know when he can come.”
There were no follow-up questions from the back seat. All was quiet. Could those last answers have solved it? In the rearview mirror, Zoie could see her daughter slouched over and fast asleep.
So home couldn’t be Zoie’s Connecticut Avenue apartment, and it couldn’t be her grandmother’s Brandywine house, which had been damaged by the fire. Luckily Tina had left Zoie the keys to the Adams Morgan condo.
“Thank you, dear Tina.”
Nikki slept on and off for about half the trip. There was no more talk of Elliot or the new baby. Now in comfortable possession of her beloved Biscuit, the child didn’t seem to care where they would live. In between Nikki’s car naps, the mother and daughter passed the time by counting cars by color, first red ones and then silver ones. They talked about the first grade and Nikki’s new private school. They sang along to the latest pop hits. Nikki loved Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” and Kanye’s “American Boy.” Nikki always knew the lyrics. But this time she’d forgotten a lot. The Benjamins weren’t much for listening to music.
The car time together helped Zoie and Nikki reconnect. It alleviated the awkwardness that had crept between them after weeks of separation. The last several weeks had been especially strained and marked by emotional phone conversations, in which Nikki made her pleas to keep the puppy. After everything, the child had won out. She’d won by using the worst kinds of emotional extortion—guilt and playing her mother against her father. Still, Zoie was not resentful. She was just glad to have her child.
They stopped every couple of hours to let the puppy do its business. There had been only one accident in the pet carrier, though the padding did its job by protecting Tina’s car. An air freshener and car detailing would handle any lingering doggy odors.
It was dark when they pulled into Tina’s parking space. They had missed the rush-hour traffic. Loaded down with the pet gate, carrier, and other bags, Zoie and Nikki made two trips from the car to Tina’s third-floor condo. After being closed up for weeks, the place was hot and stuffy. Zoie found the air-conditioner controls and blasted the fan. It felt a lot better once the stagnant air began to move. Like Tina, the place had a casual elegance, with its earth tones, wooden floors, and small area rugs here and there. The place was the polar opposite to Lena’s frozen tundra.
Tina had furnished the place when she was still making beaucoup bucks in the financial-industry hustle, before she decided to ditch that insane work life for a more peaceful existence. Hopefully the puppy wouldn’t damage anything. To make sure, Zoie would have to keep Biscuit barricaded in the kitchen, behind the pet gate. It would be a temporary arrangement.
At a nearby grocery store, Zoie purchased pet food and something for breakfast. Having slept in the car, Nikki was wide awake and rambunctious. They watched a movie and played Uno. At eleven o’clock Nikki finally faded. Zoie put her to bed in Tina’s room, after explaining that in this apartment the puppy had to sleep in the kitchen.
“Mommy, tell me again why we have to stay in Auntie Tina’s apartment. Why can’t we go to our apartment?”
“We’re having some work done at our apartment. And remember that I told you before that there’s a no-dog policy.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Nikki said. “But what about staying in Great Gram’s house?”
“Great Gram had a fire at her place just the other day.”
“Did her house burn down?” Nikki asked, rubbing her eyes, unable to get excited at the news of a fire.
“No, thank God. But the workmen need to fix the damage. And it’s got to get cleaned up before Great Gram can move back in.”
“So where does Great Gram live now?”
“She’s staying at Queen’s house for a while. You remember Queen, don’t you? We’ll go see them tomorrow.”
“I like Queen,” Nikki said softly. “She makes the best chocolate cake.”
This latest round of questions and answers seemed to satisfy the bright child. Living alone this summer, Zoie hadn’t had to answer to anyone other than herself. Nikki needed answers—but not answers that included the stories of murders, drugs, and thugs who might hurt them. No information that would give her nightmares.
Zoie kissed Nikki on the forehead and was about to turn off the light when Nikki asked another question. “Mommy, why didn’t you and Daddy stay married?”
So Elliot is still on the child’s mind.
“Baby, your father and I were never married. I thought you knew that.”
“Kinda,” Nikki said in a quiet voice. “I know people have babies without being married. You had me like that?”
“That’s right.”
“But why did Daddy leave us?”
&nb
sp; Zoie thought for a second. “Your father and I didn’t love each other anymore. So we broke up.” Her statements were simple but only half-true.
For a few long seconds, Nikki contemplated Zoie’s answer. Then she asked, “But didn’t Daddy still love me?”
Zoie’s heart was breaking all over again. “Oh, baby, of course,” she answered as she lovingly brushed back her child’s hair. “How could your father not love you?”
“That’s the same thing Grandma Celeste said.” The child’s voice trailed off. Her eyes narrowed until they finally closed. The question of her father’s love weighed on her small shoulders. She was willing to accept her mother’s response for now. She was too tired to keep asking.
So Nikki’s been trying to figure this out. At least on this, Celeste and I are on the same page. They both had given Nikki a weird confirmation about her father’s love, twisting the truth just enough to obfuscate its cruel reality. For now that answer seemed enough. But they’d left Nikki with a question to answer a question. She knew Nikki would mull over things. It would only be a matter of time before she further challenged their answers. Zoie would just have to keep on lying. She would never tell her little girl that her father hadn’t wanted her. One day Elliot would have to answer Nikki directly. Zoie hoped that when that time came, he would lie too.
Zoie fixed a straight Scotch from Tina’s liquor cabinet. It burned going down, but she needed something. Then she called Detective Charles Bender.
“Sorry to contact you so late,” she said, sighing afterward.
“No problem. I was half-expecting your call,” he answered. “All’s well with your daughter, I take it.”
“She’s better than I am.”
“Yeah, you’ve had a rough few days.”
“For sure.”
“So you need to get this statement done. When can I take you in for that?”