A House Divided

by Donna Hill

  Zoie turned toward the house and hurried inside in search of her mother. By the time she spoke to Mark again, she needed to have a plan.

  She found her mother watering the garden. Her back was turned, and for a moment Zoie felt a rush of sadness. She was humming a tune that Zoie didn’t recognize, but in that setting her mother seemed happy, content even, as she walked along the rows of vegetables humming and murmuring and gently touching them with the kind of love that Zoie wished her mother would give to her.

  “Mama . . .”

  Rose glanced over her shoulder and turned off the hose. She wiped a hand across her forehead. “Just giving the garden a bit of attention.”

  Zoe took a step forward. “How often do we need to water?”

  “Hmm, once a week, more if it gets really hot.” She dropped the hose and brushed her hands along the sides of her dress. “What brings you out here? Looking over your new business?”

  Zoe refused to rise to the bait. “Actually, I was looking for you.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was wondering where Nana kept her records about the business—the clients and whatnot.”

  Rose pursed her lips. “Far as I know, whatever records she kept are in her room up in the attic.”

  “The attic?”

  Rose nodded. “Said the business was business, and she didn’t want it overflowing into the house.” She propped her hand on her hip. “Guess you can figure it all out yourself.” She turned away, picked up the hose, and continued watering the garden; it was her way of ending the conversation.

  “Thank you.”

  “Hmm.”

  Zoie walked away, determined to stand down any guilty feelings. If she was going to have to spend any length of time here, she would have to put on her big-girl pants while remaining respectful of her elders. It wouldn’t be easy, but she had very little choice.

  When she returned inside, she went up to the second floor and down the hall to the stairs that lead to the attic. She opened the door and was hit with a hot blast of pent-up air.

  Once up the stairs, she was shocked at what she found. In her mind, she had expected the attic to look like those she’d always seen on television—dusty, broken floorboards, old clothes, and mannequins draped in sheets. Instead she found a wide-open space with a beautiful rolltop desk that sat in front of the small attic window, file cabinets, two comfy chairs, and even a radio. There were pictures on the wall of the family in various stages of their growing up. On the built-in shelves were the little teapots that Nana loved to collect.

  Standing there, taking in the space, she turned, faced an exquisite mirror, and slowly began to recall the last time she had ventured up there. She must have been about eight, and in that version of her memory, the space was a treasure trove of adventure, a catchall for the discarded things in the house. All of the old fancy dresses with padded shoulders, high-heeled shoes, handmade quilts, and boxes of pictures and old furniture fascinated her. There were a Victrola and crates of albums. She’d emptied boxes and tried on outfits, posed in front of the tall mirror edged in heavy wood that leaned against the wall, and totally lost track of time.

  When her mother finally found her, she was sitting in a corner, trying on a pair of shoes. Rose was livid, as much from anger as fear.

  “Do you know you scared us all half to death? We’ve been looking all over for you.” Her mother snatched her up by the arm, then held her tight to her breasts. “Don’t you ever do that again, you hear me. Lord Jesus, if I ever lost you I don’t know what I’d do. Come on. You need a bath.” She took Zoie by the hand and led her downstairs. She was then scolded harshly by her aunt Sage and aunt Hyacinth for being up there, and warned to stay out before something fell on her and she would never be found again. She remembered that night, when her Nana had come into her room and sat on the side of her bed.

  “They just worry about you, that’s all, chile,” she’d said, stroking the side of Zoie’s cheek.

  “What did I do that was so wrong, Nana?”

  “Well, you run off, and ain’t nobody know where you get to. That attic ain’t a safe place for a little girl. Too many ways you can get hurt, and none of us want that.” She kissed Zoie’s forehead. “Understand?”

  “Yes, Nana.”

  “That’s my girl. Now, one day when you gets big enough, you can go up. Nothin’ up there but junk no ways. You get you some sleep.” She pushed up from the bed. “You remember what I said, hear?”

  “Yes, Nana.”

  “Nite now.”

  “Nite.”

  The one thing she never wanted to do was to disappoint her Nana. After that day, as curious as she was, she never ventured up to the attic again. After a while, she forgot all about it.

  Then she moved away.

  Zoie walked further into the room, running her hand along the desk, then turned her attention to the filing cabinets. She pulled the handle on the top drawer. It would not open. She tugged harder. Locked. She looked around. Maybe the key was in the desk.

  She went to the desk and pulled open the drawer. Pens, folders, a notepad, but no key. She frowned, turned in a circle, and went back to the file cabinet. She ran her hand across the top. Nothing. Where would Nana keep the key? She walked over to the built-ins and began to check the teapots. Bingo.

  She unlocked the cabinet and pulled open the top drawer. Inside were neat rows of multicolored file folders, all alphabetized. She plucked out a random folder. Fordham Foods. Nana sold vegetables to them monthly. Dubois Goods, another monthly account. There were at least ten businesses that expected delivery of fruits and vegetables on a monthly basis, and that didn’t include the individual households.

  After nearly two hours of going over the files and taking notes, Zoie was completely overwhelmed with the enormity of what her grandmother had single-handedly built. She could barely wrap her mind around it. How could she not have known? Because you never bothered to really find out.

  She pushed aside the files that had piled up on the desk and rested her head on her palms. She didn’t have the skills for this. She worked with words, not vegetables. What did she know about running a business? At best, she had an adversarial relationship with numbers and had barely made it out of her college math classes. How could her Nana have done all of this alone? Her mother and her aunts must have helped. And if so, then why drop all of this in her lap?

  Her temples pounded. She pushed back from the desk and stood. What was she going to do? She still had no plan. All she knew at the moment were the number of clients and delivery dates. How did it all work together? She was pretty sure that her grandmother didn’t drive all over town on delivery runs. But then again, knowing her feisty, independent grandmother, she very well may have.

  Her gaze settled on a mahogany trunk that was tucked in the back corner of the room. Curiosity teased her, but her brain was on overload. Probably old baby clothes or something. She’d tackle that another day. She took her notes and went back downstairs.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Mrs. Graham, there’s a reporter on the phone,” her assistant said into the telephone intercom. “Zoie Crawford.”

  “What outlet?”

  “The Recorder.”

  Kimberly frowned slightly. Small press. Small headlines. “That’s the paper that wanted to send someone to shadow me?”

  “Yes.”

  Kimberly squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. “Please take her number and find out what she wants. Tell her we’ll get back to her.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you, Gail.”

  Kimberly released the intercom and ran her fingers through her strawberry-blond hair. She rotated her neck in the hope of relieving the kinks that had built up throughout the hectic day of meetings and more meetings.

  Her gaze settled on the open folder on her desk. Her campaign schedule stared back at her. Contemplating the grueling weeks ahead and the toll that they would take on her and her family made her question if she was d
oing the right thing by running for the State Senate. Was it worth it?

  Lately she’d been questioning herself and her decision more and more. Was she running because she believed that she could make a difference, or because it was a legacy that she felt obligated to fulfill?

  Since she was a little girl trailing behind her big brother, Kyle, she’d been indoctrinated into the world of politics. Kyle ran for every office in his path—from Boy Scout troop leader to class president to city council. A few years out of college, Kyle ran for and won a seat in the State Assembly. When he was in his late twenties, he was being groomed for a senatorial run when he was killed in a head-on collision on his way to a campaign rally. The drunk driver walked away with a broken arm. Kyle Maitland was pronounced dead at the scene.

  Her parent’s golden boy was gone. And as much as Kimberly knew that her parents loved her, she also knew that what they felt for Kyle was something completely different. With him gone, it was as if the lights had all gone out in the Maitland home. Her mother was ghostlike, and her father barely spoke.

  She wasn’t quite sure of the moment when she realized that in order to survive in that house, she was going to have to become the female version of her brother.

  Her cell phone chirped with a text from one of her daughters, asking if they could have pizza for dinner. She smiled and quickly typed back that she would be home early and they could have whatever kind of pizza they wanted. A smiley face was their response.

  She stared at her phone and then speed-dialed her husband. She desperately needed to hear his voice of reason.

  “Jenny, hi, it’s Kim. Is my husband around?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Graham. He just came out of a meeting. Let me put you on a brief hold and get him for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  While she waited, she lifted the framed family photo that she kept on her desk. It was a picture of the four of them on their boat when the twins, Alexis and Alexandra, were about four. God, that had been a glorious day, and she was madly in love with her husband. When he came into her life, he gave it meaning beyond living the reincarnated life of Kyle Maitland. Her husband made her feel, for the first time since she’d lost her brother, that she had value for who she was, not what she could become. Yet he stood by her and cheered her on, even as she continued to attempt to fill her brother’s shoes and gain an elusive seal of approval from her parents. And when the opportunity arose for him to resign as CEO of InnerVision Technologies and launch his own company, Graham Industries, she loved him enough to leave the only home she’d ever known and move with him to New York. She hadn’t regretted her decision for one single moment.

  “Hey, sugah,” he crooned into the phone, snapping her from her reverie and sending a rush through her veins.

  “Hey, sugah yourself. You should be the politician with that charming southern drawl.”

  “Oh, go on. You say that to all the boys.”

  She laughed. “I needed to hear your voice, that’s all.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes. Fine. Busy day. Just a little tired, I think.”

  “I’ll take care of that tonight. How’s that?”

  She giggled like a schoolgirl. “Looking forward. Oh, the girls want pizza.”

  “Great. Easy, early night. Listen, babe, I gotta run. See you about seven.”

  “Rowan . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you right back.”

  Kimberly set the phone down on the desk, then went out to the front office. When they’d first arrived in New York, nearly ten years earlier, it was easy for Kimberly to land a job with DeVereau and Craine, one of the leading law firms in New York. Her JD from Tulane, along with master’s degrees in political science and economics, coupled with her family name and money, made her road a smooth one. But it wasn’t long before the partners began to see that Kimberly Maitland-Graham was a star in her own right—a fierce litigator, relentless at the negotiation table, and a devoted member of the team. All of which made her loss to the firm that much harder when she decided it was time to branch out on her own.

  Starting her own boutique law firm, K. Graham Esq., which focused solely on underdog clients—those who had been hurt by the system—was difficult at first, but as with everything that she set her mind to, she excelled. It wasn’t long before she began to gain a reputation as the one to go to for those hard-to-win cases, and that reputation had laid the groundwork for her political run.

  “Gail, can you pull up the information about the Recorder and also whatever articles this Zoie Crawford has written. I know you started a file, but I want to take another look. I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to this.”

  “Sounded like a good idea at the time,” Gail said.

  “Hmm. I guess it did.”

  Gail opened a program on her computer, located the virtual folder, and emailed it to Kimberly. “All sent.” She glanced up and smiled.

  “Thanks. We’re pretty much finished here for today. Why don’t you go on home? I’ll print this stuff out and take it with me. The girls want pizza tonight, and I want my feet rubbed.”

  Gail laughed. “Sounds like a plan. I guess I’ll see you in the morning then. Oh, don’t forget you have an eight-thirty breakfast meeting with the Planning Committee. The school lunch budget is on the agenda.”

  “Right. Thanks. I better take those notes home tonight as well.”

  “I’ll do that for you before I leave.”

  “Thanks . . . again. Gail, if I don’t tell you enough . . . I really appreciate all that you do. You are an amazing assistant.”

  Gail blushed. “That means a lot. Thank you.”

  Kimberly went into her office and opened the file that Gail had sent, printed out the documents, along with PDFs of several of Zoie Crawford’s articles, tucked them in a folder, and shoved the whole stack of papers into her favorite oversized Gucci tote.

  * * *

  Kimberly eased her Mercedes coupe to a stop in front of her Sutton Place address. Herb, the valet, hurried around to the driver’s-side door.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Graham.”

  “How are you, Herb?” She took his proffered hand to step out of the vehicle.

  “Pretty good.”

  “Did you apply to the colleges that we talked about?”

  He lowered his gaze. “Not exactly.”

  She rested her tote on the hood of the car. “Look at me,” she said softly.

  Reluctantly, he did.

  “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

  “I . . . we couldn’t pay for all the application fees,” he mumbled, and Kimberly heard the shame in his voice and felt his disappointment in those few words.

  She cleared her throat and slightly lifted her chin. “Print out the applications, fill them out, and get them to me. I’ll take them to my office and make some calls.”

  Herb’s eyes widened, then he frowned. “Why? Why are you doing this? Why do you care?”

  “Because I know that there’s a great big world of opportunity out there for you, and it’s hard as hell to take advantage of it without an education. Or how about the simple fact that you deserve it?” She handed him her car keys. “The thing is, Herb, you have to believe in yourself before anyone else can.” She rounded the car and walked toward the entrance.

  “Evening, Mrs. Graham,” the concierge greeted.

  “Good evening, Lester. How is everything?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  Kimberly smiled. “Tell your wife hello for me.”

  “I certainly will.”

  She crossed the lobby to the elevators. The doors soundlessly opened, and she slid her access card to the penthouse in the slot.

  Riding up, she replayed her conversation with Herb. She knew why he reacted the way he did. In his mind, no matter how nice she was or how fat her tip was at Christmas, she was still a white woman—the enemy. Or, at best, a liberal do-gooder come to save the dow
ntrodden. But she didn’t want to be painted as some “great white hope.” She honestly loved what she did and believed in her causes and the equal rights of everyone, not just the chosen few.

  Would she be any more authentic if she lived in a tenement somewhere and was poor and uneducated? What she had been born into and acquired should not be held against her. What she wanted to do with her so-called “white privilege” was make a real difference.

  The doors opened, and she was immediately greeted with squeals of delight.

  Alexis and Alexandra came at her like the twin tornados that they were and wrapped themselves around her body.

  She showered them with kisses and hugs, thankful that those two magical beings were always the highlight of her day; they were the spitting images of their dad, with their ink-dark hair, arresting blue eyes, and flawless skin that easily turned golden in the sun. They were destined to be heartbreakers.

  “Hi, Mrs. Graham.”

  “Hey, Farrah,” she said to her housekeeper and sitter. “They weren’t too much of a handful today, I hope,” she said with a smile.

  “No more than usual. Your mail is on the counter. Homework is done. They’ve had their showers. There’s chicken salad in the fridge, if you want. The girls said it was pizza night.”

  Kimberly grinned. “Yes, it is.”

  “Well, if you don’t need anything else, I’m going to head home.”

  “That’s fine. Please get going. Thanks for everything.”

  “See you in the morning.” She hugged the girls and left.

  As the elevator door closed behind Farrah, Kimberly realized yet again what her money afforded her, and she wondered how she would be able to do what she did without help. Yet that was the weight on the shoulders of thousands of parents and double the weight on single mothers.