9. Zola
ZOLA
The lawyer's voice is steady, professional, carefully neutral in the way people get when they're delivering news that will reshape someone's entire world.
"Ms. Montgomery, as outlined in the last will and testament of Nialyn Maeve Brooks, you are named as the sole guardian of her daughter, Maeve Iris Brooks, and sole beneficiary of her estate."
I sit across from him at one of the bookstore's reading tables, Maeve a warm, sleeping weight against my chest. She's been clingy since the morning she woke up and Nia wasn't there.
Kept looking around for her, making those little questioning sounds that babies make when something in their universe has shifted.
I couldn't put her down without her screaming, so she's been strapped to me in the carrier ever since, her curls tickling my chin, her sticky fingers occasionally clutching at my shirt.
The bookstore is closed, has been for a week.
The sign on the door says Closed for Family Emergency because I couldn't bring myself to write Closed Due to Death.
Too final. Too real. Even now, two days after watching them lower Nia's casket into the ground, some part of me expects her to come through the back door with that brilliant smile, asking if I've eaten today.
"The bookstore property is held in trust," the lawyer continues, consulting his documents.
"Ownership transfers to you outright, along with all inventory, assets, and associated accounts.
" He slides papers across the table. "Ms. Brooks was remarkably thorough in her planning.
She established a trust fund for Maeve funded by her life insurance policy—after covering funeral expenses, there's approximately two hundred thousand remaining.
That money can only be accessed for Maeve's care and education until she turns twenty-five. "
My throat closes. Two hundred thousand dollars. Nia planned for everything, made sure her daughter would be taken care of, made sure I'd have what I needed to raise her. The weight of that trust, that absolute faith that I wouldn't fail her, sits like concrete in my stomach.
"Additionally, Owen Brooks' life insurance policy covered all medical expenses related to Ms. Brooks' illness. The bookstore has no outstanding debts." He looks at me over his reading glasses, his expression softening slightly. "She made this as easy as she possibly could for you, Ms. Montgomery."
Easy. The word is laughable. Nothing about this is easy. Nothing about waking up without my best friend, my sister in everything but blood, will ever be easy again. But I understand what he means. Nia didn't leave me drowning. She threw me every lifeline she could from beyond the grave.
"There are a few forms requiring your signature." He spreads them out, pointing to highlighted sections. "Guardian designation, trust fund acknowledgment, property transfer documents."
I sign where he indicates, my hand moving on autopilot while Maeve sleeps against me.
Her breath is warm through my shirt, her weight the only thing keeping me grounded.
Without her, I think I might just float away, become nothing, dissolve into the grief that's been threatening to swallow me whole since I watched them lower that casket.
The lawyer gathers the papers, sliding them back into his briefcase with quiet efficiency.
"I'm very sorry for your loss, Ms. Montgomery.
If you need anything, my office is available.
" He stands, offering his hand. "Ms. Brooks spoke very highly of you.
She was confident you'd take excellent care of her daughter. "
I shake his hand because that's what you do, even when every social nicety feels like moving through concrete. "Thank you."
He sees himself out, the bell above the door chiming softly as he leaves. The sound echoes in the empty bookstore, bouncing off the shelves Nia spent years curating, the reading nooks she arranged just so, the children's corner where she hosted story time every Saturday morning.
I'm alone. Completely, devastatingly alone in a way I've never been before.
My mother died eleven years ago, but I'd had Nia then.
Had Declan. Had people who knew me, who cared, who existed in my orbit and made the world feel less vast and terrifying.
Then I left Declan, cut myself off from everyone except Nia, spent eight years in New York with no real connections because getting close to people meant they could leave.
And now Nia's gone anyway, and I'm holding her daughter, and I'm the only person left who knew Zola Montgomery before she became this hollow thing wrapped in sarcasm and defense mechanisms.
I stand carefully, supporting Maeve's head as I move toward the back room.
The apartment stairs loom ahead of me, each step feeling impossible.
But I climb them because that's what you do when you're all that stands between an eight-month-old and the foster system.
You keep moving even when moving feels like drowning.
The apartment smells like Nia. Her lavender lotion, her coconut shampoo, the vanilla candles she burned constantly.
Every surface holds evidence of her—framed photos, her favorite coffee mug still sitting in the dish drainer, one of her cardigans draped over the couch.
She's everywhere and nowhere, present in every object but absent in the only way that matters.
I lay Maeve down in her crib with the kind of care usually reserved for defusing bombs.
She stirs but doesn't wake, her little fist curling against the sheet, her rosebud mouth making those tiny sucking movements babies do in their sleep.
She looks like Nia. Same warm brown skin, same riot of dark curls, same perfect features.
Looking at her is like looking at a ghost of my best friend, and I don't know if that's a gift or a curse.
The moment she's settled, something inside me fractures.
I make it to the hallway before the first sob hits, then I'm sliding down the wall, knees pulled to my chest, trying to muffle the sounds that are tearing out of me.
I press my face against my knees and cry the way I haven't cried since my mother died.
Raw, ugly, the kind of grief that empties you out and leaves nothing but jagged edges.
Everyone is gone. My mother. Declan—not dead but gone in every way that matters. And now Nia, who held me together when I fell apart at twenty-one, who never judged me for running, who loved me when I couldn't love myself.
I'm twenty-nine years old, sitting on the floor of a dead woman's apartment, responsible for a baby I have no idea how to raise, drowning in a grief so profound it has texture and weight.
This is what it means to be completely alone.
Not lonely—alone. No safety net. No backup.
Just me and a baby who deserves so much better than what I can give her.
I don't know how long I sit there. Long enough for the tears to run dry. Long enough for the late afternoon light to shift through the windows. Long enough that when my phone buzzes in my pocket, I startle like I've forgotten the outside world exists.
It's Serena.
Serena: Just finished my shift at the hospital. On my way.
Right. I texted her this morning, asked if she could watch Maeve for a few hours. I need to go to The Cracked Cask, need to quit before Ray schedules me for shifts I can't work. Need to start dismantling my old life so I can build this new one I never wanted.
Zola: We're home. Thank you.
I haul myself off the floor, wash my face in the bathroom sink, try to make myself look like a functional human being instead of someone who just spent twenty minutes sobbing on hardwood.
The mirror shows me the truth: swollen eyes, thin frame, exhaustion carved into every feature.
But it's the best I can manage, so it'll have to be good enough.
Serena arrives fifteen minutes later, her scrubs exchanged for jeans and a sweater, her hair pulled back in a neat bun.
She was Nia's night nurse when the hospice care ramped up, when Nia couldn't be left alone.
I had to work late shifts to cover rent and expenses, and Serena stayed, providing comfort and medication management with the kind of gentle competence that made dying less terrifying.
She spent months with Maeve, held her while Nia slept, fed her bottles and changed diapers and sang soft songs in Polish that sounded like lullabies.
"Hey sweetie." She pulls me into a hug that smells like hospital soap and something floral. "How are you holding up?"
The question almost breaks me again, but I've cried myself dry. "I'm here."
"That's enough." She releases me, her dark eyes searching my face with too much understanding. "Maeve still sleeping?"
"Just went down maybe forty-five minutes ago."
"I'll keep an ear out. You take your time, do what you need to do." She squeezes my shoulder. "We're going to get through this, Zola. One day at a time."
I nod because speaking might shatter whatever fragile control I've managed to rebuild. Then I grab my keys and escape before the apartment's walls close in completely.
The walk to The Cracked Cask takes fifteen minutes through streets that feel both familiar and foreign.
I've been back in Philadelphia almost a year, but I still sometimes forget where I am.
Turn a corner expecting to see the bodega from my old neighborhood in Brooklyn and instead finding the corner store where Nia and I used to buy candy as kids.
It's disorienting, this collision of past and present, of who I was and who I've become.
The bar is quiet when I push through the door, the afternoon lull before the evening rush.
A handful of regulars occupy their usual spots, nursing beers and watching whatever game plays on the mounted TV.
The familiar smell hits me—stale beer, fried food, the faint sweetness of spilled liquor that never quite washes out of wood floors.
And Naomi is behind the bar.