Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Elena wrote the most powerful article of her career that night.
Consumed with anger and fear for her mother’s life and memory, she stayed up till dawn, writing and editing and trying to pin down as much of the corruption she and Natalie had gathered thus far.
She knew this would probably be the first of many articles, that it was really the beginning.
It was meant to take the town's temperature, to figure out who knew what. She cited the mayor as a potential source of the corruption and spoke about Henrietta, Judge Baxter Drury, and their parents. “They learned well from the wealthy generation before them,” she wrote. “They learned not to care about the rest of us.” She also wrote about the mysterious circumstances surrounding her grandmother’s disappearance, but was prepared to take it out if Natalie thought it went too far.
When Elena met Natalie at the office the following morning, Natalie took one look at her, poured a mug of coffee, and handed it to her. “You need this,” she said.
“Do I look that rough?” Elena asked.
“Worse,” Natalie said.
Elena confessed to what she’d been up to.
“It’s a kind of mania that comes over me when I care about a story too much,” she said.
“It used to happen to me all the time back in Syria.” It had happened to Timothy, too.
She remembered that they’d bonded over this early on, that he’d seen himself in her work ethic. It disgusted her to think of that now.
Natalie read the article standing up in Elena’s office.
She was wearing different clothes than she typically did, a blazer and a pair of slacks, and she’d gotten a haircut that made her look straight from a Manhattan newsroom.
She looked professional and sleek. Elena thought, She’s becoming a real journalist now.
My mother would be proud. And when Natalie looked up at Elena, having finished reading, she came prepared with several notes that she thought would make Elena’s piece much stronger.
“But it’s good,” Natalie said firmly. “It says everything it needs to say.” She hesitated. “How are you feeling about revealing the stuff about your grandmother?”
“That’s the thing,” Elena said. “I’m not revealing much.
I hardly know what happened to her. I’m using it as filler around the main story, which I see as a fight between the residents of Millbrook and those of Cranberry Cove over the land at Cranberry Cove.
We have to make sure the last of the cove remains public.
” When Elena closed her eyes, she could still visualize that gorgeous, sweeping beach, those frothing purple clouds overhead, and the water as it lapped against the sands.
She refused to give it to the likes of Baxter Drury and his country club.
She declined to provide the uber-wealthy with still more reason to celebrate.
“You’re going to make plenty of people very angry,” Natalie said tentatively.
“I’m used to that.”
That night, the article was printed in the Gazette, and by morning, the story was on everyone’s lips, zipping through texts and highlighted all over the internet.
Elena got on social media and read post after post from Millbrook residents discussing what she’d written, many of them revealing how shocked they were that something like this could happen in Millbrook. Others weren’t so naive.
GrantHaddox12: We all knew the rich folks at the Cove were taking advantage of us. But I can’t believe it extends to our elected officials. Thanks to Elena Vasquez for reporting.
BrittanyStrong: I literally voted for that mayor! He’s ripping money out of my pocket!
NateDeanHunter: TAKE THE COVE BACK.
But that morning, Elena couldn’t go to the newsroom to discuss further action.
Carmen woke up with a migraine and fear of something amorphous she thought was outside.
Elena did her best to calm her down, but telling her the same old Christmas stories didn’t work this time.
When Carmen grew especially frightened, Elena administered the medication that Maxine had given her, then watched as her mother drifted off to sleep.
Elena’s heart fell into her stomach. The war for Cranberry Cove seemed so small compared to the war going on in her mother’s mind.
But around noon, Natalie called with news. “People are organizing a protest at Cranberry Cove! From the looks of it, there will be at least a hundred people there. We’re all headed there now. Can you come?”
Elena was stunned into silence.
“It’s because of your article,” Natalie reminded her. “They get it now. They won’t let this happen without a fight. It’s great!”
Elena felt flustered. Stuttering, she said, “I don’t know if I can get away.
” But of course, she knew her mother’s nurse would arrive any minute.
The truth was, Cranberry Cove made her nervous, especially now that she understood there was a connection between her grandmother and those sinister people.
Despite her best efforts, and maybe because she hadn't slept well, she’d begun to ask herself, Am I just as sinister and wrong as my grandmother?
Do I have the capacity to accept corruption?
Would I take money and turn the other way?
She liked to think the answer was no. But who knew what they would do in such circumstances?
After Natalie made Elena promise that she’d come to the protest, Elena jumped in the shower, dressed, and met the nurse downstairs to explain what was going on with her mother.
The nurse was accustomed to all things Alzheimer’s and nodded, giving a vague look of apology and empathy.
“She’ll be all right,” she promised. “I’ll be here when she wakes up. ”
As Elena left the house, jangling her keys, her phone rang with a call from James. She leaped into the driver’s seat, answered, and said, “Are you going?”
He laughed that good-natured laugh of his, a laugh that seemed to live in Elena’s heart, and said, “I was going to ask you to pick me up.”
“I’m on my way.” Elena knew that James didn’t like to drive very much, not after what had happened to his son. This brought more meaning to how they’d first met, when James had offered to drive Elena to the hospital. His kindness had outrivaled his fear.
Elena drove the few blocks to James’s but got out when he popped out of his house so that she could kiss and hug him properly.
His heart pounded behind his Carhartt coat.
He was prepared for a chilly afternoon at the cove.
The fight had been going on for decades, but they were ready to join in.
And it had all begun with Elena’s article.
When they pulled up to the cove, they found more than 100 protestors gathered along the water, lining up near the forest, and staggering out across the sidewalk and road.
Many people had signs, demanding that the cove remain public, that it remain “ours.” Elena parked her mother’s car, got out, and hurried over just as a scientist in environmental protection concluded his speech about the importance of the Cranberry Cove ecosystem and what would be lost if they let “another useless country club” be built there.
“We can’t let the wealthy walk all over us,” he said. The crowd before him cheered.
Elena’s heart skipped a beat. Peering out beyond the little makeshift stage, she thought she spotted Henrietta and Judge Baxter Drury, staring at them from their awful houses, their faces etched with anger.
Their anger was proof that something they were doing was working, at least. Maybe the mayor had gotten cold feet.
Perhaps the construction crew had pointed to the town’s anger and said they couldn’t lose the money they’d earn from the greater county.
We’d be hated, they might have said. We’d lose so much more than what you’re offering us.
Corruption could only talk as far as the money went, Elena knew.
Soon, Natalie of all people took the stage and made an impassioned speech about Cranberry Cove, its surrounding beauty, and her fear that the country would be given over to people who don’t care “about those of us who live our ordinary lives in a community like Millbrook.” Her eyes glinted with powerful tears.
She met Elena’s gaze in the audience and raised her fist to prove her power.
Several other Millbrook residents raised theirs in solidarity.
It wasn’t for another ten minutes that Elena realized James wasn’t beside her any longer.
She felt a jolt of fear and hurried out of the crowd, scanning faces, looking for him.
Finally, she spotted him off to the side, near the forest, his hands on his hips, his face reflecting shock.
He was in conversation with a woman Elena had never seen before —a woman in her forties who looked worn-out, sorrowful, and angry, so angry.
She spoke as if she and James had known each other for a long time.
Elena thought immediately, This is his ex-wife.
Elena was overwhelmed with the desire to help him, to protect him. But did she have the right?
Curiosity got the better of her. Drawing around the crowd, she got as close as she could, then caught James’s eye.
James stitched his brows together, just as his ex-wife said, “Don’t ask me questions you don’t want to know the answer to.
” Elena couldn’t fathom ever speaking to James like that.
She wondered if this was a result of all they’d been through, all the horror they’d seen.
Suddenly, the ex-wife threw up her hands and left James behind, returning up the hill to one of the houses of Cranberry Cove.
James looked hollowed out. Elena hurried over, wrapped her arms around him, and asked, “Are you all right?”
James shook violently for thirty seconds, unable to speak.
Elena slid her hand up and down his back and listened to his heart, urging it to calm.
Beside them, the protestors continued to cry out.
But Elena felt the urge to guide James back to her mother’s car, to tuck him into bed and tell him it was all going to be fine. It would be. It had to be.
“I think she was cheating on me,” James said finally. “With Sam.”
Elena ducked her head back to look at him.
“There was so much distance between us,” he said. “After the accident. We separated, in a way, even before we discussed separating. I can’t blame her for finding love somewhere else.”
Elena couldn’t believe how kindhearted this man was. He couldn’t even blame his ex-wife for cheating on him.
Elena didn’t know what to say.
“But it means she’s been ‘with’ Sam for a few years now,” James continued, his eyes furtive.
He turned to follow Bethany’s track back to the mansions at Cranberry Cove.
“I can’t help but think she might know something about the corruption at the heart of this.
I can’t help but think she owes me an explanation. ”
Elena squeezed his hands. “You’d do that?”
James looked formidable, like a man who’d been through hell and back. “It’s not just for you, and it’s not just for Millbrook. I need to know, too.”