Chapter 32
My next stop was the Edisto Beach Public Library. It was the larger of the two libraries on the island, and it had digital
research files. The librarian knew what I was looking for.
I swallowed the lump that had been stuck in my throat since the deacon got in my head.
There were pictures of the men at the top of the article. Their names: Riley Thomas Jones and Hiram Jones. Riley T. was Joy’s father. It was the same face from the mugshot she sent. Hiram,
though half Tom’s age, was his twin. The article read:
Longtime Edisto Island residents Riley Thomas Jones and his nephew Hiram Jones are accused of assisting Jericho Holdings of New York in illegally acquiring more than three hundred acres of land from Edisto landowners, many of whom have lived on the island since their ancestors were freed.
Charges have been filed with the Colleton County Circuit Court.
The Jones men are said to have made $500,000 in their role as sales agents for Jericho for land valued at $17 million.
Most residents have stated that they trusted the Jones men, who, by making false statements about Jericho’s intent, were able
to get landowners to sign over their deeds. The head of one family, who preferred not to be identified, stated, “Our family
received this land after freedom. Riley Jones told us we would receive money for drainage to help with flooding so we wouldn’t
lose our crops after the storms, and now my family and I have nothing but a check for $20,000 and the stolen dream of passing
land down to our children.”
There was a list of families affected by the scandal. It included Beck’s parents, Beau and Katherine Chambers. Other Chamberses
were named as well. We lost our land to scammers, and that’s why they’d all migrated to Clarendon County.
I read article after article, only stopping when I couldn’t see more through my tears.
This was all so tragic, but the worst of it was resting on the periphery of my mind. The name LB Scott kept coming up. He’d
been a spokesman for the landowners who were robbed.
Certain I recognized that name, I went to Gabe’s website, visited his About Me page, and skimmed past his bio and journey
to publication until I reached his testimony about Seasons. I’d visited the page before and recalled the dedication to his father.
This book is a love letter about healing that I have dedicated to my father, Lincoln Bernard Scott.
Lincoln Bernard. LB. Land lost in Edisto.
A knot locked in my chest and rolled up into my throat. This was too much to bear, and then there was the accomplice. Hiram Jones was Tom’s nephew. He looked like a teenager, someone Beck could have been in school with. Could he have been my father? Had I been looking for the wrong name?
I drove back to the high school, but the building was already locked for the day. Lights off, lot empty, there wasn’t even
a custodian in sight. There was no way to check the yearbook again.
There was also no way I could go to the center, so I called in sick, leaving Taylor and Nola in charge. Then I put my phone
on Do Not Disturb and crawled under the covers with the truth I wasn’t ready to face. I’d printed out the online article—the
one with the old photos—and sat staring at the page until the ink began to blur in my vision. The pictures were small and
grainy but still clear enough:
Hiram Jones looked like Tom Jones.
Joy looked like her father.
I looked like Joy.
I was convinced that there was no John Miller. There had never been a John Miller. Beck had simply lied.
The next morning, I drove to Baptist Hill High before campus even opened, determined to get my hands on the yearbook again.
I parked just as my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize.
I answered, and a warm, older woman’s voice replied, “Good morning. I’m trying to reach Alexandra Chambers. My name is Mrs.
Willow.”
Mrs. Willow invited me for tea. She lived in a pale yellow house on a quiet road lined with low-hanging maple and pecan trees.
It was the kind of place that didn’t seem to age, only settle.
I followed the brick path to the porch, trying to steady the thrum in my chest. I’d wanted answers, but now that I was finding them, the truth felt heavier than any of the questions I’d ever had.
The door opened before I could knock.
“You must be Alexandra,” Mrs. Willow said, her voice as warm as the creams, browns, and light blue that decorated the interior
of her home. Her silver hair was swept back neatly, and her eyes held the kind of intelligence that didn’t need speed or volume
to prove itself. She let me in.
The house smelled faintly of lemon oil. She led me through a hallway filled with class portraits and framed photographs of
people and events like ribbon-cutting ceremonies and school plays. Generations of faces. Lives she’d tended.
We settled on a sofa in a sitting room with lace curtains and a low table already set with tea. “I hope you don’t mind serving
yourself. I’m worn out from traveling.”
I poured two servings, handing one to her. I wrapped my hands around the warm cup, grateful for something to hold. “I appreciate
you taking the time to talk with me,” I said. My voice sounded thinner than I wanted.
She gave a gentle, knowing smile. “If a child comes searching for their story, the least I can do is open the door.”
I swallowed. A child. I was nearly forty, but at that moment I felt seven again, lost and needing a grown-up to explain why the lights were off.
“I . . .” My voice cracked on my words. “I wanted to ask about my mother, Rebecca Chambers. She was a student at the high
school in 1986.”
Mrs. Willow’s expression changed, softened. “Oh yes. I remember Rebecca.” She breathed out slowly, as if remembering cost something. “Such a sweet girl. Always helped in the front office, folding papers as neatly as pressed flowers. She left in the middle of her tenth year.”
Mrs. Willow’s lips pursed. “That was the way back then. If a girl found herself in the family way, she couldn’t stay at school.
They called it ‘removal for moral conduct.’” She shook her head. “Cruel way of saying she wasn’t allowed to finish here with
dignity.”
A silence opened between us before I asked what I needed to ask. “Do you know who she was dating? Who she was . . . seeing
who might have been the father of the baby?”
Mrs. Willow didn’t answer right away. She sat back, studying my face the way someone looks at a puzzle whose picture they’re
nearly finished assembling. “Did something happen to Rebecca?”
The words unraveled me a little. I blinked hard, and the sting behind my eyes warmed. “No, ma’am. My mother is just fine.”
Mrs. Willow made a little sound. A grunt of disapproval. She reached over and touched my hand—just two fingertips, light but
grounding. “I’m sorry, dear. Answers don’t always come the way we want them to. But you deserve them.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Hiram Jones,” she said softly. “That was the boy she went around with. Looked just like his uncle—tall, good posture, smile
that made teachers suspicious and girls foolish.” A wistful breath. “But he had a good heart. He adored your mother, or at
least that’s what it looked like.”
My throat tightened. “And his uncle?”
She looked toward the window, as if memory were something visible out there.
“Riley Jones was a smart man,” she said slowly.
“Smart enough to use people. Smart enough to cheat them. I remember the day the land scandal broke. A few months later, we all had to watch good families pack up homes they’d lived in since emancipation.
Watched their faces as bulldozers came for what was theirs.
” Her voice dropped. “Your family included.”
I felt the words like a door closing and opening at the same time.
“And what happened to them?” I asked. “The Jones men.”
She met my eyes, and I saw her hesitation like she wished she could soften the truth but knew it wouldn’t serve me.
“Riley left,” she said. “Abandoned the boy. Ran to keep himself from being dragged down with the mess he’d made.” My chest
was getting tighter and tighter with each word she said. “And then Hiram . . . ended up in prison. But I suppose you know
that.”
My heart thudded, slow and painful. “No,” I said. “I didn’t know any of it.”
Her brows lifted with gentle sorrow. “Oh, child.”
That was when my voice broke. I hadn’t planned to cry here—not in front of this stranger, not over a man I’d never known—but
the tears came anyway. Silent at first, then harder.
Mrs. Willow didn’t panic. She simply handed me a handkerchief. “Secrets don’t protect people the way they think they do,”
she said gently. “They just leave wounds without names.”
I dabbed my eyes, trying to breathe normally again. “Thank you,” I managed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You don’t need to apologize for wanting the truth,” she said, voice steady. “You’ve earned it.”
I stood, because sitting felt impossible once oxygen came back to my lungs. “I appreciate your time. Truly.”
She rose too, slower, watching me with the tenderness of someone who had raised a hundred lost teenagers in school hallways.
I stepped into the sunlight with a new name, new history, new ache. For the first time in my life, I was holding both my father’s truth and my mother’s lie. I wasn’t sure whether I was more broken or freed by the knowledge.
A tear slipped down my face. I wiped it away with the heel of my hand, but another followed. Just days ago, I’d been feeling
like the happiest woman in the world, and now the worst misery of my life had fallen on me like the bricks that shaped this
house.
My mother had been lying to me for more than thirty years. Not just about my father’s name, but about where we came from.
About why we didn’t have a relationship with the other Chamberses in Clarendon County. Undoubtedly, she thought she’d shielded
me. But as I stood here, it felt less like protection and more like betrayal and theft. She’d taken my history and left me
defenseless inside it.
I somehow made it to my car and pulled away from Mrs. Willow’s house, but I didn’t make it far before I had to stop and reckon
with my emotions. The conversation with the deacon came back to me. He’d wanted me to feel shame. He wasn’t wrong for it.
There was a lot to be ashamed of.
I also understood the flicker of anger I saw in his eyes when I told him we lived on James Island. We had no business making
a life among those people. We had no right to land that had been stolen from other Gullah families. The realization settled
in my chest like a weight I didn’t know how to lift.
My phone buzzed.
Gabe.
Not ready to talk to him, I ignored it. Avoiding him felt easier than facing what my voice might betray.
The air thinned, stealing my breath again. My family’s name was tied to the theft of his family’s land. He’d written about
this in his book. He never mentioned the names of the thieves or any of the specifics about the scam, but this was it. The
dates. The way it was done. The number of families. His father’s name in the newspaper.
Something inside me finally gave way. The pain started between my shoulders and pushed forward until it pressed hard against my heart.
We had more in common than I ever wanted to know. Both our families had survived land theft during Reconstruction and Jim
Crow. They held on through generations of laws and schemes designed to pry land loose from Black hands. They had endured what
was designed to erase them.
And still this had happened.
Not by strangers.
But by one of our own. By my father.
I pressed my wet eyelids closed.
Beck tried to keep this a secret from me, but time—it had a way of keeping its promise.