Chapter 33
My mind reeled with so many questions. But one that I’d had my entire life was answered.
I drove to the house and found Beck fresh out of the shower, running a towel through her wet hair.
“Hi, sweetheart. I wasn’t expecting you. Are you staying the weekend? Did you see how pretty the marigolds are?”
She’d yet to realize that I hadn’t answered her questions until she finally stopped moving and met my eyes. She had to see
anger, hurt, and tearstains.
“How could you keep such a horrible secret from me?”
Beck looked confused at first, and then she rubbed her hair again before securing the towel in a headwrap. “What secret?”
“Is there more than one?”
Beck rolled her bottom lip in as she pulled the belt on her robe. “Alex, what are you talking about?”
“There’s so much.” I chuckled mirthlessly. “Let’s start with Hiram Jones. My father’s real name.”
Beck’s jaw muscles flexed. She paced, slowly, as if she didn’t have the strength for it, and then she stopped and looked me in the eyes. Her face burned with shame. “How did you find out?”
“The hard way.”
Beck closed her eyes. She was caught with no words. No more lies.
“I went to Clarendon County. I looked for you and John Miller in the yearbook. And then I talked to people who helped me put
the pieces together, Mom. That’s how I know.”
Beck didn’t say anything. She seemed paralyzed by her current reality. But I had no sympathy for her. She’d absolutely gone
too far, and I wanted the entire truth. Now.
“You had to know this was going to come out when Joy contacted me.”
“I was hoping it wouldn’t. I knew Riley Jones, not Tom.”
Beck was still playing games. “His middle name is Thomas.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Not even when you saw the picture?” I rolled my eyes. “You should have known I wasn’t going to let this go. Seriously, Mom.
I do research for a living.”
“I never wanted you to know. That’s why I changed his name,” Beck said, offering me the first piece of truth in this web of
lies. “I decided a long time ago that I didn’t want you to know the kind of man he was. And to hide that, I had to hide his
identity. If you googled Hiram Jones, you might have found him.”
“And you thought that was the right thing to do?”
“Of course. My first instinct from the moment you kicked in my belly was to protect you.”
“I don’t feel protected, Mom. I feel deceived and betrayed.”
I sat. Sat with the heaviness on my heart. The disappointment curdling in my gut. Beck slid onto a chair across the room from
me. She folded her hands, then unfolded them, then clasped them again, as if she couldn’t decide what to do with them or with
me.
I opened my mouth to speak. It took a few times before I got words to come out. “I was at a church on Edisto Island yesterday.”
Beck’s face wouldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d thrown cold water at her. “Why?”
“Some of my students are from the island.”
Beck grunted—in surprise, not frustration. “I thought you just had the kids from Hollywood and Ravenel.”
“Quite a few of them are from the island. They attend the same school you went to.” I added, “You went to school with an Earl
Porter. I met with him yesterday.”
Beck yanked her head back. “Earl? Why were you meeting with him?”
I sighed. This wasn’t the time for this conversation, but I answered her anyway. “He’s the pastor I pitched an outreach program
to for students who don’t have transportation to the center.”
Beck stood. She raised a hand to her stomach like she needed the strength of her core. “Earl went into ministry, but he’s
bringing up old gossip?”
“He didn’t. The deacon . . . a man named Smith. And . . .” I threw up my hands. “None of that even matters. You told me your
parents lost their land due to back taxes.”
“I didn’t say that. I said they owed taxes, which they did,” Beck said firmly.
“Are you trying to gaslight me right now?”
Beck pressed her fingers into her temples, walked to her bed, and sat again. “The taxes were a part of it. They thought the
money they were getting would help them catch up on the payments and do some work on the land. They had irrigation issues,
and my father needed new equipment. My parents thought they were borrowing money to fix up the property and pay the taxes.”
A memory of my grandparents entered my mind like a video. I saw my grandmother picking herbs from Mason jars in her kitchen window and my grandfather working in the garden outside their house.
Ms. Kate came to mind. I hadn’t put it together, but her ways, her movements, the cadence of her speech all reminded me of
my grandmother. My father had taken their land and left my grandfather with a garden when he’d owned a farm on ancestral land.
“What kind of a person was my father?”
Beck didn’t meet my eyes when she answered. “He was influenced by his uncle. It was complicated.”
I shook my head, hating that all this was real. “How could he steal from your parents?”
Beck covered her face with her hands for a few seconds before she dropped them. “He didn’t. Not really. Our land was supposed
to be off-limits, but the company wanted it, needed it because of the location, so they made a side deal with his uncle, and
he made the deal with my parents. Hiram didn’t know about it until it was too late. He’d come to New Jersey to be with us.”
I sat with that thought for a moment. My father, barely out of his teens, traveling from South Carolina to New Jersey to be
with his girlfriend and baby. I would have been less than two years old. This was sad and getting sadder as I learned the
details.
“Alex . . .” Beck’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.
I shook off sentiment. I wasn’t here for that. This was a fact-finding visit. “How did they take land from so many at the
same time? Didn’t people talk?”
“Of course.” Beck’s frustration peppered her tone. “But they all got their money the same week. That was how the scam worked.
The landowners were told that a certain number of properties had to be committed to upgrading in order for Edisto to be chosen
for the financing. None of them talked to a lawyer. They trusted Jericho. By the time anyone figured it out, it was too late.”
“I read that Jericho was owned by a man who had heirs property rights.”
“Lots of White men claimed to have heirs property rights. They created them at will, and the law gave them what they wanted.”
I started pacing again. “Why did you lie to me? Why this elaborate cover-up of our family history?”
Beck’s eyes and voice were filled with sadness. “I didn’t want you to know your father was in prison. That he did this horrible
thing. You deserved better. I deserved better.”
A rush of emotions flooded me, but I fought crying again. My thoughts raced with memories of small things that bothered me
and big ones that didn’t make sense. “That’s why you stayed in Jersey even though it would have been easier for you to be
in South Carolina.” I threw my hands up. “Why there are no pictures of him.”
Beck crushed the comforter with her grip. “Yes.”
“It’s why we never talked about him.”
Beck dropped her head and avoided my eyes.
“I always thought it was grief.”
“It was.” She barely spoke above a whisper. “I never would have thought he was capable of something like that.”
I bit my lip before asking, “Did you share the money with him?”
Beck did not respond immediately. It was a long minute before she admitted what I could see she didn’t want to. “I did, but
I didn’t know where it came from. He said he was working construction jobs in Atlantic City. He left the house every day like
he was, but then I found out he wasn’t working.”
“Were you together when he died?”
“No. He went to prison, Alex.”
I sighed. “I’ve had enough.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t just get to say you’re sorry. I’m thirty-eight, Mom. You should have told me the truth.”
Beck’s voice faltered. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Lying for thirty-eight years? That could never be right.”
“I realize that . . . now. I realize how much it’s hurt you.”
“You don’t realize anything.” I took a few seconds to gather the words I had to say in my mouth. “Gabe’s family is one of
the families who lost their land.”
“Wha . . . what?” The word came out in pieces as broken as Beck’s face.
I pointed at her bookshelf. At her unread copy of Seasons. “He writes about it in his book.”
Beck stood. “No.”
“He writes about how they lost the land when his mother was sick and that the grief over the loss killed his father.”
All the color drained from her face. “Oh no. No, no, no!” Beck reached up and covered her ears. She squeezed her eyes tight.
“He’s doing it again.”
I didn’t say anything because Beck’s emotions were erupting in tears. She snatched the towel off her head and threw it. “Your
father is stealing love and happiness. Again.”
I shook my head. Shook it back and forth and back and forth for every “no” that was reverberating in my head. I squared up
with Beck, looked her firmly in the eyes, and said, “My father stopped stealing when he died. If I had known about him, I
never would have moved back here to this place where people would know what he did.”
Beck didn’t respond to that. She was in a trance born of despair.
Gabe’s face flashed in my mind. His beautiful eyes. That smile I loved. His voice. That kiss. The promise of a future. It was gone. “I allowed myself to get close to Gabe. I never would have . . . How am I supposed to explain this? His father is dead.”
Beck took a step toward me. I stepped back. “I was trying to protect you.” She raised a hand to her heart. “The burden of
what he did fell on me too.”
“And now it’s mine because you didn’t tell me.”
I stepped backward out of the room and then out of the house. Though my eyes were wet, I didn’t want to let more tears fall,
so I swallowed my pain in determination.
As I came to the end of the street, I saw Red Car’s garage door open. She used a walker to move down the driveway toward her
mailbox. Even though I wasn’t in the mood, something in my soul—maybe good manners—compelled me to greet her. I slowed down,
lowered my window, and came to a stop. Before I could speak, she waved. A smile filled her face.
“Alex!” she exclaimed.
I wiped my eyes. I was seconds from calling her Red Car when I caught myself. “Hi, Pam. It’s good to see you.”
Beck made the rounds and kept up with everyone’s stories. I was ashamed I hadn’t taken the time to send a card after learning
she’d been sick.
“I’m glad I caught you. Do you have a few minutes to come in?”
No, I thought, I emotionally can’t give you anything. But what was I going to do? She’d been sick for months. I couldn’t deny her.
“Pull in the driveway. I’m going to get my mail.”
Once she cleared the driveway, I backed my car in and turned it off. I flipped down the sun visor and checked my eyes. I looked
a mess, but I hoped whatever she wanted wouldn’t take long. We were strangers. This courtship, from waving to talking to having
me come inside, was fast.
I followed her into her garage. I asked about her health, and she filled me in on her recovery, which included lots of physical and some occupational therapy.
The garage opened to the family room, which had a different layout than our house.
It was a comfortable-looking room, beachy colors complemented by lovely Gullah art on the walls.
“Have a seat,” she said. There were several chairs in the room, but she pointed to the sofa. I sat, and my eyes dropped to
the coffee table. Familiar books were stacked in five neat piles. I looked down at the spines, my heart swelling more and
more when I realized all of them—all twenty-five—were my books.
“I started reading them when I got out of the hospital.”
I could not keep my jaw closed. I was so shocked.
“I’ve read all of them. The rest are on my e-reader. I couldn’t find some of your older titles in print.”
My eyes filled with tears again. She was standing there, holding on to her walker, beaming at me. “These books saved my life.
They saved my sanity.”
The tears fell. I couldn’t stop them. I was tender anyway. I’d received pictures of my books from readers in the past. Pics
of their bookshelves with a bunch of my titles. People showed up at book signings, sometimes asking to have more than ten
books signed, but this many copies—I’d never had this.
“I was hoping, since we’re neighbors, that I could get some autographs. I’m going to put them in the glass case there to remind
myself of how I survived the darkest days in my life.” She nodded in the direction of a bookcase with glass doors at the top.
I could see a few Bibles and Christian living books, but three of the shelves were empty.
A box of tissues was on the table, so I reached across for one and wiped my eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me when book thirty will be out.” She smiled and walked to the bookshelf. She picked up a Sharpie marker and placed
it on top of one of the piles.
“I’m so honored that my books were able to distract you.”
“They were a blessing, and not only did they distract me, but the Hilson series gave me the courage to reach out to an old
boyfriend on social media. He’d been kind of nudging me for years to reconnect, but I ignored him. Now we’re dating.”
A burst of laughter flew from my chest. “Really?”
“Your second-chance romances could convince a nun she could find love.”
I reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
“Means to you?” She laughed and pressed her hand to her chest. “I’m the one with a heart and head full of Alex Wesley books.
Thank you for saving me.” She turned and walked to the kitchen. “I’m going to get us some lemonade. You’re going to need it
after you sign all those books.”
New emotions filled the space that just minutes ago had held so much heartache. I reached for the marker and pushed Beck,
Gabe, and Hiram Jones out of my mind.