“And?” Carmen’s voice was harder than Elena had expected.
“She was a wonderful writer,” Elena said.
“I was never as good as her,” Carmen said. “I always wanted to be, and I failed all around.”
Elena was startled. Never in her life had she imagined her mother saying that she’d failed her own mother (a mother who’d never gotten to know her own daughter!). She wondered how much of her mother’s hardness was a result of all she’d lost in losing her mother so young.
And they’d both lost Elena’s father. They’d never talked about it. Not really.
She thought again of the grief therapy sessions—and wondered if she wasn’t the only one who would benefit.
“Mom,” she said. “What do you say we go to the community center later this week?”
“Is it an article? An interview?” her mother asked, raising her eyebrows, as though her purpose was returning to her.
“Sort of,” Elena said. For what was a grief therapy session if not a time of conversation, of laying it all out there? It was the same honesty you’d hope for in an interview.
She just hoped her mother was up for it.
The following morning, Elena and Natalie watched as the newspapers were again taken out of the office and readied for delivery across all of Millbrook. It was the first day of December, and it was twenty-three degrees. The cups of coffee warmed their hands as they prepared for the day ahead, discussed future articles, conducted interviews, and edited articles. For the first time, Elena thought to ask Natalie why the editor Sam had quit after so many years of working with Carmen, and Natalie winced and said, “Carmen was mean to him one too many times, I think.”
Elena’s heart sank. “It’s the disease,” she whispered.
Natalie’s face went pale. She touched Elena’s shoulder, and they stood like that for a long time, both stirring in their private sorrows.
After a hard morning of work, Natalie appeared in Elena’s mother’s office and closed the door behind her. Elena finished typing a sentence and adjusted her glasses.
“What’s up?” she asked.
Natalie sat across from her and wore a stern expression. “You remember that article I published yesterday?”
“‘Fraud in Connersville,’” Elena said. “Brilliant story. Congratulations again.”
“The thing is, I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Natalie said, speaking furtively. “I encountered a few documents yesterday. Documents I missed during my original pass-through for the story. Documents that link Connersville with several upper-crush families here in Millbrook.” She swallowed. “You know the mansions around Cranberry Cove?”
Although she hadn’t thought of them in ages, Elena knew the mansions well. About a mile away from her mother’s place was Cranberry Cove, a glittering and mystical place that had once been set aside for a natural reserve of countless animals, trees, plants, and bugs. But Elena had never known the site before the mansions had been built: massive and gaudy homes that were now filled with incredibly “important” millionaires who, mostly, worked elsewhere and did little to help the community. They’d taken Cranberry Cove for themselves, and nobody had been able to stand in their way.
She was pretty sure the mansions had been built in the sixties.
Long ago, her mother and father had spoken of it as if it were the greatest tragedy to befall Millbrook in all history. But there was no fighting the prominent families on the cove.
So many years after the mansions had been built, Elena had imagined the fight was over.
“It sounds like promises were made to people in Cranberry Cove,” Natalie said. “Promises to destroy the southern part of the cove to make way for an additional real estate project. They want expensive homes for wealthy people, plus a country club that they can all enjoy. In return, the judge who lives in Cranberry Cove promises to look the other way when the guy in charge of the building commits a crime. Something money-related. And there are so many others involved, people hiding where the money is going. I can’t make sense of it.”
Elena’s jaw dropped. “Show me.”
Natalie snapped the file onto Elena’s desk, and Elena pored over the series of emails and text messages from several years ago, indicating that this conversation had occurred and was probably ongoing.
“How did you get these?” Elena asked, mystified. It was a good bit of journalism. It was also incredibly sneaky.
“I’ve been up to my ears in files and documents and secret texts,” Natalie said. “I never imagined any of it touched Millbrook or Cranberry Cove. I thought, in coming here, that I was moving to a place that played by the rules. But my mother—and your mother—always said I was naive.” Natalie smiled sadly. “I’m not naive anymore. Well, I’m working on it, at least, which is better than nothing.”
Elena thanked Natalie for the information and promised to review all relevant documents that afternoon.
“But it’ll still be your story,” Elena promised Natalie. “You’ve done the work.”
Natalie got up and clutched the back of the chair. “I don’t know if I want it. Like I said before, you’re braver as a journalist than I’ll ever be.”
