Page 44 of The House of Cross

CHAPTER 31

I GOT HOME THATevening feeling like we were being stalled by the Office of the President-Elect staffers.

Ned Mahoney and I had been told we had an appointment with Matthew Shearson, the personnel director for the incoming administration. But when we arrived, we were informed that Shearson had gone to Arizona with the president-elect and would not be available for two days.

Mahoney demanded to see someone higher up the food chain but was told that the entire senior staff had gone to Tucson with Shearson and President-Elect Sue Winter for an intensive work retreat before the inauguration preparations. Ned called the acting FBI director after we left, and she told us she would put pressure on Shearson to call us at his earliest opportunity.

We hadn’t heard a thing since.

The frustration must have shown on my face when I entered the kitchen because Bree immediately came over and hugged me.

“Rough day?”

“If you call a state of inertia rough, yeah.”

“Sit down. Ali and I are making tacos.”

I noticed my youngest child stirring shredded chicken in a pan. “Smells good,” I said.

Ali grinned. “I put the spices in. Well, Nana told me which ones.”

“Where is Nana?”

“Right here,” she said, coming in and yawning. “Sorry, I just did another one of those AP English lectures online and they wipe me out.”

“But they do those kids a lot of good,” I said.

“And they still wipe me out,” she said, taking a seat at the table. “You have to have a lot of energy to keep their attention, and I have only so much these days.”

“What did you teach?”

“Invisible Manby Ralph Ellison,” she said.

John Sampson came in with Willow, which surprised me because they’d moved back into their home after the gas leak was fixed.

“I invited them for tacos,” Bree explained. “I want to show you and John something later.”

We spent dinner discussingInvisible Man,the story of an educated Black man in the 1950s struggling in a racially divided country that refused to see him as a full human being.

Nana Mama pushed away her plate and yawned. “Unfortunately, the story is as pertinent today as it was when it was published more than seventy years ago. This old lady is going to watch a little television and then it’s lights out and toes up!”

“Willow and I will come with you, Nana,” Ali said, grinning. “I don’t have to do dishes because I cooked.”

“Well, lucky you!” she said and got up. “Do you both want Nana’s brownies?”

Willow nodded excitedly. “Yes, please, Nana.”

“With vanilla ice cream,” Ali said.

“After all those tacos?” I asked.

“Always,” Ali said.

Sampson and I cleaned up while my grandmother got Willow and Ali brownies with vanilla ice cream, then led them off to the front room. As soon as they were gone, Bree went and grabbed a manila folder.

“I found something today that reminded me to expect the unexpected at every turn.”

She opened the folder and showed us printouts of various documents from Idaho court records and Ancestry.com.

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