“Can we get back to the reason I called? It’s important.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry. What do you need?”

“The truth.”

“Ezra, don’t be mysterious. The truth about what?”

“Did you have an affair with Joseph Allen?”

Shock reverberates in the silence that falls between us over the miles.

“Because that’s what some biographer has written in a book that’s publishing soon. Is it true?”

“It absolutely is not true,” she replies, her voice curt.

“So you deny it?”

“Do I deny having an affair of any kind with Joseph Allen? I unequivocally do.”

“Then what happened between the four of you the night of that argument?”

“That is none of your business. You are my only son, and I’ve sacrificed a lot for you. I’ve done all I could to ease your way in this world, as any mother should, but I do have a private life, and you have no right to it.”

“Mom—”

“You asked for the truth and I gave it to you. It’s a lie. When is the book coming out?”

“If Kimba gets her way, which she often does, it won’t come out at all, but it has been written and it’s due to publish soon.”

“Well, she has to stop it,” Mom says, anxiety tightening her words. “They’ll ruin that man’s reputation. And, oh God. Poor Janetta.”

“Are you worried she’ll believe it?”

There’s a long pause from the other end before my mother answers. “No. If anyone knows that’s a lie, it’s Janetta.”

“You two used to be so close, but after that night, everything changed.”

“People change.” There’s a shrug in her voice, but I don’t buy it. “We moved away and made new friends, new neighbors. Life goes on.”

“Are you telling me that what happened that night has nothing to do with this rumor? If there’s anything you can share that will clear your names, you have to tell me.”

“I’ve told you what you need to know, what you asked me. No, I didn’t have an affair with Kimba’s father.”

“Okay. Then we’ll figure out how to make this go away.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Kimba

“This is actually pretty good,” Keith says, flipping through the manuscript Piers managed to procure so we’d have it first thing Monday morning.

“Stoke!” Kayla slaps her copy onto Mama’s dining room table. “It’s a lie.”

“I don’t mean the part about Daddy having an affair with Mrs. Stern,” Keith says. “But they got all the other stuff about his life right. His work in civil rights, all he’s done for the city, his record as a prosecutor in those early days right out of Emory. It’s well written and makes him look great.”