“Your grandmother was the most elegant woman ever to grace this island,” Sadie says. “She was a model for a while, you know, in Paris and Milan.”

“I know.”

“She left all that and came back to St. John to marry Levi Small.”

“Did you know my grandfather?” Maia asks. She checks around the house. Their voices are low, but this topic—Rosie’s father, Levi Small—is so forbidden that Maia doesn’t want anyone overhearing. It also feels wrong to refer to anyone but Huck as her grandfather.

“Course I did,” Sadie says. She dries her hands finger by finger on a paper towel and lowers her voice to a whisper. “He was singing to LeeAnn the whole time she was in labor, mostly old Motown tunes—‘My Girl’ and ‘You Can’t Hurry Love.’ Your grandfather had a magnificent voice.”

“He did?” Maia says. She has never heard anyone say one kind thing about Levi Small.

“He used to sing in the church choir,” Sadie says. “He was a soloist. I remember that from when I was younger than you are now.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” Maia asks.

Sadie shrugs. “He left when your mama was little. Two or three years old. Some people say he ran off with another woman; some say your grandmother kicked him out and told him never to come back. Nobody knows for sure what happened and nobody knows where he went.”

“So he might still be alive?” Maia says.

“Man I dated before Rupert told me he saw Levi Small playing the piano at a fancy restaurant in Miami, Florida. But don’t get your hopes up, honey. The man I dated is very untrustworthy.”

Still, it’s exciting for Maia to think that she might have one relative on her mother’s side left. She imagines being older, in college or in her twenties, walking into a fancy restaurant in Miami, and coming face to face with her grandfather.

Sadie bends down and gives Maia a hug goodbye. “I bet you didn’t know your family had so many secrets, did you?”

Huck calls from the living room, “Sadie, you ready?”

Sadie disappears with a blown kiss and a wave, leaving Maia in the empty kitchen.

Secrets? Maia thinks. My family? Never!

Margaret Quinn

In the four years since Margaret Quinn retired as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, she hasn’t felt a single pang of regret or experienced one moment of FOMO. She has been quite content to get her news like everyone else—online. Gracing her inbox every morning are the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Skimm, the BBC, the Hollywood Reporter, and Refinery 29. She follows New York magazine and People on Instagram. She still has Time and Vogue delivered to the house. She watches the six o’clock news on CBS, but not every night—because she’s busy!