All Fall Down

 

“Grace, I know you must have questions …”

 

Grandpa doesn’t even say hello when he reaches his office. He doesn’t ask what I was doing out until midnight, or who I was with — none of the typical questions an adult authority figure is supposed to ask. He’s already been briefed by Ms. Chancellor. He is ready for this fight.

 

Which is a good thing because I’m already up and shouting, “You know him?”

 

“Now, Gracie …” Grandpa starts slowly. His tie is loose and the top button of his shirt is undone. When he walks to the small rolling tray by the window and pours himself a drink, I can tell it isn’t his first of the night. The way things are going, it almost certainly won’t be his last.

 

“I told you what I saw. I came to you and you know him. You knew him all along and you told me I was seeing things!”

 

“No.” Grandpa’s voice is sharp. He’s not doing the folksy Southern-gentleman act anymore. This is the man who negotiated the Treaty of Caspia. This is the man who championed the development of the EU. This is why the president and the prime minister and a half dozen other world leaders call him their friend.

 

I’m supposed to be intimidated. But I’m not. I’m disgusted.

 

“I told you, Grace Olivia, that you did not see the man who killed your mother. And you didn’t.”

 

“Who is he?” I demand.

 

Grandpa takes a slow sip of his whiskey. When he speaks again, his accent is stronger than I have ever heard it.

 

“He is a man I’ve known for years. He’s a friend.”

 

“Who is he?” I shout.

 

Grandpa’s voice remains soft. “His name is Dominic Novak. He’s the head of security for the prime minister. He is a decorated war hero and a key advisor to one of the most powerful men in Europe. He is trusted and respected and … He’s just a man with a scar, Grace. It doesn’t make him evil.”

 

“I know not all people with scars are evil,” I snap. “I’m not living in a cartoon. But I also know —”

 

“You know what?” Exasperated, Grandpa throws open one of his desk drawers and pulls out a file. “Tell me what you know, Grace. Because I remember when you just knew you saw your mother’s murderer two years ago in Santa Fe.” He pulls a photograph from the file — a face I thought I’d never see again.

 

“Or the man in the airport in Chicago.” He pulls out another picture. And then another. And another. “This one was a corporal at Fort Meade, wasn’t he?” My grandfather keeps pulling photographs out of the file folder, dropping them onto the desk. One scarred man after another. “And let’s not forget the priest in St. Louis. You were positive it was him. Even after we found out he’d been in South America when your mother was killed. Even then you shouted and insisted and —”

 

“Okay!” I yell. “Enough!”

 

“You said these men killed your mother, didn’t you, Grace?” Grandpa asks, and I stand silent. “Didn’t you?”

 

I stop shaking and look him in the eye.

 

“I’m right this time. I saw him.”

 

“Well, let me tell you what I see.”

 

He takes a step toward me, gestures with the hand that holds the glass. Brown liquid sloshes over the side and stains his expensive rug, but my grandfather doesn’t notice. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.

 

“I see a girl who witnessed a horrendous thing and never let herself deal with the trauma. I see a girl who, upon seeing a man who has a scar — any man with a scar — jumps to a terrible conclusion. But, most of all, Grace” — his voice is heavy and tired — “I see a girl who has said all of this before.”

 

“I know how it looks. I know —”

 

“You don’t know anything!” My grandfather’s voice is so strong, so loud, that I half expect the windows to shake, the security alarms to go off. “My Caroline is dead!”

 

It is the first time in three years that I have heard him say my mother’s name. It is the first time I have ever seen him cry.

 

“She died in a terrible, tragic accident. And if I thought … If I thought that there was someone who needed to be punished for that, I would do it.” His voice grows low, gravelly. Desperate. “So help me, I would do it myself.”

 

Grandpa is staring at me now. And for the first time I can’t fight the feeling that a part of him hates a part of me. For bringing this memory to his door. For looking a little too much like her. For taking his daughter away from him all over again.

 

“Dominic is a good man, Grace,” Grandpa says, finally tearing his gaze away from me. “The best of men. I would trust him with my life. I would have trusted him with my daughter’s life.” He waves me and my crazy, irrational worries away. “He would not have hurt her.”

 

I feel embarrassed and indignant. Both. But I don’t argue anymore. “Why didn’t you tell me that last night?”

 

“I did.” Grandpa takes a sip, then shrugs. “Or I tried to. Don’t bother Dominic, Grace. Leave the poor man alone. Stay out of the affairs of the prime minister. These are busy people in troubling times. None of us need more worries or stress or wild, unsubstantiated theories circling around.”

 

I have to laugh a little. “You really don’t trust me, do you?”

 

Grandpa studies me. “Of course I do.”

 

But the words are too slow, the eye contact too fleeting.

 

“For a good diplomat, you really are a very bad liar,” I tell him, then leave before he can say another word.

 

 

 

 

 

“Noah,” I say, shaking his shoulder. “Noah, wake up.”

 

He rolls over, mutters something in Hebrew that I can’t translate but is probably the Israeli equivalent of “Ten more minutes, Mom.”

 

I shake his shoulder again and he swats me away, like a fly.

 

So I slap him.

 

“Grace!” Noah shouts. Then he seems to remember where we are and lowers his voice. “What are you doing in my room?”

 

“So you can break into my room, but I can’t pay you a call?”

 

“I was … I had … I mean …”

 

“Relax,” I tell him. “Lila let me in. She’s super cheerful in the mornings.”

 

“Yes.” Noah drags his groggy body out of bed, swings his feet onto the floor. “You know, keep this up and I’m going to get a reputation.”

 

“You’re wearing Spider-Man pajamas. I think your reputation can handle it. Now come on.” I toss a pair of jeans in his direction. “Get dressed. We’ve got to go.”

 

“Go where?”

 

But I just step into the hall and wait for him to change.