The Heritage Paper

Chapter 48



By the time they hit the Saw Mill Parkway, Veronica could smell home. They were so close. And while she craved it, the kids needed it. They were riding high after their pizza and sugary drinks, but she knew it was fleeting, and their crash was imminent.

While children might be the most resourceful creatures on the planet, and were able to rinse horrible events from their consciousness like shampoo from their hair, they were still slaves to structure. And as their crankiness heightened, Veronica knew that she needed to get them to bed and pray they didn’t have permanent nightmares.

The last leg of the trip was to pick up TJ at Zach’s neighbors. Zach immediately rushed to his son and wrapped him in a big embrace. TJ looked confused by it, but Veronica wasn’t.

As she neared home, she could practically feel the warm fire she planned to build, and curl up next to it with a good book. But something didn’t feel right.

The first bad sign was that the lights were on at her mother’s house. She was normally in bed by ten. Veronica did remember her mentioning something about a school fundraiser, so maybe she’d just returned home. She hoped.

But when she noticed the lights on inside her house, along with Uncle Phil and Aunt Val standing outside the front door, Veronica knew something was very wrong. She parked the car and rushed into the house, finding it looking like tornado footage. Broken glass, furniture turned over—the place had been ransacked.

Her mother was crouched by a smashed television on the floor like she was contemplating giving it CPR. “What happened?” Veronica asked, horrified.

“I just returned from my fundraiser and I noticed a strange car—a Jeep—in your driveway. But I didn’t want to pry because I thought it might have been that boy you went to the movies with and didn’t want to be one of those overprotective mothers.”

“I think it’s a little late for that.”

“I heard a crashing sound, so I turned on my floodlights. That’s when I saw the man in your backyard. I grabbed a baseball bat, but by the time I got out of the door, the Jeep was hightailing it out of here. The lights must have spooked them.”

“They could’ve had guns, Mom—what did you think you were going to do?” Veronica admonished. The mother/daughter roles had reversed. A fitting ending to this bizarre day.

“When it comes to my daughter and grandchildren, I don’t worry about my safety.”

Her words were firm, but Veronica could tell her mother was shaken. It was a rare sight.

Veronica did a sweep of the house. While things were smashed and broken, very little was taken. Her jewelry was still there, as were most of the valuables. The only thing she noticed missing was Maggie’s computer. She didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the intruders were looking for something specific.

She immediately called Eddie. Her voice cracked as she described the scene. The day just kept getting worse.

“I was headed over there anyway. I just dropped by to pick up some of Ellen’s things at Sunshine. I should be there in ten minutes,” he said, providing a small level of comfort.

She moved downstairs and was cut off by an angry Picasso, who was demanding his bowl of dinner, or “cat crack” as Maggie called it. She took a moment to feed the king, without so much as a “thank you” meowed in return.

Veronica’s next stop was her still brightly lit backyard. She noticed that Maggie was observing an area that had been dug up. Veronica joined her daughter, and realized the intruder had removed the time-capsule she’d buried this morning.

But upon further inspection, it was clear that Ellen had beaten the Nazis to the punch once again.

“You never saw what was in there, did you?” Veronica asked, as she eyed the box in Maggie’s hands.

“No—Oma put it together and I just buried it.”

The only thing in the box, besides books and paperweights to give it the impression it was full of goodies, was a note that read: Did you really think I’d make it that easy for you? If you want the book you’re looking for, the only way will be to face me like real men.

A thin, wry smile escaped from the corner of Maggie’s lips.

“What is it?” Veronica asked, reading her look.

“I know what Oma meant when she said facing her to get the book.”

“Is it something that you can let your mother in on?”

“I helped her set up a Facebook page so that we could communicate directly for our project, and we could store the scans from her photos.”

Veronica didn’t know much about Facebook. She gave into the pressure a few years ago and signed up, but as her marriage crumbled, and her husband ended up dying, it became really annoying to look at her “friends” happy lives that they were constantly posting about, so she shut it down.

“Only Ellen can get into her page, right?” Veronica asked.

“Unless someone else had her password,” Maggie said with a big smile.