Diane’s words followed me for six days.
Don’t go to her expecting the story you’ve been telling yourself.
I replayed the conversation until every pause acquired meaning.
I searched for Anna every morning.
I stopped every afternoon.
Grief had made time unpredictable. Some hours disappeared. Others stretched until making dinner felt like an unreasonable demand.
Meanwhile, Carol remained everywhere.
I found one of her earrings beneath the bathroom cabinet.
Her handwriting covered labels in the freezer.
Her sewing basket contained a half-mended button from one of my shirts.
Each ordinary discovery made the question of Anna feel like a betrayal.
Then I would remember Carol’s own insistence.
Find her.
On Wednesday, Rebecca drove in without warning.
I saw her car from the living-room window and opened the door before she knocked.
She held up a grocery bag. “I brought food that isn’t funeral ham.”
“I was developing a relationship with funeral ham.”
“You need better relationships.”
She stepped inside and immediately began inspecting the house with the efficient suspicion of a daughter checking whether her aging father had become incapable in six days.
“You washed dishes.”
“I have extensive training.”
“You didn’t put them away.”
“That’s phase two.”
She set groceries on the counter.
Her eyes moved toward the laptop.
“Any luck?”
“With what?”
“Dad.”
I sat down.
Rebecca unpacked vegetables, soup, bread, and a container of something labeled quinoa salad.
I pointed at it. “That goes back with you.”
“It contains nutrients.”
“I had nutrients in 1997. Didn’t care for them.”
She ignored me.
“Did you find Anna?”
“No.”
“Did you call anybody?”
“One person.”
“Who?”
“Her old friend Diane.”
Rebecca stopped unpacking.
“What did she say?”
“Not much.”
“That means something.”
I told her.
Not every detail, but enough.
Rebecca leaned against the counter, arms folded.
“So Diane remembers Grandma Ruth.”
“Apparently.”
“And she reacted strangely when you said Mom’s name.”
“Yes.”
“And you still think the note in my adoption papers could be meaningless.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
“I’m trying not to construct a conspiracy from three coincidences.”
Rebecca studied me.
“What would make it four?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anna.”
The answer sat between us.
Rebecca had never seen Anna, had no emotional history with her, and therefore could say the obvious thing without fear.
“Find her,” she said.
I rubbed my hands together.
“What happens if I do?”
“Then you ask her.”
“And if she tells me something about your mother I can’t forgive?”
Rebecca’s face softened.
“You mean Mom.”
“Yes.”
“You loved her.”
“I still love her.”
“Then whatever she did won’t change every day before it.”
“That sounds wise.”
“I’m forty. It happens occasionally.”
I looked at my daughter.
Again, those eyes.
The thought arrived before I could stop it.
Green like Anna’s.
I looked away immediately.
Rebecca noticed.
“Why do you keep staring at me?”
“I’m not.”
“You did it in the kitchen after the funeral too.”
“Your mother used to accuse me of staring whenever I was thinking.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing useful.”
She did not believe me.
Fortunately, she let it go.
That evening, after Rebecca drove home, I found myself in the attic.
I had gone upstairs looking for old college photographs.
What I found instead was my mother.
Not literally, of course.
Ruth had stored six boxes in our attic before moving into assisted living. After she died, I brought over another four from her house.
I had never sorted them properly.
Carol had offered.
I always said later.
Later had become ten years.
I pulled down the first box.
Church bulletins.
Recipe cards.
Photographs.
Nothing.
The second contained letters from relatives.
The third had financial records old enough to be worthless.
I continued until dust coated my sleeves.
Near midnight, I found an envelope with my name on it.
The handwriting was Ruth’s.
My heart jumped.
I opened it.
Inside was a birthday card from 1998 that she apparently forgot to mail.
I laughed bitterly.
“Good one, Mama.”
I sat on the attic floor.
Ruth Hayes had been complicated in the way strong mothers often are when their children become adults.
She loved deeply.
She also believed love entitled her to manage other people’s lives.
When I accepted the trainee position in 1985, she told everyone in Millfield before I had officially agreed to take it.
When I became serious about Anna, Ruth never objected openly.
But she asked questions.
What did Anna’s father do?
Did her family attend church?
Did she plan to work after marriage?
Where had her people come from?
At twenty-two, I dismissed those questions as old-fashioned curiosity.
Now they sounded different.
I thought of Diane’s silence when I asked whether Ruth had been involved.
I stood and pulled down another box.
Inside were programs, photographs, and correspondence bundled with rubber bands so old they snapped when I touched them.
One photograph stopped me.
Ruth stood outside Grace Methodist wearing a gray wool coat with a fur-trimmed collar.
The date written on the back was February 1985.
I stared at it.
I remembered that coat.
Everyone did.
Ruth wore it for years.
I could not explain why looking at it made me uneasy.
My phone rang downstairs.
At that hour, the sound immediately frightened me.
I hurried down, almost missing the final step.
Unknown number.
“Hello?”
No response.
“Hello?”
Then a woman said, “Walter?”
I recognized Diane.
“Yes.”
“I’ve been trying to decide whether to call.”
I sat at the kitchen table.
“I’m glad you did.”
“Don’t be yet.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Do you know where Anna is?”
“I know how to reach somebody who does.”
I closed my eyes.
“Thank you.”
“Before I give you anything, I need to ask you a question.”
“All right.”
“Did Carol really tell you to find Anna?”
“Yes.”
“Her exact words?”
“She told me to find her because I would understand everything after I did.”
Diane was silent.
“She also asked me to forgive her.”
A breath caught on the other end.
“Diane?”
“I always wondered if Carol would tell you.”
The hairs on my arms rose.
“Tell me what?”
“I’m not the person who should.”
“I’m getting tired of hearing that.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do. My wife is dead. My mother is dead. Anna disappeared forty years ago. Everybody who seems to know what happened keeps telling me it belongs to somebody else.”
Diane’s voice softened.
“I’m sorry.”
“Were you there?”
“Not for all of it.”
“For what?”
“When Anna left.”
I waited.
Diane continued. “Your mother went to see her.”
My mouth went dry.
“When?”
“Before the letter.”
“How long before?”
“A few days.”
“What did she want?”
“You need to ask Anna.”
“What did Ruth say?”
“Walter.”
“What did my mother say to her?”
Diane hesitated so long that I nearly shouted.
Finally she said, “Enough to frighten a twenty-year-old woman into believing she could ruin her entire family.”
I stood without knowing why.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“I was there after.”
“Ruth taught Sunday school.”
“I know.”
“She collected money for families when their houses burned down.”
“I know.”
“She helped your father—Anna’s father?”
Diane interrupted. “Good people can still do terrible things when they convince themselves they’re protecting somebody.”
I pressed my free hand against the table.
“Protecting me from what?”
“From Anna.”
The room tilted slightly.
I sat again.
“Why?”
“I don’t know everything Ruth believed. Anna’s family didn’t have money. Her father was in trouble at work. Her sister had just become engaged. Your mother knew all of it.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Leverage.”
The word landed heavily.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Ruth knew where to apply pressure.”
I stared toward the dark window.
For forty years I had remembered Anna’s letter as the uncomplicated act of someone who changed her mind.
Now another version of that year began forming around it.
“Why didn’t Anna tell me?”
“She was scared.”
“She could have called.”
“She believed things you don’t understand yet.”
“I would have protected her.”
“You were moving away.”
“I would have stayed.”
“She didn’t know that.”
“You knew where I was. You could have told me.”
Diane said nothing.
Anger sharpened my voice. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because Anna made me promise.”
“And you kept that promise for forty years?”
“Yes.”
“Even after she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Even after I called you half out of my mind asking where she was?”
Diane’s voice broke slightly. “Yes.”
I covered my eyes.
There was no satisfaction in blaming an old woman over the telephone.
Only exhaustion.
“Does Anna know I’m looking for her?”
“No.”
“Will she want to see me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I need the truth.”
“I know.”
Diane gave me a name.
Margaret Bell.
“Who is she?”
“Anna’s younger sister.”
“I remember Margaret.”
“She married. Her surname changed.”
“Where is she?”
“Outside Pittsburgh.”
I wrote the number down.
My handwriting looked unsteady.
Before Diane hung up, she said, “Walter?”
“Yes?”
“When you speak to Anna, remember something.”
“What?”
“She didn’t stop loving you because you were leaving Millfield.”
My eyes closed.
The sentence struck more deeply than I expected.
“Then why did she write that letter?”
Diane did not answer directly.
“Call Margaret.”
The line went dead.
I remained at the table until dawn began turning the windows gray.
At seven twelve, I dialed Margaret Bell’s number.
A woman answered cautiously.
“Hello?”
“My name is Walter Hayes.”
Nothing.
Then a sharp inhale.
“I’m trying to reach Anna.”
Another silence.
“Please,” I said. “Carol asked me to find her before she died.”
The woman’s voice changed.
“Carol is dead?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Margaret whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Then she gave me a second number.
“Is this Anna?”
“Yes.”
My heart began pounding before I had even ended the first call.
I wrote the number beneath Margaret’s.
For almost an hour, I stared at those ten digits.
Forty years stood between me and the last time I had heard Anna’s voice.
Finally, I dialed.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
A woman answered.
“Hello?”
Every part of me went still.
Age had lowered the voice and roughened its edges, but I knew it.
“Anna?”
A pause.
“Yes?”
I gripped the table.
“This is Walter.”
Nothing moved in the room.
For several seconds I heard only her breathing.
Then Anna whispered my name as though it belonged to a person she had spent forty years expecting never to hear from again.
“Walter.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: Hearing Anna’s Voice After Forty Years Brought Back Everything I Had Buried, but Her First Question Was About Carol
On the Last Night Carol Could Speak Clearly, She Asked Me to Find the Woman I Had Spent Forty Years Forgetting
Part 4 of 35
