Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Died Twice
I did not tell Anna Mercer that I was sitting beside Richard Hale when she accused him of stealing me.
I did not trust my father.
I did not trust her either.
"Prove it," I said.
Anna gave a small, exhausted laugh.
"That's exactly what Margaret said the first time she found me."
My mother's name in that woman's mouth made my fingers tighten around the phone.
"Where are you?"
"Not on this call."
"Then why contact me?"
"Because Claire opened the wall."
I turned toward my father.
He went pale.
"How do you know that?"
"I have been waiting nineteen years for someone in that house to decide the truth mattered more than Richard's fear."
"Did you take the recording?"
Silence.
"Anna."
"Tomorrow. Six in the morning. Miller's Diner on Route One, north of Fredericksburg. Sit in the back booth. Come without him."
The line disconnected.
My father reached for the prepaid phone.
I pulled it away.
"She took the tape, didn't she?"
"You tell me."
"If she's been watching the house, she may have been waiting for Claire to find the safe."
"Which means you knew she was alive."
"No."
"You told me Reed said she disappeared. You never looked?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
There are silences that mean ignorance.
His meant cowardice.
We drove home separately.
At three in the morning I was still awake in my childhood bedroom, reading my mother's letter beneath the yellow pool of an old bedside lamp.
Claire sat cross-legged on the floor in borrowed pajamas.
The children were asleep down the hall with the door locked.
"Do you believe her?" Claire asked.
"I believe Dad signed a false statement."
"That's not what I asked."
"It's the only part I can prove."
Claire leaned her head against the side of the bed.
"You sound like work."
"Work keeps things in boxes."
"This came out of a box."
I looked at her.
She was trying to smile.
Neither of us managed it.
At five fifteen, I left without waking Dad.
I made it to the end of the driveway before his porch light came on.
He did not follow me this time.
Miller's Diner was a narrow chrome building beside a truck stop, the kind of place that opened before sunrise because some lives started long before office hours.
At six exactly, I sat in the back booth facing the door.
At six seven, a woman entered wearing a navy raincoat and a wool hat pulled low over silver-streaked hair.
She was thin, perhaps fifty-four, with a straight nose and the same gray-green eyes I saw every morning in my own mirror.
My body recognized her before my mind did.
She stopped at the booth.
Neither of us spoke.
Then she sat down.
"You look like him around the mouth," she said.
"Like Richard?"
Her face changed.
"No."
The waitress approached.
Anna ordered tea.
I ordered coffee I had no intention of drinking.
For thirty seconds we discussed cream, sugar, and whether the heater above our booth was broken.
Pressure does strange things to conversation.
Sometimes the most unbearable truths need a plate of toast sitting between them.
"Tell me what happened," I said.
Anna folded her hands.
"I worked bookkeeping at St. Agnes. I was nineteen, stupid about powerful men, and very good with numbers. Those last two things are a dangerous combination."
"You found the adoption payments."
"I found donations that matched births. I found legal fees paid before mothers signed consent forms. I found transportation money for women who were suddenly declared unavailable."
"And you were pregnant."
Her eyes met mine.
"Yes."
"Did you want to give me up?"
She looked down at the table.
"For three days, yes. On the fourth day, no."
My chest tightened.
"The papers say you abandoned me."
"The papers say I died."
Fair point.
She took a sip of tea.
Her hand shook once against the cup.
"I told a nurse I had changed my mind. The next morning, a social worker said you had already been placed. Jonathan told me the family was safe and I should be grateful."
"Jonathan Reed."
"Yes."
"What was he to you?"
Anna stared through the window at the gray morning.
"A mistake I mistook for rescue."
I waited.
She did not elaborate.
"Did my father know you wanted me back?"
"Richard knew there was a dispute. He did not know everything. At first."
"At first?"
"He saw a statement I wrote. He signed his false statement after that. Whether you call it stealing depends on how much mercy you have left for frightened people who want a child."
I had none to spare yet.
"How did Mom find you?"
Anna's expression softened.
"Margaret found an old payroll form with my Social Security number. She was relentless. She tracked me to North Carolina. She showed up at a motel where I was working nights and said, 'I think I have your daughter.'"
My eyes burned.
"What did you do?"
"I slapped her."
A startled sound escaped me.
Anna almost smiled.
"Then she sat on the curb and cried with me for an hour."
The waitress refilled my untouched coffee.
Neither of us spoke until she left.
"Mom knew before she died."
"For almost two years."
"Why didn't she tell me?"
"Because she wanted proof strong enough that Jonathan could not destroy you with the same lie twice."
"Destroy me how?"
Anna's gaze returned to my face.
"By telling you why he chose the Hales."
I felt the first real stab of fear since entering the diner.
"Why did he?"
The bell over the front door rang.
Anna looked past me.
Every bit of color left her face.
"Don't turn around."
I kept my eyes on her.
"Who is it?"
"Finish your coffee."
"Anna."
"Do not turn around."
Her voice barely moved.
I lifted the cup.
In the reflection of the stainless-steel napkin holder, I saw a man in a camel-colored overcoat take a seat at the counter.
Silver hair.
Perfect posture.
Jonathan Reed.
He looked older than the last time I had seen him, but not softer.
Anna placed cash under her cup.
"There is a road behind St. Agnes that does not appear on county maps," she whispered. "Ask Richard who owned it."
"Wait."
"If Jonathan speaks to you, remember something. He never lies when the truth can be arranged more effectively."
She slid out of the booth.
"Where are you going?"
"To stay alive."
She walked toward the kitchen as if she belonged there.
A cook opened the service door.
Anna disappeared.
I waited five seconds.
Then ten.
The bell over the diner entrance never rang.
When I finally turned around, Jonathan Reed was standing beside my table.
He wore the same restrained smile he had used years ago before telling a jury that the government would prove its case one fact at a time.
"Evelyn," he said warmly.
May you like
My skin tightened across my shoulders.
"You've been difficult to reach."
