The room seemed to shift beneath me.
A child.
Mine and Anna’s.
For forty years, I’d believed I’d lost only her.
“You were carrying MY CHILD?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the baby?”
Anna turned away.
“I gave her up.”
“Why?”
“I was twenty, alone, and terrified. Your mother had convinced me you didn’t want me anymore. She said the baby would have a better life with a family who could give her what I couldn’t.”
“And you believed her?”
“I didn’t think I had another choice.”
My chest tightened.
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
I thought that was the revelation that would change everything.
I didn’t realize Anna had barely begun.
“You never tried to tell me?”
“I tried. I went to your mother’s house. I thought the baby might make her accept us and help me reach you.”
“What happened?”
“Ruth wouldn’t give me your number. She reminded me what would happen to my family if I contacted you.”
“That’s why you disappeared?”
“That—and what she told me next.”
“What?”
“That you’d already moved on.”
“With who?”
“Carol.”
I stared at her.
“You knew about Carol?”
“Only what Ruth told me.”
“That we’d already started something?”
Anna nodded.
“She said you’d chosen Carol before I’d even left town.”
“But that wasn’t true.”
“I know that now.”
Then Anna hesitated.
“There’s more.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Carol was there that day.”
“At my mother’s house?”
“Yes. She’d stopped by with a casserole. Ruth thought she’d already left, but she was still in the parlor.”
I couldn’t move.
“Carol heard what my mother said to you?”
“Every word.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me. About fifteen years ago, she tracked me down through my sister and sent me a letter. I never answered.”
My throat tightened.
“So she knew why you left.”
“Yes.”
“And all those years, she watched me believe you’d walked away because you didn’t want me.”
Anna looked down.
“I’m sorry.”
“She said nothing… and then she married me.”
“I’ve wondered for forty years whether she ever told you.”
“She didn’t.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
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