“Does Annie have preschool today?” she said.
I looked at Dekker, wondering who she was talking about. Luckily, he was good at thinking on the fly.
“Yeah,” he said. “We knew you wanted to talk about Glenn, so we wanted to be undistracted.”
“All right,” Jeannie said. “But next time, bring her. Yes?”
Dekker and I nodded.
She nodded too, like it was all settled.
“Yes,” she said. “Good. Now . . . I wanted to tell you something but I can’t remember what it was.”
“About Glenn?” Dekker said.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, shaking her head.
“About . . . Annie?”
“No, but do you have any new pictures for me?”
Dekker patted his shirt pockets and held up his hands. “We gave you one last week.”
“That’s right,” Jeannie said. Then she smiled at me. “Do you remember what you used to say when you wanted me to tell you stories about when I was a girl?”
Dekker squeezed my leg again.
“No,” I said.
“Series one ladle.”
I sneaked a glance at Dekker. I was irritated with myself for being so tongue--tied. Here I’d thought I would be such a smooth interrogator because I’d spent my life watching TV. This proved I didn’t really know how to do anything, not even talk to my own grandmother.
She laughed, reached across the table and grasped my hand. I had to force myself not to pull away. “What you meant was ‘stories when little.’ ”
Dekker and she laughed. “Say, Jeannie,” Dekker said. “Why don’t you tell the story again of when she was born?” He pointed at me.
“There was a blizzard when I went into labor. I was at home and Bart was out of town—-he traveled for work of course in those days—-so I had to get Mrs. Fletcher to drive me to Porter Hospital, and it took three hours with the roads the way they were. When we got there, I was ready to push.”
She smiled at me. I stopped breathing.
“You were almost born out in the parking lot, Marianne.”
Chapter 22
“AND WHAT DID she look like?” I asked Jeannie.
“Full head of black, black hair,” she said. “Came out squalling. She was mad she’d had to wait, I guess.”
“When did Bart get there?”
“It wasn’t until three days later he could get a flight in.” She reached out and touched Petty’s face, and to Petty’s credit, she didn’t pull away. “You had him wrapped around your little finger from the first moment he saw you.”
“What about Glenn?” Dekker said.
“He was a hard one, since he was my first,” Jeannie said. “We didn’t think he would ever come out. Two days I was in labor. They wanted to use forceps to pull him out, but I screamed. I wouldn’t let them because of what the forceps did to Cousin Erin’s face. I suppose that was all the incentive I needed to push him on out!”
I wondered who Cousin Erin was and where she was now. I wondered how many relatives were out there that Petty might never be able to find.
“Do you remember when Annie was born?” I said, taking a stab that she meant Petty. Michael had changed his name; it only made sense that Petty wasn’t her real name either.
Petty looked askance at me.
Jeannie shoved at me girlishly. “I do. Do you?”
I laughed. “Of course.”
“One of the best days of my life. The most precious baby. Wouldn’t make a sound, not a peep! Quiet as a church mouse, remember? Full head of black hair, just like you,” she said to Petty. “They had to slap her feet so many times to get her to cry, remember, Michael?”
“I remember,” I said. “She was beautiful, that’s for sure.”
Petty blushed.
I forced myself back into this interrogation disguised as conversation. “Do you still have the photos we gave you?”
Jeannie looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course I do.”
“I’d love to see them again,” I said. “Wouldn’t you, Marianne?”
“Sure,” Petty said. Her face was very white, and I hoped she could keep it together. I hoped I could.
“Where are they, Jeannie?” I asked her.
“They’re in my room, of course.”
“Shall we go down there and take a look?”
“That woman might be in there.”
“Mrs. Krantz? That’s all right. She’s very nice.”
Jeannie rolled her eyes. I rose and helped her to her feet. I threaded her arm through mine and looked back to make sure Petty was following us. The three of us walked down to Jeannie’s room.
“Thank God she’s not here,” she said.
“Now, where are those pictures?” I said.
“What pictures?”
“Of Annie when she was a baby.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said. She opened a cabinet and pulled a photo album out.
Petty’s eyes shone, her expression hungry.
Jeannie sat in her chair and held the album on her lap. Petty and I pulled up two chairs side by side. Jeannie handed the photo album to me, and on the cover was a photo of an infant with black hair and a thin, birdlike face. Below it, it said, Anne Marie Rhones.
I read it aloud. Petty had been named after her mother. I got chills, looking at it.