“Will you tell your children?” Amy asked.
“I’ll have to tell them,” Anna said. “They have a right to know they have a sister.”
“How do you think they’ll take it?” she asked, and Anna couldn’t help but notice she shuddered slightly.
“I have absolutely no idea,” she said.
They talked for another two hours, going over the details of their lives and families. At one point Amy brought out a photo album and showed Anna pictures of her mother, stepfather, grandparents, half siblings, holiday photos, graduations and such. “I don’t know if I’m relieved or jealous—your mother was so beautiful.”
“But you’re beautiful, Anna,” she said.
“No one thinks of me as beautiful,” Anna scoffed.
“I bet everyone does.”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “No, my husband once told me he thought I was the most capable woman he knew. You know how I met him? Wait till I tell you...”
Anna went to see Blanche in the assisted living residence, though it was not her regularly scheduled visit. She was thinking about Amy and her family and Chad. She liked Amy quite a lot. She was acutely aware that under different circumstances, she might hate her. But she was a fully mature woman with a baby. Her mother was dead and she had no extended family, really, except her stepfather. And it was no small matter that Chad was also dead. And this all was something that happened in the long ago.
Blanche was all dressed up, though she was sitting in her comfy chair with her feet up.
“Well, hello,” Anna said. “You’re looking very nice today.”
“We had entertainment today,” Blanche said. “It was good—some school choir acting out some scenes from a musical. I can’t remember which one. But an hour of dangling my feet and my ankles are as big as my butt.”
Anna laughed but she thought, with a surge of relief, Oh good, she’s lucid!
“What are you doing here?” Blanche asked. “You get fired?”
“No,” Anna said with a laugh. “No, I had an interesting afternoon with a young woman and her baby. What are the chances you remember Chad today?”
“Your husband?” Blanche asked. “I’ve been trying to forget. He can’t be in trouble again, being dead and all.”
“Wow, you’re really on your game today. Do you remember that affair he had when Michael was a baby?”
“Anna, the world remembers. You wouldn’t let us forget. You chirped on that for years.”
“Well, so did you,” she said, but inside she was so thrilled to have her mother to talk to. “It turns out there was a child from that affair and I met her. She’s Michael’s age and she’s married and has a baby. She told me the whole story, what she knew from her mother. Amy didn’t know Chad while she was growing up but apparently he did help out with the cost of her education and I suppose other things. I believe he has remembered her in his will, though we haven’t gotten around to that yet.”
“I thought he was a phony,” Blanche said. “Putting on airs like he was some big shot.”
“I thought you liked him,” Anna said. “You counseled me to stay with him. You said if a husband’s affair is the worst thing you go through...”
“I did? Well, at least he has a job.”
Anna frowned. “Would you like me to tell you all about it?”
“About what?”
“The young woman,” she said. “His daughter.”
“By all means. And could you get me a water?”
“Certainly,” Anna said. She fetched a glass of water for Blanche and then launched into the story, starting with seeing her at the celebration of life, then seeing her in the park. “She must have been in the area of my office deliberately.” She described Amy and her husband and baby, told her a few of the things she learned, though she tried to keep it brief and simple. Blanche nodded a lot and muttered, “Uh-huh.”
“And so now I suppose I’ll have to tell the kids,” Anna said.
“Yes, I guess,” Blanche said.
“You must be feeling very well today,” Anna said. “You’re sharp as a tack.”
“As usual,” she said. “It’s nice talking to you.”
“And it’s wonderful to talk to you.”
“Good! By the way, where is your house?”
Anna felt her stomach clench. “Mill Valley,” she said. And she bit her lower lip.
“That’s right, now I remember. Listen, if you see my daughter around there, tell her to come by, will you please?”
For a moment Anna was stricken. She couldn’t speak. She took a deep breath. “I can do that,” she replied, tears in her eyes.
“And that other one,” Blanche said. “The boy. He must be grown by now. I really didn’t mean to never see him again but that’s how things work out sometimes. I thought we’d find each other.”
“What boy?” Anna asked.
“You know,” she said. “First I had the boy. I couldn’t keep him. But when the girl came along I wasn’t about to give another one away.”
“What was the girl’s name?” Anna asked, on the edge of her seat. “Do you remember her name?”
Blanche struggled. “It’ll come to me, gimme a minute. I’m so tired right now.”
“Try to remember. Do you know who I am?”
Blanche smiled and her old face looked so soft and sweet. “Of course. You’re the best nurse here and you’re my nurse. I think I should lay down. I need a little help.”
“Sure,” Anna said, helping her mother stand and then pivot to sit down on her bed. When Blanche laid down, Anna lifted her legs onto the bed. Within seconds, Blanche was snoring and Anna knew all conversation was over for the day.
There were three stages of assisted living and three stages of rehab care, in most cases terminal care. For assisted living there were apartments with galley kitchens, mostly couples occupied them, then efficiency units that had sitting areas and bedrooms, then bedrooms that opened into a nursing round. Then rooms in the nursing home division where residents ate their meals together in a dining room. Then memory care for residents with dementia—that wing required more staff. Then the hospice unit. Those rooms were filled with sick and memory-challenged residents who would not be going home.
Blanche was still in an assisted living room with full-time nursing supervision and full meal service. Blanche was on a waiting list for memory care. Nothing much would change for Blanche except the geography. But these memory lapses were becoming more and more frequent.
Anna sought out the senior nurse, Rebecca, as she had many times before. She described their conversation. “I have heard Blanche speak of the boy. I assumed she was speaking of her grandson.”
“She specifically spoke of giving him away. And then ‘the girl’ came along and she kept her—that would be me. My mother always told me everything, but I’ve never heard of that. Could this be true? Could this be something she’s never talked about before?”
“It’s true our Alzheimer’s patients remember old memories better than recent memories, so if something that happened fifty years ago comes to mind they talk about it. But it’s also true they tell wild tales that no one can make any sense of. Is it possible your mother had a son before you were born and had him adopted and never mentioned it to you?”
“I’ve never heard mention of it before,” Anna said. “She was twenty-eight when I was born. She said the man she was involved with had been married, had no intention of leaving his wife or, even if he did, was not inclined to marry her. Without even thinking twice about it, she said she was going to have me, raise me, and we’d be fine one way or another. And we were. But she never mentioned another child. Never.”
“You can chalk it up to dementia,” the nurse said. “Or you can research it. You know where your mother lived before you were born. You can try one of these ancestry DNA services. I hear some are very good.”
I’m a judge, Anna thought. I know how to get information.
But the larger thought she had was how much vital family information was hanging out there, stuff she wasn’t sure of. Could she have a brother? Did Chad have any more children? How had he managed to give money to Amy and her mother without Anna ever knowing? How many branches were there on her family tree exactly?
Suddenly, her body felt very heavy, as if each step she took, emotionally and physically, took great energy.
SEVEN