On August 31, 1979, on the fifth floor of Massachusetts General Hospital, Laurel Innamorati Haley gave birth to a bald-headed, blue-eyed, seven-pound baby girl named Annabelle. She was so delicious this girl, slept six hours a night straight out of the gates. She hardly ever cried.
The only witnesses to the birth were one doctor, two nurses, and an Eastern European woman named Blanka who sometimes cleaned Laurel’s apartment when she was too spent or sick to do it herself. On the birth certificate, Laurel wrote “unknown” in the place a father’s name would go.
Shortly after Annie’s arrival, Blanka, the maid who knew nothing about Charlie, told Laurel stories of a handicapped grifter who hung around the building’s lobby. One morning she watched him argue with the security guard, a well-heeled older couple standing behind him.
“That’s odd,” Laurel said, trying to hide her panic.
Charlie knew where she was and had the support and backing of his parents. The mere thought petrified Laurel. Bad dye jobs and ill-fitting clothes would serve no bulwark against the levels of wealth and fury Charlie’s family had.
Could his family assert any sort of claim on Laurel? Her apartment? The chubby, happy, rosy-cheeked babe of perfection? Laurel was technically still Charlie’s wife and Annie his child. Because of this, Laurel existed in a constant state of medium-grade fear, which was the very worst fear of all. You never knew when it might explode into full-blown terror.
One unusually warm winter morning, after a call to the admissions department at Georgetown Law, Laurel walked to the bank, baby Annie nestled in a wrap against her chest. She may not have been at Berkeley anymore, but she knew where to find all the good hippies, and therefore the best baby carriers.
Once at the bank, Laurel withdrew the sum of five hundred dollars and then chatted with the teller while another employee summoned the manager. He needed to speak with her, they said. Laurel braced herself as Annie wiggled against her chest.
“Is something wrong, Mr. Green?” she asked, heart thumping.
“I have a telegram for you, ma’am. Just came in this morning.”
“Oh, thank you,” Laurel said and took the paper.
She breathed in and started to read.
WESTERN UNION
TELEGRAM
1/7/1980
MRS LAUREL HALEY
C/O BANC OF BOSTON
10 BOYLSTON ST
BOSTON MA 02115
TO MRS HALEY
PLEASE COME RETRIEVE YOUR PAINTINGS FROM MY HOME AT QUAI DE BETHUNE PARIS. I AM WITH CHILD AND NEED SPACE. MUCH APPRECIATED YOURS TRULY MRS JAMES SETON.
Mrs. Seton. Mrs. James Seton. Is this who Laurel had heard on the line? The wife of Jamie, not of Win?
Maybe, she thought. Just maybe …
Giddy with a prospect she didn’t understand, Laurel took out two thousand more dollars and rushed home to pack. They were on winter break and classes would not resume for another few weeks.
The next morning she taxied to Logan Airport and bought a one-way ticket to Paris. As dusk draped across Boston, that so-called City of Notions, Laurel boarded a plane with only a backpack, a baby, and a head full of hope.
Eighty-five
?LE SAINT-LOUIS
PARIS
NOVEMBER 2001
“So you did go backpacking in college,” Annie said when her mother stopped to catch her breath. “In a sense.”
She noticed then how narrow the space between Laurel and Gus as they sat on the couch. What had they talked about in the ninety minutes Jamie and Annie were sipping wine downstairs? What had they decided?
“Except you told me that you went to Banbury,” Annie said. “Not Paris.”
“Oh, we went to Banbury. As soon as I realized that’s where Win was.”
Laurel stood and began pacing, hands planted firmly in the back pockets of her jeans. From across the room, Gus watched, eyes shining. At once Annie thought of a quote from Edith Wharton: “Each time you happen to me all over again.”
Was that what Laurel was doing? Happening all over again? It’d been so long. Her mother was—Annie had to say it—middle-aged, clinging to the last vestiges of her forties. Then again, there was a lot of time left in the game.
Maybe … Annie thought just as her mother had so long ago. Just maybe …
“So then what?” Annie asked. “You took me to Banbury. You were single. Gus was if not single, at least unmarried. But nothing happened, given you ended up back where you started. In Boston. Finishing up at Wellesley.”
“He refused to see me,” Laurel said. “Had some intermediary tell me to ‘bugger off.’”
“That was my sister-in-law,” Gus said. “Though I put her up to it.”
“Why would you put her up to it?” Annie asked.
“Fear. Nothing more. The reports of Pru’s return were widespread. Everyone in the village remembered the young girl who lived at the Grange so they were all atwitter when she came back to inspect her land, toting a scrummy baby and sporting a diamond ring on her finger.”