Regarding Anna (42 page)

“The woman you called mother all those years—that was Anna.”

The tears began to gush—there was no stopping them. I felt like I was floating in time, somewhere between what she had just said and what it actually meant.

“What are you saying?” I cried out through wails.

She didn’t wait for me to gain composure. “After she stabbed Rosa, Anna called Adam at work, and he told her not to do anything until he got there. She wanted to call the police and tell them what happened—that she had killed Rosa in self-defense. But Adam had other plans. He sent Anna and you to his home in Austin while he straightened up the room, cleaned up the blood, and put some of Anna’s clothes on Rosa before he staged her body on the sofa.”

“To make it look like what?”

“I’m not sure what he was trying to make it look like because he put Anna’s purse near her, with her driver’s license and everything else still in it except money, so maybe he wanted it to look like she was robbed. I don’t know.”

“Did Anna know what he was doing?”

“At the time, I don’t think so. But eventually he told her because she told me about it.”

“It’s hard to believe the man I knew as my father could have done all that.”

“I’m sure it is. Anyway, then he got busy moving Anna’s things to his house. Not everything of course. He left enough behind to make it look like she had lived there. But not your things. He removed all your things.”

“So it didn’t look as though a baby had lived there.” That matched what Tymon had told me.

“Exactly. Then after Adam hauled away Anna’s things, he called the police and told them he was worried about his landlady and asked if they could check on her. He waited for them, identified the dead woman as his landlady, Anna Vargas, and left.”

“So he intended for the police to think the dead person was Anna from the get-go.”

“It looks that way.”

“And she went along with it?” My disbelief suddenly morphed into anger. “And then Adam went back to his house like nothing happened and played house with Anna, and all those years I was growing up, she played the role of Rosa. Do you know how much time I have invested in trying to find out who my real mother is, how much of myself I have put into this, just to find out—. All this time I longed to have a life with my mother, my real mother, and I could have...but I didn’t...because she... I shed tears over that woman’s grave, for God’s sake!”

I stopped my rant.

“I’m sorry. You’re the last person I should be yelling at.”

“I understand. Believe me, I do. Look, Anna didn’t want anything to do with it at first. Trust me. It took a lot of convincing on Adam’s part and a lot of soul-searching on her part before she went along with it, and she carried that guilt her whole life.”

“Even so, I don’t think anyone could have convinced me to do that.”

“Adam was an expert manipulator. He knew just how much charm and praise he had to give in order for her to give in. And he had a knack for creating a false sense of fear and doubt in her, not to mention the guilt he laid on her. Eventually, she became blind to his faults and surrendered to his will completely. I think the guilt of it all did her in.”

“How he was able to transform her into someone she really wasn’t was so unfair. I just figured she was always very passive, easily influenced by others.”

“Far from it, I’m afraid.”

“So, afterward, you and Anna stayed friends?”

“Well, yes and no. Adam was clear he didn’t want her to tell anyone about what happened, including me, so we had to hide our friendship from him. It was rare we could meet in person. Most of our conversations took place over the phone when he wasn’t around.”

“You could have gone to the police.”

“I could have, but Anna begged me not to. She convinced me no good would come out of that. So I promised her I wouldn’t.”

“What about her other friends?”

“She didn’t have any other friends that I was ever aware of.”

“Why? Because he wouldn’t allow it?”

“That may have been part of it. Then afterward...”

“Afterward what?”

“It wasn’t the same. She wasn’t the same person afterward.”

We both laughed—in the very same instant getting the irony and humor of what she had just said—a much-needed break for me, maybe for her as well.

“So you think you were her only friend
before
all this happened?”

“I think so.”

“She had lived there a few years. She hadn’t made friends?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think she was embarrassed about her lifestyle, how she could support herself without working, and then later the affair with Adam and a child without being married.”

“What I don’t understand is how the police didn’t know there was a baby in the house when Anna died. The nursery was there. And Tymon tried to tell them, but from what he told me, they thought he was crazy. Surely others knew—neighbors, the local grocer, people where she banked. They must have seen her pregnant.”

“Anna didn’t show much until toward the end, and then I would run errands for her. And those first few months after you were born, I would sit for you whenever she needed to go out. It doesn’t surprise me that no one knew about you.”

“So what were her plans for later—when I wanted to go out and play, when I was old enough to go to school?”

“I don’t think she thought that far ahead.”

“What about Rosa? Didn’t she have friends? Or relatives. And what about their neighbors? They would know Anna wasn’t her.”

“My only guess is that Adam had been as controlling with Rosa as he was with Anna. And as far as neighbors, look at your old house—tall evergreens on both sides and in the back. Park across the street. It was very private.”

“That it was. Even when I was small, I remember feeling so isolated playing in the backyard, fenced in by all the trees. Many times I tried to escape to the front of the house where it was more open. I wanted to see other people, but out front was off limits for me. To this day I’m uncomfortable being surrounded by too many trees.”

That memory pulled me back to my childhood and my mother’s peculiar behaviors. She had spent a lot of time by herself, off in her own world, and didn’t always seem that interested in me or what I was doing. Had Adam been that demeaning?

“I can understand how what she went through would change her,” I said. “Look what she had hidden her whole life. And something tells me he wasn’t much of a comfort to her. I think I understand now why she was the way she was.”

“How do you mean?”

“Distant most of the time with me but not with my father. She was more in tune with him than with me. She looked for and then followed his lead, almost to the point of being subservient. I remember one time my best friend Beth’s mother told Beth how proud she was of her for something she had done. When I heard those words of praise, I thought how much I would have loved to hear my mother say something like that to me, even just once.”

“But she
was
proud of you. I know she was.”

“Well, she never said it to me.”

“She was a changed person. I don’t know what else to say.”

“You left off when Anna assumed Rosa’s identity.”

“Part of Adam’s plan was to—”

“And what about Anna’s, or I should say Rosa’s, death certificate? I couldn’t find one.”

“Adam saw to it that it would never resurface.”

“Did the police ever suspect Adam had something to do with it?”

“I don’t know, but Anna later told me he had given them a phony name.”

Thoughts were running through my brain faster than I could process them.

“Looks like Adam thought of everything,” I said. “Except the attic. Why did he leave all
that
behind?”

“You mean the paintings and things from her uncle?”

“Yes.”

“Much to Adam’s protest, Anna wanted nothing to do with any of that. She loved her uncle, but she was sure he had acquired those things…underhandedly, shall we say.”

“That’s why she left the key to the trunk out in plain sight.”

Essie chuckled. “That’s exactly why, but she never told Adam that. She told him she had sent it all back. So you know what all was in the trunk?”

“I’ve had it appraised.”

“Worth a lot?”

“A substantial amount.” I stopped for a moment and smiled. “It’s funny. I was never sure what I was going to do with it, but I told Tymon that if it had been gotten illegally, I didn’t want anything to do with it. Looks like I may have inherited at least one of her traits.”

“Grace?”

“Hmm?”

“You’ve inherited more than just one of her traits.” She paused. “You really have.”

More tears. I liked her.

“So now they have all of Anna’s things. Then what?”

“They settle into Adam’s house—the house you grew up in.”

“The one he and Rosa had lived in? That must have been difficult for Anna—living in that house.”

“Oh, she didn’t like it, but she had no choice, because Adam wasn’t about to leave that house.”

“Why?”

“Adam had a younger sister who disappeared when she was just in her teens, and they had been close. The police had considered her a runaway. Anyway, he never gave up hope that one day she would return, and when she did, he wanted her to be able to find him. How much do you know about Adam’s parents?”

“Nothing. They died before I was born.”

Essie raised her eyebrows.

“What? That was a lie too?”

“Well, I’m not sure. He never knew his father.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“And his mother went to prison when Adam was ten or twelve.”

“What?”

“The way Anna told me the story, Adam and his sister lived with their mother and uncle, and one day when his uncle was off somewhere, Adam fell off a woodpile or something and broke his leg. His mother didn’t drive, but his uncle’s car was sitting in the driveway, and she decided to drive Adam to the hospital.”

“And she had never driven a car before.”

“Right. And on the way, she lost control of it and hit an old man and his grandson who had been walking down the road.”

“Oh, my. What happened?”

“They died, and Adam’s mother went to jail for manslaughter.”

“Manslaughter? But it sounds like it was an accident.”

“She was driving without a license, on the wrong side of the road, and she was speeding.”

“Gross negligence. So what happened to him...my father?”

“The uncle raised him and his sister, until his sister disappeared, that is.”

“In the same house I grew up in? On Ferdinand Street?”

“Yes.”

“And what about her, Adam’s mother?”

“She died in prison, but I don’t know when or how.”

“I’m in shock. I never heard any of this!”

“Probably not something your father was too proud of.”

“Did Adam visit his mother in jail?”

“Every Sunday. There was a fair amount of guilt there—if Adam hadn’t been playing on that woodpile, she wouldn’t have been in prison.”

“Then at some point, Adam married Rosa. How long were they married?”

“I want to say eight or nine years. I’m not sure.”

“And then Adam leaves Rosa, takes a room in Anna’s boardinghouse, and has an affair with Anna.”

“Yes.”

I was finally getting it, but it was all so wrong. Rosa had deserved better. So had Anna. And even Essie. Adam was another story.

“You know where Rosa is buried, right?” I asked.

“Yes, I know.”

“So Adam and Anna just let the city handle things...like she was just some poor indigent soul?”

“I know. That was horrible, but if they wanted to avoid the consequences for Anna, they had no other choice.”

“That’s appalling.”

“There’s something I want you to know, Grace. I wanted to get to know you as you were growing up, but it was impossible with your father in the picture. I worked, sometimes seven days a week, but being in real estate I did occasionally manage to visit you and Anna during the day when your father was working. But that stopped as soon as you were old enough to talk.”

“You thought I would say something to him?”

“Yes. I tried other ways though. I would actually go to your school whenever I could when I thought you might be outside for recess, and I’d watch for you. I wanted to come over to you, hug you, tell you I was your godmother and would always be there for you, but I couldn’t. Anna made me promise I wouldn’t. She didn’t want to create problems between them.”

“You’re my godmother?”

“Adam never even knew about the christening.”

“I have the christening dress.”

Essie closed her eyes, squeezing out a lone tear. “I made that dress for you.”

“You did?”

“I patterned it after the wallpaper in your bedroom.”

“The pink-and-white flowers?”

Essie laughed. “Took forever to sew on those darn flowers.”

“It’s a gorgeous dress.”

“Thank you. Anyway, as the years went by, Anna and I stayed friends, but like I said, unbeknownst to Adam.”

“Tell me about Anna before she met Adam.”

“When I met her, she was fun to be with and a real looker. Took pride in the way she dressed, did her hair. She had this one outfit that I swear turned every man’s head she passed. The blouse had short butterfly sleeves and a crossover neckline that showed just a tease of cleavage. The skirt flared out at the bottom and swished around her perfect legs when she walked. Both were made of this robin’s egg blue silky fabric that seemed to flow behind her like water. And the most amazing thing about it was that she had no idea how attractive she was, how many heads she turned. She was that unpretentious.

“She loved her independence, reveled in it. And she had a great sense of humor—I didn’t know half the time whether she was being serious or pulling my leg. Always upbeat, even when things didn’t go as well as planned.

“Then he came into her life, and she eventually became… I don’t know…tired and, well, each year she put on a little more weight, didn’t dress like she did before. But she said she was happy, so...”

“That first part didn’t seem at all like my mother, that’s for sure. Just the opposite. I’m curious about her hair color. What was her natural color?”