Regarding Anna (43 page)

“Dark brown, almost black. Looked beautiful with those green eyes of hers. But she changed it right after...the incident.”

“To brown with some red in it.”

“Like Rosa’s.”

“That explains some of the photos I found. This whole thing is so sad. Whoever said ‘Love is blind’ knew what they were talking about.”

“I think Shakespeare gets credit for that.” She paused. “Anna told me he was a good father to you.”

“He was. I mean, I have no complaints as far as that goes. I never wanted for anything. He treated me okay.”

“I snuck into your eighth-grade graduation, by the way.”

“No kidding.”

“And I was going to contact you after your parents died, but I just couldn’t do it.” She bit her lip and shook her head. “I’m so sorry I didn’t. I should have.”

“Don’t be sorry. I managed.”

“That was the worst time of my life, so I think I know how hard it was for you,” she said through a swallowed sob. “I should have been there for you. And all because of that damn room.”

“What room?”

“The one in the basement.”

“What about it?”

“Do you know about it?”

“I know about it now. Not back then.”

“Both rooms?”

“Mm-hm.”

“She had the one built in this house to hide things her uncle sent her. There was a time that room was packed with stuff. She knew it wasn’t right, but he was her uncle, her only father figure, and he was good to her, so she went along with it.”

“The room was empty when I found it.”

“She would hold things for him until he sent her instructions as to what to do with them. What you found in the attic was the last shipment he had sent to her. He wanted her to have it.”

“And the room in the basement of our house?”

“That was Adam’s doing. He wanted a secure room available in case Anna’s uncle sent more things. Anna hated that room, and they frequently argued about it.”

“So her uncle knew she had moved?”

“I guess so.”

“Did he ever send more things to her?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“So that room was always empty?”

“Not entirely. Anna kept a journal. She said she started keeping one as a teenager in Mexico. At one time, she had hundreds of them, but after she moved in with Adam, she destroyed all of them except the current one—that one she kept in the rafters inside that secret room. I’d completely forgotten about that until just now.”

That explained how Berghorn knew all that personal stuff about Anna and me. He had probably torn that room apart looking for the money and had found the journal. It made me sick to think he’d read her personal thoughts.

“Essie, when my father lived here as a boarder, you said Anna called him Al.”

“She found out his real name after they moved in together.”

“What about his last name? What did he use?”

“I’m a little confused about that myself. I’m almost positive Anna told me his name was Al Lindstrom or something close to that. Then, when she found out his real name was Adam, she told me he had told her Al was a childhood nickname—his initials being AL. But she later denied telling me his last name was Lindstrom. She said she knew all along it was Lindroth. I think he lied to her about both his first and last name, and she was trying to cover up for him.”

“I would have been out of there.”

“Frankly, I’m not surprised she covered for him.”

“Why?”

“First of all, she loved him. At least, that’s what she told me. And he protected her.”

“And if she crossed him, he had one heck of a secret to hold over her head, didn’t he?”

“Of course he did, but don’t forget he was an accessory to her crime.”

“Right. I remember my father saying more than once that he wished he could retire early and move far away.”

“That was his plan.”

“Really.”

“In some ways, I felt sorry for him.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I think what happened to him as a child determined the man he became.”

“Maybe.”

“I also think what happened to his mother influenced him in the way he handled the situation with Rosa. Even though his mother had killed someone by accident, she still had to go to jail. Knowing what it was like for her there, he didn’t want Anna, the woman he loved, to have to go through that.”

“This is all so complicated.”

“I know. Grace, are you aware of the floor safe in this house?”

“Yes. It’s empty. Did she have that installed as well?”

“Oddly, that was here when she bought the house. She replaced it because the previous owners didn’t leave behind a key. She used to keep money in it. Dirty money from her uncle that she would send on to someone else after a period of time.”

“Essie, tell me how Fern fits into all of this.”

“Fern?”

“Fern Herschberger.”

“You tell me. I didn’t know she did.”

“I only met her six months ago.” I told her about Fern walking into my office that day and the items she had found among her parents’ things after their deaths that led her to believe either Rosa or Anna had been her real mother.

“Did she know who you were when she came to your office?”

“She said she didn’t.”

“Did she know who I was?”

“Yes.”

“So her friendship with me wasn’t coincidental—it was just a sham.”

“Please don’t be mad at her. She was desperate to find out about herself...just like I was. It’s probably hard to understand unless you’ve been there.”

“I can assure you Anna was not her mother.”

“I’m sorry I upset you.”

“That’s okay.” Her voice was so soft I barely heard her. “I shouldn’t be casting any aspersions on her. I was the one who did wrong.”

“How do you mean?”

“We should have been having this discussion long ago.”

“You were just being loyal to your best friend.”

“I guess.”

“Do you know Elmer Berghorn?”

“Never heard of him.”

“He caused my parents’ deaths.”

“What?”

“He’s in prison now, but not for that.” I filled Essie in on my ordeal with Berghorn and the story about O’Gowan’s sweepstakes winnings.

“That’s unbelievable. How long is Berghorn in for?”

“Seventeen years.”

“I hope he rots in there. So that recluse boarder was wealthy?” she asked. I gathered she was referring to O’Gowan.

“Quite.”

“Well, I don’t think Anna knew anything about that. At least, she never said anything to me, and we pretty much told each other everything.”

“Minnie didn’t either.”

“Minnie?”

I told Essie about Minnie—how we had met and our subsequent relationship.

Essie laughed. “They could make a movie out of all this.”

“I know. Want to hear something funny? That day you came here and were surprised to see Tymon, do you know where I was?”

She shook her head.

“Following the 54 bus. Fern saw you get on it that day, and I thought knowing its route might lead me to where you were staying.”

“I took that bus to get here.”

“I know that now. Why did you leave your house in Cicero, by the way?”

“Because you were getting close and making me nervous, and back then I was still in the mindset that I wasn’t going to talk to you.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I finally confessed everything to my pastor, Reverend Orman, and he advised me to talk to you.”

“Then I say, ‘Thank you, Reverend Orman.’”

“I don’t know about you, Grace, but I’m exhausted.”

“Me too.”

“Maybe we should call it a day.”

“Can we stay in touch?” I asked.

“I would like that.” She glanced around the room. “You know, I walked by here a year or two ago just for old time’s sake. Stopped for a minute out front to take a long look at it. The day lilies were in full bloom...so pretty. And then this irate lady comes rushing out the door asking me what the hell I was looking at. I tried to tell her I was just passing by, but she wasn’t having it. I never did
that
again.”

I laughed. “I’m sure that was Minnie. A raging bull on the outside, but a real sweetheart on the inside. Remind me sometime to tell you about our first meeting.”

Essie stared at me for several seconds before tearing up.

“You remind me so much of her,” she said.

Epilogue

Under different circumstances I wouldn’t be sitting in this lovely screened-in gazebo enjoying the seventy-degree weather with just enough of a breeze to usher the sweet scent of the neighbor’s lilac bushes over this way. Tymon designed the gazebo after a barn he saw in Wisconsin. Octagonal in shape, it can easily hold eight people, but more times than not, there are just the five of us in here.

I can see my rock garden from here as well as from my kitchen window. I used Minnie’s rock collection to create it. As I was digging into one of the boxes of rocks, I came across the metal lock box containing 372 hundred-pound Irish notes—the first money Minnie and I discovered in this house. She had hidden it well.

The winterberry bush I bought Minnie as a peace offering didn’t make it, but I took a picture of it when it was still partially alive. The framed photograph sits on the nightstand next to my bed beside a long, smooth rock that has the words “Best Friends” scrawled on it in black marker.

Regarding Anna, now that I know her whole story, I have a hard time accepting her as my real mother. The Anna who gave birth to me was my real mother. The Anna who raised me was a superficial rendition of the real Anna disguised as someone else, and to be honest, I don’t know how I feel about that person now.

As for my name, I’ve gone back and forth on which one I should use. The woman who gave me life named me Celina, but I’ve been known my whole life as Grace. For now, I go by Grace. But who knows—someday, I may change my mind about that. And someday I may change my mind about how I feel about the woman who raised me.

If it wasn’t for Anna, the five of us wouldn’t be together, not like this anyway. The money I received for the Mexican artwork and gold coins she left behind will fund NSU Immigration Services for a very long time. I think she’d be proud of me. I hope she would anyway.

I glance around the open-air room at my cohorts who helped me form this organization and now play an important role in keeping it functioning.

Naomi makes sure we all have what we need to do our jobs and serves as interpreter for my Spanish-speaking clients. She dresses much more conservatively these days, realizing that her former “too hot to handle” persona was her peculiar way of making sure she didn’t attract a man she could potentially like, realizing now that not all men are like her abusive father. She recently became an active member of the PTA at her daughter’s school and has been talking regularly with one of the single fathers she met there. I hope that works out for her. She’s a wonderful person and a good mother.

Tymon, my only permanent boarder, does here what he’s done his whole life—he fixes things. And I’m not just talking about physical things. He’s also good at fixing misguided souls and broken spirits. I don’t know for sure that he’s not my real father—he and Anna could have had an affair that she never disclosed to Essie—but that’s not important to me. The gifts I have received from him on my journey to find the truth far outweigh the need to know whether he or Adam was my biological father. If he had relations with Anna and someday wants me to know that, he’ll tell me.

Fern continues to teach second grade—even won the regional Teacher of the Year award this year—but on weekends, she’s in my dining room teaching English to our non-English-speaking clients. When Fern realized she was the baby in the letter Rosa wrote, she cried. And when she told me that she and her boyfriend were going to get married next month and asked me to be her maid of honor, I cried. Then when she thanked me for helping her get on with her life, we both cried. We’re best friends now, which is pretty amazing given my mother was responsible for her mother’s death.

My dear friend Essie still sells real estate for Baird & Warner and, in her off hours, helps to transition immigrant families who are living in my boardinghouse to permanent homes. I liked Essie from the beginning, but I like her even more now that she’s discovered a new person inside herself after being relieved of the burden of keeping Anna’s secret for all these years.