I sat back down because I didn’t trust my legs anymore.
“Does she know about me?”
“She knows your name.
She knows what I told her, which was the truth as I understood it — that you had moved on and didn’t want contact.” Anna’s jaw tightened slightly.
“I told her that because that’s what Carol told me.
I believed it.
I raised her believing it.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what she believes.” Anna set her cup down.
“I haven’t told her you were coming.
I didn’t know if you would actually show up.
I didn’t know if you’d want to know any of this.” She looked at me directly.
“Do you?”
The question sat between us.
Thirty-six years of a marriage I had believed in completely.
A woman who had held my hand while she was dying and asked me to find the person she had wronged.
