Was Rebecca healthy? Had she been happy? Was she married? Had someone been kind to her when she was small and frightened?
“She had people who loved her,” I said. “She still does.”
“Children?”
“Two boys.”
Anna pressed her hand over her mouth.
“I have grandchildren.”
I showed her photographs on my phone. She held it carefully, touching the edge of the screen as though she was afraid of losing the picture.
At a photo of Rebecca laughing with the boys, she began to cry again.
“Does she know about me?”
“Not yet.”
“Will you tell her?”
I looked out at the street.
“She just buried her mother. I don’t know how to give her this, too.”
Anna was quiet for a moment.
“I understand that you’re afraid of hurting her.”
“What if this changes every memory she has of Carol?”
“It might change some of them.” She handed back my phone. “But those memories belong to her. She should be allowed to decide what they mean.”
I looked down at the letters between us.
My mother had decided what Anna could know. Carol had decided what I could bear.
I had been considering doing the same thing to Rebecca.
“You’re right,” I said.
PART 7: The Truth at the Kitchen Table
The following morning, I drove to Columbus.
Rebecca opened the door and immediately asked whether I was all right.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
The boys were at school. We sat at her kitchen table, where a jar held the same cinnamon sugar Carol used to keep beside the stove.
I had rehearsed on the drive. Every sentence sounded cruel when I imagined saying it aloud.
