Chương 11
“I just answered.”
“That’s usually where quotes come from.”
She threw a napkin at him.
The legal case ended.
Life did not.
Raymond eventually pleaded guilty to a financial obstruction charge and received probation, fines, and restrictions involving estate administration.
Margaret thought it was insufficient.
Anna did not care as much as Margaret expected.
“He was afraid of losing money,” Anna said.
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“He could have found you.”
“He didn’t.”
Margaret looked at her.
Anna shrugged.
“I can’t spend every day meeting people who didn’t save me.”
That sentence stayed with Margaret.
Because she had spent twenty-three years imagining salvation as an event.
Find Anna.
Bring her home.
Fix what had been broken.
But Anna did not want to be saved anymore.
She wanted a checking account nobody monitored.
She wanted to learn to drive again.
She wanted to know whether she liked Indian food.
She wanted to visit a beach she remembered from childhood and determine whether the memory was real.
She wanted Margaret to stop buying her things without asking.
That last one was difficult.
“You bought a couch.”
“You needed one.”
“I had one.”
“It had a broken spring.”
“I liked the broken spring.”
“Nobody likes a broken spring.”
“I did.”
Margaret stared at her.
Anna stared back.
Daniel, unfortunately present again, said, “I’d like to note for the record that I told her not to buy the couch.”
Margaret pointed toward the door.
“Leave.”
He laughed.
The new couch went to Daniel.
Anna kept the old one another year.
Then replaced it herself with an ugly green sectional.
Margaret said nothing.
This was growth.
Two years after Anna was found, she asked to visit the old family house.
Margaret had sold it long ago.
Another family lived there.
Daniel contacted them.
The owners agreed to let Anna walk through the yard but preferred not to have strangers inside.
Anna accepted that.
They went on a Sunday afternoon.
Margaret expected emotion.
Anna spent most of the visit looking disappointed.
“The yard was bigger.”
“You were six,” Daniel said.
“The tree’s gone.”
“It died.”
“What happened to the swing?”
“Probably removed.”
Anna walked along the side of the property.
A woman watering flowers across the street recognized her.
Margaret saw recognition happen.
The woman hesitated.
Then, surprisingly, she returned to her flowers.
Anna noticed.
“I like her.”
They found the place where the old swing had been.
Nothing remained.
Anna stood there with her hands in her jacket pockets.
Margaret waited.
“This is weird.”
“Yes.”
“I thought I’d remember more.”
“That’s okay.”
Anna looked at her.
“You always say that when you don’t know what else to say.”
Margaret sighed.
“I genuinely don’t know what else to say.”
“Better.”
They walked back toward the car.
Halfway there, Anna stopped.
“The angry bee.”
Margaret blinked.
“What?”
“The vacuum.”
Daniel started laughing.
Margaret covered her face.
“You remember that?”
Anna grinned.
“It was yellow.”
“It was horrible.”
“You loved it.”
“I did.”
Margaret began laughing too.
They stood in the driveway of a house none of them owned anymore, laughing about a hand vacuum.
The current owner watched from a window.
For once, Margaret did not care how they looked.
Later that year, Anna asked Margaret to help her find June Calloway’s grave.
The request stunned her.
“Why?”
Anna’s face hardened.
“I don’t have to go.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You said why.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“I don’t.”
They located June’s grave in Missouri.
Daniel offered to go.
Anna asked him not to.
So Margaret drove.
The cemetery was small and poorly maintained.
June’s stone was simple.
JUNE MARIE CALLOWAY
1972–2011
Nothing else.
Anna stood several feet away.
Margaret remained near the car.
After ten minutes, Anna waved her over.
“Do you hate her?”
Margaret looked at the grave.
“Yes.”
Anna nodded.
“Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret almost said That’s okay.
She caught herself.
Anna noticed.
“You almost said it.”
“I did.”
A smile passed between them.
Anna crouched and pulled weeds from the bottom of the stone.
Margaret watched.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
They stayed twenty minutes.
Anna left nothing.
No flowers.
No note.
Back in the car, she said, “She used to make pancakes shaped like animals.”
Margaret gripped the steering wheel.
Anna looked out the window.
“I hated her sometimes.”
Margaret waited.
“And sometimes I loved her.”
The sentence hurt in a place Margaret did not know existed.
She wanted to reject it.
June stole you.
June lied to you.
June took twenty-three years from us.
But Anna had lived those years.
They belonged to her even when Margaret hated what they contained.
So she said, “I believe you.”
Anna looked at her.
Not thank you.
Not forgiveness.
Just a long look.
Then she turned toward the window again.
They stopped at a diner on the highway.
Anna ordered strawberry pie.
Margaret raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You hate strawberries.”
“You say I hate strawberries.”
“You called them hairy.”
Anna took a bite.
Chewed.
Made a face.
Margaret tried not to laugh.
Anna pushed the plate away.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re saying it with your entire face.”
Margaret laughed so hard the waitress looked over.
Anna laughed too.
They ordered chocolate cake instead.
On the third anniversary of Anna’s discovery, Margaret woke before dawn.
For years, anniversaries had controlled her calendar.
The day Anna disappeared.
Anna’s birthday.
Thomas’s death.
The day police officially suspended active searching.
The day Victor’s farm appeared in a photograph.
Now another date existed.
The day they found her.
Margaret had once called it a miracle.
Anna asked her not to.
“Miracle makes it sound like nobody did anything.”
She was right.
Daniel had opened the envelope.
He had researched Victor.
Harris had answered the preemptive call.
May you like
An anonymous source had mailed the photograph.
That source was eventually identified as Victor’s former farmhand, a nineteen-year-old named Caleb Owens, who had seen Anna locked in the coop and spent three months trying to decide whether he was misunderstanding the situation.
