“Only what Ruth told me.”
“That we’d already started something?”
Anna nodded.
“She said you’d chosen Carol before I’d even left town.”
“But that wasn’t true.”
“I know that now.”
Then Anna hesitated.
“There’s more.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Carol was there that day.”
“At my mother’s house?”
“Yes. She’d stopped by with a casserole. Ruth thought she’d already left, but she was still in the parlor.”
I couldn’t move.
“Carol heard what my mother said to you?”
“Every word.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me. About fifteen years ago, she tracked me down through my sister and sent me a letter. I never answered.”
My throat tightened.
“So she knew why you left.”
“Yes.”
“And all those years, she watched me believe you’d walked away because you didn’t want me.”
Anna looked down.
“I’m sorry.”
“She said nothing… and then she married me.”
“I’ve wondered for forty years whether she ever told you.”
“She didn’t.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
“I’m not telling you to hate her,” Anna whispered. “I’m telling you because your wife sent you here, and I think she wanted you to finally know.”
I looked at her.
“Anna, did you ever try to find our daughter?”
“Of course I thought about it.”
“But did you look?”
“I couldn’t. It was a private adoption. I didn’t know the family’s name, where they lived—anything.”
And suddenly, something clicked into place.
“My mother arranged it.”
Anna frowned.
“What?”
“If anyone kept records, she did.”
