“What happened to the baby?”
Anna turned her face away.
“I gave her up.”
She told me she had been twenty, terrified, and convinced by my mother that I had already moved on. Ruth had persuaded her that the baby would have a better life with another family and refused to give Anna any way to contact me.
I asked whether she had ever tried again, and Anna said she had gone to my mother’s house hoping the pregnancy would change things. Instead, Ruth repeated the threats and told her something even worse.“She said you were already with someone else.”
“With who?”
“Carol.”
I felt the room seem to narrow around us.
Anna explained that my mother had told her Carol and I had already begun something before Anna even left town. That had never been true.
Then Anna hesitated.
“There’s more.”
I almost did not want to ask.
