Chapter Eighteen

“Annabel, darling. What a surprise.” Laura Adams Worth moved forward and pecked the air next to Annabel’s cheek.

“You look well, Mother, ” Annabel observed.

Thin and elegant in a pale linen dress and single strand of pearls, Laura never seemed to age. All her life Annabel could remember her mother looking like this: poised and expensive, as distant as a Cape Cod horizon. The smell of her perfume brought memories flooding back and Annabel felt suddenly gauche, clumsy, unattractive: a stuttering twelve year old tasting blood as braces gouged into her gums; a fifteen year old filled with shame when her period leaked at Thanksgiving and her mother had called in the maid to remove the gory chair.

Even now she could feel Laura Worth’s critical blue eyes rejecting as crass and juvenile her choice of black tights, pink sling back pumps and huge pink T-shirt.

Why did she do it? Annabel wondered. Whenever she visited her parents, some strange perversity made her pass over the respectable clothes that dominated her wardrobe in favor of those she knew her mother would most deplore. Childish attention-getting. Annabel knew that. Silly underground game playing. No wonder her therapist drove a Mercedes.

“Tea, my dear? ” Her mother was already calling Doris, her Filipino maid.

Annabel nodded with resignation and flopped down onto a pristine peach leather sofa she’d never seen before. Obviously her mother still enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with her decorator. “Where’s Daddy? ”

“Playing golf in Newport, ” Laura replied without a flicker of interest. “I’m not expecting him back all week.”

“I guess I’ll miss him then.”

At least she shared some interests with her father. They could talk Wall Street, politics and horseflesh. And Theodore Worth made no secret of the fact that he worshipped his daughter. Not once had Annabel ever been made to feel guilty for not being a son. Her father had taken her everywhere, taught her to trade commodities while she was still at prep school, put her at the helm of his yacht almost before she could walk, and allowed her to work at McDonald’s on her vacations even though her mother acted as if Annabel were selling herself on Times Square.

Annabel had always sensed an ally in her father, and the thought of facing her mother without him distressed her. She clasped her clammy hands together and, suppressing a wayward urge to ask for milk, watched Laura pour the tea and add a curl of lemon to each cup.

“Are you enjoying Anne’s island, dear? ”

“It’s beautiful.” Annabel sipped her perfectly brewed tea. “You should visit.”

Laura avoided her eyes. “I hope you’ve placed the estate in the hands of competent people, ” she said with a hint of censure.

“I’ve retained Aunt Annie’s lawyers.” Annabel tried not to sound defensive.

Her mother lifted a lightly penciled eyebrow. “Really? I never suspected you of sentimentality, my dear.” She gave a short brittle laugh and examined Annabel with a patronizing expression. “I take it the urbane Mr. Jessup is still in good health? ”

Clearly Walter Jessup had prepped at the wrong school, Annabel thought. Then again, when did anyone from the West Coast ever measure up to her mother’s standards? She promptly decided to keep him on—so long as he could produce a female law partner, that is.

“He sends his regards, ” she said coolly. “And this…” She reached into her satchel and dropped an envelope on the occasional table in front of her mother. It was the one addressed to Lucy. “Mr. Jessup hasn’t been able to trace this person. I wondered whether you might have some idea who she is.”

Laura glanced down at the envelope then looked at Annabel without blinking. “Lucy? ” she toyed with the name. “No, I don’t think I can help.”

“I’m surprised, ” Annabel commented dryly. “I would have thought you might know the whereabouts of your niece.”

Laura returned her cup to its saucer with an uncharacteristic clatter. One hand strayed jerkily to her pearls. Annabel was certain she detected a flicker of emotion in her mother’s light blue eyes. Fear? Guilt perhaps?

In a voice as tight as piano wire, she asked, “What do you know about Lucy? ”

“That’s what I’m asking you, Mother.”

Laura Worth deposited her tea on the table, crossed her legs and regarded Annabel with assessing eyes. “Of course! ” she said with a slight flutter. “I had all but forgotten. Poor little Lucy…”

She shook her head sadly, and Annabel felt suddenly insecure, as though she were walking on quicksand, her reality as insubstantial as a mirage. “Poor Lucy? ” she queried.

Laura seemed to relax a little. “Anne’s child.” Lowering her head, she folded poignant hands in her lap. “A tragic business, absolutely tragic. She made me promise never to tell a soul, but…” She eyed the envelope with an air of troubled resignation.

Annabel immediately felt like a jerk. Her mother’s message was loud and clear. Laura was being asked to dishonor a promise—and to a dead woman. How could Annabel be so insensitive?

“Mother, I know Aunt Annie had a baby after she called off her engagement. And I know she lived with that child and a woman called Rebecca on Moon Island until Rebecca was killed. Then she came to Boston, didn’t she? ”

Laura paled and Annabel saw her hands were no longer folded but had balled into two tight fists.

“How do you know this, Annabel? ” she asked with a hunted expression.

“Aunt Annie left me a letter and—”

“Anne told you! ”

There was no mistaking her mother’s agitation. Annabel felt her pulse begin to race. “I know a great deal about Aunt Annie, ” she said quietly, and watched dull red wash over Laura’s porcelain features.

Her mother rose and moved across the large room to stare out at her gardens, hands gripping the window ledge. “Anne did not want to have the baby, ” she said in a strained voice.

“Hardly surprising under the circumstances, ” Annabel retorted, recalling Annie’s desperation about the rape.

“She gave birth in the Back Bay house, ” her mother went on as though she hadn’t heard. “It was a difficult birth. She was very weak. Afterward she and… Rebecca… stayed for a short time then left for that damned island.” Laura paused, her chest rising and falling unevenly. Apparently this decision still inflamed her. “Can you believe it? Taking a sick mother and brand new baby to some God-forsaken place in the middle of nowhere. No decent hospitals, no refrigeration, not even running water.”

“What was she like? ” Annabel interrupted.

“Who, the baby? ”

“No. Rebecca.”

Her mother stiffened. “She was a Gardner—the shipping people. Anne met her at Wellesley and they became close. Whenever she came home for a weekend she always had Rebecca in tow. I thought they were best friends. Very naï ve. Rebecca was a wild type of girl.”

Annabel could almost hear it. Led poor Annie astray, turned her head.

“After college she went to Europe. She fancied herself as an artist.” Laura frowned, her lips compressed. “Anne followed her and… Oh, she was such an innocent and Rebecca’s crowd was very bohemian. You can imagine.”

“They became lovers? ” Annabel translated boldly.

Her mother shuddered. “Father was ill, and eventually Anne had the decency to return home. We all thought she had finally come to her senses. After a few months she became engaged to Roger Lawrence, a very nice Harvard boy. He’s a surgeon now, of course.”

“Of course, ” Annabel said. “Specializing in gynecology, no doubt.”

The acid jibe appeared to go straight past her mother. “Everyone was amazed when Anne suddenly broke off the engagement.”

“She was raped, ” Annabel said succinctly.

“Annabel! ” Laura Worth looked outraged. “Roger was her fiancé. He loved her.”

“Funny way of showing it.”

“You know nothing of these matters, ” her mother said indignantly. “Anne was a highly-strung girl and young for her age. She had little understanding of adult emotions, and physically she had been a late bloomer. Roger certainly wasn’t to blame for what happened.”

“Oh, please. He was old enough to understand the word “no, ” surely.”

“Anne was a decently brought up girl. Roger mistook her reticence for the shyness of an inexperienced young woman.”

Annabel gasped. It was plain her mother was determined to cling to a sanitized explanation of what had really occurred between Annie and her Harvard fiancé. “Of course we tried to change her mind about breaking off the engagement, ” she continued, ignoring Annabel’s reproachful stare. “But she simply couldn’t see what a mistake she was making.”

Annabel rolled her eyes. “I’m guessing she was never permitted to forget it.”

Laura heaved a long-suffering sigh. She seemed determined to finish the whole story now that she had started it. Annabel guessed she must have been holding on to enormous resentment, bottling up a family secret like this over the years.

“When Anne found she was expecting, she was hysterical. Mother tried to reason with her. Roger would have taken her back. I mean, the poor boy nearly went out of his mind.” Laura’s burgundy-penciled mouth tightened into a thin straight line. “But she had already written to Rebecca, and within a month they set up house together. Anne refused to see Roger at all and insisted he be told the child was not his. That was Rebecca’s doing, of course. She was always extremely possessive, accustomed to having her own way.”

The more Annabel heard of Rebecca, the more she liked her. “So in the end they all went to Moon Island? ”

“Yes, ” Laura said. “We didn’t see Lucy again until that dreadful accident.”

“By which time presumably I was a toddler? ”

Laura nodded, her eyes distant and focused somewhere beyond Annabel’s shoulder. Her expression made Annabel uneasy.

“So what happened when they came back here? ” she prompted.

“Anne was very depressed. She simply refused to speak with anyone, even the child.” She turned to stare out the window for a long moment. “Poor little Lucy. She was just a baby. She didn’t understand why her Mummy wouldn’t hold her.”

Annabel’s eyes widened. She could have sworn there was genuine emotion in her mother’s voice.

Laura folded her arms and paced absently back and forth across the garden view. “She stayed like that for months, silent and wasting away. We tried everything. We took her to the best people. I think she saw every expert on the East Coast. They prescribed drugs, but Anne would not take them. She refused to help herself at all.”

She sounded unreasonably angry, and Annabel suddenly wondered what it must have been like for Laura, the competent organizer and socially active young Boston matron, having to cope with a younger sister’s despair. Despair over a lesbian lover, and a secret life no one could be told about.

“In the end we were desperate.”

“Desperate? ”

“Yes.” A defensive note. “It was decided Anne would benefit most from full-time psychiatric care.”

“You put her in a mental hospital? ” Annabel asked slowly.

Her mother lowered her head a fraction, and suddenly Annabel noticed her age; the stoop of her shoulders, the chin sagging slightly. “We did what we thought was best, ” she said wearily.

“And Lucy? ”

There was a long pause. Annabel tried to read her mother’s expression, but her eyes were veiled, her face as fixed as a portrait.

“Lucy became unwell and died.” It was said blankly, and something in her tone jarred. Annabel felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

“Lucy died, ” she repeated matter-of-factly. “Then why did Aunt Annie leave this letter for her? ” She lifted the envelope and her mother flinched. “Didn’t she know? ”

“Anne was disturbed, ” Laura said quietly. “When she came out of the hospital she said she didn’t want to talk about Rebecca or Lucy ever again. She was not herself.”

Annabel watched her mother carefully, recognizing that there was something not being said. “How long was Aunt Annie in the hospital? ”

Laura was silent for so long, Annabel found herself concentrating on the subtle noises around her; the whisper of the cooling system, the faintest tinkle from a chandelier prey to the vented draughts. When Laura finally answered, it was reluctantly. “Nearly five years.”

“Five years? ” Annabel got to her feet and stalked across the carpet to confront her mother. “You let her stay there for five years! ”

“Lower your voice, Annabel, ” her mother protested.

Annabel was enraged, fiercely, blindly angry. She took her mother by the arm and spun her around. “How could you? ” she demanded.

Laura shook her head dumbly.

“Was that the big white house we used to visit? ” Fragments of a memory danced before Annabel. High spiked iron gates and a curving driveway, vacant-eyed strangers wandering across the lawns. She was never allowed outside to play and had to sit in a hot room filled with plants while her parents sipped tea with Aunt Annie.

“Oh, my God, ” she whispered. She had thought it was her aunt’s home.

“You don’t understand, ” Laura began, but Annabel was not listening.

“You kept her in a mental hospital while you raised her daughter! ” she shouted, tightening the grip on her mother’s arm and shaking her slightly.

Laura’s face drained chalk white. “No, ” she gasped. “Lucy died.”

“Don’t lie to me, Mother, ” Annabel sputtered. “I want to know the truth. You owe me that much and you owe Annie.”

“Annabel darling. Please don’t—” Laura’s voice wavered on a sob.

Annabel could feel her trembling. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was deeply shocked at her own behavior—shouting at her mother, handling her roughly. This was not what she’d planned at all. Somehow she had imagined… What? A civilized little chat? She would produce the envelope and Laura would immediately pour out the truth after thirty years of secrecy? This was real life, she reminded herself.

But feeling angry and frustrated did not give her the right to use her mother as a psychological punching bag. Laura was crying openly, and with shattering clarity Annabel realized it was the first time she had ever seen her mother show such emotion. Ashamed, she released her grip and instead placed a tentative arm around her thin, hunched shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Mom, ” she said huskily. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me.”

Laura covered her face with her hands. “I can’t tell you, ” she sobbed. “I don’t know how to begin.”

“It’s all right.” Annabel led her to a settee and sat down beside her. “I love you, Mom, ” she said, and felt a profound shudder move her mother’s body.

Laura looked up, her eyes pain-filled. “Lucy was such a beautiful little girl, ” she began, and Annabel took her hand, pressing it encouragingly.

“She was an angel. She loved everyone and everything. The moment I first saw her I knew she was special. Anne was barely conscious during the birth and Rebecca was concentrating only on her. So the doctor gave Lucy to me and I held her and I...” She gulped, tears streaming down her face. “I loved her. Then they left, and I didn’t see her again until the accident. It was terrible. The one baby in my life gone where I could never see her.”

She looked at Annabel with eyes that were suddenly soft and loving, and Annabel felt her own tears begin.

“By then I had lost four babies of my own, stillborn or miscarried. Lucy was so healthy and beautiful. I suppose I was bitterly envious of Anne. It seemed so unfair. I’d done everything right. I married Theo, I kept myself fit and ate properly, I took vitamins. And Anne behaved scandalously her whole life and even lived with a woman...as husband and wife.” She blew her nose indelicately into a fine lace handkerchief, then tossed the sodden thing onto the floor.

“You can’t have any idea how empty my life was, ” she said brokenly. “I felt like a nothing. Not even a woman. There seemed no point to my existence. All I was any good for was bridge. And, you know, it’s hard to convince oneself that playing cards is the full extent of God’s divine plan for one’s life.”

She managed a watery smile and Annabel gently squeezed her shoulder. “I understand more than you think, ” she said softly, remembering the mindlessness of her life until she left for Moon Island. “I’m not judging you. I just want to know the truth.”

Laura met her eyes and seemed to take strength from the genuine support she saw there. “When they came home after the accident, I didn’t know what to do. Anne was beside herself, inconsolable. She said she didn’t want to live without Rebecca.” She paused, a haunted expression in her eyes. “They were so much in love, you see.”

Annabel nodded. She knew from Annie’s diaries how all-consuming that passion had been, even till the day she died. Her final entry bore stark testimony… My love, my love. At last together again.

“Poor Lucy. Anne hardly responded to the child and Lucy forever ran about the house searching under chairs and covers. When I asked her what she was doing she would say, “Looking Becca.” I tried to comfort her. I took her everywhere with me. Theo wanted to engage a nanny but I refused. I wanted her all to myself.” She clutched at Annabel’s hands with sudden desperation. “I didn’t deliberately take her away from Anne. You have to believe me.”

Annabel stroked her hands soothingly. “Of course I believe you, ” she said, wiping her own tears.

“Then Anne tried to kill herself, and she had to go to the hospital. The doctors told Theo she needed psychiatric help, but when we found out what was involved, we were horrified. The treatments seemed barbaric. Naturally we refused. But then she stopped speaking even to Lucy. It was as if she had gone away into another world and had merely left her body behind. I used to put Lucy on her knee, and she would play with Anne’s big gold locket.”

“I remember…” Annabel said sickly and again the image flashed before her.

But this time she could see the face.

Annie’s face. Annie, her mother.

“In the end we met a young doctor, a woman. She had heard about Anne from a colleague and asked if she could examine her. She was very frank with us and revealed herself as a woman who was… of Anne’s persuasion.”

“She was a lesbian? ” Annabel inserted dryly.

“Yes. She was a lesbian.” Annabel knew what it must have cost her mother to say that.

“She took Anne to Belletara, a private clinic. It was only meant to be for a week but Anne wanted to stay.”

“And Lucy? ”

“We visited Anne most weekends, and Theo and I treated Lucy like our own daughter. As time went by she started to call us Mommy and Daddy and it became very easy to forget that we weren’t really her parents.”

“So Lucy didn’t die? ” Annabel pressed. Even though she knew the truth, she needed to hear it.

Laura shook her head slowly. “No. She thrived. Oh, Annabel. I tried not to love her, become too attached. But when Anne asked us whether we would consider adoption, I was ecstatic.”

“Annie asked you? ” Annabel’s mouth went dry.

“It was after a year. She said she didn’t think she could raise Lucy, and she had no idea when she would feel ready to leave the clinic. Theo took over her affairs along with Rebecca’s lawyer, Maisie Jessup of San Francisco… that’s her son you deal with.” As an aside, she added, “Maisie made all the legal arrangements for the adoption and—”

“Why did you change my name? ” Annabel asked.

Laura looked slightly ashamed. “We were frightened. I was frightened. Roger, your natural father, knew of your existence under the name Lucy, and he had inquired after you when Anne first arrived. I was afraid he would sue for custody.”

“So you made Lucy vanish? ”

Her mother nodded. “Annabel was your second name.”

Annabel sighed deeply and sagged back into the couch. “Why? ” she said after a long pause. “Why didn’t you tell me? ”

Laura Worth looked oddly calm, her body more relaxed than Annabel had seen it in her lifetime.

“I wanted to, but I couldn’t. At first I told myself it was to protect you, so you wouldn’t feel abandoned. Then, when Anne finally discharged herself, we made an agreement never to tell you. That was my doing. You see, I was so terrified that Anne would come and claim you back. I never stopped being afraid all through the years. Sometimes I was almost too frightened to love you, in case you were snatched away from me.” Sorrow drowned her eyes, and Annabel remembered with deep grief the coldness, the way her mother had kept her distance.

“I thought you didn’t love me, ” she said quietly.

Laura blanched, placing horrified hands to her face. “Oh! If only you knew. I feel so angry with myself now. When you live a lie it’s like digging a grave. The longer you dig, the deeper it gets until you can’t climb out any more, even if you wanted to. In the end you find you’ve buried yourself.”

She paused and shivered. “I tried to find a way to tell you when you were growing up, but even then I was too cowardly. I thought that if you found out you would leave me and go to Anne, that you would hate me…and I couldn’t bear that.”

Annabel’s heart thumped painfully. “I don’t hate you, ” she said very gently. “How could I? I love you too much.”

“Oh, my darling girl.” Her mother moved toward her, and they held each other as never before.

Hours later, when she felt much calmer, Annabel opened the letter to Lucy.

My beloved daughter,

I wish I could be with you as you read this.

Now that you understand my life, can you also understand that I’ve always, always loved you?

For many years I was lost to myself and the world, and to you. When I returned, it was too late to turn back the clock. I wanted you to have the life you deserved, with two parents who loved you and all the advantages of ‘belonging’ in a world that can be harsh to those who do not fit.

There have been many times when I wanted to tell you the truth. But I could not break my promise to my sister. She was never sure of herself as you and I are.

I hope you intend to live on Moon Island. Please understand that although it is owned by you under the laws of this age, by rights it also belongs to the Cook Islanders. It is an ancient place held sacred by the people who knew its mysteries long before white men set sail for far lands and glory. Respect their rights, and they will respect yours.

I always dreamed that we would sit together one day on the verandah at Villa Luna and I would tell you about the life we had—you, me and my Rebecca. This letter is a poor substitute, but I hope it expresses what I never could—that I was your mother and I love you most dearly.

Annie