…”…she’s sorry she scared Mommy.” I went outside. Nancy let go of my daughter’s hand and stood very still by the fence. Up close, without the smile, I finally saw it. Not my mother. My mother’s face, older and softer, with different eyes.
“I’m Nancy,” she said quietly. “I’m your mother’s twin sister. We didn’t speak for thirty years. She never told you I existed, did she?” I shook my head. My husband was standing beside me now, holding my arm.
She told me everything, standing at the fence. Before my mother died, she had called Nancy for the first time in three decades. She’d asked for one thing. “She said she’d hurt you so badly you’d never come back,” Nancy said. “She asked me to find you and make sure you were okay. Not to tell you who I was. Just to be near.”
“The photo,” I whispered. “Of my house. ‘Pretty.'” Nancy nodded. “That was me. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to start.” She looked at me sadly. “You were in the hospital when she died. Your husband handled the funeral. The doctors said you might not remember that week. I’ve been waiting for you to be ready.”
I looked at my husband. He nodded slowly. “You were very sick, honey,” he said. “I didn’t want to bring it up until you asked.”
I didn’t speak for a long time. Then my daughter tugged my sleeve. “Grandma Nancy says she’s your auntie,” she said. “Is that true?” I looked at the woman who fixed our fence, watered our plants, and laughed exactly like the person I’d spent my life running from. “Yes, baby,” I said. “It’s true.”
I started therapy that month, to piece together the week I lost. Nancy comes to dinner on Thursdays now. She took off the wig. Her real hair is short and white. When she laughs, I still flinch sometimes. But less every week.
