by Lois Winston
“Certainly a possibility,” said Zack.
I picked up the envelope and tapped it against the palm of my hand. “She gave me permission to open it.”
Zack reached into his desk drawer, withdrew an antique ivory letter opener, and handed it to me. A row of miniature elephants marched along the back of the four-inch blade from the tip to the handle, which featured an elephant standing on a pedestal. “This is amazing. Where did you get it?”
“It belonged to my great-great-grandfather. It’s from a mid-nineteenth century Chinese portable writing desk.”
I continued to stare mesmerized at the letter opener, caressing the intricate carving.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” asked Zack.
“What?”
“A majestic beast is slaughtered so that someone can immortalize its image in part of its body.”
As a photojournalist, Zack had seen firsthand how poachers were decimating the elephant population. “Do you feel conflicted?”
“Absolutely.” He stared at the letter opener for a moment before finally clearing his throat and pointing to the envelope.
“Right.” I slipped the tip of the ivory under the flap and carefully ripped open the envelope. After handing the letter opener back to Zack, I pulled a folded sheet of paper from the envelope. As I unfolded it, an old Polaroid snapshot fluttered to the floor.
Zack stooped to retrieve the photo. “A newborn?” he asked, showing it to me.
“I would think so.” The baby in the picture looked no more than a day or two old.
Zack flipped over the photo to reveal a date. “Nearly fifty years ago,” he said.
As I began to read the letter, I quickly realized the contents were indeed meant for Lupe. “Oh, my!”
FIVE
The letter was written several years ago. As I began to read aloud, tears clouded my vision and clogged my throat:
My Darling Lupe,
If you’re reading this, you’ve found the suitcase of photos and papers my parents brought with them from Cuba. My thought was that at some point you’d want to sort through the items and would come across this letter. What I’m about to tell you, even your father never knew. Now that he’s gone, I can tell you what I’ve told no one in all these years. Attitudes may have changed over the decades, but my guilt over what happened will always hold the truth captive while I’m alive.
When I was fourteen, I made a terrible mistake, bringing shame upon my family. The infant in the photograph is the result of that mistake. When I realized I was pregnant, my parents sent me away to give birth, telling family and friends I had won a one-semester scholarship to a prestigious girls’ academy in upstate New York. In reality the “academy” was a Catholic home for unwed mothers.
I was only allowed to hold your sister for a few minutes before she was whisked from my arms and given to the couple adopting her. I never knew their name.
I shouldn’t even have this photo. A kindly nun slipped into the nursery with her camera, snapped the Polaroid, and handed it to me before I left the hospital. She said she felt sorry for me and the other girls forced to give up our babies, and that we at least deserved to have a photo to keep their memories alive. I’ll forever be grateful for her understanding and her defiant act.
By this point tears streamed down my cheeks. Sadness so overwhelmed me that I couldn’t continue reading. I handed the letter to Zack. He continued:
Why, you might wonder, am I divulging this to you now, after my death? It’s because I don’t want your sister’s memory to die with me. Someone needs to know that even with what happened to me, I loved that little baby girl the moment I set eyes on her, and not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about her.
Also, at some point in the future she might track you down. I’ve lived for years—part hoping and part fearing—she might find me. If she does, please tell her that giving her up was the hardest thing I ever had to do and that I hope she’s had a wonderful life with her adoptive parents.
And always know how much I have loved you.
Your Mami
Zack folded the letter and placed it and the photo of the baby back into the envelope. “Are you up to calling Lupe?”
I swiped my tear-stained cheeks and blew my nose before taking a deep breath and nodding. “This can’t wait.”
“Agreed.”
I’d left my phone in my purse in the kitchen. Zack whipped his out of his pocket and handed it to me. When Lupe answered, I said, “Can you come over this evening?”
“Is it important?”
“It is.”
I ended the call. Too overwhelmed with emotion, I walked silently hand-in-hand with Zack into the house.
~*~
I never expected Lupe to arrive so quickly. The doorbell rang before my first forkful of stew had made it halfway from my plate to my mouth.
“I’ll get it,” said Alex around a mouthful of food. He bolted from the table and raced to the front door.
“He’s got a new girlfriend,” Nick stage whispered.
“A new girlfriend?”
“He and Kayla broke up.”
Kayla? Talk about being out of the loop! I wasn’t aware my seventeen-year-old son ever had any girlfriend, let alone a new one. When did he squeeze a relationship into his over-scheduled life of sports, assorted extra-curricular activities, and part-time job? Not to mention homework, which I knew for a fact he completed each night, given his 4.0 GPA. Alex had planned to attend Harvard. Unfortunately, life, by way of his duplicitous father’s death and its aftermath, had pulverized that dream. Given current finances, even community college would be a financial stretch.
“She works at Starbucks with him,” continued Nick.
I hoped she wasn’t the barista with chartreuse hair, pierced tongue, and hedgehog tattoos that covered her entire left arm. I also hoped that if the relationship had already progressed to a certain level, the two of them were not allowing their hormones to overrule their common sense. Alex had enough of an uphill battle ahead of him, and after reading Carmen’s letter, the last thing I wanted to think about was the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy foisted upon two teenagers. Especially if one of those teenagers was my son.
Thankfully, Alex didn’t return to the dining room with a chartreuse-haired, hedgehog-tattooed, tongue-pierced girlfriend in tow; he arrived with Lupe. She took one look at the dinner table and began to stammer. “I…Anastasia, I’m sorry. I thought you’d be finished with dinner by now. Should I come back later?”
“Don’t be silly, Lupe.”
Zack rose and offered Lupe his seat before dragging one of the kitchen chairs into the dining room.
“Would you like some stew?” I asked.
She shook her head as she shrugged out of her coat and draped it across the back of the chair. “Thanks, I’ve already eaten. Your call sounded so urgent. Does this have anything to do with the envelope you found?”
“What envelope, dear?” asked Mama. I swear the woman could smell a juicy story a mile away.
Zack and I exchanged a quick glance. “Nothing, Mama.”
Mama smacked her fork onto the side of her plate. “Anastasia, when will you learn that I can always tell when you’re lying to me?”
Busted! I sighed. “This doesn’t concern you, Mama.” Not that she cared. Mama thrived on gossip. We had a saying in our family: Tell Flora; tell the world. More than once I’d had to threaten her with banishment from my home to keep her tongue from wagging. No way was I telling her anything about Carmen’s letter to Lupe.
“That’s never stopped her before,” said Lucille around a mouthful of food. “That one sticks her nose into everyone’s business.” She stabbed a piece of carrot and glared at Mama as she shoved the vegetable into her already packed mouth.
Mama slammed her fists on either side of her plate, rattling the silverware and causing the water to slosh around precariously close to the rims of our glasses. “You keep out of this, you…you…you freeloading communist!
No one asked for your opinion.”
Behind me Ralph emitted a loud squawk. I turned to find him perched atop the breakfront. “You are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard. Twelfth Night. Act Three, Scene Two.”
“Or yours,” said Lucille.
I didn’t know if she meant Ralph or Mama, but it hardly mattered. I’d had enough. “Lupe, let’s talk in Zack’s apartment.” I rose, grabbed my plate, and silently indicated to Zack to do the same as Lupe slipped back into her coat.
“Well, this is all rather cloak and dagger,” said Mama.
“No, just none of your business,” I muttered.
“What did you say, dear? I didn’t quite catch that.”
Quite being the operative word. Mama’s eyes told me she’d heard every word loud and clear. She was either deliberately acting clueless or had decided to resort to sarcasm. Either way, I refused to bite. Ignoring her, I strode from the dining room and headed toward the back door. Lupe and Zack followed.
The bone-chilling wind that had descended over the area since I’d arrived home had now reached near-sub-zero levels. Winter didn’t seem to want to wait until its official arrival date this year. Neither Zack nor I had grabbed our coats before leaving the house. In the time it took us to cover the short distance between the back door and the entrance to the apartment, our dinners had gone from steamy to ice cold. My limbs hovered mere degrees above frostbite.
Note to self: no matter how angry you get, always check the weather before storming out of the house.
Once inside the apartment, I glanced at Zack as I rubbed feeling back into my arms. Unlike me, he didn’t appear fazed by the freezing temperatures. He took my plate and placed both of our dinners into the microwave to zap some warmth back into the food. While the stew reheated, he poured three glasses of wine and placed them on the coffee table.
I walked across the room to retrieve Carmen’s letter. “You should sit down to read this,” I told Lupe as I handed the envelope to her.
She emitted a nervous laugh. “Your mother is right. This seems very cloak and dagger.”
“It is a bit of a mystery,” I said.
Ignoring my advice, Lupe remained standing as she removed the contents of the envelope. “Who is this?” she asked, staring at the photo of the infant.
“The letter will explain,” I said.
Lupe unfolded the single sheet of stationery and began to read. Only the beeping of the microwave broke the silence in the room. Zack and I ignored it as we focused on Lupe. Her hand soon began to shake and her knees buckled. She reached for the arm of the nearest chair and collapsed into the seat. “I have a sister?”
I nodded. “Apparently so.”
“This doesn’t make sense. I never remember any talk of a baby, no whispered conversations behind closed doors, nothing that would have piqued my curiosity. Surely, I would have heard some rumor over the years.”
“It sounds like your mother only told your grandparents, and they went to great lengths to keep the rest of the family from learning about the pregnancy,” I said.
“But what about the baby’s father?” asked Lupe. “I can’t believe my grandparents wouldn’t have confronted him and his parents.”
“Not if they wanted to contain the fallout and protect your mother from scandal,” said Zack. “Times were different back then. It’s possible the father never knew about the pregnancy.”
Lupe’s initial shock gave way to anger. “I can’t believe Mami kept this from me. I grew up wanting a sister. When she’d ask me what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday, I’d always say a baby sister. She told me that was in God’s hands, not hers. Yet all along she knew I had a sister somewhere?”
“How could she have told you?” I asked. “You were a child.”
“Besides,” said Zack, “according to her letter, your father didn’t even know.”
Lupe’s anger segued into a steely determination. “As close as Mami was with her aunts and cousins, I find it hard to believe she didn’t confide in at least one of them. I need to know what happened.”
“What will you do?” I asked.
She rose from the chair and shoved the letter and photo into her purse. “Thursday is Thanksgiving. All my relatives will be gathered together. What better time to shake a few of the branches on our family tree and see what secrets fall loose?”
Horrified, I pictured the scenario: Lupe’s nuclear family suffering a nuclear meltdown over turkey and stuffing. “Surely you’re not going to confront everyone over Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Why not? Everyone will be there.”
“Do you think that’s the best approach?”
Lupe grew defensive. “Absolutely. That way even if no one comes forward with information, I’ll be able to gauge everyone’s reactions to see who’s hiding something.”
And I thought dinners at Casa Pollack often grew explosive! I couldn’t see how such a confrontation would end well, let alone give her the answers she sought. Someone had to talk some sense into her, but I couldn’t find the words to dissuade her.
I looked to Zack for help. He came to my rescue. “If some of your relatives do know the truth,” he said, “they may feel honor bound to keep your mother’s secret from you.”
“I don’t care,” said Lupe. An angry red color suffused her neck and face. Her voice trembled. “I have a right to know.”
I rose from the sofa, walked over to where she sat, and perched on the edge of the coffee table. Tears had begun to cascade down Lupe’s cheeks. Leaning forward, I pried her hands from the chair and held them in both of mine. “Agreed. But think this through for a moment. Maybe confronting everyone over Thanksgiving dinner isn’t the best way to get someone to open up about the past.”
“And what about your children?” added Zack. “And the other children who will be at the dinner? For now this is a conversation for adult ears only.”
Lupe frowned as our words sunk in, and she began to realize the chaos her plan would unleash. She swiped at her face with her sleeve and sniffed back a fresh batch of tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “I suppose I am being rash.” Then she laughed nervously. “Maybe confronting everyone over cranberry sauce and sweet potato casserole isn’t the best approach.”
I exhaled a deep breath. “Under the circumstances, I think you should start with some private, one-on-one conversations.”
Lupe nodded. “With Mami now gone, I should be able to wheedle the truth out of at least one of my relatives.” She grew silent for a moment, appearing to weigh her options. Finally, she continued, “And I think I know just the person to target.”
“Who?” I asked.
“My great-aunt Renata. She was my grandmother’s older sister.”
I remembered Renata, the frail but feisty ninety-something matriarch of the family, from Carmen’s funeral. Her relatives had withheld from her the circumstances surrounding Carmen’s death, telling her only that Carmen had died from heart failure. They deliberately left out the part about the heart failure being the result of an assassin’s knife.
Although, given the state of Renata’s health, maybe she wasn’t the best person for Lupe to confront about Carmen’s secret pregnancy. Whether Renata knew anything or not, the shock of Lupe confronting her about it might not go well. But a private conversation with an elderly great-aunt was far less volatile than Lupe’s initial plan of attack.
“When will you speak with her?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t considering pulling Renata aside to confront her on Thursday. The consequences of that might be as bad as blurting something out at the dinner table.
Lupe took a shaky breath before standing. “Friday. I’m off from work. I’ll pay her a visit in the morning.”
As she stepped out of the apartment onto the landing, she hesitated, then turned, and asked, “Anastasia, are you working on Friday?”
I shook my head.
“Would you come with me to visit
Aunt Renata? I could use the support.”
Under the circumstances, how could I refuse?
SIX
I closed the door behind Lupe, then collapsed onto the sofa while Zack set the microwave to heat up our dinners for a second time. Neither of us spoke as the timer counted down the seconds. When the microwave beeped, he removed the plates and brought them over to the coffee table.
I took one look at what had once passed as meat, potatoes, carrots, and onions and pushed the dish aside. After spending all day in the slow cooker and twice zapped in the microwave, the stew now looked as appetizing as a week-old airline meal—the kind served in coach. On a cut-rate carrier.
Zack removed both plates to the kitchen and rummaged in the refrigerator and pantry. He returned with an assortment of cheeses, a box of crackers, and a bowl of grapes. After settling beside me, he asked, “Better?”
“The food or me?”
“Both.”
I separated a grape from the bunch and popped it into my mouth. “At least this looks and tastes like food.”
“Always a plus. And you?”
I drained my wine glass and held it out for a refill. “Feeling guilty.”
“Haven’t we already had this discussion?”
I nodded. “This is different. I’m feeling guilty over feeling selfish. I have enough drama in my life. I really don’t want to be part of Lupe’s family drama.”
“Then why did you agree to go with her Friday?”
“That goes back to the other guilt.”
Zack frowned at me.
I knew my feelings were justified, though. “No matter what you say, if I hadn’t set in motion the circumstances surrounding Carmen’s murder, Lupe wouldn’t have discovered the suitcase, I wouldn’t have found the letter, and I wouldn’t have agreed to go with her to speak with her great-aunt.”
“Not necessarily,” he said.
“You’re wrong. Each event led directly to the next one in a chain that began with my suspicions over Cynthia’s death.”
