Her Name Was Annie

by Beth Rinyu

  The rain pelted against my umbrella and I gripped it a little tighter when the wind picked up. I loved staring out toward the ocean on stormy days, feeling so safe as I stood along the shoreline with such a powerful force of nature just a few feet away. This was just the first of two storms that were going to hit back to back.

  The beach was so desolate. So peaceful even with Mother Nature’s fury unleashing. When the wind whipped down the beach once again, turning my umbrella inside out, I took that as my cue to head back inside. I pulled up my hood, trekking through the sand and back toward the house. Since I was already soaked, I decided to walk out to the driveway where my car was parked to grab my bag, containing some papers that needed to be graded. As I slammed my car door shut, I caught a glimpse of a man in a green raincoat, walking along the beachfront road as if he was on a stroll on a sunny summer day, instead of out and about during a nasty nor’easter.

  It was hard to tell his age or anything about him at all for that matter because he was bundled up for the elements. He was tall just like that man on the beach, and his slow movement made me believe he was older. I immediately began to wonder if he was lost or confused, but when he hopped into the SUV just a few feet away from him and drove off, I didn’t think much more about it. I had just assumed he was visiting one of the neighbors.

  It hadn’t occurred to me until now that the neighbors who lived on each side of my parents’ beach house would close up their homes sometime in October for the rest of the winter. So who could he have been visiting? Was it the man in the ocean? It made complete sense. One of the photos they had found was from that day at that same exact time I was on the beach. How could I have been so stupid not to have remembered a detail like that? I hopped off the couch and grabbed my phone to call Jack. It would be another piece of the puzzle that fit, but we still had a long way to go before we could see the whole picture.

  Chapter 13

  “I’M BEGINNING TO think you’re looking for excuses to see me.” I teased Jack the following morning as I opened the door, and he walked inside.

  “I’m trying to put this all together, so this nightmare could be over with,” he replied, assuring me this was by no means a social call—which for the record, I was already aware of. He followed me into the kitchen, and I prepared him a cup of coffee the way he always drank it. “I wanted to go over some things with you.”

  I wasn’t quite sure why these things couldn’t have been discussed over the phone, but I kept my thoughts to myself. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea again.

  “The detectives sent me some footage from the neighbor’s security camera from the day you were talking about. It’s a little grainy because of the weather conditions and because the camera isn’t all that great, but you can definitely make someone out in it.” He placed his phone on the counter and the video began to play. At first it was just the trees blowing in the wind as the rain pelted down, but about fifteen seconds later, the man appeared in the frame. Jack paused the video and zoomed in on him. “Was that who you saw that day?”

  “Yes! Yes, that’s him!”

  “I sent this to my work colleague who’s in the office today, and he’s going to try and enhance it more with our computer software. I wish your dad had cameras on his house because then we could get a clearer shot of the vehicle and the plate to see who it was registered to or if it was a rental, who it was rented by. That way we’d know for sure if it was him or not.”

  “Yeah, well, that’ll never happen. My dad is still trying to get used to having a cell phone. He doesn’t believe in modern-day technology.” I had tried so many times to convince him to install cameras on the house, being they weren’t there all the time, but he refused. I gave up after a while, certain that I wasn’t going to change an eighty-four-year-old man’s way of thinking no matter how hard I tried. “You can see a little bit of the vehicle from this footage. Maybe with any luck your software can pick up the plate number too.” I was hopeful, but the look on Jack’s face told me it was doubtful.

  I sighed heavily and took a sip of my coffee.

  “What’s all this?” Jack asked, looking around at the contents of my mother’s secret box that I had scattered across the kitchen island. I had just started to go through it right before he had gotten here.

  “Oh, just some things of my mom’s I wanted to go through. I thought it was kind of odd that she had the drawer this box was in locked. So, I just wanted to go through it here to make sure there wasn’t anything in there that may potentially upset my father.”

  “What?” Jack nearly spat out the sip of coffee he had just taken. “You actually think your mother, the most straitlaced person there was, may have been having some secret affair?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “People can surprise you. You just never really know…do you?”

  He dropped his gaze to the floor, knowing I was referring to him. I reached for the photograph of my mother and Kara on the day Kara was born and smiled. I could honestly say that was the happiest day of my life. It was amazing how much joy the birth of a child could bring, but I was also no stranger to how much sorrow it could bring as well. I quickly chased that thought away and handed over the photo to Jack.

  “Look how sweet she was.”

  Jack’s face lit up at the sight of our daughter just a few hours old, sporting a pink knit cap and wrapped in a blanket.

  “I think she began to form an opinion about a day after that was taken.” Jack chuckled.

  Jack and I spent the next few hours looking through old photographs and going down memory lane. He was included in so many of them. I was amazed by all the old birthday cards my mother had saved. Handmade ones made by me when I was a child and ones I had sent to her just a few years ago. As I reached the bottom of the box there was an envelope addressed to my mother, with a postmark of December 1971 stamped on it. I took out the letter and unfolded it while Jack continued to rifle through the photos.

  December 28, 1971

  Dear Sandy,

  Congratulations on your beautiful baby girl. You and Walter waited so long for this. Joe and I can’t wait to meet her. This must be the best Christmas present ever for you both! I know you must be busy getting her all settled in with just bringing her home a few days ago, so we’ll wait a few months before we make the trip down. In the meantime, enjoy her, love her, and spoil her! I know you will!

  All our love ~

  Joyce and Joe

  I looked at the date over and over along with the words in the letter. December 1971. I was born in August of 1971. Why would my parents just be bringing me home in December?

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked, seemingly sensing my confusion.

  “Read this and tell me if it makes sense.” He took the paper from my hand and concentrated.

  “That was written in December and you were—”

  “Exactly.” I cut him off. “It doesn’t make sense. Did I have something wrong with me that required me to be in the hospital for an extended amount of time after I was born? I would think my parents would’ve told me that…or at least I hope they would’ve.”

  Jack picked up the letter once again and looked it over as I got up and stared out the kitchen window.

  “All of those pictures in that box start from when I was around four or five months old. None of them as a newborn.”

  Jack rifled through the photos in front of him. I knew what he was doing—trying to find one of me as a newborn to put my mind at ease, but I already knew, there was none.

  “What do you think this means?” I asked, picking up the letter once again, this time like it was a bomb getting ready to detonate.

  “I don’t know.” Jack shook his head and whispered, “But I think you know the one person who could answer that for you.”

  I fought back the burn in my eyes. Was this letter in my hand the reason she kept that drawer locked? Was everything I believed my entire life a lie, and the two people I had trusted the most the liars? As hard as I tried, I
couldn’t keep my tears at bay any longer. I wanted to know the truth, but at the same time, I was scared to death to find out. Jack got up and wrapped his arms around me. I wanted to push him away, but I couldn’t because in that moment, he was the only thing I knew to be true at one point in my life.

  Chapter 14

  I LAY AROUND for most of the morning after Jack had left. The answers to my questions were only a short drive or a phone call away, but instead I chose to plague myself with those endless questions. Questions I knew I’d never have the answers to on my own. Funny thing was I always prided myself as taking after my father because my mother and I were so different physically. She was a short redhead with bright blue eyes, and I was a tall brunette with eyes that were the deepest, darkest brown.

  Now that I thought about it, I didn’t resemble my father at all either. Yes, he was tall, but the gray hair he was sporting now was always a shade of light auburn when he was younger, and his eyes were hazel. I remember how they’d laugh and go along with it whenever I’d say I resembled him. Were they laughing at me for being so foolish or were they laughing out of relief that I wasn’t onto their secret?

  Then there was the other idea I had spinning around in my head: was I sick when I was born? Did I have to spend time in the hospital and maybe that’s why they brought me home months later? I was hoping more than anything that was the case. My mother would tell me every chance she got that I was the most perfect child in the world. Perhaps the perfectionist in her believed if I had known I didn’t have a good start in life, then I wouldn’t believe her words to be true. All the scenarios in my mind were driving me mad. I needed to know the truth and I was hoping my father was willing to give it to me.

  _______________

  “This is a nice surprise! I get to see my girl twice in one weekend.” My father’s smile was a mile wide when I entered the family room. I was certain that smile would soon fade and his glee would dissipate once he knew the purpose of my visit. “I know I said I wasn’t going to bother with a Christmas tree this year, but something made me get it down from the attic. Maybe it was your mother. You know how much she loved Christmas. Come on and help me decorate it. You used to love doing this when you were a little girl.” He waved me over toward the tree as he continued adorning the branches with ornaments.

  “Dad, can we sit for a minute? I have something I need to ask you.”

  “Sure.” He agreed, taking a step back and examining his work on the tree before sitting down on the couch beside me. “What’s going on, my love?”

  “I went through some of Mom’s old papers while I was at home.”

  “Oh, boy! I’m surprised you’re not still at it with everything she had saved. I’m sure somewhere in there you’ll find your kindergarten report card filed away neatly. She saved everything.” He chuckled, and I tried my hardest to smile back, but I couldn’t. “What’s wrong?” my father pleaded, picking up on my distress right away.

  “I found this.” I reached into my purse and pulled out the letter, then handed it off to him. He read it over, then rested his eyes on the piece of paper as if he was trying to come up with an explanation to give me. “Please tell me why that letter says you and Mom didn’t bring me home until December when I was born in August? Why are there no photographs of me as a newborn?” I began to pepper him with questions.

  He sprang off the couch and walked back over to the Christmas tree, picking up right where he left off with his decorating. “I still remember the Christmas when you picked this one out,” Dad murmured, staring down at the ballerina ornament in his hand as if he hadn’t even read the letter. “You said she looked like you with her dark curls and painted-on eyes the color of black olives.” His voice cracked.

  I stood up and took the ballerina from him. “Dad, please tell me why.” My voice was calm and gentle when I saw his hands trembling.

  “Your mother never wanted you to feel as if you weren’t ours,” he muttered, lifting his head and finally looking at me.

  I fought the lump in my throat and the burn in my eyes, knowing what I had feared was true. “Was I adopted?”

  He didn’t have to answer my question with words; the wounded look in his eyes had already answered it. He grabbed my hand and we walked back to the couch. He was suddenly looking like the eighty-four-year-old man he was on the inside on the outside as well.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” I kept my tone void of any emotion.

  “We tried to have a child, but we couldn’t. Your mother beat herself up over it again and again, and it tore me apart to see her that way. When we finally decided to look into adoption, she made me promise we wouldn’t tell anyone that you weren’t our biological child.”

  “Except for the woman who wrote that letter?”

  “Joyce was her best friend. She shared everything with her. I even left my job in Massachusetts and took a job here after we adopted you. We had this home built, moved in with our new baby, and started a whole new life as a family.”

  “Why did you feel the need to keep it such a secret?” I whispered, still trying to register everything he was saying.

  “Because your mother wanted it that way. She felt so inadequate over not being able to have a baby. She was sad all the time, and then you came along. She truly wanted to believe that you were hers. She was afraid if people knew…if you knew, then you wouldn’t feel like you were.”

  “But I was hers.” I shook my head, battling with the gamut of emotions building up inside of me. “So, it was all about Mom’s feelings and keeping up appearances? Did it ever occur to either of you that you lied to me my entire life?”

  He reached for my hand, and even though I was angrier than I had ever been with him, I didn’t have the heart to pull it away. “It was something I didn’t take lightly throughout the years. Especially seeing patients of mine who would come in and have no idea of their medical history. There were so many times I wanted to tell you, but she begged me not to.”

  “Why?” I shook my head, wiping away the teardrop that was rolling down my face with the back of my hand.

  “Because then you would think she wasn’t the perfect mother she always set out to be.”

  “I would’ve never thought that. You and Mom were the only parents I’ve ever known, and no one could’ve ever taken your place, biological or not.”

  He nodded. “I know, but your mother could never see that.”

  He was right. My mother’s need for perfection and order wouldn’t allow her to think that way. She always appeared to be so confident and have it all together, but I was slowly learning that was all a façade she masked behind her picture-perfect little world. To the outside world, she did have it all. She was a doctor’s wife with a big, beautiful house, and a daughter who she spent every waking hour of her life trying to please.

  She always made sure I had a closet full of designer clothes that I never really cared about one way or the other. My birthday parties were always the biggest and the best, when most of the time I would’ve been content with just having cake and ice cream with her and my dad. She was president of the PTA during most of my time in school and ensured my wedding was something out of a storybook. The funny thing was, I never wanted that grandiose wedding most girls dreamed about. I went along with it all for her—the expensive dress and the fancy banquet facility that probably cost my father a whole year’s salary.

  She did all these things because she constantly had to prove to herself that I’d always love her as my mother. As angry as I was at her for never telling me the truth, there was a big part of me that felt sorry for her. I had never given her any reason to think I didn’t love her or wouldn’t love her without all those things she gave me growing up. It finally occurred to me that the strong, self-assured woman who all the other moms envied and all the other girls wished was their mom, wasn’t so confident after all.

  “I would’ve never thought of her differently. You and Mom gave me the best life ever, and now that I know t
he truth, it sickens me to think that she had to run herself ragged to try and prove herself to me. Did she really not know how much I loved her?”

  “She did, Steph. She really did. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with her.” He pulled me closer and I rested my head on his shoulder, allowing the tears to flow freely down my face. He pulled me into a hug and whispered, “Everything is going to be all right,” just like he would after I had fallen off my bike as a little girl, or after a broken heart from a teenage crush. He had been there for me at every stage in my life. He would always be my father, the same way his wife would always be my mother, and nothing in the world would ever change that.

  Chapter 15

  THE NEXT FEW days were a fog. I was able to be myself in the classroom with my students, which I was grateful for. But once I was home or had a little time to myself, it was as if everything I had learned a few days ago was just a dream that I’d be woken up from at any moment. I hadn’t shared what I had learned with anyone, because saying it out loud would make it real, and I wasn’t ready for it to be just yet.

  My father called every day to check up on me, and I assured him I was fine. I wasn’t angry at him for keeping it from me. I was more hurt. Hurt that they didn’t trust my love for them enough—or shall I say my mother didn’t trust it, my father just went along with it. A ton of emotions I was feeling toward them swirled around in my head, while new ones conjured up as well.

  There was a woman out there who gave birth to me. Who was she? Was she still alive? Why did she give me up? I didn’t feel resentment toward her for giving me away. In fact I had admired her strength for it. Whatever her reasoning was, she allowed me to have a wonderful life. I wondered if she ever thought about me, and if so, did she get that sinking feeling in her heart when she did? I was no stranger to that heartache. I knew firsthand that time couldn’t lessen it, so I learned to keep my memories deep inside and never bring them to the surface.