It hits me like a sledgehammer then that Rosie doesn’t know Ihave her daughter. I didn’t mention Amaryllis in my talk or in the book. But how to say this? I can’t tell if her husband knows she bore my brother’s child before she married him.
“Might I have a quick word in private?” I say to her. “There’s something I need to ask you.” I turn to her husband. “Robert, I hope you don’t mind.”
He smiles. “Of course not.”
Robert moves away and begins helping the bookstore owner collapse the folding chairs. I like this man Rosie has married.
I step back toward the wall of bookshelves behind me, and Rosie comes close with a puzzled look on her face.
“Does Robert know everything?” I ask in a near whisper. “Does he know about Truman? About what happened?”
“He knows everything, Helen. And I’ve always wanted to tell you how sorry I am about that night with your brother. I was so young then, and missing my family. He and I had both been drinking to soothe our hurts, and we were drunk and I didn’t know how to stop him. I wanted to, I asked him to, but—”
I cut her off. “That’s not why I asked to speak with you alone. You don’t owe me an apology or an explanation. I have always considered what happened my brother’s fault. He was your guardian. He was... But we can talk about that at another time. What I want to tell you now is that I was able to find Amaryllis. I didn’t even know she existed until I returned to America in 1947. But I found her. She was still at the children’s home that she’d been sent to as an infant, and still waiting to be adopted. I adopted her, Rosie. And she’s here with me in Los Angeles.”
Color drains from Rosie’s face. “What?”
“Amaryllis is here. At my hotel.”
“Amaryllis.”
Rosie whispers the name as if it is a long and reverent prayer that is somehow only the length of four short syllables. The moment seems sacred, and Rosie appears to be on the verge offainting at the sheer holiness of it. I reach out to her. Robert notices the movement and looks up in concern. Then he is instantly at his wife’s side.
“Anne, what is it? Are you all right?”
Rosie swings her head slowly to face him. “Amaryllis.”
“What about her? What’s wrong?”
“She’s here.”
Robert turns to look at me, his mouth open slightly, his eyes wide in surprise. I tell him what I just told Rosie.
“How is she? Is she all right? Is she okay?” Rosie asks me, her cheeks shining now with new tears.
“She is fine. She is... wonderful.”
“Does... does she have... does she have what I have?” Rosie’s voice splinters as she asks this.
“She doesn’t. But she’s often told me she wishes she did.”
Rosie smiles and a laughing sob escapes her. It is one of relief but also pure pleasure. “She knows about me?”
“Of course. I’ve told her everything I know about you. She loves you very much, Rosie, even though she can’t remember ever meeting you. I adopted her, but she calls me Auntie. You are still her mother. You’ve always been her mother.”
Rosie leans onto Robert’s chest. He embraces her as she cries quietly against him. The bookstore owner has put away all the chairs and has locked the front doors so new customers can’t come in, and he is staring at us in curious fascination.
Rosie lifts her head and turns to face me again. “Can I see her?”
“Of course. We will go right now if you want.”
She nods. “Yes, yes.”
“I’ll get the car,” Robert says.
Minutes later, I am sitting in the back seat of the Drummonds’ vehicle. Rosie is in mute wonder in the front. Robert fills the silence on the short drive to my hotel. He tells me he was a widowerwhen he and Rosie met, and that she moved to Los Angeles to be part of a study he was doing at UCLA on synesthesia. They fell in love, and two years later they were married. Robert’s sons were seven and nine at the time and very much needing a mother in their lives again. One is married now with a new baby, and the other is in college studying microbiology.
When we get to my hotel, I leave Rosie and her husband in the expansive lobby. I reassure Rosie that it won’t be too much for Amaryllis to suddenly be told her mother is waiting downstairs to see her.
