I sense in this moment, this very stretch of seconds, that now is when my new life is truly beginning. In this room, with this man telling me what no one has been able to tell me before. My new existence didn’t begin when Mrs. Grissom handed me the release papers or when I left the bank in San Jose with nothing. It is beginning now. Right now.
I am Rosie no longer. That girl is gone. In her place is the woman who has been shaped from that pitiful child. The woman whose second life is beginning today.
I am not Rosanne, either. A new start calls for a new name, pulled from the crucible of my old one.
“Maras,” I say. “Anne Maras.”
“Miss Maras. I’m Dr. Robert Drummond. Would it be all right if we spoke further? I think I may be able to help you.”
“I... I would like that.”
“What time do you get off this evening?” he asks.
“Nine thirty.”
“Would you care to meet then at that diner across the street? I’m leaving early tomorrow morning, but I think I can help youunderstand what is happening to you if we can talk for a short while tonight.”
I look at this young scientist and see not curiosity or judgment or fear or ridicule. It is something else in his facial expression, something that I have never seen with anyone to whom I mentioned the colors. Not even with Truman. It looks like respect.
“I’ll be there,” I say.
When my shift ends, I can barely contain my eagerness to make my way to the diner. I take a table near the door and wait. When ten minutes have passed and the doctor hasn’t appeared, I begin to worry that he has forgotten. Finally, at ten to ten, he sweeps into the diner, apologizing as he takes a seat across from me.
“I’m so very sorry,” he says. “I needed to talk to my sons in Los Angeles and the call went longer than I expected. They needed to talk, and I let them, I’m afraid. Please forgive me.”
“Of course,” I say.
A server brings him a cup of coffee, and as he takes a sip, I notice he is not wearing a wedding ring.
“How old are your sons?” I ask.
“Seven and five. And yes, I know it’s a bit late for them to be up, but they’re missing their mother. Especially with me being out of town tonight. It’s harder for them when I’m away. My wife... passed last year,” he says, as if needing to explain how he could’ve kept me waiting so long.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say, genuinely sad for him. I know too well the weight of grief.
“Thank you. It’s been a rough road, but we’re getting through bit by bit. Some days are harder than others. In the end, though, Molly wanted us to be happy again, and we’re slowly figuring that out.”
He is quiet for a moment, and then he shakes his head. “I apologize. I did not mean to come here and talk about myself. I really just wanted to let you know that what you experience withsounds and color is explainable. I can explain it. It’s nothing terrible.”
He says those words so easily that for a second I can’t respond. “What I experience with sounds and color has made my life a hell on earth, Dr. Drummond,” I finally say.
The doctor pauses before responding, just like I had. “I can’t tell you how sad I am to hear that, Miss Maras. Please let me be the first to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. I promise you, it does not.”
His voice is so calm and sure and warm. I see petals of holiday red as he speaks, as stunning as that flowering bit of heaven Helen Calvert gave me all those years ago. I was pregnant with Amaryllis that Christmas and didn’t know it. I wasn’t aware that deep within my body, buried and hidden, life was being created.
My darling girl. My only child. Gone from my arms but still residing within me somehow. I think I understand now that a person doesn’t stop being a mother just because her child is taken from her. Amaryllis will always be my daughter. I will always be her mother.
“Miss Maras?” Dr. Drummond says. “Are you all right?”
The bright crimson blossom of the doctor’s voice fills my mind’s eye as if his words are illuminating a path out of a great chasm. I am crawling out of the shadows that held me, out of the earthen darkness that is a bulb’s world until it breaks through.
I am right where I want to be.
And my Amaryllis is right here with me.
“I am,” I say, nearly tasting dirt on my tongue. “And please. Call meAnne.”
PART TWO
