“Which man was my father?” I asked, almost breathless.
“Anne was pregnant when I met her,” she explained. “Thirteen was young, but I knew other girls her age facing the same circumstances. She was desperate to keep it a secret. She told me she had to get away, to take you far from Sam. I never knew if that was because you were conceived from her first marriage, and she didn’t want Sam to know—or if you were Sam’s child, and she didn’t want Sam to know.”
“You never learned?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, love. I don’t even know if your mum knew who your father was.”
“What about when she came back?” I asked. “Was Sam angry she left?”
“Angry doesn’t begin to describe his mood. He recklessly stormed the Caribbean for months while she was gone, but when she returned, it was as if she’d never left. And they picked up where they’d left off. For five years, they moved about the Caribbean, the American colonies, and even crossed the Atlantic to Africa now and again. I never saw two people so much in love, but they seemed to fuel each other’s wildness. Eventually, Sam met his fate at the end of a noose, and your mum was heartbroken. We returned to Nassau, but she was never the same.”
“How did she die?”
Mary’s blue eyes were sad as she said, “She went to sleep one night and never woke up.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? What killed her?”
“I don’t know, love. Some think she died of a broken heart.” Mary toyed with a loose thread on her skirt. “It was her twenty-first birthday. She died young, but she lived more life than some who die at a hundred.”
“She died on her twenty-first birthday? How awful.” My twenty-first birthday was quickly approaching on September 2. It was far too young to die.
Neither one of us spoke for a few moments, but there was still one pressing question. A question I wasn’t sure Mary could answer, but I had to ask.
“Did she—” I paused. How would I ask this question without sounding insane? “Did she ever talk about her strange life?”
Mary frowned, but she searched my face. “What strange life?”
I briefly closed my eyes, not knowing how to even voice this question without stating it outright. But this was my last chance—the last link I had to possibly find the answers. Who cared what Mary thought of me?
“Did she ever mention anything about a second life?” I whispered, though no one was close enough to hear. “Not here, but in a different time and place?”
The silence grew between us, until Mary said, “You mean, when she went to sleep here and woke up somewhere else?”
I grabbed Mary’s hand and nodded. “Yes. Did she ever speak of it to you?”
“How did you know?” she asked me in a stunned hush.
I swallowed my trepidation and said, “BecauseIlive two lives, and I found a letter she wrote saying that she did, as well.”
Mary shook her head, pulling her hand back. “I hardly believe it. Sometimes I thought Anne was addlebrained, or she’d had too much to drink when she spoke of it. I was the only person she confided in, and I humored her, but she was so convincing.”
“It was true,” I assured her. “Can you tell me where else my mother lived? What year did she say?”
Mary frowned and took her time, as if she was thinking hard to remember. “She said she lived in Texas.”
“Texas? Do you know when?”
Again, Mary frowned.
“Please tell me,” I begged.
“Before she died, she said she was living in 1913, I think it was.”
My eyes widened. “She lived in Texas in 1913? That’s only fourteen years before my time now.” I thought through the possibilities. “My mother might be alive in my other life in 1927.”
Mary didn’t speak, but she looked troubled, as if she couldn’t quite believe what I was saying.
“Do you know her name there?”
