Nancy leaves the box and wanders over to her mother’s bed, then lowers herself onto the floor and leans back against the bed frame. Not for the first time, she wonders how different things might have been if Frances had been honest with her, or if she had confronted her parents about it. If she hadn’t kept it from Michael.
She’s tried to be a better mother to Katherine than her own mothers were to her. She hasn’t kept secrets from her daughter, at least none other than the Big One. She’s always tried to instill a policy of transparency and truth, to break the toxic cycle. And she’s succeeded, for the most part. She and Katherine are close. Her daughter is an honest woman who wears her heart on her sleeve—much more like her father than like Nancy.
Nancy picks idly at a loose thread on the seam of her jeans as these thoughts roll over one another in her mind, ironing themselves out. After a while, she realizes there’s nothing left to consider. She has a job to do here, and that’s to clean out her mother’s house so that it can be sold. That’s a plain truth, something black and white and industrious.
She gets up, shakes open a garbage bag, and begins to discard the past.
CHAPTER 26 Angela
SPRING 2017
It’s a damp early spring afternoon at Thompson’s Antiques & Used Books when Angela receives a response on Facebook from another Nancy Birch. She’d had so many misses and non-answers that she’d nearly given up trying, guiltily accepting that, after inserting herself into Evelyn Taylor’s life and dangling the prospect of a meeting with Margaret Roberts’s daughter in front of her face, she would have to retract it and admit failure. Every time she saw the red dot appear on the app, signalling she had a new message, her adrenaline would spike at the possibility that this could be the one, but she was always disappointed.
Then, just before five in the afternoon when Angela was getting ready to pack up and hand the store over to the evening clerk, a very different message came through.
Hi there—I think I might be the person you’re looking for. I used to live in the apartment above Thompson’s—we got each other’s mail all the time.
“Oh my God!” Angela yelps into the empty store. “Oh my God!”
She nearly drops her phone in her haste to respond, but holds off when she sees three grey dots. Nancy Birch is typing another message.
Sorry I didn’t respond until now. I hardly use social media anymore.
Angela waits until the grey dots disappear before responding.
Totally understandable! I’m so glad to hear from you. There’s actually more to the letter… I know this is forward, but would you mind giving me a call to discuss?
She includes her cell number and hits send, then bites down on her lip, half wishing Nancy will say no, that she doesn’t want to talk.
Sure thing. Are you free right now?
“Ohhh my God. Okay. Yeah,” Angela says aloud.
Yup, she texts, then exits the app. She waits. A moment later, her phone rings. The caller ID lists a local number, but no name.
“Hello?” Angela’s heart is thumping.
“Hi, Angela? It’s Nancy Mitchell. Nancy Birch,” she adds.
“Nancy, hi! Hi.”
“Hi.”
“So.” Angela gathers her thoughts. “I found this letter in an old chest of drawers at Thompson’s, and I think you’ll want to see it. That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to track you down.”
“Oh, okay. What’s in it?”
“It’s, um, it’s actually a letter from Frances, your mother.”
Five heartbeats pass before Nancy speaks again. Her voice is slightly raspy. “Okay. Thanks. Did you open it?”
Angela’s insides squirm. Tina was right. Maybe she never should have dug into this mess. “I kind of had to, to get information on how to find you. I’m sorry. It was half-open anyway, the glue…” She cuts off the lie before it can swell any bigger.
“What does it say?”
“It’s very personal. It’s about your parents.”
Nancy sighs. “Does it say I’m adopted?”
Angela’s jaw falls open. “Y-yes it does,” she stammers. “How did you—”
“I really appreciate you going to the trouble to find me, but I actually already knew this.”
Angela’s heart falls. All that effort. She tries to keep her tone light. “Hey, no worries. It just seemed like pretty big news, and I obviously wanted to make sure you received it.”
“I appreciate that.”
Angela runs her thumb absently along the edge of the keyboard. “So, there was something else in the envelope along with Frances’s letter. There’s also a note from your birth mother.”
Another sigh. “Oh, wow. Okay. That’s good. I never knew what happened to it.”
Angela pauses. “I’m sorry?”
“I found that note in a drawer in my mother’s room, back in the eighties. That’s how I knew I was adopted. But I cleaned out her room when she died, and it was missing from the drawer. I always assumed she had destroyed it, to be honest. I guess she sent it before she went into the hospital.”
“Yes, that’s explained in the letter. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you knew.”
“Yeah. I went looking for information I shouldn’t have when I was young and stupid. You know how it is.”
“For sure.” Angela isn’t quite sure how to broach what she wants to say next. “So, do you mind if I ask… have you ever tried to find your birth mother?”
Silence on the line. Angela knows she’s overstepped.
“I’m sorry, I realize that’s a really personal question, but—sorry, I’m trying to gather my thoughts here. When I first found the letter, I figured I would try to find Margaret, your birth mother. And…” Angela takes a deep breath. Her stomach flutters with a wave of nausea. “I’m really sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but she passed not long after you were born.” She waits another beat, then plows on. “I found an obituary with her name, and that, combined with a news story about the maternity home… Well, I kind of put the pieces together, and an old friend of hers confirmed it for me. Again, I’m so sorry.”
There’s a long pause where neither of the women seems to breathe. Then a deep sigh whispers through the receiver, followed by a nose being blown. Angela immediately regrets relaying the information, but what should she have done? Left Nancy Birch to go do the same digging she herself did, only to have it end in certain heartache?
“Okay. Thanks. Thanks for telling me,” Nancy says. “Would you be able to send me my mother’s letter, and Margaret’s note? And maybe the obit and article, too? I just need to see them for myself, I think.”
“For sure. No problem.”
Angela is relieved Nancy isn’t screaming at her, and she’s fulfilled what she set out to do: Margaret’s daughter will read her note and know that she never wanted to give her baby up.
Her hand rests, as it often does these days, on her belly button. She hardly dares to say anything more to Nancy. And yet, she does.
“Nancy, there’s another reason why I wanted to speak on the phone instead of texting. It’s a long story, but I’ve come across a woman who was a good friend of your mother’s—I’m sorry,” she curses herself for the slip, “of Margaret’s. They were at the maternity home together. She’s the one who confirmed Margaret’s death. I’ve met with her, and if you’re interested, she’d like to speak with you.”