But he felt he had to try.
Anna mentioned this to Phoebe and Phoebe offered to get a little research done on Phillip Winston Esq. of Rhode Island. Then she mentioned it to Jessie and Michael and she would tell Bess the next time they were together.
Mike said, “Are you shitting me?”
Jessie said, “All right, I hereby order you to stop coming up with any more missing or secret family members.”
She had already decided she wasn’t going to make a big deal out of this. Just because some guy who was looking for his family had decided they might be related did not mean she had to hold a family dinner and provide entertainment. She asked Joe if he would accompany them to the nursing home and that was going to be the end of it. Just because Phillip Winston thought he might’ve found a sister did not obligate her and her family to a celebration.
However, Anna went to see her mother the day before Phillip would arrive. Blanche was in a very cranky mood. Her legs were terribly swollen; she’d been in bed with her legs elevated, had been given diuretics and pain meds, so she was mean and loopy.
“Hi, Mom,” Anna said, kissing her forehead.
“Is it time for you to visit?” she asked tersely.
Well, at least Blanche knew who she was. “I was in the neighborhood.”
“It’s not a good time,” Blanche said. “I’m dying.”
“I hope not,” Anna said. “I heard your legs are particularly bad today.”
“That’s what happens when you waitress for fifty years.”
She was relatively lucid, which could last seconds or more than an hour. Anna jumped on it. “Mom, I have been wanting to ask you something important. Do I have a brother?”
Blanche gasped. “What?”
“Did you have a baby boy before I was born? A baby you had to put up for adoption?”
Blanche looked at her in disgust. “Just because marijuana is now legal doesn’t mean you should be smoking a lot of it! You’ve lost your mind.”
“Well, I had to ask. You said something...”
“With all the shit they give me in here, I imagine I say a lot of things!”
“Sure. So tell me about what’s going on with your legs,” Anna said.
“They hurt and ache and won’t hold me up. They’re big as elephant legs and just as useless.”
“Can I get you some juice or something?” Anna asked.
“You can get me out of this hellhole,” she said.
“Why don’t I read to you,” Anna said. “Maybe you’ll be able to close your eyes for a while.”
Blanche didn’t say okay or thank-you or anything. She rolled onto her side and Anna picked up a book from the bedside table. It was a large-print, illustrated copy of Watership Down that Jessie had given her for Christmas. Blanche could no longer enjoy reading, but she had pictures and if someone read to her it sometimes soothed her.
Anna might’ve been disappointed for Phillip; he had not found his mother. But it was what she had expected. And she had a grudging respect for Phillip coming all the way to San Francisco in hopes of finding his roots.
Joe came over the evening before, after Anna had seen Blanche. They cooked a light dinner of chicken and vegetables, had a glass of wine, and she told him about her visit with Blanche. “I do wonder why I have so little interest in lost or missing family,” she said.
“Maybe you’re just fine with what you have,” he suggested.
“And yet they keep turning up all over the place. First Amy and her family, then my mother in her delirium suggesting another child somewhere, now this man flying all the way from the east coast. I’ll tell you what, it could be a lot of trouble if he turned out to be a relative.”
“How so?” Joe asked.
“Think about adding one more and his family to this group,” she said. “I only have a twelve-place setting of china!”
The next day Anna and Joe met Phillip at a small restaurant not far from the nursing home. They had a nice, if perhaps slightly nervous, lunch and Anna explained that she had tried, once again, to ask about a possible brother. And it had made Blanche angry and uncooperative.
“I tell you this so you’ll check your expectations at the door,” she said.
“Understood,” Phillip said. “It’s not my intention to upset anyone.”
“And I want to make certain you’re not completely disappointed.”
They walked into Blanche’s very small space in a three-bed room. Anna was smiling. Blanche was sitting up in her chair, looking a little better than she had the day before.