She wanted some things to change; perhaps one of the changes could be her relationship with her mother—or at least Lillian’s understanding of what had happened to her mother that had resulted in this lifetime of illness. Anna had been a saleswoman, with a job she loved. Maybe this photo would help her talk about her life—her work—before she got sick. Shed some light on Lillian’s own desire to have satisfying work.
The nurse, easily identified in a white uniform, stockings, and cap, walked up to Lillian and Peter. “You’re here to see Anna?” she asked.
Lillian nodded and realized Peter had stayed back a pace or two. “Yes, I’m her daughter.”
“You’re in luck. She’s having a good day,” the nurse said.
Lillian didn’t know what that meant and was afraid to ask. It had been years since she’d seen the mom she remembered—the fun mom on the beach, the kind mom who kissed her good night. That mother seemed to have disappeared completely.
The nurse pointed to a bench in the garden where Anna sat in the sunlight like usual, gazing out in front of her. Lillian paused, and Peter gave her a gentle shove but stayed back. She walked slowly over and found a seat next to her mother, leaving space between them. She didn’t want to risk getting too close to this frail woman, causing one, or both, of them to buckle or break.
“Hello, Anna,” Lillian said. Her mother turned her head toward the daughter she didn’t recognize and smiled politely. Prickles covered Lillian’s throat as she saw the sunken blue eyes that she knew matched the color of her own.
She tried to think of a happy memory of her mother, but almost never could. This person was her mother, familiar, yet not, and that hurt Lillian.
“Did you bring me dessert?” Anna asked, without greeting.
Lillian should have brought something sweet. The faint glimmer of Lillian and her mother sitting at their kitchen table on Seventy-Sixth Street, dunking chocolate cookies into milk, flickered past her eyes. “Next time,” she said. She fumbled with the pocketbook on her lap. “But I do have something you might like.”
Anna frowned. “I don’t like raisins.”
“I know.” Neither did Lillian or the girls.
Confusion replaced irritation on Anna’s face. “You do? I thought you were new here.”
A band tugged tight around Lillian’s heart, and her throat felt thick. She made herself swallow. “No, I’ve been coming here for a long time.”
“Huh,” Anna said. “I don’t remember you.”
“That’s okay,” Lillian said. “I remember you.”
Anna smiled like a little girl caught unaware.
Peter stood a few yards away, watching and talking to the nurse. His arms were crossed out of concern, not consternation, Lillian was sure of it. The staff would tell him anything he wanted to know. He’d become Anna’s legal custodian when he began paying the hospital fees.
The photo of the little family on Margate City beach was right where Lillian had tucked it in her wallet. Smiling, she held it out so Anna could see it, but her mother only grimaced. The nurse stepped toward Anna, but Peter touched the woman’s arm and shook his head, then nodded at Lillian.
“Who are those people?” Anna asked, staring fixedly at the picture. “Is that a photograph of your family?” She held her hand out.
Lillian glanced at it again. That’s exactly what it was. She held her breath and handed the picture to Anna.
“How did you get this?” Anna asked, and for the first time she seemed oddly engaged. Not necessarily happy, though.
Simple answers worked best, Lillian decided. Nothing too involved. “I had it in my pocketbook.”
Anna pointed at Lillian in the photo. “This little girl is Lilly. This is my daughter.” Pressure pulsed in Lillian’s throat. Her mother had recognized her. She wasn’t forgotten. She felt the tears welling up inside her and pulled out a handkerchief. “If you blow your nose when you’re crying, it will stop the tears,” her mother used to say when Lillian was little. It still worked.
Her mother asked, “Do you know Lilly?”
Lillian managed to keep her voice soft and steady. “I do.”
Anna turned her body toward Lillian. “Is she safe?”
The voice was almost pleading, and Lillian saw true concern in her mother’s eyes for the first time. She found it hard to speak.
“She is.”
The decision to talk about herself in third person seemed natural. Her mother recognized ten-year-old Lilly, even if she thought the thirty-five-year-old in front of her was a stranger. How come she’d never recognized the younger Lillian when she visited, yet suddenly knew her from a photo?
“Are you sure?” Anna wrung her hands and tapped the photo, her finger right on Lillian’s father. “Because he’s a bad man.” Anna thrust the photo back at Lillian as if it were on fire.
She must not recognize her husband. She had adored Lillian’s father.
“No, this wasn’t a bad man. He was Lilly’s father, a good man.”
“Did you bring me dessert?” Anna asked abruptly.
Lillian tucked away the photo. “Next time. Do you want to tell me about Lilly?”
Anna gave a misty smile as she gazed at the last rose blooming on a bush nearby. “She’s my firecracker.”
Firecracker. Lillian had entirely forgotten that her mother had called her that. She choked back a pit in her throat and wiped one runaway tear.
“But they won’t bring her to see me.” Anna was talking in the present tense, as if Lillian were still ten years old.
“Who won’t bring her?” Lillian asked. This was more than Anna had expressed in two decades. And all in response to that one photograph. It seemed like a peek at her family of the past had spurred Anna’s mind into action.
“Percy’s parents love Lilly, but they don’t want her to know. They don’t want anyone to know.” Anna stared off as if in a trance. “My husband died,” she mumbled. “I was glad.”
Lillian froze in place, cold as a snowman inside and out. Clearly her mother was muddled and didn’t know what she was saying. Her parents had fought sometimes, which was scary, but he was a good man, a good provider. He’d prided himself on that.
She’d had enough. With a muttered “I have to go now,” Lillian sprang from the bench and hurried to Peter. She grabbed his hand, grateful for his steadfastness and for the life to which she could return. “Let’s go.”
She took a last look back and saw the nurse put her hand on Anna’s arm in a gesture of consolation or to calm her—Lillian couldn’t tell.
Lillian was the one who needed comfort and peace of mind. Any clarity about the time in her life when she was happy, about her childhood, wouldn’t be found here. Or with her mother. Her mother couldn’t remember either. Or wouldn’t.
Lillian stared at the photo of her family while she and Peter walked back to the car. Her mother had seen something different, something untrue, in that picture. “You should have heard her,” Lillian said. “She sounded sane one minute and crazy the next. She recognized me, but she thought my father was some bad man. But I know she loved my father. She fell apart when he died. And she never recovered.”