Page 113 of The Singing Trees
But he’d already gone.
Chapter 41
WHATCOULDHAVEBEENCOULDNEVERBE
While he called his mother, Annalisa stood and went down the ten steps of the deck to the edge of the green grass. The wind blew hard against her as she looked left to the beach below. Celia was seated on the sand, playing with a piece of driftwood. Nonna leaned on her cane, talking with Glen.
“What have I done?” she whispered up into the heavens. “I don’t understand.”
Had his mother told the lie to break them apart? Had his whole family been behind it?Eighteen months,she thought. That was how long Celia had lived without her father. And Thomas had been kept in the dark for longer than that. She wallowed in purgatory, wishing to God that she’d done things differently.
The door shut behind her, bringing her back. He crossed the deck and then down the steps, meeting her in the grass. “My mom didn’t send that letter.”
Annalisa threw up her hands. What the hell was going on?
His eyes searched all over the place for answers. “She’s not lying. I don’t know what’s going on, but...she’s not lying. And I’m not lying.”
“I know that,” she whispered, taking a step toward him, wanting to wrap her arms around him.
He pressed his eyes closed, clearly in as much pain as she was. “All she said is that Emma had mentioned something about you having a boyfriend, and then a few days later you left the ring and the note back at the house.”
A light flickered in Annalisa’s mind. “A boyfriend? I didn’t have a boyfriend. What was Emma talking about? When did you find out? While you were away?”
He was even more optimistic now, as if she was a moment away from cracking the case. “Yeah, Emma wrote me. I was still in-country.”
“And that’s why you never wrote me again...,” she said, making sense of it all. The light turned brighter and then it hit her. “Did Emma do this?” she asked, almost to herself, a pain making itself known in the pit of her stomach.
Annalisa locked eyes with Thomas, both of them putting the idea together at the same time.
He said, “Do you think she...?”
“Wrote the letter?” Annalisa asked. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.” She searched her memory, finding the letter and rereading it in her mind. She remembered Emma hanging up on her. She’d never actually spoken to his mother.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Thomas said, stepping closer to Annalisa. “She told me that she saw you with a guy at the Spartans–Eagles game, and that not too long after you’d left that note.”
“What guy at the game? You mean Nino?”
He shrugged. “You tell me.”
“I was with Nino,” Annalisa said again, thinking this couldn’t have been happening. “Did she never meet him?” She tried to remember.
His eyes danced as he thought back. “I don’t think so.”
“All Emma ever wanted was to get me out of the way,” Annalisa said, feeling more sure with every second. “Would she have faked a letter? Forged your mom’s signature? Then written you about it? All to getyou to let me go so that you’d return to Davenport? So that she could have you to herself?”Yes,she thought, answering her own question.
What an incredible betrayal this was. Were people that messed up in the world? Was Emma really that insane?
His eyes looked like hollow sockets. “I can’t imagine she would have done that.”
“She got what she wanted, didn’t she? You’re both going to Weston, probably both going to New York.” Slogging past the idea, she asked, “Why didn’t you come find me anyway? You came home and just gave up?” Had they really lost out on all these years because of a stupid letter Emma wrote? Because of a photograph a journalist in Vietnam had taken?
“I did come find you,” he insisted. “Despite your note asking me not toandEmma telling me about this other guy. A couple days after I got back to Davenport, I drove to Portland. You were on the balcony with some guy. It was dark, so I couldn’t really see, but you were up there with someone. I heard you joking with him and saw you hug him, and...and I...I didn’t want to screw things up for you.”
“What are you talking about?” Annalisa tried to remember being on the balcony with a guy. “You mean Walt?” That didn’t make sense, though.
“No,” Thomas said, as eager for answers as her. “I assumed it was the guy Emma mentioned, and I just wanted you to be happy. Lord knows I wasn’t in the shiniest of places after my tour. I guess I figured you might be better off.”
“There was no boyfriend,” she insisted with a fist through the air. “I never even saw Emma except...” She was back into searching her memory. “The last time I ran into her was at the Spartans–Eagles game. I was...I was with Nino.” Annalisa remembered having her arm around him. Had Emma thought he was a boyfriend?
