Helen shook her head.
“She thought she was helping you.”
Mom started crying. Not quietly, or politely.
The kind of crying that made me put both arms around her because suddenly she didn’t feel 83.
“She left because of me?”
“She left because she loved you.”
That sentence seemed to break something open.
Mom gripped my hand.
“I tried to get her back.”
“I know.”
“I called.”
“I know.”
“Robert said she wouldn’t come to the phone.”
Helen nodded.
“She wouldn’t.”
“Robert told me not to come,” Mom said. “He said Anna needed space and that I was making it harder for her to settle.”
Helen closed her eyes.
“Mom thought you’d come anyway.”
Mom looked crushed.
“So she really didn’t want to talk to me.”
“She was hurt,” Helen said. “But she didn’t want you to disappear.”
Helen opened the box again. “She was waiting to see if you’d come get her.”
Mom stared at her.
“She was 12,” Helen said. “She thought if you really wanted her, you’d refuse to let her go.”
Mom’s face folded.
“I thought letting her choose was the loving thing.”
“She thought fighting her choice was.”
Neither woman spoke.
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