“Guess what, Mama? Grandma has pictures from when you was a baby.”
Suzanna tried to smile, but it felt as though she were about to choke on the chunk of pancake she’d just swallowed. Beads of nervous perspiration rose on her forehead, and now, more than ever, she felt the need to get going.
“Wonderful,” she squeaked. The word was thready and too high pitched. “I’d love to stay and see them, but we’ve got to be leaving in a few minutes.”
The smile on Ida’s face vanished. “I thought you’d at least spend a few days with me…”
She hesitated, her eyes grew misty, and when she spoke again the lighthearted sound of happiness Suzanna had heard earlier was gone.
“You and Annie are all the family I’ve got now. It’s terribly lonely here without Bill, and this house is so full of memories…”
Annie scooted her chair closer, her small hand patting Ida’s knee. “It’s okay, Grandma, we’re here.” Glancing up at Suzanna with her face pinched into a look of determination, she said, “We don’t really gotta go, Mama. You said—”
Fearful of what might come out, Suzanna jumped in. “I know what I said, Annie, but there’s only one New Jersey bus and it leaves at 10:30.”
“But I don’t wanna go to New Jersey. I wanna stay here.”
Annie was a child who could often be coaxed into doing one thing or another, but once she’d set her mind to something she could also be stubborn as a mule. Given the pinched-up pout stuck to her face, Suzanna knew she was in for a fight.
“Annie, we’ve already discussed this. You know I have to start looking for a job and…”
“I don’t care. I wanna stay here with Grandma. She said I can have my own room and she’s gonna let me—”
Ida interrupted. “I have a suggestion that might help. Instead of looking for a job right away, why don’t you stay here and work for me? This house is way too big for one person, and without Bill’s pension I can’t afford to keep it. I’m going to put it on the market, but it would be foolish to do so right now. First, it has to be cleaned top to bottom. The windows washed, the closets emptied out, the clutter packed away, the hydrangeas cut back…”
Suzanna smiled as Ida continued listing the multitude of things that needed to be done in the house she’d seen as perfect.
“That’s a very tempting offer,” she finally said. “But I wouldn’t feel right taking money from you. Besides, Annie and I need to get settled, find a place of our own—”
“Wouldn’t that be a lot easier if you had some extra money in your pocket?”
“I guess so, but I still wouldn’t feel comfortable taking—”
“Do it, Mama, please do it. Please, please!”
Suzanna looked across at the two them, the same expression of hopefulness on both faces, the same pleading looks in their eyes. It seemed unfair, the burden of such a decision being placed on her shoulders, and yet there it was. She wanted this every bit as much as either of them did. When she weighed staying or leaving against one another, the happiness of staying was light as a feather, while the thought of leaving had the weight of a boulder. Her resolve began to fade.
“I really think we should be going…” she said, but her words were weak and without much determination.
“Just for a few days,” Ida pleaded. “To help with the heavy work. That bus runs every day. You could take it tomorrow or the next day or the day after that.”
Annie’s lower lip began to quiver, and her eyes grew teary. “I don’t wanna go. I wanna stay here and make cookies with Grandma.”
Suzanna felt her heart crumbling. “Please, Annie, don’t make this harder than it is.”
“It’s not hard, Mama, all you have to do is say yes.”
All you have to do is say yes. Suzanna turned her head and stared out the kitchen window as her thoughts raced back to eight years earlier when Bobby Doherty asked for the same thing. She’d finally said yes, then ended up pregnant and alone. Instead of going off to college, she’d been thrown out of her daddy’s house and had to move in with Earl.
Saying yes had been a costly mistake back then, and if the truth were discovered it could be even more costly now. She not only had herself to think about; she had Annie. Saying yes had taken away her future, but it had given her Annie, a gift more precious than anything she’d ever owned. A single yes could take or give, but there was no way of knowing which it would be. Should she chance it again, or be smarter this time and move on?
Turning back, Suzanna saw the two eager faces waiting expectantly.
“We can stay for a few days,” she said, “but then we have got to go.”
——————
THAT SAME AFTERNOON, SUZANNA RETURNED to the bus station and retrieved the battered brown suitcase. Ida had suggested she take the car, but Suzanna chose to walk. It was fourteen blocks from Ida’s house to the station, just far enough to give her time to think.
She mulled over the potential problems of them staying, and the one that stood head and shoulders above all else was the very real possibility that Darla Jean could return at any time. Then what? Could she be arrested for impersonating the girl? Thrown into jail? And what about Annie? Would she be taken away and plunked down in some obscure orphanage? Without a daddy, that’s what would happen. If the truth were exposed, Annie would lose the grandma she had taken to so quickly, and she would be on her own.
Suzanna knew there was no getting around it; she was Annie’s only family. Walking past the rows of tidy houses with freshly-mowed lawns and manicured flowerbeds, Suzanna pictured the shock on Ida’s face as she stood watching them take her away in handcuffs.
Were
