Chapter 19 Anne
Anne
It was a quiet morning at Anne’s makeshift little inn.
Two young couples had left before dawn to hike a jungle trail, and now there was just one older lady traveling solo. She and Dawn became fast friends immediately, and they sat chatting about the woman’s travels over coffee.
Anne stood washing the dishes, staring out at the thin blue strip of ocean that was visible from the kitchen window, when Zoe walked out of the ‘ohana unit in the backyard.
Her hair was braided for work, still with that long stripe of dark auburn hair bisecting the fading green.
The t-shirt she wore was several sizes too big, thick and boxy.
The fashion choices that she made went far beyond the tomboy tendencies of her childhood or a simple indifference to her appearance. It felt like she went out of her way to disguise herself and her beauty. Anne didn’t understand it.
Zoe came through the kitchen door and paused, probably unhappy to find herself so close to her mother. Her expression grew ever more sour when she glanced at the kitchen table and saw the two women chatting there, like even one quiet guest was an unforgivable breach of the way things should be.
Then she turned back to find Anne watching her, and the sour expression turned into a full scowl.
“What?” She emphasized the word with its ASL gesture, shaking two hands held palm-up. Her shoulders were hunched forward in a defensive posture that hurt Anne’s heart.
“It’s strange to see you grown.” She dried her hands and turned to face her eldest daughter. “I think subconsciously, I still think of you as my baby. You were so little once, and now you’re bigger than me. It’s hard to wrap my head around that sometimes.”
That wasn’t what had been on her mind right then, but it was true – more deeply and persistently true than what she had been thinking at that moment.
“I grew up a long time ago.” Zoe’s tone was acid. “Anyway, I was never your baby. You left as soon as I was born.”
She turned and left without getting whatever she had come in for. Anne stood frozen for a moment. Then she followed her out onto the back porch.
“I didn’t,” she said.
“What?” Zoe turned to look at her.
“I didn’t leave as soon as you were born. I was here all summer. I breastfed you for three months. You slept in my bed. I was with you every minute of the day and night.”
For a moment it looked like she might be getting through to her. Emotion flashed through Zoe’s eyes – but then it was gone again just as quickly.
“Noah’s the one who wasn’t here,” she pressed on. “He was already off working in Alaska. He wasn’t here when you were born, or when you were a baby, and you’ve forgiven him.”
“He came back! He was here for me!”
“I came back too, Zoe! Every birthday, every Christmas.”
“But you never took me with you!” There were tears in her eyes now, and a flash of memory caught Anne off guard: her three-year-old daughter tucked away in her suitcase, giggling… then crying when Anne told her again that she couldn’t go to college with her.
“I tried,” Anne said, half choking on the words. She had tried, years later, to persuade Zoe to move to the mainland and live with her. But by then, it was too little too late. “You didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I barely knew you. I was just a kid! This isn’t on me! It’s not my fault that I wanted to stay in the only home I’d ever known, and it’s not my fault that you weren’t here when I needed you.”
Anne swallowed her tears and nodded. She didn’t know what else to say, and Zoe took that dead space in the conversation as her cue to flee.
Anne went inside to find her mother.
Dawn was alone now, scrolling on her phone at the kitchen table and nursing her second cup of coffee. Anne sat across from her and waited for her to look up.
“What happened to Zoe?” she asked her mother.
Dawn’s forehead came together, and she focused her electric-blue eyes on Anne. There was no surprise in her mother’s expression, no confusion. She knew exactly what Anne was talking about.
“Was she–” Anne’s voice caught on the word, and the question died in her throat. She glanced at the kitchen door and tried again. “Did somebody hurt her?”
Dawn swallowed silently, and Anne felt scared that she would just put her off the way Halia had. But her mother’s eyes stayed fixed on hers, and she nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Anne’s voice was ragged, shredded by the lump in her throat.
“I wanted to, but she begged me not to. She begged me not to tell anyone.”
“You told Halia!”
Dawn shook her head. “Halia’s the one who found her.”
Anne squeezed her eyes shut, and hot tears poured down her cheeks. She forced out one word: “Who?”
“Some tourist.” Dawn’s voice was heavy. “They never found him.”
Anne wondered if ‘they’ meant the locals or the police. Maybe both. It didn’t matter – except that the circle of people who had known about this kept growing.
“You should have told me,” she said in a ragged voice.
“What good would that have done?”
“I’m her mother!” Anne opened her eyes. “I should have been there for her!”
“You were on the mainland with a newborn.”
A new fear rose in Anne’s chest.
“Pete?”
Dawn shook her head, and there was a deep compassion in her eyes.
“Claire.”
A muffled curse escaped Anne’s throat. She bent forward, doubled over with the pain of what her mother had just said. The tears she had tried to hold back ripped through her, and she sobbed uncontrollably.
When Claire was a newborn, Zoe was just thirteen years old.
Eventually her sobs subsided, and Dawn patted her shoulder.
Anne sat up and grabbed a napkin, which she used to mop at her face and blow her nose. The deep, tearing pain in her chest was still there, but she was all out of tears. Sitting there in silence, though, the pain felt even worse.
She had failed her daughter over and over again. And then, when the worst had happened, she was nothing but a stranger living her life on the mainland.
“No wonder she hates me,” Anne whispered.
Unlike Halia, Dawn didn’t refute the word. She just said, “Be patient with her.”
“Patience won’t change anything.”
“Neither will pushing. But showing up, day after day… that might.”