Something shifted across Anna’s face.
Recognition.
Sorrow.
And a tired kind of understanding.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I think I know why.”
She stepped aside.
“Come in, Walter. You’d better sit down.”
Anna poured two cups of coffee, her hands trembling slightly.
“What did Carol want me to know?”
She sat across from me.
“That I never turned you down because you moved.”
My chest went cold.
“Then why?”
“Your mother came to my apartment. Spring of 1985. She wore that gray coat with the fur collar. Do you remember it?”
“I remember.”
“She sat on my sofa and told me I was unsuitable. Wrong background. Wrong family. Wrong future for her son.”
I carefully placed my mug on the table because my hand had started shaking.
“My mom said that?”
“She said more than that.”
“What did she threaten you with?”
“She threatened to get Dad fired when my parents were already barely surviving. My sister was about to marry a good man, and Ruth threatened to destroy her reputation.”
