These Things About Us (20 page)

Annie. I couldn’t remember anyone ever calling me that. Not even her. I couldn’t even remember that voice. The memories I had stuck in my head were nothing like the high and clear voice on the other end of the line.

“Mom…” I mumbled, running my hand through my hair. I was waiting for the click. For the moment of instant connection. A link of familiarity. She was my mother, for God’s sake. I should feel like she was some kindred spirit. Keeping my free hand in my hair, I caught sight of the one thing that had to connect us. “I’ve got your camera. I met Sabrina and Jon. They live in your former house and they gave me your camera when I told them who I was.”

“Oh. Well, that old thing is yours if you want it. I have my good ones here.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Nothing about photography or how she wanted me to bring the camera by. Nothing remotely helpful. She pushed me off with a farewell gift. An old camera she didn’t like to use anyway.

“Mom…”

“You must stop calling me that, Annie. I haven’t been your mum in thirteen years.”

I swallowed the anger that was still itching in my throat, forcing myself to remember that I was angry at Trace. Stupid Liar.

My mother had been right to leave my father. There was nothing to blame her for. “Can I see you?”

She hesitated for another eight seconds before she asked me if I had pen and paper. I crawled over to my bag and found a pencil stub and a small slip of chewing gum paper that I wrote her address down on.

“I’ll see you later,” I said.

“Okay,” she said and hung up.

There were two ways this could go. Hoping for the better one, I took my backpack and filled it with all the essentials I needed for a night or two away from this place. Trace could come up with any kind of explanation for my absence from work.
If Alex kicked me out, so be it. It wasn’t like I wanted to stick around here much longer anyway.
I had enough money saved to either find a place closer to Mom’s or get on a Greyhound – if they even had those in England.

I ignored Vincent as I darted to the bathroom to get my toilet bag, glad that Trace wasn’t in the hallway anymore, because I sure as hell would have screamed some more at him. This time with more vulgarity.

It took me almost two hours to find the right street. It was a narrow one, ending in an impasse. The houses all looked the same. Same architecture, same front doors, same fences around tiny front yards. One of them alone might have looked pretty and English, but all of them together were too much for a small street like this. They pressed down on me as I walked to the end of the street where I found house number 22.

A swirly, self-made sign at the front door read
Lawrence
. It looked a lot like something a kid would bring home from school. She had a child. I had a sibling. Maybe more than one.

My eyes darted to the window, but thick curtains refused me a glimpse at her life. There was only one way to find out who my mother was now. If only my hands weren’t shaking this bad. If only I had taken more time with the mirror to make sure I didn’t still look upset and my makeup didn’t crumble off.

I had to calm down before I went in there. There was no one on the street, so for a moment I let my eyes fall close and I did my breathing exercise.

Inhale, two, three, four.

Exhale, two, three, four.

Inhale. Exhale.

The lock clicked and I forced my eyes open, although I wasn’t anywhere near calm yet. The door wasn’t opened further than a crack, just wide enough for a little girl with red ringlet curls to poke her head out. She smiled at me with large brown eyes, missing a front tooth.

“Hello. Are you the tooth fairy?”

No. No, it couldn’t be the same girl who had asked me that question weeks ago on the phone. I had called every Theresa Lawrence listed and that little girl had been called Theresa herself and her mother’s name was… well, I didn’t remember that but it hadn’t been Theresa.

“Hi. Is your mom home?”

“No. Mummy lives in heaven with grandpa,” she said and rolled her eyes like it was common knowledge and I was such an idiot for not knowing.

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Emily.”

Of course it was. She had told me before. I had talked to her before. I could have met my mother weeks ago if I hadn’t been stupid enough to assume a little girl was listed in the phone book. I dug my nails into my palms.

“I’m looking for my mom today. Her name’s Theresa. I think she might live here, too.”

“Oh, you mean Tess.” She furrowed her slim eyebrows at me. “Tess isn’t a mum.”

Theresa jumped and swiveled around just before the door swung open wider and gave way to a gorgeous, petite woman with light brown hair to her shoulders. My mom. Our eyes locked onto each other and several seconds passed until she looked down at the little redhead. “Why don’t you help Daddy in the kitchen? I’m sure he’s sneaking peas into the soup again.”

“How dare he?” Theresa huffed and stemmed her little fists into her hips. “I should go.” She disappeared inside and left my mother and me standing in front of the house like complete strangers. She looked like the woman in the pictures. Neatly dressed like a lawyer or maybe a teacher and wrinkles straying from the corners of her eyes. The Mom I remembered was pretty but not beautiful, young and wrinkle-free but never as pampered as this woman. She had worn frayed skirts and loose shirts, not tight blouses and pencil skirts.

Finally, after realizing that I had no idea who this woman was, I said, “Hi.”

A small smile tugged at her lips. “Are you hungry?”

I hadn’t eaten anything yet but my mind hadn’t had the chance to even think about my bodily needs in hours. I wasn’t sure if I was hungry but I didn’t want to seem impolite when she practically invited me to have lunch with them. “A little, I guess,” I replied and drew my shoulders up.

“Aaron, my husband, is cooking. We’re vegetarians, though.”

“Okay.” I nodded and burrowed my fingernails deeper into my palms. “I don’t mind.”

“Come in then.” She stepped aside to let me get past her and watched me as I walked into her house. It was a short hallway, lined with bookshelves, all of which were filled with travel books. “How are you?”

I considered lying, pretending I’m just fine and let her believe I was not this fucked up daughter I had wanted to keep from her. I could let her believe I was a perfect girl, just like Theresa with her ringlet curls and her belief in the tooth fairy. Instead, I turned to her and pulled a shoulder high. “Strange, I guess. It’s weird to see you like this. You don’t look like the woman I remember, and then again, you do. Plus, I had a shitty kind of morning because of this guy who turned out to be a total jerk after all.”

She laughed and it sounded high and beautiful but nervous. “Well, if it’s any consolation, you don’t look like the little girl I remember either.”

I shrugged. “Thirteen years have that sort of effect.”

Mom stepped up to me and let a hand slide through my hair. “You’ve become a beautiful young woman, Annie.”

Why couldn’t I warm up to her? After that affectionate gesture, my heart should be wide open for her and I should feel the need to throw my arms around her. But I was still standing in a stranger’s house, talking to a woman I’ve never met before.

“It’s actually Tony,” I said, “Nobody calls me Annie.”

“Of course.” She blinked, irritated and turned towards the last door on the left, waving for me to follow her. I did and entered a large, light-filled kitchen that smelled like vegetables and curry. The counters and cabinets were all painted a faint turquoise that reminded me of those shabby-chic kitchens you saw in magazines, and the light wood kitchen table was surrounded by mismatched chairs in all colors of the rainbow.

A man, presumably Aaron, stood at the stove. He fit well with his daughter’s and wife’s put-together looks with his light blue button-down shirt, the black slacks and the white apron wrapped around his slim body. I wondered if I could be part of this. I had enough blouses to fit in but I had fallen back in love with my black, torn jeans lately. They were just a lot more practical than skirts.

My mother put a hand between Aaron’s shoulder blades, and he looked up from his pans, immediately zeroing in on me. “Honey, this is my daughter Antonia, Tony,” my mother explained and smiled at me. “Tony, this is my husband, Aaron.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said and stretched my hand out.

Aaron wiped his hand off on a dish towel, then put it into mine. “I thought I’d never meet you.” There was not a bit of joy in those words, he actually sounded disappointed that he
had
to meet me.

“Why don’t you sit down, Tony?”

I did as I was told, choosing one of the places that hadn’t been set. My mom quickly changed that and brought me a plate and a spoon. The next hour was madness. Theresa – the little one – asked dozens of questions and we tried to answer them when Aaron wasn’t quick to tell her that it was impolite to ask that. I didn’t know what was impolite about asking me why my dad wasn’t here but then again, I could avoid talking about him if Aaron shut those sort of questions down. And then my mother and I were trying to ask about each other’s lives without being too intrusive. Even after sixty minutes of questions and answers, the barista at Coffee Donna knew more about me than my mother did.

Aaron eventually excused himself and went to his home office, taking Theresa upstairs with him. My mother left the table, too, hurrying back and forth in the kitchen, cleaning the counter, filling the dishwasher, boxing up leftovers, cleaning the counter again.

I heard myself saying, “I really want to get to know you.” My brain hadn’t even been in that place just then, mostly being occupied by the freakishly neat kitchen. It could have been in a catalogue for interior design.

My mother’s shoulders fell as she put the sponge back into the sink. “Every time I look at you, I feel guilty, Tony. You’ve grown up without me. I should have been there with you. Maybe then you wouldn’t have become…” She stopped herself and restarted her cleaning frenzy, this time re-sorting the spice jars by the stove.

“I take it you read some of the glorious headlines.” I stared down at my fingers, poking at the tiny crescent moons in my palm where I had dug my fingers too deep into the flesh. 

“It was the only way I could check on you.”

“You could have called or mailed. My life wasn’t all paparazzi and scandals.” That had been right after word on Dad got out. I’d been at my worst when the life I used to know had collapsed around me. And of course, because Dad had been the center of the news’ attention, who I slept with, how much I drank and how many times a week I was wasted had suddenly become interesting. It’s funny, really, that the spotlight moved on so quickly after Dad was put away. I’d stopped flat ironing my hair and wearing close-to-nothing shorts and shirts, and nobody realized that the screwed-up girl from the papers back then was me.

 I couldn’t manage to keep the bitterness bottled up when I said, “It’s not like Dad controlled every email I ever sent. I used to be on Facebook, too. Or MySpace, back when I was twelve. But you chose to believe the yellow press was a valid source of information.”

Shouldn’t I be happy that she didn’t burn me out of her life completely? That she at least cared enough to look at what I’d been up to? But that box I had kept hidden in the furthest corner of my mind had fallen to the front and everything I blamed her for spilled out.

“Antonia,” she sighed.

“Don’t call me that. Dad loves that name. He insisted everyone calls me that. But I don’t want to be the girl he raised. It’s Tony.” Or Darling, or Kitty. Even Annie. Everything but Antonia.

“Fine. Tony.” Gritting her teeth, she knotted her arms in front of her chest and stared me down. “What do you want me to say? I left you. I should have taken care of you. But I had to take care of myself, too. Even before you were born, you were the most important thing to your father. He would have made my life misery if I tried to take you away from him.”

“You could start by saying you’re sorry,” I suggested.

“I’m sorry for leaving you with that man. I am.” I realized she hadn’t said she was sorry for leaving
me
, and I wondered if she even regretted that or if she only felt bad about leaving her first child to become anything but perfect.

Tess wiped her hands over her skirt and all illusions of a happy family life with my mother were ripped from me. “Where’s your birthmark?” I asked, staring at her hands as if it could magically make the small spot appear on her skin.

“I finally had that ugly thing removed last year,” she said.

I got up and smoothed my hair back. “I should leave. You were right on the phone. You have stopped being my mom a long time ago.”

“Please don’t run away from me.”

“Actually, I’m not.” I picked up my backpack and slung it over my shoulders, looking at the woman, leaning against the shining kitchen counter. “I run away a lot. Not this time. I’m just… done with you. It took thirteen years but I just realized that I had unrealistic ideas what having a mother was like. I don’t believe I need you in my life and that’s why I’m leaving you here with your new family and I’m going… well, I’ll find a place to go to.”

A small part of me still clung to the hope that she could be my mom, the one I remembered, and run after me and protest, but I walked through the front door and left that part inside with her. 

London was as good as any big city when you wanted to hide from your problems. There were dozens of streets and shops and sights to be discovered. One could easily lose oneself in the midst of Camden Town. The edgy shops, the dozens of tattoo parlors, the giant horse market with its hundreds of booths, big and small… It was like a labyrinth and the perfect distraction. I pushed through the crowd and took my time to look at everything, even the stupid knickknack nobody spared a second glance once they returned from vacation, often attracting the very persistent venders. Only in the fleeting moments when I wasn’t buying a new pair of boots or an XXL Oxford hoodie, Poppy and Trace weaseled their way into my thoughts. Poppy creeped me out. I knew everyone was supposed to have a doppelganger but it was scary to think someone walked around with my face. Trace on the other hand made the anger boil in my veins. And then there was that sharp, cutting pain in my chest that made it hard to breathe whenever he came up in my thoughts. He was harder to wrestle out of my head than Poppy.