An Act of Persuasion(29)

Actually, they’d taken up occupancy ever since Anna had decided she couldn’t stay with Ben any longer. When they had their fight over his decision to do the stem cell transplantation, she remembered what it had felt like to be left alone that day. A crowded room, people walking around her, bumping into her, but no one paying attention to her. Her mother missing.

In the dark days after she’d left Ben, while she waited to hear if he would live or die, she spent the time trying to recall details of that day her mother was gone so she could let the pain sink in deeper and take root, ensuring she wouldn’t forget. Like an immunization, she hoped the memory of losing her mother would serve to keep her protected from ever falling in love again. Because the pain of it, of not having that love reciprocated, had felt too heavy to bear. She’d decided then she wasn’t ever going to have her happily ever after like other people did.

Because she wasn’t other people. She was someone who had been left by her father. Left by her mother. And she’d done a very good job of causing enough strife in some of the foster homes where she’d lived to make them want to get rid of her, too.

Focusing on those memories wasn’t easy. They were vague at best. A six-year-old’s memory could hardly be trustworthy. She remembered the busy room. The people bumping into her as they walked by. She remembered the scalding fear she had when she could no longer see her mother. There hadn’t been any awareness of the separation happening. It was just suddenly her mother was there and then she was gone.

Vanished. And inherently Anna knew from that moment on she was alone. Eventually a woman in a dark blue uniform had knelt in front of her to ask her what her name was. Anna had been wearing a pair of jeans, sneakers with holes in the toes and a Disney princess T-shirt.

She wanted to remember if she’d said anything to her mother. If her mother had said anything to her. But Anna didn’t. She didn’t remember her even saying goodbye.

Anna wished she could go back and tell that woman her abandonment was going to really screw Anna over.

Not just because she would be put into the foster-care system, but because by leaving, her mother was going to turn Anna into someone else. Someone who didn’t trust people. Someone who didn’t need people. Someone who didn’t put up a fight for the people she loved.

Ben had been the only person in her life to crack through that well-constructed wall of caution. And when she considered it, how messed up was that? The man was an emotional ice block. Maybe she’d subconsciously chosen to love him out of all other people because she knew she would never really have to deal with being loved back. Ben: the safest crush on the planet.

“Totally messed up,” she muttered.

“What’s messed up? I solved the case. But now I need another one. I know we talked about doing discreet ads to start, but maybe we need something a little flashier out of the gate. Or maybe we should look at the major newspapers. People have to actually want me before I can be exclusive.”

“I have a case.”

Mark’s eyes widened. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Not news. You turn green and run for the bathroom at regular intervals.”

“Well, I was thinking, I’ve never really tried to find my birth parents. I should probably do that...to get their health information and stuff. Any genetic conditions. Things like that.”

Mark nodded. “Anna, you know how to track down personal information on the internet as well as anyone I know. You’ve never done that on your parents? Do you not know their names?”

Elizabeth Rochester and Luis Summers. Those were the names on the copy of her birth certificate she had. Her first foster family had encouraged her to have a copy of it. Thinking someday she might want to try to find her parents. Under the father’s name was printed Luis Summers. Under the mother’s maiden name was Elizabeth Rochester. She didn’t know if they were married or not, but she did know her mother had said her name was Anna. Anna had been what she’d been called. She took Summers because it seemed logical. He was her father. And because she liked summer. No school during summer. A perfectly sound reason to adopt a last name.

“Their names were fake.” Anna had been eighteen when she did her first internet search for some record of them. She hadn’t expected to find much, but wanted to see if anything popped. When nothing did, she dug deeper until ultimately she had to accept the truth.

Anna Summers wasn’t really her name.