Chapter 2 - The File With My Name
The file was thinner than my mother's recipe book and heavier than anything I had carried in my courier bag.
Mrs. Elaine Porter, the attorney, set it between us on her conference table. Her office was above a bakery near Pioneer Square, and the smell of fresh bread drifted through a cracked window. She was sixty, with tired eyes and an orderly desk. She had helped my mother write a will that contained no fortune, only instructions about letters, a box of photographs, and a small savings account meant to cover the funeral.
"Maria didn't want this opened until she'd died," Elaine said. "She was afraid the information might change the way you thought about her."
"I've been doing that since I was fifteen."
"I know."
The file contained copies of old employee evaluations from Vescari Freight. My mother had been executive secretary to Anthony when the company operated from one warehouse and a rented office. She had excellent reviews until October 2004, three months after I was born. Then the language changed overnight.
UNRELIABLE ATTENDANCE. MISUSE OF CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL. TERMINATION FOR CAUSE.
"She was caring for a newborn," I said.
"Look at the signature."
At the bottom of the dismissal form, above a stamped date, was an angular A followed by a hard V. I'd seen the same signature on the acquisition story in the business pages, enlarged beside Anthony's photograph.
"He signed this."
Elaine nodded. "Your mother asked the company to correct the record in 2005 and again in 2011. Both requests were rejected."
I flipped to a letter on thick ivory stationery.
Maria, please understand that the board has made its position clear. You cannot approach the office or any member of my family again. I have done everything I can.
A.V.
"Everything he could," I repeated.
For most of my childhood, Mom took temporary office jobs, reception shifts, and evening bookkeeping projects. When I asked why she never stayed in one place very long, she said life took practice. Once, when I was eleven, I heard an interviewer on speakerphone ask about the Vescari reference. She said, "I was dismissed after my maternity leave," and the interview ended quickly.
"Why didn't she sue?"
"She considered it," Elaine said. "The company offered a settlement that required her to give up access to some records and agree not to contact Anthony. She refused. Then her health, your schooling, and basic survival took priority. It's not a happy answer, Gina. It's simply what happened."
The file also contained a photocopied birth certificate. Anthony's name was absent from the father field. It didn't prove anything on its own, but the empty space hurt more than the termination notice.
"She could have told me sooner," I said.
"She did tell you some things. She also wanted your childhood to belong to you, not to the man who left."
I stared at the last folder tab. It said GINA in my mother's neat printing. Beneath it lay a yellowing birthday card and an uncashed bank check for a thousand dollars, made out to Maria Reyes, dated the month I turned two. The memo line read For the girl.
"He sent money."
"Once, as far as Maria's records show. She never cashed it."
I wanted to hate her for that. We had lived on rice and cheap vegetables some winters. But I also knew she had accepted help from neighbors, from friends at church, from the woman downstairs who had given me my first winter coat. She had never turned survival into a lesson about pride. There had to be more.
On the back of the check, in Mom's handwriting, were four words: Not a price tag.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number read: This is Anthony. I'm sorry about Maria. Please let me speak to you without an audience.
I showed Elaine.
"You can ignore it," she said.
"I know."
I wrote back: St. Andrew's. Eleven. As promised.
Anthony had said, "I know I signed the letter. I need to know what else was done in my name."
Helen's answer would matter. But that morning I knew none of it. All I knew was the precise shape of my mother's signature and the way she used to run a thumb over the little moon on my wrist when I couldn't sleep.
I rode the bus to her apartment, where an open suitcase waited beside her bed. I'd started packing on the day she died, then stopped when I found her reading glasses beside a half-finished crossword.
On the refrigerator, a magnet held a note: Gina, remember the plants. And you don't owe anybody a performance of forgiveness.
I sat on the kitchen floor and cried until the afternoon light moved across the tiles.
Then I noticed the small brass key taped beneath the back of the note.
May you like
Attached was a number: 416.
The same number was written in pencil at the bottom of Anthony's old termination letter.
