“Please. Just wait.”
Two minutes later, the manager appeared.
Helen whispered something to him.
His expression changed. “The box?” he asked.
Helen nodded. Tom disappeared into the back office.
When he returned, he was carrying an old cardboard box.
It had been taped and retaped so many times that the corners were soft.
“I’ve kept it here since Mom died,” Helen said quietly. “I couldn’t bring myself to throw any of it away.”
Helen took it with both hands.
The woman behind us groaned. “This is ridiculous.”
Helen finally looked at her. “Register four is open.”
“You said nobody leaves.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
A few people laughed. The woman turned red and shoved her cart toward the next line.
Mom didn’t notice.
She was staring at the box.
Helen placed it beside our groceries.
“My mother died seven months ago,” she said.
Mom’s face softened. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Her name was Anna.”
Mom’s wallet slipped from her hand.
It hit the floor.
I bent to pick it up, but Mom didn’t move.
“What did you say?”
Helen’s eyes filled.
“Anna.”
Mom grabbed the edge of the counter.
I had never heard that name before.
Helen reached across the register.
“Margaret, my mother spent most of her life wondering what happened to you.”
“She found a photograph of you years ago. Older than the ones she had as a girl. She kept it beside this box.”
Helen shook her head. “I knew your face before I knew you.”
Mom made a sound I had never heard from her before.
Not quite a sob.
Not quite a word.
Then she whispered, “Anna had a daughter?”
Helen nodded.
“I’m her daughter.”
I stared at Mom.
“Who is Anna?”
Mom looked at me as though she’d forgotten I was standing there.
Her lips trembled.
“A little girl I loved.”
Helen opened the box.
The first thing she removed was a photograph.
The edges were curled.
A young woman stood outside a small white house holding the hand of a girl with dark braids.
The woman was my mother.
She couldn’t have been more than 25.
“She was my sister’s daughter,” Mom said, eyes glued to the photograph.
Her voice was barely audible.
“Her mother died when Anna was six. Her father was working away most of the time then, so Anna came to live with me.”
“At first I thought I was taking care of her because my sister couldn’t anymore. Somewhere along the way, she just became mine too.”
