can just talk to her, we will. If not, they'll bust her for being under the influence, or something like that.”
Faye sounded shocked. “Is she on drugs?”
Lionel hesitated as he looked at John. They were both sick to death of the Haight-Ashbury, the filth, the drugs, the scum, the scams, the kids. They were almost ready to give up, but now … if it could just be her … “Yeah, Mom. It looks like she is. If that's Anne. She doesn't look too great.”
“Is she hurt?” There was such anguish in Faye's voice that it tore at his heart.
“No. Just spaced out. And she's living in a pretty strange place. It's some kind of Eastern sect.”
“Oh Christ …” Maybe she had shaved her head. Faye couldn't imagine it. The whole place had been beyond her when she had gone up to meet Lionel and John to look for her before. She had actually been relieved when they had sent her away. But now she wanted to go back. She suddenly sensed that it could be Anne this time, and she wanted to be there too. She could still envision her as she had been the day she was born. It was hard to believe it was so long ago.
“Well call you tomorrow, Mom. As soon as we know something.”
“I'll be in the office all day.” And then, “Should I make a reservation on an afternoon flight, just in case?”
He smiled into the phone. “Just hang in. I'll call you either way, whether it's Anne or not.”
'Thank you, sweetheart.” He was the dearest son a woman could want, and so what if he was gay. He was a better son to her than Greg had ever been, although she loved them both. But Greg lacked his sensitivity. He would never have dropped out of school for three months to look for Anne. In fact, when he had come home at Easter, he had said that he thought Lionel was nuts. But Ward had glared at him instantly for speaking the forbidden name, and she had to control herself not to lash out at him in front of Greg. She had had all she could take, and maybe it would be a relief to get a divorce from him. But she couldn't think of that now. All she could think about was Anne.
She lay awake long after Lionel and she hung up, thinking of Anne when she had been a little girl, the things she had done, the funny things she'd said, the way she'd hidden so much of the time, the way she'd clung to Lionel. The timing of her birth had been unfortunate, Faye realized now, but that was no one's fault. Disaster had struck only weeks after she'd been born, and Faye had had her hands full selling the house, their antiques, her jewelry, moving them all into the hideous little house in Monterey Park, and then Ward leaving them, and her trying to support them all herself. Anne had sort of gotten lost in the shuffle of it all. The others had been just old enough to not need her quite as much, and she had given all her time to them before that. But not to Anne … never to Anne … she had worked ever since then, and Anne had kind of gotten tossed in with the pack. Faye could remember moments now when the nurse had come to her, months after Anne had been born, asking her if she wanted to hold the child, or give her her next bottle, and Faye had told her, “Not now … I don't have time.” She had brushed her off again and again, and Anne had paid the price for it. How could you tell a child like that that you did care, that you always had, but that you just hadn't had the time … what right did one have to have the child if one had no time for it? And yet, when she had been conceived, their life had been so easy, and she had had all the time in the world. Bad timing, bad luck … bad mother, she told herself again and again as she lay in the big empty bed, thinking about Anne, and wondering if it was too late, if Anne would hate her for the rest of her life. It was possible, she recognized that now. Some things could never be mended again, like her relationship with Ward … and