Chapter 12: The Green Woman

I reached Rosewood Gardens at ten to seven, with my coat buttoned over yesterday's clothes.

My mother was sitting up in her chair by the window.

Her cardigan was buttoned right.

Someone had brushed her hair.

"Matilda," she said. "Shut the door, and sit where I can see you."

I sat on the bed and took her hands.

They were cold, and steady.

"The nurse said you remembered something," I said.

"I remember all of it this morning." She looked at me, clear-eyed, and her mouth thinned.

"I don't know how long I'll have it. So you'll listen, and you won't interrupt."

"I won't."

"The day you were eight, the woman in the green dress came to our kitchen."

"I remember her sitting at the table."

"You remember her sitting." My mother's thumb moved over my knuckles. "I remember what she said."

I waited.

"She was five months along," my mother said. "She came to tell me your father was the father."

"She wanted money, and she wanted him to leave me."

The room was very still.

"I gave her a cup of tea," Joan said. "I told her to wait for him."

"When he came home and saw her at my table, he went white."

"Mom."

"He cried, Tilda. Your father, who never cried."

"He said he'd end it. He said he would support the child and never see her mother again."

"And you stayed."

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