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I lean forward to get a good whiff. “Yeah, it’s not exactly tropical.”
She pulls it down. “That’s as good as it gets here for salty breezes.” She backs out of the slot and heads to the exit. I pay the fee for her, and then we’re sailing down a highway.
“You’ve never been here, I’m guessing,” she says.
“Nope. Didn’t really plan to visit the city of my bio mom.”
She reaches across the center console to squeeze my arm. “I’m glad you changed your mind. Are you nervous?”
“I’m a lot of things.”
We decided over texts that the first day, we’d go over the plan. We know Anita lives somewhere in the heart of Atlanta, and we also know she tends to spend Saturday mornings at a specific coffee shop.
We have four options. One, message her first. We can do that through several social media outlets where she has accounts.
Two, call her. There’s an option to ring her phone on Facebook through Mom’s secret account. The two of them have been connections for years without Mom ever letting Anita know who she was. I have the log-in. The account for Mom, who goes by “Janet” on it, claims she lives in Atlanta, so Anita won’t suspect it’s a La Jarra spy.
Anita might not respond to a message or a call, though.
The third option is to hang out all morning at the coffee shop and see if she comes. A fourth one is a public library book club she attends. It meets Sunday afternoon.
When I decided to fly to Atlanta, Mom quickly read this month’s book and gave me some talking points if I wanted to show up and check Anita out without giving away who I am.
Tillie seems to recognize I’m lost in thought and lets me ruminate in silence as we drive out to the suburb where she lives with Lila and Rosie. Only when we turn into a neighborhood does she finally say, “This will be all right, one way or another. Whether she becomes someone you meet once or a part of your life, you’ll have done it. You’ll have some answers.”
“Right.”
“Plus, you get to bang me on the side!”
I smile at that.
We pull into a cracked driveway. The house is small, and the green paint is peeling. But it looks serviceable enough.
Tillie kills the engine, which chugs a few times before actually stopping. “Home sweet home. Ensley keeps trying to subsidize a better place for us, but we don’t want her money. We don’t need much.”
“A roof over your head is plenty good enough.”
We step out. “I guess we don’t need your bags,” Tillie says. “You ready?”
“Sure.” I follow her across the scraggly dirt yard. There’s so little color here. But it’s her home.
Tillie unlocks the door and pushes it open. “We’re here!”
I’m not sure how Lila will be after our last conversation back on the island. Tillie has assured me she’s fine with me coming, but I’m braced for whatever happens.
The baby looks up and babbles at us as we step inside. The living room has a flowered sofa and a scarred coffee table. Rosie and Lila are on the floor on a spread-out blanket, rolling a big green ball back and forth.
“It’s Tillie!” Lila says. “And Gabe.” She says my name much less enthusiastically.
“Tuhtuh!” Rosie babbles.
The women laugh.
Tillie turns to me. “We taught Rosie ‘turtle’ in La Jarra, and now she calls me that.”
“Turtle. I like it.” I kneel next to Rosie. “We should all call her Aunt Turtle.”
Tillie nudges my ankle with her flip-flop. “Don’t even think about it.”
