There was a big bay window in the front living room of my new house in Santa Monica, and once Sebastian discovered that, he forgave me for moving him out of his house in Pasadena. Likewise, I forgave him for being a cat, as I spent afternoons in the window seat with him lying on my lap purring while I read the new script options Liza sent over.
Just about two months after I moved in, I had read enough to settle on my next project, a Netflix series adaptation of a novel I’d read the summer before my mother died and had absolutely loved. It was a supporting role, so maybe it wouldn’t have quite the same impact on my career as the leading role in a big-budget biopic might have. But it was a great role—my favorite character since Addy. I would be playing a live-in housekeeper for an extremely wealthy and handsome man, and I was going to start shadowing an actual live-in housekeeper in Malibu next week. We’d spoken over the phone once. She’d sounded almost more excited than I was, and I felt it again in my chest, the elation I always get from acting, from learning, from becoming.
Then, one afternoon in mid-September, Sebastian and I were sitting in the window seat, as I read through the script again, preparing for the table read. And I suddenly looked up and saw Gloria walking up the front pathway to my door.
I closed my eyes, certain I must be imagining her. But she was still there when I opened them again. And then, my doorbell chimed.
In a few months’ time, I’d put Gloria and my strange week in Washington behind me. So what if I still thought about Will? So what if I had a recurring dream now of being trapped in a pantry with him? I would never see him again, and ultimately, it didn’t mean more than my subconscious not cooperating with what I was doing in my waking hours.
I had forwarded my 23andMe results to Tate in an email back in July and asked her to share them with Gloria. I also let her know I was mailing Gloria something to her house, and then I sent the card I’d found on my mother’s bookshelf. I had debated throwing it out, or keeping it, or shredding it along with the tax returns, but then I decided if my mother had written the word Mare on the front, it meant that she had wanted to share it with her. I wasn’t sure why she never had. Maybe she’d lost it or forgotten about it. But in any case, I hoped it would bring some closure for Gloria.
The doorbell rang again, and then I moved an annoyed Sebastian off my lap. Gloria had never responded to any of what I’d sent her, and Tate hadn’t even acknowledged my email. I could not imagine what would have driven Gloria to show up here now, out of the blue, months later.
I opened the door and stared at her for a moment before I said anything. She was dressed up today: a light gray sequin top, a black fur stole around her shoulders and black leather pants. Her big blond wig was piled up on top of her head, and a long strand of diamonds hung from each ear.
“Amelia,” she said my name softly, as she looked me over too. I was dressed in leggings and my Saving Addy tee. My hair was in a messy bun, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d put on makeup.
“What are you doing here?” I finally asked her, tucking stray hairs behind my ears.
“May I come in?” she asked.
It felt too rude to say no, so even though I wasn’t sure I really wanted her to, I opened the door wider and gestured for her to walk inside. Sebastian stared at her from his perch in the window.
“Beautiful cat,” Gloria said.
“He was my mother’s.” At the mention of my mother, Gloria’s face suddenly fell. “Please, have a seat.” I felt guilt rising in my chest, though I wasn’t sure exactly why. I had done nothing wrong. I gestured toward my new sectional. “Can I get you anything, Gloria? Water? Coffee? Hot toddy?” I added, though I wasn’t even certain I had the ingredients for that on hand.
She shook her head, and she sat down, resting her cane and her bag at her feet. “I actually came here to give you something.” She pulled what looked like a typed manuscript out of her bag and handed it to me.
On the front there was one line, a title: The Real Gloria Diamond. “I don’t understand,” I said.
“I read everything you sent me, and I think I got a lot of things wrong over the years,” she said softly. “You had so many questions for me, and I didn’t know how to tell you the truth about anything. Seeing you brought up so much old emotional turmoil for me. I know I treated you terribly when we met over the summer. And it wasn’t fair to you.” She paused and ran a finger down the long spiral of diamonds hanging from her earlobe. “The only way I know how to do things is to write them down. So there you have it.”
The pages felt heavy in my hands. The Real Gloria Diamond? “So this is the truth about your life? About my mother?” I asked.
She nodded. “My version of the truth, anyway. We all tell stories to ourselves, but some of them are truer than others.” Before I could reason out what that meant, she cleared her throat and continued talking. “And do with this what you will. It’s not meant for anyone’s eyes but yours. But sell it to the tabloids if you wish. I’d probably deserve it.”
“I would never sell it to the tabloids,” I said. No matter what had happened last summer, I wasn’t going to do anything to make Gloria’s life more difficult.
She smiled a little, maybe the first genuine smile I’d ever seen from her. “You have your mother’s kindness,” she said. “And her passion,” she added. Then she gestured to the manuscript. “Read it now. I’ll wait.”
“Right now?” My heart pounded furiously in my chest, and I wondered if I really wanted to know everything she had written in these pages. I thought about what Gaitlin said, that truth is always better than conjecture. But what was Gloria’s version of the truth, anyway? And what could she know about my mother that I never had?
Gloria nodded. “Go ahead,” she said gently. “And then if you have any questions, I’ll answer them for you. I mean it this time.”