Anneliese
ANNELIESE AND HER big brother, Daan, were turned around on the sofa, their elbows propped on the back. They were watching the excitement at the house next door through the big picture window. Mr. Grootheest tied blue balloons to the bench in his front garden. Visitors bearing gifts swooped on the house like a flock of cawing rooks.
Mrs. Grootheest had gone to the hospital for two days and come home with a baby.
“Where did the baby come from?” Anneliese asked.
“It grew in her belly,” Daan said.
He was nearly seven and knew almost as much as Papa. Maybe she would get smart too, once she was old enough for school.
Anneliese hiked up her T-shirt and looked at her own round tummy, running her finger over her bellybutton.
“How did the baby get out?”
“The doctor took it out.”
She nodded, imagining Mrs. Grootheest’s ponderous belly opening like the trunk of Papa’s car.
“I grew inside Mama,” Daan said, “but you didn’t.”
Daan was always telling stories, and she never knew when to believe him.
“Where did I come from?”
“From another mama’s belly. She didn’t want you.”
Anneliese frowned.
“I have the same blood as Mama and Papa. But you don’t,” Daan said.
Daan had taught her what blood was. It oozed bright red from her skin when he sliced it gently with a knife. She wondered how her blood differed from his. Didn’t she belong to Mama and Papa? Would they decide not to keep her? Her insides twisted into a knot.
Daan smiled and patted her on the head.
She batted his hand away, and he shrieked with laughter. Tears stung her eyes as she clambered up the stairs to their parents’ room, where Mama was smoking in bed, still in her nightgown, and listening to the radio. She spent most of her mornings in bed, coming downstairs in the afternoon to throw out yesterday’s empty wine bottles and fix dinner before Papa got home from work.
“Do you like the music?” Mama asked.
Anneliese nodded and climbed onto the bed.
“That’s Louisa Veldkamp playing the piano. The song is from a movie … one about a ship that sank.”
Anneliese laid her head against her mother’s bony shoulder and listened for a minute to the song. “It’s pretty.”
She gave a sob.
“Something wrong, Liese?” Mama tapped her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray.
“Daan says I didn’t grow in your belly.”
Mama drew deep on the cigarette, then balanced the butt on the rim of the ashtray and watched, as if her answer depended on which way it fell. After a moment, the butt landed on the nightstand.
“It’s true.”
“So … we don’t have the same blood?”
“Me and Papa don’t either.”
Anneliese pondered for a minute.
“Why didn’t my mommy want me?” she asked with a loud sniff.
“She wanted you, but she went to heaven when you were born. So we adopted you.”
“What was my mommy’s name?”
Mama reached for a tissue and swiped at Anneliese’s nose. “I forget. The name isn’t important. I’m your mama now.”
“Ap … dotted,” Anneliese said, testing the strange new word as she snuggled against Mama’s thin chest just as the pretty song ended.