Dos meses.
Traté de pensar en agosto. Lily había estado tranquila. Pensé que era porque la escuela estaba a punto de empezar. La recordé viniendo del garaje una noche con polvo en sus jeans y sus ojos rojos. Le pregunté si estaba bien. Ella dijo: “Alergias”.
I’d believed her.
“She didn’t tell me anything at first,” Annie said. “She just started… being around. Sitting near me at lunch. Saying hi. I thought she felt sorry for me. Everybody feels sorry for me or makes fun of me. There’s no in-between.” She laughed weakly. “Then she found out about the concert. And she asked me what size I wore. I thought she was being weird.”
“Y ayer,” dije.
“Ayer me trajo el vestido antes del primer período”. La cara de Annie se arrugó. “Fue tan hermoso. Nunca nadie me ha hecho nada. Lo puse en el baño, y me quedé perfecto, y me quedé allí y lloré. Y ella estaba muy feliz. Ella estaba saltando arriba y abajo”.
“Then what happened?”
Annie looked at her hands.
“Then I found the box. In the bag. Under the sweater.” She touched the cardigan. “I opened it in the bathroom. And I read the note.”
She stopped. Teresa squeezed her hand.
“Tell her, baby,” Teresa said. “It’s okay.”
Annie tomó un respiro.
“Volví a la sala”, dijo, “y le tiré la caja”.
No me he movido. Estaba conteniendo la respiración.
—No lo sabía —dijo Annie, y ahora estaba llorando mucho. “Lo juro. No sabía que el tío Mike era mi padre. Mi mamá nunca me lo dijo. Pensé que mi padre era un tipo que se fue antes de que yo naciera. Eso es lo que siempre decía”.
Teresa closed her eyes.
“So I read that note,” Annie said, “and I thought Lily was making it up. I thought it was some kind of joke. Like, a really mean joke. Like, rich girl makes the poor girl a dress and then pretends to be her sister so everybody can laugh.”
—No somos ricos —dije débilmente.
“You’re richer than us,” Annie said. Not angrily. Just stating it. “You had a house. You had him.”
I didn’t argue.
“I yelled at her,” Annie said. “In front of everybody. The whole hall. Trevor and his friends and everybody. I said she was a liar. I said… I said ‘you think because your dad’s dead you can just give me some fake dad?’ And I said she could keep her stupid dress. I took it off right there in the bathroom and threw it at her and walked out in my gym clothes.”
