Chapter 2

Vanessa spent the rest of the day in her office. She did not go out for lunch. The food that Sally brought in went largely untouched and finally she shoved it into the waste basket next to her desk. She rarely answered the phone, begging off answering because of a headache letting her voicemail pick it up instead. Pandora sat forgotten on her PC, its “Are you still listening” message ignored. A notepad sat on her desk with scribbling mixed with various spellings of her name and the name that Quest had told her was her mother’s.

                Her mother- Alisondre or was it Alisandra? Morgane or was it Morgraine? She had googled it and only got mixed results. The results varied from one where there was an Allisondre in a series of books by some guy named Robert Jordan, but she was a minor character albeit a queen.  The others fell into Facebook pages all the way to variations on the name with Google insisting that she meant Allison Drive for some reason.

                Morgrane or Morgraine came up with better results… well somewhat better results. Apparently there was a World of Warcraft hero named Mograine and the hero’s mother was named Alexandra Mograine which was interesting. That is until she learned that World of Warcraft was this online video game anyway. Another interesting search result was that there was a woman supposedly of King Arthur’s time if he really had existed out of more than a fairy tale anyway. This woman was purportedly supposed to have been half Fae- that is Fairy- though different somehow. It was all confusing. Morgraine was supposedly the woman or Fae that killed Merlin the Wizard or some such nonsense.

                Frustrated with Google and Computers in general, she had returned to her layouts only to find her mind turning over the strange meeting with the man who called himself Quest. She felt like she had known him but had no clear memory of him other than the one he had shown her. She racked her brain for some reference that anyone in her family had made about him or her real mother. She came up empty; she had brothers and parents who had raised her. None of their names were anything like Alisandra Morgraine.

                Sue stuck her head in the door, blonde curls bouncing.                                                                                 

                “Your Mom is on line 3.”

                Vanessa must have jumped as if she had been goosed. From Sue’s reaction to her own expression she guessed she must have really jumped high.

                “I’m sorry, what did you say Sue?”

                Sue sighed and clicked her tongue.

                “Your Mom- you know- the one who bore you?”

                “No- she can’t have- she’s…”

                Sue crinkled her brow. “Earth to boss? What are you saying? That the woman on the line is not Mrs. What’s her name-Mother Schumpert?”

                Vanessa gave herself a visible shake and blinked a couple of times.

                “Sorry, was somewhere else.”

                “That’s obvious, are you okay?”

                “Yes, it was just this meeting I had today- that guy, he really threw me.”

                “What guy?”

                Vanessa was about to say Quest when it dawned on her that Sue had not said anything about his surprise visit and appointment. Instead of answering directly, Vanessa stood and smoothed her skirt. For a moment she thought it was damp and suddenly she had a sense of salty laced wind. Then it cleared and she looked over at Sally.

                “What did you say?”

                Sue walked over and before Vanessa could react, placed her hand on her temple. Frowning she looked into her bosses eyes as if to confirm something.

                “No temperature, you must really be distracted, look, your mother is on the phone and waiting.” Gently she led Vanessa over to the desk, and handed Vanessa her phone. She shook her head twice before walking out of the office.

                Truth be told, Sally seemed to remember some man coming into the office, but she was not sure it hadn’t been Frank, the managing partner of the Agency. Though she could not remember what Frank had said nor done other than some fragment of him talking about the state of the economy or some such nonsense. If Vanessa hadn’t said anything she would have forgotten that anyone had come in today at all. The thought nagged at the edge of her memory, but by the time she had returned to her desk, she had forgotten what had seemed so important.

                Vanessa watched the confusion spread over Sue’s face, then melt away as her secretary turned and walk away. She wondered at the lack of quip or comment that failed to issue from her secretary. It was unnerving since this would be the first time that Sally had not quipped or commented at her about something she had failed to do or was about to do, since she had come to work for Vanessa. She held the handset up and pressed the line 3 button.

                “Hello? Mom.” She croaked out the last word. Mom sounded suddenly strange and inappropriate for some reason.

                “Hello Sweetness.” Her mother chirped then paused to take a breath. A long moment passed.

                “Vanessa? Is something wrong Honey?”

                Vanessa shook herself out of what ever had taken hold of her, cleared her throat.

                “Sorry, just a little distracted today, nothing is wr-“

                “Well, Honey.” Her mother interrupted. “As you may have forgotten, tomorrow night we are meeting your father at TGI-Fridays for your brother’s birthday party and I need you to pick up some things for the party.”

                Crap, the party! Of course, why else would her mother call her at work? She had completely forgotten about the party. Guiltily she looked down at the dress she had squeezed into this morning- the one she intended to wear to this party.

                “Anyway, dear, I need you to stop a Lederman’s Deli and-“

                “Mom?”

                “Yes Vanessa?” her mother sounded annoyed at being interrupted.

                “Are you… Are you my real mother?” that sounded so wrong, so unnatural. What was she doing? She needed to apologize and shut up, leave it alone. “I meant, I mean are you my biological – birth mother?”

                The sudden silence on the line spoke volumes on the line as Vanessa sat in terror of what could be said, what would be said, what might be said, her heart beginning to break.

                “Well…” her mother began to say then stopped. The voice sounded strained and unsure, so unlike her mother had been all the time she had known her. The thought struck her sharply; all the time she had known this woman who had raised her? Not all her life but a given period of time. 

                “Where is this coming from?” Her mother asked instead.

                “Is it true?” Vanessa persisted; the tears began to roll down her cheeks again. They were hot and burned as the fell.

                “Yes, Honey it is true.” Her mother suddenly sounded defeated. “We adopted you when you were about four years old from an orphanage outside Chicago. St. Anne’s I think…”

                “Why-“Vanessa’s voice broke; she had to swallow back the bile and urge to vomit as panic and despair threatened to overtake her. “Why didn’t you tell me>”

                “I, I,-“Her mother stammered as she tried to regain her footing. “You were so happy, so sure- that I, We decided that it could- no would wait…”

                “No….” Vanessa’s vision blurred. It was a whisper a prayer, hot tears pushed out from her eyes to slide down her suddenly cold clammy cheeks. “Momma….”

                “Besides you never asked.” Her mother said quickly as if to reestablish that she was the parent here. “Now what is this all about, Vanessa?”