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"Annie? Annie, I know you're there. We have to talk. Pick up the phone. Annie, pick it up ... Fine, you're not there. You have to call me. Elizabeth Anne McCay, we have to talk, you must call me."
Monday 10.32am.
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"Annie, you haven't called me. I am still your mother, and I brought you up better than to run away and hide from your problems – not that this would be problem if you would talk to me. (No, I will not leave her alone. She is my daughter and I have a right to explain.) Stop this nonsense, Annie, and call me."
Tuesday 12.03pm.
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"Well, I know you're alive Annie, if that's what you were trying to make me worry about. I passed Diana on George Street and she said you were doing fine. 'Doing fine' – her exact words. Did you tell her to say them? Because I know you are not 'doing fine'. If you were 'doing fine' you would have called, we would have talked, you might have started to forgive me. Damn it, Annie, I've been your mother for seventeen years, don't I deserve a fair trial? Even murderers get a trial, and I certainly haven't killed anyone ... It's complicated, alright? And it's not something I feel comfortable explaining over the phone, much less over an answer-phone so ... Annie, Annie-baby, call me, please?"
Wednesday 4.15pm.
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"You've locked me out, there's no way in. You won't answer your phone, your cellphone, texts, or emails. Your friends have stopped talking to me – did you tell them not to talk to me? Your roommate says you're not in, I don't know where else you could have gone ... Did you go to see her? Have you gone–"
Thursday 2.28pm.
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"Annie, Annie-baby, I miss you. I used to sing you a song – My baby don't care for shoes, my baby don't care for blues. My baby just cares for me – It's very late Annie. I love– (Damn, I dropped it)..."
Friday 3.06am.
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"Hello, Annie. I tried to give you some space but ... I've been wondering how you found out. I whittled it down to three possibilities. One, that girl somehow found me, found us, and got to you. Two, you were rifling through my files and found your birth certificate, your original one, but what you were doing in there in the first place I can't ... And three, David told you. He told me to tell you. He said that lies would only beget more lies and betrayals and well obviously it will if he's going to go behind my back and tell secrets that were not his to tell. I know I should have told you sooner; I was waiting for the right time – I know it's a terrible cliché and I can hear you rolling your eyes but it's so very true. I ... Annie, you're my daughter, you always will be my daughter. I love you."
Sunday 11.59am.
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"Annie, pick up. You're still not there – excellent! What a surprise! I was scared. I was scared that if I told you, you would hide your self away and there would be no way to reach you – and wasn't I justified! This is what I expected to happen and this is exactly what you did. I know you, and that is why I didn't tell you."
Sunday 9.27pm.
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"Annie, I didn't mean it. Of course I didn't mean it. You know me. We do have to talk, Annie, you can't hide forever."
Monday 8.08pm.
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"You haven't called. I haven't heard from you in a week and a half. I haven't heard, or seen, or touched hide nor hair of you. I don't want to be so dramatic, but you're killing me. I'm dying, Annie. Ha! Yes, I know we all are slowly, inevitably – do you remember the day you told me ... I should stop calling you so late. You're not there in the middle of the day, why should you be there at two in the morning? ... Are you really not there? Am I talking to myself? ... At least your roommate hasn't disconnected the phone – she must want to by now. Alright, I'm going. Sleep well, keep safe. Call me."
Wednesday 2.40am.
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"Annie, I'm driving ... I'm coming to see you ... can you hear me? This phone ... I don't have any more money, you stupid machine ... I'll see you ..."
Thursday 1.52pm.
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"It happened like this. I met your biological mother outside an abortion clinic. Did she tell you that? She was entering, I was picketing the entrance. That, Elizabeth Anne, is how I know absolutely that I am your mother: I gave you life. Did she tell you that? Your biological mother was wearing white capri pants, a filmy blue top, and huge black sunglasses – I remember because I threw paint at her. Red paint.
And as she stood there dripping, her first thought was that it might stain her hair, her pretty white-blonde hair. You have her hair, you know that now. And her clothes and shoes were ruined – that's why we stayed in touch, why we ever talked at all. She demanded my name and phone number so that I would pay for the damage, because mummy and daddy didn't know where she had been going.
Do you know why she wanted to get rid of you? She showed me. I was at her house – I had convinced her to tell her parents, and her parents that if they sent their daughter away for a little while I would take full responsibility for the child and nobody would need ever know; I would never contact them. At her house, I went with her to her bedroom and she pulled a dress out of her closet. It was green, sort of layered, like leaves all overlapping, above-knee, lettuce green. There was this dance, see, and this boy she liked was going to ask her to it and she wanted to go, she wanted to wear that green dress more than anything and go and dance and maybe that boy would kiss her. But a bump would have ruined all that, wouldn't it?
Tossed away because of a dance and a dress and the possibility of a boy. At least I knew your worth ... I can't have children – I can't but I always wanted one more than anything. So I got you, Annie-baby.
Do you remember what you screamed at me before you ran out of the house and disappeared? 'You should have told me! I should have been allowed to make my own decision! I should have been given the choice!' Annie, if I were pro-choice, you'd be dead. You would never existed except for a few weeks in the womb of an over-indulged, pampered little girl. Did she tell you..."
Friday 4.19pm.
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"The machine stopped before I was finished. I wanted to tell you, I saw you. Do you listen to your messages? I'm sure I left one, I drove up to see you. I couldn't stand waiting around the phone a second longer, I had to see you. And I did. In that little cafe around the block from campus where we would go and sit and talk whenever I visited. And you had her with you. What was she telling you? Why were you laughing? There is nothing to laugh with her about, only at her – her and her disgusting ... I think, and David agrees, that you should come home. We have things to work through, private family things. You were really too young to go so far away – university at seventeen, really too young. David and I, as your legal guardians, insist that you come home, until you're ready to go out in the big, wide world. We've ordered a taxi for tomorrow. I love you, Annie."
Friday 4.22pm.
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