Anna in the Afterlife by Merrill Joan Gerber

don’t like food.” Lee was making notes in her notebook. “Do you like men?”
    â€œWho thinks about men anymore?” Anna snapped back. “At my age?”
    â€œAt any age? Did you ever like them at any age?”
    Janet, who was doing something at the sink, called over, “My mother was always a glamour girl, Lee. She had the world’s most beautiful legs. Men were gathered on the front porch like bees to honey.”
    â€œAnd I sprayed them with DDT,” Anna remarked.
    â€œSo,” Lee said, taking more notes. “And did you like sex?” Lee asked her. The nerve of the woman. And with Anna’s young granddaughters wandering in and out of the kitchen.
    â€œLike it, not like it, it’s a fact of life, it sits there like the nose on your face.”
    â€œA person could have a nose job,” Lee said. “Not that I would.”
    â€œNothing is wrong with my nose,” Anna told her.
    â€œMrs. Goldman, do you consider yourself an affectionate person?”
    This Janet answered for Anna. “If you mean is my mother a huggy, kissy type? She definitely is not. She’s all business.”
    â€œForgive me, Mrs. Goldman,” the interrogator said, “but I must ask you this. Were you ever sexually abused as a child?”
    All three of Anna’s granddaughters—who happened to be in the room just then—looked at their grandmother’s face, waiting for an answer.
    â€œWhy would you ask that!” Anna asked, angry now. “How does your mind work? Maybe this is the end of the interview, if you don’t mind.”
    â€œMa,” Janet said, trying to placate her. “Lee has had some problems of that nature in her life. Maybe she just wonders if you might have had some, also. These days we’re learning that it wasn’t such a rare occurrence in a family.”
    â€œI’m in therapy now about my abuse,” the lesbian told Anna, “I can talk about it freely. In fact, that’s what is helping me to be healed. And in a way, I think you exhibit the classic symptoms of someone who has been sexually abused. No enjoyment of food. Recoiling from physical affection. These are prime markers…”
    â€œI watch Oprah, too,” Anna said. “I think it’s all cooked up—everyone suddenly remembers someone peeked at them in the bathtub and they rush to call the police and arrest everyone in the family.”
    â€œIt’s quite normal to be defensive,” Lee said. “I forgive you for your anger. No one wants to admit their privacy was violated by someone they trusted.”
    Anna stood up. “Don’t psychoanalyze me anymore,” Anna said. “It’s making me nauseated. The interview is over.”
    This idea, however, sat in Anna’s mind like an ugly bug. She went to see her sister Gert to ask her what she might remember about their childhood and if any men had ever done anything bad to either of them.
    â€œWho told you something?” Gert said, suddenly on guard.
    â€œ No one told me something. I’m asking you to tell me something.”
    â€œIt’s not about Sam, is it?”
    â€œI didn’t say anything about Sam. I can’t even remember Sam.”
    â€œI remember him perfectly. He was such a handsome boy, he had such strong arms and shoulders. But why are you asking—did someone tell you something about Sam?”
    â€œWhat has he got to do with anything? Did he do something bad?”
    â€œIf he did, it wasn’t his fault,” Gert said. “Mama allowed him to sleep with us when he came home on leave from the army. We had no extra beds, we had to share.”
    â€œHe slept with us?”
    â€œYou can’t really blame him,” Gert said. “He was young and healthy, Mama put him in a little narrow bed with you, you were already twelve, sometimes he slept with me, it’s human nature, maybe he didn’t even know he was