But did I have another option?
I toyed fretfully with my hair, waiting for Fyodora to appear, and when she did, I shot to my feet.
“Did you find something?”
“Barely,” she responded.
Barely.That wasn’t the same as nothing. It meant there was a possibility, small though it may be. I felt the world revolving around me.
Fyodora sat down and handed the photos back to me.
“There wasn’t anything in our files from the years when your mother was here, but on a hunch, I decided to look at the group photos we used to take of the students at the end of each semester, summer included.”
I dug my nails so deeply in my thighs that it hurt.
“And?”
Fyodora set before me a xeroxed copy of a photo: black and white, a little dark. But I could still see the guy I was looking for in the group. He was fourth from the bottom. Under the photo was a caption with a list of names.
“Going from left to right, one, two, three… Giulio Dassori.”
Holding my breath, I repeated that name to myself:Giulio Dassori, Teatro di San Carlo Ballet School, Naples.Fyodora and I looked at each other, and she rested her hand on mine. I gripped her fingers, feeling comforted, and told her thanks, even though I could barely speak.
“My father used to say if you see a sign, you have to follow it. Because once you leave it behind, it might never come back,” she told me.
“What do you mean?”
“I think this is your sign, Maya. And you need to follow it. My father also said there was no such thing as coincidence, that everything happens for a reason. Fate is pulling the strings, guidingus—not like marionettes, though. It’s asking us to be the heroes of our own stories, not bit actors in the stories of others.”
“You say that like I was an actor in a play and Fate was the director.”
“Sure, why not? I mean, life is made up of interlocking stories, and the world’s the stage. It’s that simple and that complicated.”
I looked down at our hands, which were still joined. Complicated—sure. Simple—I didn’t know about that.
“Do you really think this is a sign?” I asked.
“It would be worth it to find out. What do you have to lose?”
Looking at Fyodora, I felt a security that was unusual for me. Excitement, almost. A yearning I had stifled as long as I could remember to finally know my father.
“I don’t want to get too emotional. It might not even be him.”
“It might not. But what if it is?”
What if it is?I thought. Would I ignore the signs? Would I grab the line Fate was throwing me? Would I become the hero of my story or would I go on letting others’ decisions guide me?
An invisible hand seemed to be crushing me. There were so many opportunities that it was frightening.
I kissed Fyodora twice on the cheek to say goodbye, and full of gratitude, I walked to the bus stop, unable to stop thinking about the man in the photos with my mother. They were clearly close. So comfortable together, holding each other… When two people care about each other, there’s something in their eyes you can’t deny.
I wondered what could have happened between them that would make her never even mention him.
Maybe he had gotten scared and left her hanging when he learned she was pregnant.
Maybe he was one of those guys who was incapable of takingresponsibility or thinking of anyone but himself. The worldwasfull of men like that. Cruel, stupid, egotistical men.
But I forced myself to put an end to those negative thoughts. Maybe he wasn’t anybody like that and here I was accusing him of terrible things for no reason.
