I can learn… I have to learn…
“You gonna be a good boy?” Sergei asks. I’ll kill him someday too. “Because you’re not finding your bitch ever again. I made sure of that.”
I lose myself again, but I don’t die. Whatever happened, I woke up beaten to shit in the back of the warehouse with the door locked.
He kept me there for six days, and then I figured out how to read the barcodes on his stock. Whatever he needed the nitroglycerin for, I had better uses for it.
I got some shrapnel blown into my back, but what remained of the door opened, and Sergei never mentioned not needing me again.
He was right—I couldn’t find Vera.
I looked for a long time. Maybe she met someone on the internet. Could be a foreigner, that’s why her last name doesn’t appear in any databases. She probably married off. Because I scared her, and she had no other choice. We have to live being apart and I have to find a way to be okay with that becauseIhave no other choice.
I would repeat this every minute of the day until eventually the words became a truth that I could keep locked up, because thinking otherwise might set me off. Because it’s ticking, still ticking, and I can’t get it to stop.
I wish I had music loud enough to drown the sounds out.
40
Dues
Amonth after Elena’s death, Vitali received the fake passports and visa documents for Mama and Maxim. They came through a German heritage integration program, complete with birth certificates and church records from some small town in the southeast.
I brought Vitali when I told Mama about my plan, and she outright refused to entertain the idea, but my words had instilled a seed of fear in her eyes. It killed me to do it, but I made decisions that put my family at risk, and it was too late to back out. I failed her as a daughter, but I would do whatever I could to do better by them now.
“I don’t think we should tell Maxim,” I said. We were all gathered in her kitchen, and Mama sat pale-faced across the table from me. “This doesn’t mean you have to leave just… that you can.”
Mama sighed deeply, not looking up, and shook her head. “Katushka…”
“They provide language courses that are included with theprogram,” Vitali assured her. “There are Russian speakers there. They have whole communities; every sign and street name is written in Russian.”
She covered her face, palms pressed tightly against her eyes. For a long time, she said nothing.
Vitali slid into the chair beside her. At first, he put one arm around her shoulders, and when she didn’t move, he pulled her into a full hug. “I’ll make sure you have everything you need.”
She kept shaking her head no, but did lean into the embrace.
Pieces of my heart lay broken across the checkered pattern of the tablecloth, holding it together because there was no other way. A poor time for self-pity, and I had to remind myself that there was no food before Vitali. No money for the apartment. No money for Maxim’s school or Mama’s medicines. They would have all that and more, even in Germany.
But I wouldn’t have them… and neither would Vitali.
When I looked up, Mama was crying, and he had shifted in his chair so she could do so in the privacy of his chest. It would be easier for her to hate me, and I appreciated that he could be there to comfort her instead.
They sat on the couch and watched Mama’s favorite show, Santa Barbara, while I made dinner. I’d never heard Vitali mention it once, but he knew enough to argue with her over Julia being justified in blowing up at Mason. Funny how Vitali took the stance that she should have already left, since Mason was keeping secrets and shouldn’t have let his father get in the middle of the relationship.
Maxim came home sporting a black eye. He’d been off somewhere with the friends he met over the past few months. Vitali got him a bike, so when the weather was nice he was gone a lot. My brother immediately sensed something in theway Mama acted. He kept himself casual, like a bored teenager, when he asked what was going on—but panic wrote itself all over his features.
“You might get to visit some cool places,” Vitali told him. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Where?”
Mama turned away. Her steps were wide as she hurried to the kitchen.
“Do you like fishing?” Vitali asked.
Maxim nodded, growing increasingly paler. He wasn’t dumb, I’d give him that. He had no wish to look past things like his older sister. Kids talked—boys talked.
“I’ll take you fishing in a few days, closer to the weekend,” Vitali continued.
