Katya tried to sound indignant. “Dad! I wasn’t ready.”
“But you looked so sweet there together.”
Katya rolled her eyes, but she grinned.
“I’ll get one of all of you now, okay? Grigory! Tanya! Come on! Let’s take a photo with all these pretty birds.”
Katya’s brother and sister trotted over and got into the frame. Katya and Tatiana posed, facing the camera this time with their arms around the younger children.
Nikolai took great care setting up the shot and focusing his camera. Tanya squirmed. Grigory said, “Come on, Daddy. I want to see the lions.”
“Niko, please,” said Kati’s mom.
“I want it to be a good one. These are our memories, kids!”
Finally, he was ready. “Okay, everybody, smile!”
And they did.
Chapter Fifteen
The morning after she and Aggie moved back into the house on Orange Grove Avenue, Aili called Tatiana Kostaskaya in Moscow. The woman answered after three rings. Even after almost five years, Aili recognized her voice; it stuck in her head like super glue put it there.
“Mrs. Kostaskaya,” Aili said, and continued haltingly, her Russian rusty from lack of use. “This is Aili MacIntire. Do you remember me?”
“Of course,” Tatiana answered, then continued in much better English than Aili remembered. Aili wondered if Katya’s mother studied the language just for this moment, when she could hear about her granddaughter again. “I have read about Mr. Tokan in the papers. Is my granddaughter okay?”
“Yes, she’s wonderful. Aggie is—” Then she stopped and started again. “I’m sorry. I changed her name. Ivanovich knew it.”
“Of course, of course,” Tatiana responded. “She’s good though?”
“Yes, she’s a sweet girl, lovely and smart. She’s the light of my life. I, um… I just started her in school, but she’s been reading for a year.”
“Oh!” was all Tatiana said. Aili could tell that she was crying.
“I call her Aglaya.”
“Oh! ‘Beauty.’ Yes!”
“I would like to send you pictures and things. And once I can explain to her everything that happened, I would like you to be able to talk to her on the phone sometimes.”
“Oh, yes, please!” More tears.
“There is one other thing. We have been given plane tickets, and we want to come see you—”
“Yes!”
“Well, that is the main reason I called. I wondered when would be good for you and—”
“Today! As soon as you could come here.”
Aili cried too now, and she laughed through her tears. “Well, it might take a week or two to get everything ready, but I also would like to come very soon.”
“You always are welcome!”
“All right. Well, I will get on this today, and I’ll call you back in a day or so to let you know. When I call back, you can talk with Aggie.”
“Yes! Oh, as you say, ‘Can’t wait!’”
“No. Me either.”
When Aggie woke up that morning, Aili gave her some chocolate milk and cereal and sat down at the dining room table facing her. “So… we need to talk about something.”
“Okay, Mommy,” Aggie said, too young to be scared of conversations that started like that.
Aili, on the other hand, was nervous. “I need to tell you something, something I wanted to tell you before now, but I couldn’t. To keep you safe, see? I worried that if you knew, then the bad guys could find out, so I didn’t tell you, even though I knew you should have known, that you should have always known.”
Aggie, her face full of Cheerios, gave Aili a puzzled look.
“You know I love you a lot, sweetie, don’t you?”
Aggie swallowed her cereal. “Yes, Mama. I love you too.”
“Well, good, and this won’t change that. Nothing changes that.”
The little girl had a bit of “duh” in her tone. “I know, Mommy.”
“Well, you know the story I’ve always told you about Princess Katie and the ogre and Princess Annie.”
“Yeah, I love that story.”
“Okay, so what if it was kind of like real life in some ways? Like you were Princess Annie, and the ogre and the thief were our bad guys and…” Aili’s voice trailed away because Aggie looked more and more confused. “You know I’ll always love you, right?”
“Of course, Mommy.” But Aggie looked more bewildered. Then, suddenly, her face opened up. “Are you trying to tell me about my other mommy, the one who died? I know all about her, Mom.”
Now Aili shot a knit brow and pursed lips at her daughter. “How did you know? Did Uncle Beck or—”
“I just did, Mama.”
“You know about her?”
“Yeah.”
Aili started slow, trying to recover. “Well, we are going to go on a trip soon, because her family, your grandmas, aunt, and uncle, want to meet you.”
“Cool.”
“Do you want to talk to your grandma on the phone tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, I do. Can I please go play now?”
“Sure,” Aili told her.
The little girl chugged her chocolate milk then slid out of her chair. Aili stared at her in amazement.
* * *
Three days after they moved back into the house on Orange Grove Avenue, in the evening after dinner, Aggie was playing in the front yard when she started calling excitedly for her mother. Aili sat in her room with her laptop and planned their trip to Russia the following week. She had left the front window open so she could hear her daughter, but she enjoyed feeling a little safer than before and liked the idea of giving Aglaya a little more freedom. When she heard the girl’s shouts, her stomach clenched for half a second, but Aggie’s tone was full of happy. She relaxed, closed her computer, ambled out the front door, and stopped breathing.
Matthew Gold sat on the lawn, holding Aggie in his lap. His car sat at an angle along the curb with the driver’s side door left open. The vehicle still idled, the keys in the ignition. Matt peered at Aili with an awkward smile, and Aili could tell that calling her into the reunion hadn’t exactly been his idea.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey! I’m not trying to kidnap your daughter, by the way. I was driving by on my way home and saw her, and I… I should’ve asked, I know, but she was on me before I could take one step toward the door.”
Aili waited for his rambles to fall silent. “No, it’s okay. I trust you, you know that. And she really missed you.”
“I missed her too. When did you guys get home?”
“A couple of days ago. Tokan took a plea deal, imagine that.”
“I actually read about that in the Journal. That’s really good news.”
“A good surprise for us. A relief.”
They stared at each other awkwardly another moment. Aggie broke the silence. “Let’s go to the park. Mama, can we?”
Matt waited for Aili to answer, always good about letting her make the decisions about her daughter.
“Do you want to go to the park?” Aili asked him.
“Sure. It would be fun for us all to—”
“Well, I’ve got to finish what I’m doing, but if you—”
“I would love to take Aggie.”
“Oh, Mama, come,” Aggie pleaded.
“I can’t, sweetheart. I’m working on our trip.” To Matt, she said, “We’re going to Russia to meet Katya’s family.”
“Awesome!” He meant it, she could tell. “That will be a great thing for all of you. I bet they’ve really missed getting to know her.”
“Tatiana is excited, and I could tell she was crying. She wanted us to come as soon as possible.”
“I’m sure she did.”
Aili chewed on her bottom lip. “Anyway, I should…”
“I got it. I’m sorry you’re too busy to come with us, but I understand.”
Yeah, Aili thought, he understood all right. Matt was sharp
. He understood perfectly she didn’t want to be around him now that they’d broken up.
He glanced down at his green Chuck Taylors, popped his knuckles, then looked back up at her. “I will bring her back by eight thirty.”
Aili nodded. Matt took Aggie’s hand and stepped toward his car, but Aggie pulled in the opposite direction. “Can we get ice cream?” she asked, looking at both of them.
Aili laughed and looked at Matt. “I’ll get you some money.”
“Naw, I’ve got it.”
“Yay!” Aggie said.
Matt swung the little girl up into his arms and carried her toward the car. Aili went inside and tried to go back to work but just ended up thinking about Matthew Gold. She remembered happy things about their relationship and pushed all the memories away. She wondered if he was seeing anyone yet, but she told herself it didn’t matter. It would never work between them, not after everything she’d put him through.
Aggie still loved him so much.
Aili still did, too, though she didn’t like admitting it to herself.
Before she knew it, the doorbell rang. Aggie slept in Matt’s arms, and Aili let him carry the little girl to her bed.
“Did you two have fun?” she asked him as she walked him out.
His face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Yeah. It was great. She wore me out, but I always have a great time with her, you know that.”
“You’re good with her.”
“She’s good for me.”
“She really loves you.”
He gave her a funny look then, before he slowly said, “I love her too.”
“I appreciate you taking her out. I’m sure she loved it.”
“I did too. But what are trying to say, Aili?”
Man, he knew her too well. Finally she said, “Just that I think you’re good for her. I think it’s important she has good guys in her life, to be like father figures, you know, as her own father isn’t good for that. And, well, if you still want to be in her life, you’re more than welcome.”
“I do want to be in her life. I want—”
Just in case he was going to start talking about Aili and their relationship instead of his and Aggie’s, Aili interrupted him. “So we’ll keep in touch when we come back from Russia, about some times you can hang out with her.”
“Play dates? Yeah, okay.” They reached the door, and Aili opened it, but he didn’t step through. He said, “So how’d the trip planning go?”
Aili hadn’t done a single thing since he and Aggie had left. “Good,” she lied. “It’s really coming along.”
He nodded. “Awesome. You have a good time, and we’ll talk when you get back.”
Aili nodded too. “Sounds good,” she responded, but something told her he didn’t mean the same thing she had meant by “talk.”
Then he was gone.
A couple mornings later when Aili went to get her mail, she found a new bar stool sitting on her doorstep with a big, bright blue bow tied to it.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…
Aili lay on her back, stared at the ceiling, and counted the specks in the tiles, hoping it would bore her enough to help her fall asleep.
She left for college tomorrow.
She had so much to think about.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…
She was glad to get out of this house. She’d lived in it alone with her father for thirteen years, which meant she didn’t really remember living any other way. She had only the thinnest recollections of her mother, who died when Aili was three. Her whole life, Aili had believed her mother’s death was an accident, but her father was kind enough to inform her (just this morning, in fact) that Kathleen MacIntire had committed suicide.
Vindictive old jerk.
Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…
He also said, “Remember to keep your back up straight. You can’t be the shy little mouse at college with all these older kids. They’ll eat you alive. You need to look confident and brave if you want to survive. You can’t let them take advantage of you. No child of mine is going to be a wimp. And stop acting so smart. If you substitute supposed intelligence for actual social skills, everyone will hate you. You’ll become the punch line in every practical joke.”
Twenty-five, twenty-six…
She was his only child, sixteen years old and headed to college, and he was concerned that she’d embarrass him. Like he was some kind of social genius or something. He hadn’t had a single date in thirteen years.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, jerk, idiot…
Part of Aili understood, probably from something she read in a psychology textbook, that these blowhard lectures were her father’s way to look out for her and give her what passed in his mind as wise, fatherly advice. He was so bad at being supportive. Not that he learned much better from his parents. These crappy parenting habits seemed to go all the way back to Eden.
Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two…
Aili should vow right now never to have children.
Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five...
At least not until she learned something better.
Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight…
Maybe that was why she coveted a psychology degree. Even though her emphasis would be criminal psychology (she wanted to go to law school afterwards, then, fingers crossed, join the FBI), maybe she hoped that she would learn something to make her a better person than her parents.
Thirty-nine, forty, fat chance, good luck…
If she learned anything from watching her father live his life, it was that things didn’t always turn out like you planned…
Forty-one, forty-two…
And it usually wasn’t because they turned out better.
Forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six… This tile has a lot of blemishes. Kinda like me.
“Don’t act so smart…”
Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty…
Didn’t he get that the data was all she had? Absorbing and analyzing information was the only thing that she was good at. Why did he rip on it all the time? Was he trying to take everything from his daughter? Did he want to destroy her?
Maybe that had been it all along.
Fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three…
Maybe she reminded him too much of his wife who hated both of them so much she chose being dead over staying with them. Maybe he hated that she wasn’t a boy. Maybe he hated that she was smarter than he was… Or maybe he had known the truth all along: that she wasn’t that smart, that she put everything she had into getting good grades so she’d look smart, but she’d really been nothing but a fraud all along.
Fifty-four…
A fraud who worshipped books because she couldn’t make any real friends.
Fifty-five…
A fraud who studied psychology but didn’t understand people.
Fifty-six…
A fraud who would be bullied and robbed and raped the second she set foot on that college campus.
Fifty-seven…
Worse yet, a fraud who soon would be exposed as the complete idiot she was.
Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty…
College tomorrow.
Sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four…
Yay. Without any hint of actual excitement whatsoever, of course.
Sixty-five, sixty-six, ah, screw it! Sleep won’t even help; I’m hopeless.
This was going to suck.
Chapter Sixteen
Aili worried she wouldn’t recognize Tatiana when she saw her. She’d only seen Katya’s mother that once (well, besides the freaky dream a couple months back), and that was almost five years ago. When she and Aggie landed in Moscow, Aili wore heavy eyelids from the planning, the packing, and the twelve-and-a-half-hour flight. Aggie slept well overnight on the plane—something Aili wasn’t able to do, so the little girl bounced down the air bridge with a bright eyes and a wide childish grin, while Aili walked in
an oppressive mental fog.
Aggie chatted up the customs lady with the six words of Russian Aili managed to teach her the day before. “Hello, I meet my grandma today!” she announced happily.
Aggie found the baggage carousel, and when Aili’s black tote and Aggie’s flowered roller slipped by her, the little girl yanked on her hand and pointed. And Aggie jumped up and down and said, “Look, Mama, it’s them,” when Aggie was the one to spot her grandmother and seventeen-year-old uncle.
Aili still was processing this statement when Aglaya broke from her and ran into Tatiana’s open arms. When she wandered over to join them, tears streamed down the grandma’s cheeks. Grigory looked a tad embarrassed, but also amused by this small girl who tried to cram her whole life story into a few words, all while saying, “Grandma, don’t be sad. We’re on a trip!” and Tatiana tried to explain, “I am crying because I am so happy.”
When Aggie let her grandma go so she could shake her uncle’s hand and introduce herself, Tatiana pulled Aili into her arms. She whispered in Aili’s ear, in Russian, “She is so much like my Kati.”
Aili practically choked herself, it was so hard not to cry. When Tatiana let Aili go, Katya’s mother smiled through her tears. “Come. We will find a taxi. Tanya and my mother-in-law already have gone to the hotel.”
Aili nodded dumbly, and she and the two kids (hand-in-hand, with Grig still looking embarrassed) followed Tatiana from the airport.
They didn’t schedule a lot of things for the trip. They went to the zoo, because Aggie loved zoos. It was important to both Tatiana and Aili that Aglaya have a sense of her mother’s life, so instead of the normal touristy sightseeing, they played in the recess yard at Katya’s grade school, attended morning mass at the Kostaskys’ orthodox church, and fetched hot pirozhki from Kati’s favorite corner grocery.
Otherwise, they spent a lot of time at the hotel, just relaxing and being together. Grigory, Tanya, and Aggie splashed hours in the pool and returned prune-y and chlorine-scented to the suite to laugh and joke over Russian cartoons. More than once, Aggie, decked out in pool towel “cape” and bedazzled paper crown, convinced her aunt and uncle to join in on make-believe games of her own invention.
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