“My dad told me that when he first arrived in America, the Yankees were in a terrible losing streak, and the Mets were on top. But he still rooted for them no matter what,” he said, looking up from his big comfy chair. “And now look at them!” He beamed. “Another year of being champions, I think.”
I tried to tease him about the possibility that the Mets might rise from the ashes and steal the thunder from the overconfident Yankees. But Yuri would hear nothing of it.
“The Mets will never beat the Yanks, Ms. Topper. No way!”
“I have supreme faith in the underdog, you must realize that by now, Yuri.”
He shrugged. “The statistics tell another story. Two World Series in a row, three in the last four years. With Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter . . . how’s your team going to beat that?”
“If I didn’t believe they could win, what kind of fan would I be?”
Yuri was sitting on his comfortable yellow lounge chair, his big eyes ignited by the topic of baseball. “You’d be a realistic one, Ms. Topper. That’s what you’d be.” He took one of the pillows and squeezed it to his chest. “Ask David Cone and Dwight Gooden. Now that they’re Yankees, they’re not missing the Mets so much anymore.”
I laughed. “I’m going to hope we do get to duke it out in the fall. My sources are telling me this is going to be a great year with Mike Piazza catching and that dreamy Al Leiter pitching.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” Yuri was having fun with all our baseball banter. “But if there’s ever another Subway Series, we have to promise to watch it together. No matter what. And Finn, too.” He adjusted himself in the chair and then extended his hand. “Let’s shake on it, Ms. Topper. That way I know it’s real.”
* * *
• • •
ON Friday night, Daniel came over and made dinner. My mother had recently given me a mandoline slicer, and we practiced making waffle cuts of potatoes and baking them in the oven. On the radio, Macy Gray was playing “I Try,” and suddenly he and I were dancing in the kitchen.
I felt his breath on my neck, his hand traveling up my back, bringing me closer into him. He whispered “Maggie” into my ear, then said my name in full again: “Maggie Topper.” His voice sounded like the most beautiful music in the world. As the song slowed down, he cradled my head in his large, strong hands and told me he was falling for me. “Like a star dropping from the sky” were his words. I held on to that sentence as if it were a jar of fireflies illuminating my heart.
58
THE school year was rapidly coming to an end. The wind was laced with cherry blossom petals. The students began counting down the final weeks on their fingers, and as I collected their writing assignments, the contact paper on their writing-workshop books was now starting to peel off. The blue-lined pages were full of their thoughts and ideas, with some of the pages coming loose from the binding.
For the next assignment, I asked the kids to write about something in particular they wished they knew more about. They could describe any person or event, as long as they could explain why it sparked their curiosity.
I gave them an example of a black-and-white photograph that my mother had on her dresser. It was of my grandmother Valentina, the one who had arrived in America wearing all her clothes and who appeared transformed when she later emerged from her bath. I told the class how I had always heard stories about her from my own mother but that I still yearned to know more about her. The class burst into hysterics when I shared the part about her coming out of the tub and the surprise on everyone’s faces upon learning she had worn all her dresses and every blouse and skirt, covering up her tiny frame with clothes.
I shared with them how my mother still cooked using Valentina’s recipes and how her memory was kept alive through the mix of flavors and textures in the food. I told them I wished I had gotten the chance to meet her and hear more stories about her life back in Sicily and how it felt to be married at sixteen to a man she had known only a short time. “The best stories begin with questions we don’t know all the answers to,” I advised. “So when you write your assignment, think about a question to which you seek an answer.”
In Yuri’s writer’s notebook, I found the following response:
Ebstein and Me
When I was five years old, I didn’t go to kindergarten like the other kids on my street. My parents told me I would go the following year, because not everyone has to go to kindergarten. When I was six, my parents did let me go to school, but I knew from the beginning I wasn’t like everyone else in the class. I have an abnormality of the right ventricle. My dad said the walls of my right ventricle are thinner in my heart than in everyone else’s, but it’s also bigger, which I think is good, even if the doctors don’t. Who doesn’t want a bigger heart, right?
The hard thing is that I can’t do things other kids my age do. Like baseball. I wish I could run around the bases like my friend Finn. I wish I knew what it felt like to hit a home run. My doctor says I can’t play because I could make the leaking worse in my tricuspid valve. Now I only have a medium leak. But if it gets worse, I’ll need surgery.
My dad told me about a doctor named Ebstein who put a name on what I have. I often wonder if Dr. Ebstein ever wondered what it was like to be a kid who had it. Did he just see it as something that is broken in the heart? Or did he think about all the stuff that kids with Ebstein’s can’t do? I wonder if Ebstein ever wondered what it was like to be a boy like me.
Yuri’s notebook seemed like a living and breathing extension of him now, and I cherished knowing that he felt close enough to me to share his most private thoughts. I closed Yuri’s journal and shut my eyes, but the tears still escaped. I didn’t think anyone could imagine how hard it was to be a twelve-year-old boy who dreamed and breathed baseball yet had never been able to play it. But Yuri’s words came pretty close to making me understand.
59
JUNE filled the school with restlessness and warm bodies itching to be outside for the summer. The smell of freshly cut grass on the recess fields hovered on the kids’ clothes as they stumbled back to class. It took every ounce of my energy to get them to concentrate on the last few weeks of assignments. Their writing workbooks were bursting with a year’s worth of work, and their backpacks were equally tattered. Some of them no longer even zipped shut. Still, there wasn’t a parent in the world who would be rushing out to replace anything with so few days left of school. It became a running joke that many of the kids no longer had any pencils in their cases, so I became the dispenser of the necessary school supplies just to get through the final days’ work. The irony that Suzie was in this position almost every other day of the year, with teachers like me begging her for a crayon or a few pieces of construction paper, was not lost on me. I now felt her pain.
Yuri, however, continued to increase in popularity with the other students. He had become the class mascot of sorts for the last two months of school. He kept score while Finn and the other boys played basketball at recess. He also shared a bond with Anna, making the most colorful bulletin boards or classroom decorations when the other students were at gym. There had been only one or two instances when he had to leave school early because he was feeling too fatigued. Otherwise, his endurance seemed fine, and he didn’t suffer from any breathing problems or other issues related to his heart defect.
In the spring, my cottage had become even more beautiful than I had ever imagined. I had missed the short blooming season of the peony bushes when Bill and I first came to look at it the previous year. But now, the entire front side of the house was bursting with pale pink and candy-striped powder-puff-size flowers. I cut them by the fistful and decorated every corner of the house with them. When I ran out of vases, I used an old watering can and prided myself in my resourcefulness.
Daniel started coming over more than one night a week, and I had to pinch myself on those evenings when I could j
ust recline lazily on the couch after a dinner of pasta and wine as he serenaded me on my father’s violin. But there were other evenings when it was completely silent, our bodies nestled together underneath the protective cover of my Laura Ashley duvet, the only sound coming from our thumping hearts.
I was happy to have a friend in Suzie. Only an artist like her would immediately understand when I said it was the comfort of silence between Daniel and me that made me feel as though I could trust in what was beginning to feel like love. I loathed to say the word, as though merely uttering it would cause me to jinx everything and it all would suddenly go up in smoke. But my guard softened, and I found myself thinking of him during those moments of empty space at school.
“I always tell my students there are places you need to put a lot of color in your painting, but there are other places you need to leave blank,” Suzie explained. “Love is a little like that, Mags. You need space in between the pockets of color. Otherwise, it’s just too much. Everyone and everything needs room to breathe.”
I sensed a lot of wisdom in what she said. That was one of the many reasons why I adored Suzie. And looking at the way she was dressed today—her hot pink blouse with a few embroidered butterflies contrasted with a pair of stretchy black trousers—it was clear she had applied the same philosophy to her outfit. If she’d also had a detailed pattern on her pants, it would have been too much. But by mixing it up, she had achieved an overall effect of fabulousness.
It had occurred to me that my lease would be up in the next few weeks, and I started to realize that it was too big an expense for me to keep paying the whole rent by myself out of my modest salary. It was far too early to ask Daniel to move in with me. I thought about asking Suzie to, but there was only one bedroom, and even if we could create another one for her in the living room, I winced thinking about all the sparkles and craft paraphernalia she would bring into the space that I had cultivated to be the image of old-world charm.
“You can’t give it up,” my mother insisted when I told her I might have to move. “Are you having trouble making the rent now?” She softened her question by adding another spoonful of ziti onto my plate.
“I can do it . . . It just makes it hard to save any money. Basically all my salary goes to paying the bills.”
“Listen, Maggie, the home is the most important space a person can have. It’s a refuge for the soul. I want you to renew the lease, and if you run into any difficulty, you know your dad and I will always help you out.”
“But I don’t want to have to ask for help, Mom,” I said as I pushed my fork into her ziti.
“I know you don’t,” she whispered. “But one day you’ll realize that parents are meant to throw out a lifeline if their child is in distress. No matter the age.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “That’s just what we do.”
60
KATYA and Sasha came to the moving-up ceremony at Franklin, an event held every year on the last day of school. The teachers all loved it, as there was a nice bit of pageantry and celebration involved. Principal Nelson always took a few minutes to reflect on the past year and mention those students who had distinguished themselves in some way. It ended with each of the students getting a certificate for completing either the sixth or seventh grade.
I had immediately noticed Yuri’s parents walking into the auditorium. Compared to the other parents, who were dressed casually in jeans and cotton polos, the Krasnys looked formal and out of place. Sasha in a pale gray suit and thin red tie, and Katya in a long, pleated skirt and white blouse. Every part of her slender frame was cloaked by material. The two of them sat as close as they could to Yuri, who was in the third row, next to Finn.
It was hard to believe that the wan, delicate child—the boy who when I first met him was almost too lethargic to rise from the living room chair—was now laughing along with his friend and classmate, his face beaming with good health.
I felt a pang of satisfaction knowing I had pushed Katya to let him attend classes at Franklin. I knew it had taken every ounce of courage for her to send him at first. But as I looked over at her sitting beside Sasha in the auditorium, I saw that both of them were overjoyed to see Yuri so happy and vibrant. I remember how Katya had described the early weeks after Yuri had first been diagnosed with his heart condition, a time when every waking moment centered on whether he was breathing without difficulty and whether his heart was working as it should. Sasha had promised her then that their son would grow to be a healthy young boy, even though they both secretly feared it was impossible. But there Yuri now was, sitting next to his best friend, seemingly as healthy and as happy as every other twelve-year-old child in that room.
* * *
• • •
AFTER the ceremony, I greeted Sasha and Katya and thanked them for coming. I mentioned how brave I thought they were for letting Yuri be at the school nearly every day that last week.
“I know how much you worry about him, but look at how he’s thriving,” I said as I pointed to him standing with Finn and two other classmates. They were all laughing and having a good time.
“We wouldn’t have felt comfortable if you weren’t his homeroom and English teacher,” said Katya. “Just knowing you were keeping an eye on him made it so much easier.”
Sasha’s eyes scanned the crowd. “If you had only seen my middle school graduation,” he laughed. “We had to pledge our allegiance to the motherland, and our lives were already all planned out for us.”
Katya gave Sasha’s arm a playful swat. “We know how fortunate we are to be here . . . and we’re just so happy to see Yuri finally doing so well . . .”
I agreed. It felt like we had all accomplished an important milestone having Yuri back at school. But I knew that it wasn’t only me who had helped make the transition easier for him. Finn’s efforts had also been essential. I searched the crowd to find him and saw he was now walking over to his parents and sister. The little girl, dressed in a yellow sundress with her hair in a matching ponytail like her mother’s, was steadying her left side with a single metal crutch braced to her arm. When Finn approached, she lifted it slightly in his direction, like a toy soldier offering him a congratulatory salute.
Yuri suddenly appeared beside us. “Finn asked me if I could go to his Little League game tonight. It’s the championship, so can I go? Dad can take me . . .”
Katya hesitated.
“I wanted to surprise you with something at home, to make this day festive for you. You know how proud we are of you, Yuri.” She turned to Sasha. “We made pierogi for you late last night, and even ordered your favorite ice cream cake from Carvel.”
“Yes, a chocolate and vanilla baseball bat cake.” Sasha squeezed Yuri’s arm.
“But it’s the last game of the season,” he pleaded. “And Finn wants me to come. He says I bring him good luck . . . Please, Mom.”
This was a common exchange between any mother and son, certainly one that I had overheard countless times and which easily could have happened fifteen years ago with my own brother and my mom. But still it was strange to see Katya and Yuri engaged in this kind of negotiation. I could tell how frustrated Katya was as she tried to suppress any visual clues of her annoyance.
Truthfully, Yuri had always been so agreeable whenever I came to the Krasnys’ house. I had never seen him have to ask for anything, because Katya always circled him like a mother hawk, making sure she met every one of his wishes or needs. But now I sensed that Katya just wanted her son to come home with her.
“Daddy took the day off, Yuri,” she said in soft protest.
“Let him go, lapushka,” Sasha answered, his voice emerging as a balm to soothe her irritation. He wrapped his arm around his wife. “The boy wants to celebrate with his friend at the game . . . I’d be happy to take him.” Sasha’s eyes searched mine for a little friendly support.
“It’s the American way. Right, Ms. Toppe
r?” He playfully looked over in my direction. “Good baseball equals a good time. It’s simple math.”
I laughed. “That’s the kind of equation only boys can dream up. But who am I to say? Today’s the last day of school.” I folded my hands playfully in front of me. “So I’m officially on vacation.”
61
THAT summer I kept myself busy and earned a little extra income by working as an administrator at a local day camp. I accepted a few dinner invitations from the Krasnys, happy for the excuse to see Yuri, but I spent most of my free time with Daniel. In mid-August, we went on a road trip from Long Island all the way down to Savannah, Georgia. The whole trip was ten days of songs blaring on the radio, road stops at greasy fried-chicken joints, and the rapture of some really exquisite donuts along the way. He told me every story he could remember from his childhood, including the one that revealed how he got the sickle-shaped scar below his temple.
“I fell three feet from a friend’s tree house,” he said, laughing at the memory. “A sharp oak branch sliced through the skin, luckily not my eye or ear.” We continued to fill the air with stories, and we spent most nights in modest motels, saving up our money for three nights at a luxurious former plantation. The romance was high and the Georgia humidity even higher. I knew it was love when Daniel looked at my hair one morning and saw that my normally manageable locks had swollen to three times their normal size.
“You look five inches taller,” he joked as he wrapped me in his arms. We laughed even more as we strolled through the town’s old alleyways and dipped into its charming antiques stores. At night, I buried my nose in sprigs of fresh mint and bourbon mixed with simple syrup, my body relaxing into the comfort of a wicker chair and a ceiling fan on the porch of our hotel.
The Secret of Clouds Page 23