Flying Home

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  I am sorry to burden you with these concerns. However, you have been so helpful and kind, I feel you will not mind. I am hoping my English is improving enough with the tapes you gave to me last year so when you come again to visit, we can converse more better. I will take you to see more of my country.

  Sincerely yours,

  Olya Kovalevsky

  Austin could almost see her in his mind as he read her e-mail. Short Olya, with her close-cropped brown hair, light blue eyes, pinched face, and too-thin body. Every time he had seen her during his last visit to Ukraine, she had worn bright lipstick and eyeshadow, as if to hide the sharp curves of nose, cheek, and chin.

  During their hours working together Austin had learned about Olya’s missing sister, and the story had interested him deeply. Olya had been a young girl when her mother had given birth to a baby. Eventually, the burden became too much for the family, and they were forced to give the child to an orphanage. When Olya returned years later to find her sister, she learned the baby had been transferred to another orphanage, which had burned to the ground. Most of the records were lost. Olya had not yet determined where her sister had been sent after that, but she still clung to the hope of finding her.

  “I have to know what happened,” she had said simply, her eyes speaking volumes of hurt that she would not voice—maybe could not voice.

  He had questioned her no further, not wishing to add to her wounds. But he wondered why she felt such a strong drive to find her sister when she had not been responsible for the decision to leave her. He also wondered how it had happened that Olya herself had not been given to an orphanage but stayed with her mother long enough to know and love a little sister. How had it felt to watch her sister go into the arms of a stranger? How had it felt for her to know that if the ages had been reversed, she would have been the one cast aside? These were questions he dared not ask. Perhaps they were ones no one ever asked but kept in silence, as though doing so would stave off the pain.

  Austin knew pain. He knew the rejection of a father who drowned his failures in a bottle and rained his frustration down on his only son. Words had become swords, piercing the fragile shell of his young self, a shell that had necessarily grown tougher over the years. Sometimes he would still lie awake in the night and wonder why his mother had not defended him or at least whispered positive words to him about his worth. Why had she stayed with his father? Why had she allowed him to treat her and their children that way?

  These were also questions he could not ask—then or now. Instead, he had asked others: Why was the sky blue? Why did dew wet the grass each morning? Why did babies spit up so much? Why did they hiccup? Why was the mail sometimes late? What made it snow? His mother, too exhausted for life itself, had been unable to respond.

  On the surface they were the poster family for the American dream. A sizable Wyoming farm, a small home, a car, two children, a dog—what more could a man want? Yet Austin’s father wanted more—a lot more—and having repeatedly failed, he could not find the courage to adjust his dreams or learn to make happiness in whatever circumstances he found himself. He had failed to see the important things, like a son who yearned for his approval, a daughter who planned to escape his abuse by leaving the farm she loved, or a wife who trembled at his every mood shift. No, he had seen none of it, not even when it was far too late.

  Austin’s grandmother, his mother’s mother, had been his salvation. She had encouraged his insatiable curiosity, valued his opinions, and in the end had given him the confidence he needed to break free of the emotional death grip his father had on him. One thing she had not been able to do, however, was to rid him of the guilt he felt about his mother; just as his mother had not been capable of protecting him, he had not been able to save her.

  Pulling his mind from these troublesome thoughts, Austin read a few more e-mails and shot off responses to the most urgent. Then he retraced his steps to the employee lounge. The show was just ending.

  Christian stretched and stifled a yawn. “If we had a place like this at work, I might never actually work again.” He winked to show he was kidding.

  Arriving at the office where they’d left Liana, they found her bent over the round table, her long hair spilling over her shoulders and fanning out on the back of the chair. She didn’t look up as they entered but remained concentrated on the documents before her. One hand made furious notes with a pencil, while the other was fisted in her hair, gripping the strands near the scalp. Her high heels were off, a foot tucked up under her lithe body.

  “How’s it going?” Christian asked.

  She started slightly and then looked up at her brother and smiled, all the earlier hardness gone. Austin’s heart fell to his stomach.

  Her gaze moved to Austin. “It’s doable in my time off work—barely,” she said, rising to her feet. “But only if you’re as handy with numbers as you claim. It would be a lot easier if you had a decent accounting program instead of the one you use.” She waved at the papers. “Most of this could be automated better. Your company’s far too large to use your current system.”

  Austin was impressed with her assessment. “That’s exactly what the owner’s nephew said. He plans to reorganize everything when he starts working here.”

  “It’ll take a lot of time, but it’ll be worth it. Meanwhile, there are still some records I’ll need—two to begin with: a list of nonretail sales, if you had any, and a verification of monies paid out in employee salaries, bonuses, and so forth. I’ll let you know if there’s anything else.” She handed him several papers. “You can start with these. Of course, if they’re already on your computer system, they’ll be easier to calculate.”

  “You want to start now?” For the past thirty minutes, the sides of Austin’s stomach had been glued together with hunger. He hadn’t imagined they would begin the project tonight, only to assess it.

  She shrugged. “We should get started if you want to avoid some pretty hefty fines.”

  “Okay. I just need to make a quick phone call.” He picked up the phone on the desk and punched in the number for Chinese delivery.

  Christian raised his hands to chest level as he backed toward the door. “Well, if you two have it under control, I guess I’ll take off. Austin, walk me out?”

  “Go,” Liana said, making a shooing motion. “But you owe me.”

  Austin held the phone to his ear. “No, I owe you. We’ll pay you whatever you ask, of course.”

  A wry smile twisted her lips. “Don’t worry. You’ll get a bill.” For an instant their eyes met and held. Austin found himself trying to remember what he had been doing.

  “Lee’s Chinese,” chimed a melodic voice in his ear.

  “Oh,” he said. “I’ll have an order of cashew chicken with rice. Plain, not fried.” He shot a questioning glance at Liana, covering the receiver. “Want anything? It’s on me.” She shook her head. Shrugging, he gave the man on the phone the address and promised to be waiting at the front door.

  When he hung up the phone, he found Liana watching him. “Plain rice, huh?” she asked. There was a flicker of something in her eyes, something Austin couldn’t interpret. But just as suddenly it was gone.

  “Come on.” He motioned to Christian. “I’ll let you out of the building.”

  With a wave at his sister, Christian followed him from the room. “That reminds me,” Christian said in the hall, “Liana will need a ride back to her office for her car.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Don’t keep her too late. During this season, she goes to work like at five or earlier.”

  Austin grimaced; few conditions could get him up at five. He definitely was not a morning person. Not since he’d left the farm. “Okay. I’ll try. And thanks, Christian.”

  “You’re welcome.” Christian paused at the entrance, looking uncharacteristically nervous. He ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, don’t mention to Liana what I told you, huh? About her parents. She’s a very private person.”

&n
bsp; Austin slapped him on the back. “I certainly won’t bring it up, if she doesn’t.”

  Yet even as he watched Christian drive away, he wished he knew more. Why hadn’t Christian’s and Liana’s mothers been close? Why had Liana insisted on a name change at the tender age of four? How had it felt going to live with complete strangers? These were, he knew, more questions that might not have answers—or at least answers anyone would care to share.

  Maybe his mother had been right after all; he did ask too many questions. Still, it was too bad there wasn’t someone who knew the whole story. If he were in Liana’s shoes, it would drive him crazy not knowing. Maybe once he knew her better—if she let such a thing happen—he’d ask her how she felt about it.

  He waited at the front door until his food arrived, feeling guilty about leaving Liana to work alone. As he walked back to the accounting office, he wondered if she liked plain white rice.

  CHAPTER 3

  Diary of Karyn Olsen

  Monday, January 7, 1966

  I met a guy today, a really gorgeous guy—in the campus cafeteria of all places. And on my twentieth birthday of all days! It must be fate. His name is Travis Winn. I would have missed him completely if my biology teacher hadn’t let us go early. Angie and I walked into the cafeteria and there he was, sitting with Angie’s cousin! We walked up to them and started talking. Well, Angie did. I just stood there with my mouth feeling like it had glue in it. I was afraid I’d say something stupid. He is so gorgeous. I mean, REALLY. He’s tall and built like a football player—not the really big ones, but nice and strong. Just the perfect size for me. His face is squarish but very nice, and his eyes are pools of dark chocolate (imagine me, boring old Karyn, writing that!). His hair is even darker than his eyes. Tall, dark, and handsome—that describes him exactly. He has a smile that melted my heart. By the time I finally found my tongue, he and Angie’s cousin were finished eating. We hadn’t even gotten our food yet.

  Angie teased me all the way back to our apartment. She could see I was gone on him. (Boy, am I ever!) I told her she had to help me find out more about him. I felt something in my heart when we met, and I’m not going to let it go without trying. Be still, my heart. How will I ever make it through the rest of this day without seeing him?

  After Christian and Austin left her the second time, Liana removed her laptop from her padded briefcase. It was thin and the best her boss could afford. Too often she had to go to a client’s office or finish up something at home after work hours, and the extra money she earned for the company had paid for the laptop a hundred times over. It would cut down her work on this case immensely.

  She looked up as Austin returned with his Chinese food. He smiled. “I got you a fortune cookie.”

  “They’re not real fortunes.” She remembered the first time she had opened one when she was six. It had read, “You will bring your parents much happiness.” She had thrown both the cookie and the fortune away.

  “You afraid? Go ahead, open it.” His black eyes echoed his verbal challenge.

  “Okay.” She cracked the cookie, drew out the small paper, and read it aloud. “For good fortune, buy more of Lee’s cookies.” She looked up at him and smirked. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. That is a real fortune if I ever heard one—a real fortune for Lee.”

  He threw back his head and laughed with an abandon she envied. “You got that right. Next time I see the old man, though, I’m going to tell him he owes me a cookie.”

  Liana pondered for a moment that there actually was a Chinese man named Lee and that Austin knew him well enough to demand another cookie. If she didn’t like something about a restaurant, she simply moved her business elsewhere. Getting to know the owner would mean she’d owe him something, if only her patronage. Better to keep at a distance.

  “Here,” she said, handing him some papers. “These have to be tallied first. You’ll need a chair.”

  “There’s one in the next office.”

  Silence reigned as they worked. Liana sneaked a glance over the desk at Austin, who was eating his Chinese food with chopsticks in his left hand and punching numbers on his keyboard with his right. He’s left-handed, she thought. To her embarrassment, he looked up and caught her gaze. She raised her eyes slightly and pretended to be deep in thought. He darted a glance at the ceiling behind him where she stared but thankfully didn’t interrupt her. Liana went back to work, her concentration broken.

  After a few moments of silence, he finished his food and spoke. “So I heard it’s your . . . ah, mother’s birthday this Sunday.”

  Her hands dropped from her keyboard into her lap. “Yes.” Her response was clipped as she wondered why he’d hesitated over the word mother. Had Christian talked to him about her? She’d kill him if he had. He had no right dredging up the past like that, especially with someone who was a total stranger to her. She had put it behind her. Why couldn’t Christian?

  As a child, the mystery surrounding the estrangement between Karyn, her birth mother, and Clarissa, her aunt, had consumed Liana’s every waking moment. But she no longer cared what had caused the rift. Except for the occasional flash of memory that caused her to jerk awake, sweating with longing in the night, Clarissa Winn was the only mother Liana knew. Now she wanted only to forget there was another woman who had loved her, forget the anguish that clutched at her heart whenever she remembered her birth mother’s face. She wanted to rid herself of the terrible aching pain of loss that refused to allow her to love Clarissa as deeply as a daughter should. Though neither had ever given voice to the reality, the gulf between them was almost as deep and wide as the ocean that had once separated Clarissa and Karyn.

  Liana felt Austin’s eyes on her, and she refused to meet his gaze; instead, she stared down at the screen of her laptop. “Do you have the totals?”

  He gave them to her without comment, but when she accidentally met his eyes, she saw pity in them. Or was it compassion? She felt bitterness in her gut, though she refused to let the emotion show in her face. How dare he feel anything for her when she had not invited him to do so or allowed him into her confidence! She made up her mind then and there that she didn’t like Austin Walker. She didn’t like him at all, and it would be none too soon to wrap up this project and get out of here.

  * * *

  Austin was relieved when at last Liana pushed back her chair and stood, stretching her arms out in front of her. “That’s it,” she said. “Before we can go on, I’ll need you to find everything I wrote on this list. Also, is there a computer I can use that has all this information? I’d like to have it on my laptop, too.”

  “Sure,” Austin said. “This one has everything on it. Do you want to copy it over now?”

  “No.” She placed one last file folder on a pile. “Let’s call it a night. How about tomorrow? I can come again after work, but it might be late.”

  “Sure.” Tomorrow was Friday, and Austin had a date with a woman named Sonja, but he could break it. The most important thing right now was seeing this work finished in time. Sonja wouldn’t like it, though.

  “You won’t have to be here,” Liana told him, as though reading his thoughts. “From here on out, I just need our computers.” Her voice left him no doubt that she would prefer to be alone. And maybe he should let her. He would much rather go out with Sonja than add numbers with an ice princess.

  “Not a chance,” he surprised himself by saying. “You told me you were out for company secrets, so I’ll have to be here to protect them.”

  Her sudden smile delighted him. “Okay, then, tomorrow it is.” With a move made deft through practice, she slipped her laptop into the briefcase and clicked it shut. “I’m ready.”

  He walked her out the back way where his full-sized white pickup truck waited, gleaming in the moonlight. Two years ago he’d bought the vehicle, and he still felt a rush of pleasure whenever he saw it.

  “A truck?” she asked, arching a brow. “I didn’t figure you for a truck.”

  He opened the
door for her and helped her climb inside. “What did you figure?”

  “Hmm, let’s see. You’re the sales manager of a midsized chain of electronic stores. Not a Jag. Hmm. Nor a Lexus. Maybe a Mercedes? A red one?”

  He laughed. “Oh, no. I’m a Ford man myself, although I do have a sister named Mercedes. Besides, red is a little too noticeable. I hear that people who drive red cars get more traffic tickets.”

  Her smile was back, and in the moonlight she looked beautiful. Austin had to remind himself twice that they were not on a date and that no goodnight kiss would be awaiting the end of their evening.

  She gave him directions, and silence came once more between them. Austin flipped on the radio to his favorite country station. He looked to see if she approved, but her profile was expressionless. He wished there was more light.

  “Here,” she said as they came to her building. “Turn here. My car’s in the back.”

  Her car turned out to be a sleek green or black—it was difficult to tell in the dark—Chevy Cavalier convertible. Austin was surprised; she seemed more conservative than the car hinted. “I never pictured you for a convertible,” he said, coming to a stop.

  She shrugged. “I like to feel the wind on my face.”

  Austin thought he might like it, too. If she’d been any other woman, he might have asked for a ride.

  There was only one other car in the lot. Austin wasn’t sure because of the distance, but he thought it was a red Mercedes. She reached for the door. “Looks like just about everyone’s gone home. That’s surprising; it’s only ten.”

  Austin smiled. “Do you often work late?”

  “Only during March and April.”

  “Ah, tax season.”

  “Yep.” Her voice suddenly sounded so weary that he felt guilty for adding to her workload. She should have been home resting or out with friends.

  “Liana,” he said, “I’m really grateful to you for helping me out. I didn’t know what to do when I got stuck with this job. It’s hard to find someone at such short notice—especially someone you can trust.”