“I’m gonna play dress up!” Anya called back to us as she ran out of the kitchen and for the stairs.
Sasha shook his head. “She is way too hyper. Better hide the candy.”
I laughed and sized him up, from the concentrated look on his serious face, open folder, and pencil in hand. “What about you, Einstein? Aren’t you gonna play too?”
“Homework first.”
“Jeez, kid, you are every parent’s wet dream, you know that?”
Twenty minutes later, I was feeling confident and told Sasha to fetch his sister upstairs. He didn’t even scowl when he left the room. I may not have been voted aunt of the year, but I was by myself with the kids and hadn’t set the kitchen on fire. That was a win in my book.
Everything was ready, and I dragged out bowls and spoons for the occasion. That was when I realized I couldn’t hear the kids’ feet pounding overhead, and it had been five minutes since Sasha had left. It had been about twenty years since I dwelled in the land of children, but I could almost smell mischief in the air.
I glanced inside Anya’s room to find an explosion of pink tulle and superhero costumes on the floor. Sasha’s light wasn’t even on, but a quick glance showed his room to be as immaculate as expected. I heard a thump behind me and turned to my old bedroom. The door wasn’t shut all the way, and a light shone through the crack.
I pushed open the door and found the kids on the floor. Sasha was growling something at Anya in a low voice. Her Batman cape and mask contrasted with the full ballerina skirt around her waist. I might have found it adorable if I hadn’t seen what they were so fascinated with.
“Look at this one, Sasha! It’s so pretty,” Anya said as she held up a hand-painted Tarot card.
I could barely breathe, let alone speak, and my words came out in a rasp. “What are you doing?”
The kids jumped and turned at once, identical guilty expressions on their pale faces, cards held tightly in their hands.
I didn’t trust myself to say anything at first. Whatever the kids saw in my face must have looked bad because Sasha grew paler and Anya began to cry.
“Oh, Aunt Dani, I’m so sorry!” Anya dropped her cards back in the box.
I dug my nails into my palms to push out the rest of my anger and then sat on the floor beside them. “It’s wrong to go through people’s things, you know.” I glanced up from the hated box to the tear-streaked face next to me.
“I knew I shouldn’t have, Aunt Dani,” Anya sobbed. “I came in here because I was curious. Papa always kept your room locked, and I wanted to see what dress-up clothes you had. I found this box under your bed, and Sasha found me. He was gonna tattle on me, but I made him promise not to. Are you gonna tell Papa, Aunt Dani?” She took a hiccupping breath.
I picked up the discarded Tarot cards and stacked them carefully back over the yellowed piece of paper underneath. At least they hadn’t found the letter too.
“I won’t tell your papa, but I better not find you snooping around again.”
Anya shook her head so hard, her curls flew into her wet cheeks. “I promise.”
“Good. Now, do you wanna know where I got these cards?”
Anya leaned forward and wiped her eyes as she nodded.
“On my thirteenth birthday, this box came in the mail with no return address and a dozen different postage stamps on it. Did you know I had a different mother than your papa? Well, she left us when I was just a little girl. She didn’t tell us where she was going, just left us a note that she was sorry but it was time for her to return home.”
“Where did she go?” Sasha asked.
“Romania, probably. That’s where she was from, but I never found out. My mother was from a very old Roma tribe in the Carpathian Mountains.”
“She was a gypsy?” Sasha interjected, surprising me.
“She was a palm reader, working with a traveling carnival that came through St. Petersburg one summer. Your grandfather met her there, and they fell in love. They named me after the first star they saw together on their first night.”
“The morning star…” Sasha nodded and added, “That’s why they named you Zvezda Danica.”
I shrugged and attempted to smile, but the truth was I hated my mother, and my full name always made me think of her. “I found a letter from her at the bottom of the box with the Tarot cards. She said she gave them to me because it was tradition to pass heirlooms down the day I became a woman in her culture.”
“They’re so pretty, Aunt Dani.” Anya touched the card lying on top of the deck.
“It was the first and last time I heard from my mother since she left us. After I looked at the cards and read her letter, I shoved the box under my bed. It’s not something I wanted to look at again.”
Sasha ducked his head. “Our mom left too.”
“She lives in Pittsburg,” Anya added, enunciating the city name carefully.
Sasha wrinkled his nose. “She doesn’t ever talk to us. She’s too busy with her boyfriend and his kids.”
I set the lid firmly over the box and shoved it back under my bed. “People always told me my mother loved me; she just loved herself more. But you know what I think? I think she must have only loved herself, because if you really love someone, you don’t abandon the people who need you.”
Anya took Sasha’s hand in hers, and I realized they understood exactly what it felt like. A fierce tenderness filled my chest and made me want to do crazy things, like hold them both in tight hugs until we cried all our tears out.
I laughed at myself and stood. “Well, enough about absent moms. You guys want some macaroni?”
The kids were quick to agree.
Peter hadn’t come home by the time I put the kids to bed. Despite the fact that he was out with Hailey Man-Eater King, I wasn’t worried. The woman was many things, but she did seem to care about Peter, and if my brother had a chance to get laid, I was all for it. Cancer was just one more thing in the long list of crap my brother had had to deal with. As if running a business and being a single parent wasn’t enough, I knew the kid’s mother gave him plenty of headaches. I’d never met the bitch, but I hated her, especially after hearing the kids talk about her.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the bloody Tarot cards under my bed and wondered why I hadn’t burned the box ages ago.
Aren’t you forgetting something, Pavlova?
Peter had offered to throw me a birthday party when I turned thirteen. He’d said it was one more year to celebrate the fact that he didn’t have to get me a car. I’d tried to turn him down because I didn’t have any friends. I was too skinny and awkward in my skin at the time. I still hadn’t developed boobs like the other girls in my class, and my only real friend was Adam King.
“So, we’ll invite the guys over. You like the guys, right?” Peter had suggested. A party with the guys from the garage hadn’t been so bad. They’d called me kid and taught me things about cars and how to throw a good right hook.
Adam had shown up for the party first and brought in a mysterious box with him. “Hey, Dani, this was on the doorstep. There’s no return address. Whoa, look at all these stamps!”
I grabbed the box from him and stuck out my tongue. “It’s my present, dumbass. I’ll open it.” I laughed as I ran up the stairs, and Adam chased me. I knew for a fact I was faster than he was since I hadn’t hit an awkward growth spurt like he had. He was taller than I was, but his feet were too big, and he tripped over them on the stairs.
“Shit! No fair, Dani!” he called after me.
I shut and locked the door and tore into the package, ignoring his knocks on the other side. Five minutes later, I was on the floor, curled into a tight ball, and trying to ignore the rush of blood to my head. Adam busted in five minutes later and took one look at the open box and me before he sank to the floor beside me. I don’t remember him picking me up.
All I knew is one moment I was falling to pieces, and the next, he was holding me together. I crawled into his lap and wrapped
my limbs around him while I sobbed against his shirt. He rubbed soothing circles up my spine the way his mama had taught him. I knew because she had rubbed my back just like that before.
“It’s okay, Morning Star,” he whispered against my ear, and I buried my face in his neck.
“Don’t call me that,” I whispered back.
“Why not?” Adam threaded his hands through my tangled black curls.
“Because it’s the name she gave me.”
“No.”
I picked my head up and rested my hands on his chest. We hadn’t been this close since we were little, and for the first time, I noticed all the places we were touching. Heat pushed its way up my limbs and into my cheeks. His beautiful eyes were fierce, and his hands too large for his lanky frame. He had one too many freckles, but he was mine. I knew that even then.
“Your parents gave you that name. But they don’t own it anymore. It’s mine now, Zvezda Danica.” I laughed at his poor pronunciation, and he grinned in response. “The box is from her, isn’t it?”
I bit my lip and glanced behind us at the letter and Tarot cards. “I want to throw it all away, Adam. I-I hate her.”
He wrapped his arms around me, drawing me close, and rested his forehead against mine. “Don’t throw the box away, not yet. Let’s put it under the bed. After a while, you’ll forget it’s there.”
I took in a breath with him and dared to meet his gaze. The way he looked at me was changing, I had known for some time. I wasn’t ready, but something about the box and the way he held me, as though he didn’t care how much I ugly-cried, made me lean in and press my lips against his for the first time.
He gasped, but then his hands dug into my shirt, and he pressed back against my mouth. Our first kiss was awkward, wet, and fumbling. We were so embarrassed, I think, and we tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. But he had held my hand more often after that, and I’d shoved the box under my bed.
9
Misguided Ghosts
Friday morning, I woke with my alarm and shipped the kids off to school. Sasha turned to wave bye to me, and I felt so warm and fuzzy inside, I almost went for a run to sweat off the sweets. I hated running.
Peter was awake when I came back inside and agreed to my offer to drive him to work. I put on clothes that wouldn’t shock the local garden club chapter and threw my laptop in my bag for the road.
“So how did it go last night?” I turned to my brother with a saccharine grin.
Peter smiled mysteriously. “You don’t really wanna know the answer to that, baby girl.”
“Ew! Gross, you’re right, I don’t want to know.”
“What about you? Were the kids manageable?”
I hesitated only a second as I thought of the box of Tarot cards. Not even Peter knew about them. “They were good. We ate macaroni and watched a few more episodes of Batman.”
Peter chuckled. “Good. I underestimated your nanny talents. I was actually thinking of having a movie night with the kids, kick it old school with something like Jumanji.”
Mrs. King’s invitation came back to me. When Mama King asked you to do something, there wasn’t much of a choice involved. I felt self-conscious bringing it up with Peter, though. Somehow, Adam King had brought my car back to the shop, so he had to have spoken to my brother. For the first time, I wished I hadn’t imposed my “no King” rule over our conversations.
“Um, that sounds great, but I sort of made plans tonight that I need to run by you,” I mumbled.
Peter sat up straighter in his seat. “Yeah? Who with? Another party at the Brewers?”
I shook my head. “No, uh… I sort of ran into Mrs. King at the coffee shop the other day, and she invited me over for dinner tonight to catch up.” I took a breath once the words were out. Peter was silent, and I tried to keep my constant side-glances casual.
“Sure, that sounds like fun. Now she can talk to you herself instead of hounding me with questions at the garage.” He favored me with a wry grin. “Not to inflate your ego any more than it already is, but people were pretty offended you never came back for visits.”
“The people need their gossip,” I agreed with a laugh. We pulled into the usual spot at the back of the garage, and I fished out my phone to text Mrs. King.
“Well, guess I’ll see you at home. I should be there not too long after the kids.” Peter started to get out of the car.
“Hang on, I’m coming in.” I hit Send on my phone and grabbed my bag from its spot in the back seat.
Peter froze. “Really? Are you sure you want to hang here today? It’s liable to be busy since it’s a Friday.”
I shrugged the strap of my sack on. Peter followed me as I left the car and pressed the automatic lock button on my key chain. “No biggie. I need to catch up on some stuff and thought I’d hang with you for a while. Aren’t I allowed to miss my big brother?”
“Okay…” he said from behind me.
“Hey,” Leach greeted us as we came in, though the surprise was evident on his face.
I set up shop at the other, smaller desk in the office. “Ready for your date with Amber?” I teased Leach and grinned when his face turned slightly red.
“Hey, I only agreed so Mrs. McSpadden would get off my back. The woman’s evil plan finally worked.”
“Leach, don’t you know by now? We win every time.” I smiled sweetly at him when he flipped me the bird.
Peter checked the schedule. “Taylor and Austin here on time today?”
Leach scowled. “Yeah. Austin’s baby mama came by earlier with her claws out. I told him to keep his family drama at home.”
Peter grinned. “What was she pissed about this time?”
Leach waved the question away. “Same old shit.”
I grinned as I half-heartedly listened to their man-gossip. Everyone always assumed women were the worst gossips, but I was raised by men and knew better. I typed a quick email to the professor at Fayetteville’s college and hoped they would respond soon. Hanging with the kids and Peter was fun, but I was ready to get back to work. It had been too long since I finished my last assignment, and I had forgotten how to relax in the last ten years.
For the next hour, I caught up with some other contacts back on the European continent. I was looking forward to seeing what this university had on hand. Sometimes, old-world stuff ended up in the new, and half the fun was tracking the old manuscripts down.
The guys were in and out, answering phones and dealing with clients, while the newbs in the garage took care of the grunt work.
Peter joined them for a while but came in to rest a second. “So, what are you tracking down this time, baby girl?”
“First edition Hauff publication,” I replied and grinned at his befuddled expression. “The guy collected fairy tales from the Black Forest in Germany.”
“Thought that was the Brothers Grimm?”
“Nope, they collected from a different part of Germany.”
“Cool.” Peter nodded and drummed his fingers on his paper-littered desk. “So, I was just thinking we could probably use some groceries, if you’re up for a run. You may wanna go now, so you will be there when the kids get home. Sometimes they get there a little sooner on Fridays.”
I looked up from my screen. “It’s nine in the morning, Petey. I’m sure the groceries can wait. Unless there’s some other reason you want me out of here.” I scrutinized the circles under his eyes and the way his skin looked extra pale. A sick foreboding welled in my gut. “Petey… you’re okay, aren’t you? ’Cause you know I came here not just to look after the kids.”
“I know, baby girl. I swear I don’t feel any better or worse than I did yesterday.”
“Promise? I’ll beat the shit out of you if you’re lying.”
He smiled. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
I watched him a few more tense seconds before I decided to let it go. One moment of irrational fear was enough for me to keep a better eye out. I had to remember Petey was a man above
all things, and all men carried pride like a badge.
“I’ll leave here in a couple of hours, around lunchtime. That sound okay to you? I still need to get ahold of the head of the department at the university in Fayetteville.”
A strange look passed over my brother’s face as he stood. “Sure, that sounds fine. Just grab me before you go, so I can give you my card.”
“Hell no! I can buy my own groceries, Daddy Morebucks.”
Leach stuck his head in from the garage then and looked at Peter. “She gone?”
I was starting to feel a little more than peeved. “Okay, that’s it. What’s going on?”
Leach stared past me to the back door. “Sorry, boss,” he mumbled.
Peter sighed when I turned to follow the sound of the back door opening. Of all the things I wanted to but didn’t say, the last thing I meant to do was mumble in Russian. Once more, I was back at elementary school, fresh from across the water, with limited English on my tongue. I glanced over my shoulder at Peter.
“Hey, man, hope I’m not too early,” Adam King said.
I forced my body to turn back to face him. I wouldn’t freeze up or run away this time, I decided. In fact, I was royally pissed and decided to run with that. Anger was a safer emotion.
“Yeah, no problem,” Peter said from behind me. “We can use the extra hands today.”
I tensed when Adam’s bold gaze settled over me briefly before moving on to my brother and Leach. He hesitated only a second before he walked past me to sign in.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I blurted out.
Adam turned and held up his hands. “Not like it’s any of your business, but I work here.”
That was when I noticed the grease-monkey jumpsuit he had on with the logo for Pete’s. A brief memory from the other night flashed before my eyes—the grease stains on Adam’s large, calloused hands. I stood gaping at him like a fish, while he ignored me.
Leach was telling Adam about Austin’s baby mama drama earlier this morning. The whole while, he acted as if I wasn’t standing there with them. And he’d had the nerve to tell me to stay out of his life.
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