by Kim Purcell
She nodded and stumbled into the kitchen, blinking away the tears.
Chapter Forty-one
Hannah crept along the fence. The crickets were chirping in the backyard like they did in the village in Moldova. It had always been such a peaceful sound to her, but today it was like they were warning her. It seemed no matter what she did, things kept getting worse.
She was hoping that just seeing Colin would make it all better. She pushed open the slat in the fence, slowly, so it wouldn’t make any noise.
Colin was in his bedroom, awake, even though it was after midnight. He was sitting on his bed, counting a large pile of coins and bills. Crying. Into all that money. How could a person cry when they were sitting in front of a pile of money? What did he have to cry about?
He wiped his red, wet cheeks with one hand, put the wrinkled bills into a wad, and shoved them into a black wallet. The mountain of coins remained. He stared at them for a moment and then took large handfuls of the coins and dropped them in the olive duffel bag. Then he walked across the room to the desk, which was cleared of papers and books, and put the bag on the floor.
She realized the room was different. The bed was made, the garbage and balled-up papers were gone, and all his clothing had been picked up from the floor. He took an envelope out of the desk drawer and placed it on the desk. It said, MOM.
He was running away. It was unbelievable, but it was the only explanation she could come up with. He was taking all his money and leaving. He’d written a letter to his mom. Her heart twisted inside her. He couldn’t leave. He didn’t know what he had. His mom wasn’t like her mom, but she was a better mom than Lillian. She was better than lots of moms. His dad was a drunk, yes, but he wasn’t beating him. Colin had food. He had his own room. He had a brother who loved him, for sure, even if he didn’t hang out at the house much. Hannah had heard them laughing, playing video games, joking around the way boys did.
She had to stop him. If she called to him, Sergey and Lillian would hear, but they wouldn’t notice a rock. She bent down to pick one up. The window was half open. She could hit the glass lightly and then when he came to the window, she could whisper for him to come out. He could even climb out the window.
He stood up from the desk and grabbed a basketball jersey, some pants, and underwear from a drawer, and shoved it all in the bag. Was he running away right now?
She pulled her arm back, preparing to throw the rock at his window. It was open halfway, so she’d have to make sure to hit the glass, not the screen, or it wouldn’t make a noise. She launched the rock forward. It hit the side of the building and made a plunk.
He looked at his closed bedroom door.
Not there. Over here.
Then he moved. Fast. He grabbed the duffel bag and shoved it in his closet. His mother burst through the door.
“Why are you awake?” she asked.
He stepped back, hands up. “What?”
“Why are you awake?” she repeated.
“Why are you awake?” he asked.
“You have the SATs tomorrow, young man. You need to do well so you can get a scholarship. Your father isn’t going to pay for college,” she said. “Especially now.”
“I know, okay?” he said.
“Are you trying to destroy your life? Vandalizing a school! Staying up all night before your SATs? What kind of a kid have I raised?”
“I told you, it was the other kids.”
“You need to get it together, Colin.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Go to bed. This is just dumb. You don’t want to be a failure your whole life, do you?”
He stared down at his bare feet and looked like he was going to cry. Hannah wished she could clamp her hand over the mother’s mouth, stop her from talking and making things worse. This was the last thing he needed.
His mother paused then, looking around the room. “Thank you for cleaning,” she said. Then she turned off the light and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Colin went to his bed, sat down, and dropped his head in his hands. He stayed still like that for a moment, and then lay down on his small bed, curling into a large ball on his side, not bothering to cover himself with his comforter. It was as if he was punishing himself.
Katya always told Hannah she wanted to help everyone else before she helped herself, but Katya didn’t understand. After Hannah’s parents had died, in those black weeks when her body did not feel like her own, when her arms had weights on them and her chest felt sick with poison, Babulya had brought her eucalyptus tea in the morning and tickled the nape of her neck like Mamulya always had, and at night, made her chicken soup when she got home from working all day at the market. It was only when Babulya thought she was asleep that Hannah heard her muffled sobs and knew it wasn’t easy for her either. One day, she asked Babulya how she could go on when her own daughter had been killed. Babulya had told her she’d learned that the only way to overcome a great sadness was to help someone else who was sad too.
Hannah bent down to pick up another rock, stood up, aimed, and threw it. Crack.
“Oh!” It was Colin’s voice, just a peep and then silence.
Hannah jumped away from the slat in the fence. Oh my God. She couldn’t believe she’d just broken his window.
A back door opened. Hannah closed the slat, fast, and stood still, pressed against the fence. There were footsteps down the neighbor’s back steps, around the house, to Colin’s half-open window. Hannah could hear his mother breathing.
“Colin honey?” his mother said through his window.
“Yes?” His voice sounded scared.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a crack in your window.”
“I think a bird just hit it.” He sounded like he was lying, even to Hannah.
“I thought I heard someone out here.”
“No, it was a bird. I heard a squeak.”
Had he heard her?
“I don’t see the bird.” His mother paused another moment, probably looking around for the bird, and then walked along his concrete pathway to the back door. It opened and closed.
Hannah crept along the gravel walkway, trying not to make a sound. She hurried across the lawn, opened the back door, and snuck into the dark kitchen. She locked the door and pressed her hand against the smooth white wood, listening.
Behind her, the tinkling of ice in a glass made her jump.
Chapter Forty-two
“You keep surprising me,” Sergey slurred, leaning up against the counter. In the dark, it was difficult to read his expression, but he wasn’t smiling. “I didn’t think you’d go for a boar.”
“I don’t,” she said, wondering if he was referring to Colin or Paavo. Or both.
He shrugged. “It’s your business.” He took another sip of his vodka on ice—he only drank it that way when he was alone.
“Your friend—” she began, unsure of how to proceed, worried he would get angry if she told him the truth. “He tried to force me.”
“That’s not what he said.”
“He lied,” Hannah spat.
“You didn’t want it?” He stepped toward her, coming closer with his breath that reeked of vodka. He actually looked surprised.
“I was cleaning the floor and he walked into the house,” she said. “I only said I let him in because he threatened my family if I didn’t.”
Sergey frowned. “You are a beautiful girl, Hannah. You should lock the door when you’re home alone. This isn’t the village.”
Hannah blinked at the sting of that statement. She wasn’t a village girl! “Lillian had just gone out with the kids,” she said. “I don’t know why she didn’t lock it.” This was as far as she could go. If she told him what Paavo had said about Lillian sending him to
talk to her, he’d ask either Paavo or Lillian and they’d say she was lying.
Sergey squinted at her, like he didn’t know what to believe. How could he doubt that she was telling the truth? Paavo was a disgusting, mean man. No matter how much money or power he had, she couldn’t imagine any woman going with him willingly. But it had looked bad when Sergey came into the house. “I said no, but he wasn’t going to stop. Not if you hadn’t come back.” She let out a shaky breath. “I don’t want you to think, you know, that I’m that kind of girl. Because I’m not.” She pulled her hair away from her shoulders and dropped it behind her back.
Sergey reached for her shoulder and brushed back a few errant strands of hair. “I know.”
She flinched and he pulled his hand away. She couldn’t take any more men touching her, even if it was Sergey, who wasn’t anything like Paavo or Volva. “He said my uncle wouldn’t cooperate and look what happened to him.” Her voice shook as she thought of Vladi, silly Vladi as she used to call him.
“What?” Sergey looked sincerely shocked. So he really didn’t know.
“He said Vladi’s in a work camp somewhere. He said it was his insurance. He told me to cooperate or something would happen to Vladi.”
“You don’t have to cooperate with Paavo,” Sergey said, his jaw tightening. “You work for me.”
“Can you help my uncle?” she asked quietly, afraid to hear the answer.
Sergey sucked in a sudden, worried breath of air. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to Paavo. But believe me, Hannah, I never asked him to do that.”
She stared at him, trying to see if he was telling her the truth. He gazed into her eyes. She couldn’t tell.
“I’m going on a business trip to Russia soon,” he said softly. “If he’s in a work camp, I’ll try to get him out.”
This small promise meant the whole world to her. “Thank you.”
He rested a heavy hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.
“Paavo told me that you chose me. Is this true?” she asked, searching his face.
He hesitated. “Yes.”
Her eyes teared up. “Why?”
“I wanted to help you.” He licked his top lip and looked away, as if he felt guilty about something.
He definitely hadn’t helped her so far, but it was something else. “Maggie said you knew my parents?” she asked.
He nodded slowly. His eyes twinkled as he stared at her through the darkness, ran his hand down her shoulder, caressing her upper arm. Hannah stood very still. “You look just like your mother. You have her eyes, her feet, that beautiful hair.”
There was the loud bang-bang of someone running down the hallway. Sergey dropped his hand. Hannah stepped backward just as Lillian burst into the kitchen.
“What is happening here?” she demanded.
Sergey put his hands in the air. “Nothing.”
“Why are you two standing in the dark?” Lillian said.
“Lillian, give me a break,” Sergey said, brushing past her. “She’s a child.”
Lillian glared at Hannah like she wanted to murder her. Hannah listened to Sergey’s hard-soled slippers bang up the stairs. He went into the office and slammed the door, which woke up Michael, who started crying. Hannah expected Lillian to go after him, but she didn’t.
“What are you trying to do to us?” Lillian demanded.
“I’m not doing anything,” Hannah said, her heart pounding.
“Do you think you can steal away my family?” Lillian’s voice cracked, and she swallowed, her hazel eyes filling with tears.
Hannah felt sorry for her. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I would never. Honestly, nothing has happened.” Then, she added, sincerely, without thinking, “He loves you. He only needs a little affection.”
“Affection?” Lillian grabbed her hair and pulled her backward. Hannah couldn’t stop her, unless she wanted her hair pulled out. When they got to the counter, Lillian grabbed the scissors out of the knife block. “Affection? Is that what you’re giving him? You and your beautiful hair?”
“He wasn’t talking about my hair,” Hannah cried, trying to pry Lillian’s fingers off of her hair. “He was talking about my mother’s!”
Silence. “Your mother’s?”
Lillian lifted the scissors and her voice turned cold. “Stand still or you’ll get hurt.”
Chapter Forty-three
When Hannah woke up the next morning, she lifted her hand up to feel her head, hoping that the whole previous night was all a bad dream. But it wasn’t. Her hair had been butchered. In some places, she could feel her scalp.
She glanced at the clock. It was ten after eight in the morning. After Lillian had chopped off her hair, Hannah had been so angry, she hadn’t set her alarm, but now she regretted it. She put on the gray sweat suit and hurried into the hall, where she could hear the banging of spoons in bowls. Lillian was sitting with the children, eating cereal. The table was silent. Lillian’s eyes were red. Sergey was not home.
She wondered how she could check on Colin, make sure he was still here, maybe even talk to him for a minute.
Maggie was staring in horror at Hannah.
“What happened to your hair?” she asked.
“She cut it,” Lillian said abruptly.
“But it was such beautiful hair,” Maggie said.
Hannah lifted her chin, determined not to let Lillian think she’d hurt her. “It’s lighter this way,” she said, glancing at Lillian for her reaction. “A lot of models cut their hair short nowadays.”
Lillian’s lips pressed together.
I got her, Hannah thought.
“You slept in,” Lillian said.
“I was tired,” Hannah said.
“Clear the table,” Lillian said, glaring.
All day, Lillian watched Hannah. There wasn’t a single moment she could have snuck outside. A few times, Lillian caught her looking out the living room window for Colin. One time she’d asked, “Who are you looking for?”
“Nobody,” Hannah had said.
By dinnertime, she was getting worried. She hadn’t seen him go to school or come home, and she’d purposely kept the living room curtains open, even though it annoyed Lillian, so that she could see him. She’d even vacuumed the living room for twice as long as usual so she could watch for him coming home from school. But she didn’t see him. Maybe he was already gone.
Hannah stuck the roast with carrots and onions in the oven for dinner and opened the back door. There hadn’t been any sounds from next door all day. She breathed in through her nose, hoping to catch some smell of Colin’s dinner, but all she smelled was the dampness in the air. It was going to rain again. When she saw movies set in Los Angeles, it was never raining, but it had rained here every day for the last week.
She had to look in his window, but at this time of day, she couldn’t go outside. Lillian was studying three feet away in the living room.
Maybe she could see him from upstairs. If she peeled the potatoes first and put them on the stove, she’d be clear to check on Michael and Maggie, who were watching a movie upstairs. She hurried out of the kitchen.
The dining room door slid open and Lillian called after her, “Where are you going?”
Hannah closed her eyes in frustration. Keep your voice light, she thought. Don’t let her suspect anything. “I have to organize Michael’s dresser,” she called, as she continued down the hall. “He pulled all his clothing onto the floor this morning.”
The children were watching a Disney movie about robots in Michael’s darkened room. Hannah sat on the bed next to Maggie and glanced at the red curtain. She could hear the pounding of rain outside.
“Can you play with my hair?” Maggie asked.
Your thick, uncut hair.
Han
nah slid behind her, reminding herself that it wasn’t Maggie’s fault. She tickled it at the base of her neck, the way her own mother used to do to her. She waited for a scarier scene in the movie, and then, casually, she let go of Maggie’s hair, got up on her knees, and peered past the red curtain at Colin’s house.
He was home! He was in the upstairs study, which, as far as she could tell, was next to his mother’s bedroom. Probably the brother had his bedroom upstairs too, on the other side. The kitchen, the living area, the television room, and Colin’s bedroom were all on the main floor.
Colin was sitting at the desk in the study with his back to her, and he was typing on the computer. She studied the screen—Facebook. She had a Facebook account, but she’d accessed it only a couple of times when she was at Katya’s.
She pressed her hand flat against the window, reaching for him through the pouring rain. Look at me. I’m here. You are not alone.
Then, as if he’d heard her thoughts, he turned in his chair and looked through the window, right at her. They were both in upstairs rooms, probably six meters—twenty feet—from each other, but he seemed confused, as if he didn’t know who she was. Then she remembered her hair. He didn’t recognize her.
“What are you doing?” Maggie asked.
Was Lillian getting Maggie to spy on her now?
“Nothing.” She let go of the curtain, sat down on the bed, and ran her hand along her butchered hair. A tear snuck out of her eye and rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with her palm, fast, before Maggie could see. She hated Lillian. She hated her more than she’d ever hated anyone in her life. She hated her so much, she wished she’d die.
Chapter Forty-four
That night, at five minutes after eleven, Hannah was in the kitchen cleaning when she heard Colin’s screen door slam shut once and then twice, and the familiar sound of him walking around the house, his sandals slapping the wet ground.
He was leaving!
Sergey was out. Lillian had gone upstairs to bed five minutes before. She could do it, if she was quiet. She opened the back door and ran out of the house, into the pouring rain in nothing more than her slippers and gray sweat suit. Colin’s side gate opened. Hannah sprinted along her side of the fence and burst through the gate.