by Kim Purcell
“Stop.”
“You’re shaking,” he said, squeezing her tightly. “I’ll keep you warm.”
It was December and the garage was freezing, but she was shivering from more than the cold. At least her bra and the gray sweatpants were still on. He groaned and breathed in her neck.
“Please. I don’t want this.” She tried to push on his shoulders, but he was too heavy. “I’m a virgin.”
He jerked back and gazed into her eyes in disbelief. “You are?”
She nodded. It was almost true.
“I just want to feel your skin,” he said, speaking through his teeth, as he did when he was nervous.
“Get off me,” she said, struggling to get away.
“Stay still,” Sergey murmured. “I won’t hurt you. I told you I won’t. Kiss me.” He pressed his lips to hers and forced her mouth open with his tongue. His mouth tasted of vodka and fish.
She turned her head away. “No!”
“Don’t be a tease,” he said. “You know you want this. I’ve seen how you look at me.”
“I don’t!” she cried, and then wondered if she had been a tease. She knew, or at least sensed, that he was attracted to her, and she might have used it a little to get what she wanted, but she didn’t intend this. “Please,” she cried, panicking.
“Shh,” he grunted, pressing himself into her. “Stay still. I won’t hurt you. I love you.”
He rubbed himself against her belly but left her sweatpants on. He wasn’t going to stop, no matter what she did. She clenched her eyes tight, as if she could make it go away. Tears leaked through her closed eyelids. The house was silent except for the occasional moan that seeped out of him. If Colin were outside, he’d hear Sergey through the thin walls of the garage. Please don’t be outside.
Sergey was rubbing faster now against the top of her loose sweatpants. He gripped her head with both hands. “Tatiana,” he cried.
Her stomach was moist. She wanted to vomit. He rolled off her. Her hands clapped to her face and she stifled a sob.
He stared down at her. A crease formed between his sharp blue eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I said no,” she cried. “I said stop.”
He frowned. “I did.”
Not enough.
He picked up her monkey T-shirt from the floor and tenderly wiped off her belly.
A blast of anger shot up through her. Did he actually think she’d forgive him? She snatched the T-shirt away from him and threw it on the floor. “Don’t you dare,” she said.
“Hannah,” he began.
“Why did you say my mother’s name?”
He shook his head, gritting his teeth together, and shut his eyes, as if it was too painful for him to say. Then he murmured, “You look so much like her.”
“Did you have an affair with her?” she asked in a dull, bitter voice that she didn’t recognize as her own.
He opened his eyes. “No.”
Hannah let out the breath of air she’d been holding. It was such an incredible relief to know that the person she believed to be her mother was real. There were so few things she could count on anymore.
He continued. “I tried, but she wouldn’t see me. Not even after your father became a street drunk and shamed her. I came to Chişinău to see her and ran into her when she was walking to the hospital. She was friendly enough, but when I asked her if I could meet her after work, she refused. She said your father would love to see me, but I couldn’t stand it. She gave herself to him instead of me and then he threw it away. I hated him.”
Hannah glared at him. You didn’t know him. You didn’t know his passion. The way he used to read a poem, like there was beauty in the world.
“Did you plant that bomb?” she asked, keeping her voice even. She had to know everything.
“No.”
“You know Petr Sokolov.”
He didn’t say anything.
She couldn’t control herself anymore. “Just admit it,” she yelled. “You killed my mother. She refused you and you killed her!”
“I didn’t kill her,” Sergey said urgently. “Your father was supposed to go to the café alone, where the Minister of Internal Affairs was having breakfast. He was told the minister was on the take and that the briefcase had money for him from the resistance. He was supposed to leave it under the table. That was all he knew. Petr was going to blow it up when he left. Your father would be arrested, and I would be there to console your mother. It almost worked. Apparently, they walked out of the café together, arguing. Your father had her arm, but then your mother broke away and ran back in, yelling that there was a bomb. Your father followed her, and Petr blew up the cafe.”
Hannah blinked, taking it all in. Her father had not killed all those people. He thought the briefcase held money, and her mother was the one who’d realized. Maybe she had smelled the explosives. Only then did Hannah realize that a part of her had believed the police when they’d said her father did it.
“Believe me, Hannah, one day I’ll get my revenge. For both of us. I loved her too.” He paused. “Just as I love you.”
“Do you really think I’m going to believe that? All you do is lie. You were never going to let my father live. You knew my mother would never leave him. She loved him. Even when he was drunk and puking all over the place, she used to rub his back and—” Her voice broke off. “You don’t even know what love means.”
His face reddened with anger. “How about a little gratitude? I’ve done so much for you, I risked so much. I got your uncle out of the work camp, paid a lot of money, and now you have the nerve to say—” He looked toward the chained doors of the garage. He’d heard something she hadn’t. A car.
It drove straight up the driveway as if it was going to ram into the garage and then stopped suddenly. Sergey jumped up and tugged on his pants. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a billfold, and dropped a few hundred-dollar bills on the sofa next to Hannah, like a payment.
“Merry Christmas,” he said, reaching down to stroke her face. She cringed and he pulled his hand away.
The car door opened. Sergey grabbed the rest of his clothes and sprinted out of the garage.
Chapter Fifty-one
Hannah heard Michael and Maggie get out of the car. Maggie asked her mom if she could get another American Girl doll for Christmas and Michael made fart noises. There was the familiar double beep of the car alarm. Lillian’s heels clicked toward the front door. Hannah moved slowly, worried Lillian would hear her getting dressed through the walls of the garage.
The three crisp hundred-dollar bills sat on the sofa, but she ignored them, reaching instead for her monkey T-shirt on the floor. It was too disgusting. She tossed it down and looked at her sweatpants. They had gotten dirty too. She tugged them off and hurried to the cardboard boxes that held the rest of her clothes.
What had Sergey meant when he said she should be grateful? He claimed he’d gotten Vladi out of the work camp, but she didn’t believe him. She had three hundred dollars now that he’d gotten what he wanted, but before, he hadn’t given her enough to fix Babulya’s eyes. Her babushka had died thinking Hannah didn’t care enough to send her money for a simple operation. Stop it, she told herself. She couldn’t think of that now or she’d collapse on the floor and Lillian would find her, half-dressed and weeping.
The front door opened. Hannah started to panic. If Lillian came into the garage now, when she was wearing only her underwear and bra and there was three hundred dollars on the sofa, Lillian would think she’d had sex with him for sure.
Maggie called out, “Papa?”
Hannah grabbed the white shirt Babulya had given her on the morning before she left Moldova. The sweatshirt would be easier, but Hannah could not wear their clothes anymore. Babulya had given her these clothes, had chosen th
em with her own half-seeing eyes, and now she was dead.
She did up each little button with her shaking hands. Her blue slacks from Moldova were tight, but she managed to get the zipper up.
“Sergey?” Lillian was in the house now. “Hannah? Where are you?” Her shoes tapped in the entranceway as she shifted to her hard-soled slippers and then came down the hall toward the garage.
His smell was on her still. Lillian would smell him. She needed a shower to get this stickiness off her belly, to get Sergey off her, but it was too late.
“Maggie,” Lillian said sharply. “Bring Michael upstairs and turn on a movie.”
Hannah snatched up the money, reached under the sofa, grabbed Goodnight Moon, ripped out the documents, and shoved them, along with the money, in her back pocket. Lillian was right by the garage door, in front of the washer and dryer. Hannah could hear her breathing.
Lillian pushed open the door and looked down at Hannah. “Why didn’t you answer me?” she demanded. “What are you doing?” She was wearing her black slacks, black shirt, and navy slippers as if she were in mourning.
Hannah hoped Lillian wouldn’t notice her bare feet. “Putting away the toys,” she said, holding up Goodnight Moon as evidence. She walked across the room and shoved it back on the shelf.
In the hall, she heard Maggie and Michael shouting out, “Papa!” He was laughing and Michael let out a screech. Probably he was throwing him in the air.
“Why are you wearing those clothes?” Lillian asked.
Hannah remembered she’d been wearing the sweatpants and the monkey T-shirt when Lillian had left and now they were lying on the ground. “I—um—I wanted to wear this. I missed my grandmother.”
Lillian scanned the room like a lizard, as if she sensed a change, and then her eyes focused on Hannah’s bare feet. Hannah pressed her shaking hands to the sides of her legs, so that Lillian wouldn’t notice them, and waited for Lillian to realize what had happened.
Sergey came to the door of the garage and gave Lillian that tight, nervous smile of his. “Lilichka, moya lubov.”
Hannah wondered if he felt even a little guilty now as he said these words to his wife right after he’d said them to her. At least Hannah hadn’t believed him.
“Why are you home?” Lillian demanded, glancing back and forth between the two of them. She was so convinced that Hannah wanted her husband, she’d never believe the truth.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” he said, smiling charmingly, holding his arms out to his wife.
You are the terrorist, Hannah wanted to scream, not my father.
On the floor, right by her foot, was the dirty monkey shirt. She slid her foot out and kicked it under the sofa. Sergey’s eyes flicked down and then back up to his wife’s face.
“You were supposed to call me when you got into the airport,” Lillian said, her jaw flexing. “I wanted to be here when you got home.”
“I wanted to surprise you,” he said, grinning, then rubbed his hands together fast, looking at Maggie, who was standing in the doorway. “We need to get a Christmas tree, have a real American Christmas.” He stepped across the room toward Lillian when she wouldn’t come to him, and pulled her into his chest. Lillian allowed him that but kept her arms hanging at her sides. He continued, in his tight, lying voice, “I bought you something in Moscow in the fashion district.”
Lillian didn’t say anything.
“Hannah’s babushka just died,” he murmured.
Maggie looked at her with alarm. “What?”
Hannah’s eyes welled up with tears. She couldn’t believe Babulya was no longer on this earth, that they would never drink tea together again, that their good-bye had been a good-bye for forever.
Lillian pulled away. “How did you find out?”
“Hannah got a letter,” he said.
“A letter? How?” Lillian pulled back, again accusing him.
“She mailed her own,” he said, gesturing at Hannah. “Ask her.”
“I mailed it when I went for the run,” Hannah admitted, hoping to dissolve Lillian’s suspicion about Sergey. She’d rather get in trouble for a letter.
Lillian looked at her with disgust. “So now everyone knows where we live?”
Hannah lifted her chin and considered telling her that Sergey had also sent the letters, but figured that despite everything, she still needed him. He was better than Paavo, she thought miserably. At least he said he loved her.
Michael was calling for them. Lillian glanced back at Maggie. “Go see what your brother needs and then bring him upstairs and put on a movie.”
“I don’t want—” Maggie began.
“Now.”
They listened to Maggie’s footsteps down the hall and up the stairs. “How’d she die?” Lillian asked Hannah.
“Heart attack,” Sergey said.
Lillian squinted at Hannah. “You were close with your babushka, weren’t you?”
Did she expect her to lean forward with her neck exposed like a meek deer so that she could clamp down for a bite? Hannah pressed her lips together and looked away.
“Why don’t you relax today?” Sergey reached out as if to pat Hannah’s shoulder, but then dropped his hand suddenly, perhaps thinking better of it with Lillian there in the room.
Lillian barked, “Did we not agree that I am in charge of what the girl does and does not do?”
“Come on, Lily. Her babushka just died. Have some compassion.” He looked genuinely sad for her, but he was also the best liar she’d ever met.
“Nobody helped me when my father died,” Lillian said. “You went off to China to do your work.” She spat out that last word as if he could hardly call it that. Hannah wondered if she knew that Sergey was still doing that “work.”
He raised his hands in surrender and, shaking his head, marched out of the garage. As Lillian stood there, eyeing Hannah, the front door slammed shut, and they heard his BMW start up outside and roar down the street. Hannah was alone with Lillian.
Chapter Fifty-two
Lillian was blocking her exit. There was nowhere she could go. Hannah stayed where she was, her leg pressed against the blue and white flowery sofa as if it were her only friend.
“What did you do for that letter?” Lillian demanded, taking a step toward her. “And don’t tell me he was just being nice. My husband is not nice. He used to kill people for a living,” she added, gloating as if she thought this was going to destroy Hannah’s vision of Sergey.
Hannah matched Lillian’s calm with her own. “For your information, your husband is still killing people for a living. You’re just too blind to see it.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that!” Lillian raised her hand and slapped her. This time, Hannah barely felt it.
“It’s the truth,” Hannah said. “I’ve seen papers on his desk. How do you think I got that book? I’ve heard him on the phone talking about his shipments. I know about Petr Sokolov. He admitted everything.”
Lillian paused. Her eyes narrowed. “You need to get your passport for me.”
“I don’t have it,” Hannah said, thinking about how it was in her back pocket right at that moment. “It was in my bag. Remember?”
“Your purse, you mean?”
“Yes, my purse.” She had to get a hold of her thoughts.
“I’ve had enough of your lies!” Lillian yelled, shaking Hannah. “Where is it?” Lillian threw her down on the sofa, then dropped down on her knees and swept her hand underneath. Thank God she hadn’t put them there. But then Lillian pulled out the dirty monkey T-shirt. Hannah held her breath and hoped she’d just toss it down.
“You don’t even clean up your own clothes,” Lillian said. Her face turned into one of disgust. “What did you get on this? It’s wet.”
She couldn’t think
of any plausible response that Lillian would believe. Her ears heated up in panic. Her breathing stopped.
Lillian looked at it closer. Hannah panicked. Lillian had chopped off her hair for standing in a dark kitchen with Sergey—she wasn’t going to wait to see what Lillian did now. She turned and ran.
Lillian lunged at her. She grabbed hold of Hannah’s waist, pinning her arms at her sides, and yanked her back so hard that Hannah fell forward. Without anything to break her fall, her nose smashed on the hard concrete floor. Hannah heard a crunch and then a white stream of pain filled her head. Lillian jumped on her back and slapped the sides of her head, again and again, but she was remarkably silent in her rage. Maybe she didn’t want the children to hear. Hannah tasted the blood dripping down her face, into her mouth. Lillian had broken her nose.
Don’t let her do this. Fight!
Hannah used all her strength to flip around. Lillian fell off of her but got up on her feet fast in a crouched position. Hannah kicked up as hard as she could and got Lillian in the side of the mouth. Lillian cried out and her head jerked to the side. Hannah jumped up and turned to run, but her legs felt gooey, as if she was stepping in thick mud. Her head spun.
Lillian tried to grab her hair, but she couldn’t get a grip. It was too short.
Hannah pulled away. She ran through the door, past the washing machine and dryer, almost to the hall. She thought she was free, but then Lillian grabbed her arm and dragged her backward into the garage.
Hannah managed to grab Lillian’s shirt and rip it open, but then Lillian shoved her backward. The impact of her head on the floor made a dull thwack. When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see anything but little dots. This is what they mean by seeing stars, she realized in the brief moment before Lillian jumped on her, pinning her arms down with her knees. Lillian’s shirt was ripped open and her black bra was showing. There was a scratch down her face and her mouth was dripping with blood. It would be swollen and ugly for a couple days, but Hannah wished she’d done more damage.