“You’ve always been there for me,” Millie said quickly before she realized the words were passing her lips.
“It’s my job,” Penny said and looked down at her hands. Millie always thought Penny’s hands were graceful.
“It’s your job to cook and clean and watch over the kids. The job is just a basic nanny job but you go way beyond that and I’m not talking about the work you do when you put on your personal assistant hat for Jack. I see the other nannies around this neighborhood and their caring is forced but yours is genuine, Penny. What you do for all of us, even Crystal, comes from your heart. This job is not just a paycheck.”
“Look at you getting all philosophical,” Penny replied and stood up but not before Millie saw her cheeks blush deeply. She walked over to the closet and pulled out Millie’s overnight bag. “Is this big enough or should I run to the storage room in the basement for your small suitcase?”
. . .
Three hours later, they stopped at a diner halfway to the cabin. It was a small eatery owned by the same family for over fifty years. There was nothing fancy about the place but the Schroeder family was friendly and offered great tasting comfort food. Mrs. Schroeder, a plump woman in her late fifties with a permanent smile on her face, led them to a booth after she and Jack chitchatted for a couple minutes. They hadn’t been to the diner since the previous August.
“Can I get you your usual, Jack?” Mrs. Schroeder asked in her lilting voice.
“You know me too well, Mrs. Schroeder,” he replied.
“That’ll be one double cheeseburger with a side of chili fries,” she said and jotted the order down on her notepad.
“I cannot wait. I will have a Coke, too,” replied Jack.
“And you, Millie, what would you like, dear? How ‘bout your hot turkey sandwich?”
“Yes, please, and can I have a Coke also?”
“Of course and might I say what a beautiful young woman you’re becoming,” Mrs. Schroeder said and Millie smiled but dropped her gaze to the table as she blushed.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“I’ll have your dinners out in a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” both Jack and Millie said as she walked away humming.
“Mrs. Schroeder is right,” Jack said, “you are becoming a beautiful young woman. A krasivaya molodaya zhenshchina.”
“That’s a mouthful,” she said and started playing with her cell phone. There was a text from Celie – u comin 2nite… Justin wants u 2 cum… LOL. Millie deleted the text.
“It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.”
They ate their dinner in relative silence and arrived at the cabin as it started to snow. Jack took his bag up to his room and Millie went to the big bunk room across the reading room from Jack. The bunk room was large with two sides divided by a bathroom. Each side had three sets of bunk beds which allowed extra space for when the kids brought their friends along.
It seemed weird to Millie to be on the girl’s side by herself and her boots echoed on the wood floor. She missed the raucous voices of her nieces and nephews and she suddenly felt a little unsure being at the cabin with Jack. They would be forced to talk which she figured was his motivation for hauling her up there. Well, screw that, she thought and slammed the door to the bunk room.
Jack tried to get her out of the room the next morning but Millie refused.
“You will come out when your stomach starts talking,” he said and much to her chagrin, he was right and by two that afternoon, she was starving. When she descended the spiral staircase, she saw Jack sitting at the kitchen table with his nature journal. “There is turkey and corned beef in the fridge,” he said without looking up. “I made sure to get your favorite cheese and tomato soup so if you want grilled cheese, there is that also. Please just keep it kosher, though.”
“As kosher as that cheeseburger you had last night?” she groused and stomped over to the refrigerator.
“Why are you busting my butt about that? What has been the long standing rule about kashrut in this family?” Millie was stupid for saying anything and really, she didn’t even know why she did. “Millie?”
“Kosher in the house and the cabin, I can mix meat and dairy outside but no pork or shellfish.”
“That is right. When you live under your own roof, you can make your own decisions about kashrut but under mine, those are the rules.”
“Are you kicking me out?” she sneered at him, sticking her hand on her hip and giving him a very pointed stare.
“Millie,” Jack said her name gently. “What did I say that made you think I was kicking you out?”
“I…” Millie closed her mouth. She was playing a role; a role she had seen Kayleen, Connor, and Celie play with their own parents. This wasn’t her but she didn’t know exactly who she was. She crossed her arms and frowned. Jack stood and held his chair out to her.
“You have a seat and I will make you a grilled cheese and some tomato soup. Kak eto zvuchit?”
“Khorosho,” she grumbled and plopped down on the chair. While Jack fiddled around in the kitchen, she went through his nature journal. She actually enjoyed reading his little notations. Saw small bunny family, babies hopped too far from their mama, she chased them back. Told Karie and she laughed and then said without stuttering ‘I want to see them too.’ Very proud of her. She also liked his drawings. They were simple. He used a fine tip pen to do them and then added just a little color with colored pencils. Karie must have inherited her talent from her father.
“I was going over my last entry from the hike Penny and I took last August. She gave me the idea to take the hike again but this time in winter and compare and contrast what I see. Tomorrow we will do that.”
“What’s this ‘we’ shit?”
“Sledi za yazykom,” Jack warned. Millie rolled her eyes. If her brother noticed, he didn’t say anything. “You will go with me.”
“It’s winter.”
“The temperature is not forecast to be unbearable and we have boots and coats. It will be a piece of cake. Speaking of cake, Penny sent along one of her cinnamon coffee cakes she had frozen. Would you like a piece too?”
“Yes, that’s one of my favorites,” she said and found her mood lifting with the thought of Penny’s cake. Within ten minutes, Jack set down a steaming bowl of cream of tomato soup, two grilled cheese sandwiches cut into triangles, and big piece of coffee cake. He must have already eaten as he sat down with just a piece of cake and a mug of coffee. Jack focused on his cell phone as Millie ate which unnerved her. When is he going to give me the big lecture?
The answer to that question was the next day and it wasn’t a lecture but more of just a big brother to little sister talk. Jack roused her out of bed early, fed her a hearty French toast and fake bacon breakfast, and advised her to dress in layers. Millie was still very sleepy as Jack slapped a backpack on her and guided her down the front steps of the cabin and towards the trail around the frozen lake. There had not been much snow in the area and the tree canopy kept what most of what did fall off of the trail, leaving only a few scatterings of white stuff.
Halfway around the lake, Jack took a right and plunged into the overgrowth. Millie was glad the initial walk woke her up as the hike her brother was taking her on was a challenge. Jack may have had rockstar lungs from his onstage cardio routine but Millie’s marijuana lungs hated everything in the world at that moment. By the time she caught up to Jack, she was leaning over and grabbing at her jeans like an out of shape NBA player.
“You’re… killing… me…,” she breathed, gulping a huge breath in between each word. Jack laughed at her. Not in a mean way, but in an older brother way.
“We are almost there, sestra.”
“Danny will not be happy with you if I die on this little trek,” she said as Jack started off again. She was getting used to the exertion and was able to keep up with him better. Rather, able to keep within five or so feet of him. There was a slight incline and then a big incline where they had to crawl over several fallen trees. Jack waited for her and helped her when necessary. They finally came to a small clearing, not more than eight by eight feet surrounded by the dense forest on one side, a rock face on the second side, a grouping of pines on the third, and an opening on the fourth that looked down on another small clearing about a hundred yards sloping downwards next to where they emerged into the opening. That clearing was bigger and looked beautiful in the sun. Millie could see a small stream, iced over, meandered through the space.
“We are here,” he said and walked into the patch of sun. The sky was a pale January blue. “I have decided on a name for this.”
“And what is that?” Millie said and shed her heavy parka. She had on a turtleneck, flannel shirt, and hoodie on top of thermal underwear and she was now sweating from her exertion.
“Petrov Grotto,” he said, also shedding his own parka.
“Petrov Grotto? Sounds dorky.”
“But there is a reason,” he said and walked over to the grouping of pines. “See, these are for Mama and Papa.” Jack pointed to the two biggest trees. One was a few feet taller than the other. “And here is my tree, Danny’s tree, and your tree.” Millie’s tree was the smallest of the three and the trio was smaller than the two big ones. “Since finding this place last August, something has been bothering me about it and finally, after rereading my notes in my journal, I figured this out.” He walked over to the stone face that rose about twelve feet and leaned back a bit. “This represents the Soviet Union and the pines are our family. We defected from Russia and came to the United States.” Jack moved to the opening overlooking the beautiful field below them. “This is our story.” Millie joined him and looked down.
“Do you own that also?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “It is the southern edge of the property. According to the land history, that used to be a small pasture and owned by the family who owns all that over there,” he explained and pointed to a ridge on the other side.
“Why didn’t they want it? It looks so serene especially with the little stream.”
“I had to dig a little further to find that out. Apparently the daughter of those people was smitten with the son of the owners of this property. When they married, that family gave the pasture to this family as part of the dowry.”
“How Old Country,” Millie said and shivered a bit now she had cooled off.
“Come, you are getting chilled.” Jack turned her around and guided her into the middle of the clearing. From the backpack he gave her, he pulled out two waterproof blankets he spread on the ground. “Put your jacket back on and…” After handing her jacket to her, he pulled out a large thermos from his backpack. “Here is some hot chocolate I brought for us. You drink some of that while I take some photographs and make notes.”
Millie settled on the blanket and sipped at the hot liquid that helped chase away the chill. Jack was meticulous, referring to his journal and then taking photos of what had already been documented once when the area was all green from the summer. When he was finished, he sat next to her and spent a good half an hour writing while sipping his own hot chocolate. Several times he would look up and stare off at something. Millie wanted to ask him what he was thinking but also didn’t want to disturb him in his scientific zone. Another question popped in her mind and as soon as he closed the journal, she asked it.
“You are very science-y,” she began. “Why didn’t you major in biology or chemistry or some other scientific discipline at Princeton instead of history and English literature?”
Jack took a long drink from his cup, appearing to think her question over.
“I do like science but when I was deciding on a major, I wanted the experience to help me understand people and the world. Biology might have helped me there but history and learning about the past, all sorts of pasts, made more sense to me.”
“And why English literature?”
“Because words are so important in understanding people. Stories are history also even if the story is fiction. I could study about the Industrial Revolution and that was in black and white but then I could read literature from that time and the era becomes colorful and more real,” he explained.
“You’re so smart,” she said and frowned, remembering how she liked her history and English classes she had taken in high school but then she would see her ‘friends’ laugh at her when she would participate in a discussion or get a good grade on a test or paper. She started failing those tests on purpose or not handing in papers. And then she just stopped going. Those decisions made it easier to fit in with her crowd.
“You are smart also, Milena,” said Jack. “I raised my voice to you yesterday because I was very angry you were kicked out of school. I am trying my best to be understanding but your education…” Jack sighed and she quickly shifted her eyes toward him to gauge his temperament. Again, he was staring off. This time, his gaze was towards the rock face. “When Mama was so sick from the cancer, I would sit by her bed in the hospital and hold you. You were about two years old and so curious. You think I ask a lot of questions; you, my dear sister, were the queen of questions even at that young age. As soon as a nurse or doctor would leave the room, you would start in. ‘Why did he use that funny thing to listen to Mama breathe? She did not take any blood this time. Why?’ And when I had answered those questions, you would start in on just random questions until you fell asleep in my lap.
“One day, about three weeks before Mama died, you were sound asleep and Papa had taken Danny down to the cafeteria for some ice cream. He was not dealing well with Mama being so sick. By that time, we knew it would just be a matter of time before she would be gone. Mama slept a lot but she was having a good day and I read to her one of the papers I wrote for my World History class. Mr. Cappelletti had us write about our relationship with World History so I wrote the story of our family from fighting in World War I to being forced into the ghettos and then to the concentration camp and then our defection. I earned an A+ on the paper and Mama was so happy. And then she made me make a promise.”
“What was that?” Millie said, focused on the story her brother was telling. She loved hearing stories about her parents. She had so few memories of them and the ones she did have were fading fast.
“She made me promise to make sure you, Danny and I graduated from college. She said a public education was acceptable but all three of us needed to graduate from college. It was one of the reasons why Mama and Papa took the chance and brought us here. If we were still in Siberia, we would never have had the chance of going to college. Because of whom Mama and Papa were, we would not have been allowed to leave that closed city even as adults and would have had to work in the same factory as Papa. We would have had no options for our future.”
“I never knew that. I always thought the only reason why you went to Princeton was because of the scholarship,” she said, vocalizing her shock. “I figured if you didn’t have that scholarship, you wouldn’t have gone especially with having to take care of me and Danny and with Crystal being pregnant.”
“I debated declining the scholarship but Mama’s words always floated around in my head. This was my chance and I had made a promise. The reason why I was so angry with you about getting kicked out is because of that promise I made. Actually, there were two promises I made to both our parents. The first was to always look out for you and Danny. I am the oldest; it is my job. The second was to get you both educated beyond high school. Danny was easy. He graduated high scho
ol early so he could start Princeton with me and the guys. I have seen how you have been on such a fall in regards to your high school education and when the principal called me yesterday, I felt I was on my way to breaking that promise to Mama because I cannot even get you out of high school. I feel like such a failure.”
“Jack, don’t feel that way!” she said quickly. “You are not a failure. It was my actions that got me kicked out.”
“But I did not instill in you the responsibility…”
“No, no, no!” Millie insisted. “You and Penny have taught me the perfect set of ethics and knowing what’s right and wrong and how to be responsible.” Millie paused. “I have just chosen to ignore all that,” she said quietly and with a fair amount of guilt bubbling up within her. “My actions have been because of my choices and have nothing to do with you.”
“Millie, I need you to get your high school education. You are kicked out now so we must research where you can go to start work on your GED. I need to make sure you not only get a high school diploma but you get to college and finish college also.”
Millie worked those words over in her mind. Jack was her link to their mother and he had made a promise to her but because of Millie’s actions, that promise was on very shaky grounds. Tears clouded her vision and she covered her face. She couldn’t stop the crying fit and Jack pulled her into a tight embrace.
“I’m so sorry, Jack,” she cried. “I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
“Then let me help you, Millie,” he said and broke the embrace. “Let me take you to the treatment facility Penny found just over in Cherry Hill. It is an outpatient program. I know you have a fear of being locked away from us.”
“I don’t know if I can do it,” she hiccupped.
“Yes, you can, Millie. You have me and Penny and Danny behind you.”
Sadly, she could not do it. After eleven days, she quit going to rehab and fell further in with her alcoholic and drug addicted friends and within a couple months, she was officially an addict where she stole her nieces’ and nephews’ allowances before Penny could hand them out. With that money she bought a bag of weed and a handful of pills. It wouldn’t be until the following New Year’s when she finally hit rock bottom with the fight with Celie at Carlos’s club and she stuck with rehab.
Aftermath (The Deceptions Trilogy Book 2) Page 32