My Angel

by Tetiana Brooks

  Didn’t you feel like that on your wedding day?

  The next day Mike flew back to Alaska. To follow my husband I had to get a visa. For that I needed to provide a large set of documents and go through a number of procedures.

  The holiday was over and my fears came back.

  Oh God, what a coward I am! So, what to do now? What if he never comes back? Will I have to live with someone else’s last name? I will not even be able to get a divorce, because of it being an international marriage. And what did I need all this for? Why couldn’t I just live quietly like everyone else? But no, I decided to get married.

  But these thoughts came to me less and less. I always felt the presence of my guardian angel. He seemed to be smiling at me and whispering, “Good job! You did the right thing. Everything will be fine.” It gave me strength. I continued taking my English lessons and dreaming of a better future.

  My husband also didn’t give me any reason to worry. He called and wrote me letters. He was polite and kept me informed of all the issues concerning gathering the required papers. One of his calls was special.

  “Hey, Polina!”

  “Oh! Mike! Hi!”

  “I’ve collected all the necessary documents,” Mike said into the handset, “and will send them to you by special courier. I will have to leave for a business trip for three days, so I won’t be able to write. You will have to meet the courier at the Borispol Airport in Kiev on Friday at two o’clock.”

  “And is this a man or a woman?” I felt nervous.

  “I don’t know,” Mike said, “so you’ll have to make a sign with your name on it in both English and Russian, so this person can easily find you in the airport.”

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” I said, and my heart filled with joy. He loved me. He hurried to take me to him.

  Suddenly I recollected that during the dinner in honor of our engagement, when I expressed some doubts about his love for me, Mike said, “If you look at the globe, then you will see that your city, and Anchorage, the city in which I live, are at opposite sides of the Earth. This means that, coming to you and going back home, I make a full circle around the Earth.”

  “Well, generally, yes,” I said, surprised that he even found out the location of our cities on the globe. I was stunned!

  “So how many women do you know, for whom a man would fly the Earth around three times?”

  Thinking about it this way, I admitted to myself that I personally didn’t know any woman like that. Well, now, of course, I knew one.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  On Friday, at two p.m. on the dot I was in Borispol Airport. In my hands I was holding a placard made of two album sheets. One album sheet seemed too small and therefore not reliable. On this poster, rather impressive in its size, in large block letters I wrote Polina Smith and Полина Смис. I was holding the pages proudly high above my head. It didn’t bother me that no one else had such a big poster, as most people just took the sheets torn from a school notebook or notepad, with the name of the person written with a pen or pencil. People, were paying great attention to me and my placard. They came close, looking first at the names written, then at me, some smiling, some snickering, and then stepped aside. Sometimes I saw them pointing to me with their friends, as if I were a lunatic of some kind. I paid no attention to any of those, as my goal was not to miss the courier.

  And then I saw him! He was passing through the gate, tired, but happy, smiling with such an innocent smile!

  “Mike?”

  My hands, holding the banner with my name, dropped down and my “art” fell on the floor with a great wallop.

  “Miss, aren’t you meeting a special courier with your documents?” he said.

  “I, I am!” I twined my arms about his neck while my body was shaking with laughter. Tears of happiness were rolling down my cheeks and I thought, What a surprise! What a man!

  When our mutual emotions piped down a bit, we were approached by a taxi driver, one of many in the airport looking for fares, who offered his services. We refused. But he was in no hurry to leave.

  “Excuse me my curiosity,” he said. “Tell me, whom were you meeting here?”

  “My husband!” I said happily.

  “You needed this huge poster to find your husband?” He was incredibly surprised, and went to tell other the taxi drivers about it. In five minutes I could hear friendly laughter from the drivers’ crowd. In ten minutes, half of Borispol International Airport was laughing. An hour later, I thought, perhaps, all Kiev would be laughing.

  Well, I thought as I smiled, let people have their fun.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The June heat was penetrating into the room and creeping into every corner it could reach. After exuberant spring blossoms, a warm, maybe even hot summer came.

  Fresh, sporty and full of drive at the age of forty-five. These lyrics from a famous song kept twisting in my head. Stuck. I got angry. I hated that song. I preferred the songs of Soviet singer Valentina Tolkunova, with her music and lyrics so understanding of the feminine soul. I just couldn’t stand the idea of being referred to as that kind of woman.

  “You are forty-five and your life is just starting,” sadly pronounced my friend Natalia.

  “That would be nice.” I was also depressed. “I have no idea what is waiting for me there.”

  It was hot in the kitchen, but not only from the warm summer air, but also from the oven, where I had just baked a delicious chicken with golden crust. A bottle of expensive brandy, champagne, fruit, chocolate—only the best things were on my table this time. A completely different class of goods than what I had for my birthday five years ago. Then we had fun. Now we were sad. It was a good-bye dinner with my close friend. Mike was full and went to the living room, while Natalia could not stop talking.

  It seemed like I was flying to another planet populated with aliens unable to understand me, and me not able to understand them. Would I come back someday? Would I ever again see my children, grandchildren, and my friend?

  This kitchen of five square meters? No. I would not miss this kitchen. I didn’t want to see anyone else this last night before leaving Ukraine. No, of course I could have spent this evening with my son, but he was grown up and was living in Kiev and had his own family, his own life. We had said goodbye on the phone.

  I was not even trying to pretend I was having fun. Natalia, as always, was sympathetic and positive.

  “Everything will be fine. You get settled there and then we’ll find me a date, maybe even a husband.” She laughed.

  “Yes, Mike said he had many single friends. If only Mike himself turns out to be the person he seems to appear.”

  “Polina, cut it out. If he’d wanted to deceive you, he would have introduced himself as a lawyer or doctor. They are more prestigious than some truck driver.”

  “Maybe, maybe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The flight was difficult. Take-off. Landing. Again, take-off. Again landing, and again and again. Twenty-four hours like that. I couldn’t sleep on the planes. Whether because of the fear or excitement, I didn’t feel tired. Airports in Amsterdam, Seattle, and Chicago impressed me with their size and cleanliness.

  For a while I forgot about everything, even about Ukraine, my kitchen, and friends. Life twirled me in a maelstrom of new events and adventures.

  The first thing I realized when I landed in the United States was that during all the time I had been learning English, I learnt absolutely nothing. The alive speech of Americans merged into one huge sentence, from which I could not single out any familiar word. The one thing I could understand was “Welcome to the United States!” This phrase was said by everyone we had to face passing through Customs. They said that with sincere and joyful smiles on their faces. And it seemed to me that they were really glad that I came here! And even though we were both tired after such a long journey, my mood was wonderful. In general, America created a very nice impression on me.

  It happened t
hat three months prior to my arrival, Mike’s grandfather died. He lived in Michigan and was ninety-four years old when he passed away. In the United States they prefer to cremate their deceased, so the funeral and the subsequent wake, the celebration of life as they call it, can be carried out at any convenient time. Moreover, there are no limits in timing for Americans like nine or forty days, as they are not so superstitious.

  Mike’s relatives knew that he was to bring his wife from the former Soviet Union and were eager to look at this miracle. Everyone was waiting for me! They, of course, believed that Mike again had got into just one more tough spot. Every time he tried to throw in his lot with a woman, it brought a lot of problems. The first time he married early, at nineteen, to a woman five years older than himself, who had two children. After divorcing her he was left, as they say, without a penny in his pocket.

  His second wife was a friend and a kindred spirit. She was also a truck driver and loved to race on a snowmobile. They spent time together, hanging out in the bars, where she soon started hanging out more and more often. And not only with him. One day, when Mike came home from the night shift, he discovered that both sides of their bed were still warm from the heat of human bodies. Having decided that scandal couldn’t be avoided, the traitoress left for a while. Later, she also tried to sue for some money, but my husband, sadder but wiser, took the necessary measures to prevent this from happening a second time.

  So his family had reasonable grounds to believe that Mike again got into a jam.

  All the relatives: brothers and their wives, aunts, uncles, cousins, who came to the celebration of life of the deceased grandfather, were smiling and friendly people. They also kept telling me “Welcome to the US,” and “Glad to see you.” And I again had the feeling that all these people would be very unhappy if I weren’t here, so sincere they sounded. They all were so nice, I was happy.

  The evening was coming to an end when I got surrounded by his brothers Ken, Don, and Ron. Mike at that time was having a conversation with someone else, and I, tired from the flights and sleepless nights, was sitting alone in the corner. The eldest of the brothers, Ken, said, “Polina! We have to tell you something very important. We have to warn you. We think you’ve made a big mistake by marrying Mike.”

  “Me? Why?” All my fears instantly flashed through my mind. Sticky, nasty, chillness crept up my back.

  “He probably did not tell you, but he has five children here in the States. And after he went to prison, he even has a kind of a boyfriend.”

  “What? Mike in jail? Boyfriend?” I looked at them with my eyes wide. Perhaps there was so much fear in them that Don, the youngest of the brothers, gave me a wink. Ken, knowing his good heart, cut Don’s desire to warn me by stepping hard on his foot. But it was too late. I realized it was a joke. To be honest, the guys disappointed me. Such a dodo of a woman, who came to a foreign country without knowing the language, the people, or traditions. It was too brutal. Three big guys were having fun looking at my scared eyes. It was a shame.

  “I cannot answer you the way I would like to because of my poor English. So for now I will say this, as you are his brothers, and therefore mine too, you have to help me. Here I have no one else to ask for help. Can you refuse me?”

  I saw sincere amazement on their faces.

  “And one more thing. I advise you never to make such jokes anymore. You totally have no idea what a Ukrainian woman is capable of. If you try to offend her, she might strike back.”

  My impression of such nice people had been corrupted. Though not for all. Don was still a nice guy for me.

  My husband came back happy and smiling. I didn’t want to spoil his mood, so I told him nothing. Moreover I was afraid that he could find this joke hilarious too. I didn’t. I was still scared that all of it, or at least part, was truth.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “My God! What is it? Is this your house?”

  “This is our house!” Mike said, quite proud of himself.

  A rambler with wooden siding of a sordid yellow gray-brown color made me depressed.

  The entire area in front of the house was covered with gray asphalt. There was not one plant or bush or tree. My eyes filled with tears. Do not panic, I said to myself. Maybe it will be better inside. He took me in his arms and carried me over the threshold.

  “Welcome home!”

  Oh, my God! How could anyone live here? The inside was even more depressing than the outside. A small kitchen, combined with a small living room. The same yellow-gray-brown tones, with a predominance of dark brown. The windows were decorated with ugly yellow curtains. A phone, looking like it was saved since the Soviet collectivization, was sitting on a table littered with papers and phone books. Nightmare!

  Mike definitely had another opinion. His eyes were glowing with happiness. Looking at him, I thought, everything has its advantages. It feels like this place has never been touched by a woman’s hand. Well, we’ll see, I reassured myself.

  Waking up in the morning, I immediately began the battle for my new life. My husband thought his life was fixed and comfortable, that I would just fit in smoothly and without any issues. I did not want to fit in. Besides the kitchen, combined with a living room, the house had two small bedrooms and a huge garage. One of the bedrooms, where his father used to live, and which Mike hadn’t entered for two years, was swamped with old things, covered with dust. He was horrified when I started to take those things out.

  “Don’t touch it! It’s my father’s chair. He sat in it.”

  “This is my father’s notebook, he wrote in it.”

  “This is my father’s suit.”

  “And when did he put it on last time?” I asked.

  “Three years ago,” he replied.

  Mike’s father died two years ago, having grated on his nerves before. For some reason he didn’t love his eldest son, whom he chose to live with after retirement, so he kept arguing with him, all the time living together. Before his death, he got seriously sick and their relationship became even more complicated. But, despite this, Mike spoke of his father with warmth and sadness.

  “Okay, will you ever wear that suit?”

  “No. It’s too big.”

  “Then why is it here?”

  “Just don’t touch!”

  I became depressed. I was feeling like that for three days, and getting prepared to go back home to Ukraine, I suddenly found a way of influencing my second half. An accident helped me. By lucky chance I came across a pretty immodest photo of my husband and another woman. The picture left not a single chance for any illusion about the nature of their relationship. It didn’t affect me, I knew it was past. My husband was not a monk, and I was glad.

  After thinking for a while, I decided to use it to start cleaning our house, minds, and souls of garbage from previous lives, and begin to build the foundation of a new life together, as they say, with a clean slate. I put this picture on Mike’s bedside table. In the morning the photo was not there. Neither could I find it anywhere inside the house.

  “You know, dear,” I began to speak up my prepared speech. “It’s good I found this picture now. If I found it a year later, I would never believe that it was done before we got together.”

  “What picture?” Mike blushed.

  “Well, the one I put it on your bedside table, and now it’s not there.”

  “I haven’t seen any picture,” he continued to lie.

  “Oh, okay, but I still think you should give me chance to clean up our house, so you didn’t have to lie like now. I promise I’m not going to throw away anything. I will simply hide things in boxes and put them where you say. I understand that you cherish the memory of your father, but for last two years you’ve never entered this room and never used any of these things. And something tells me you will not use them ever. Let’s clean all of that nicely, and then make a study of this room.”

  “Good,” my husband said, with sadness in his voice. “But do everything yourself. I can�
��t.”

  “Okay,” I was glad, finally getting the permission to act, though I tried to hide my joy.

  The next morning I began my fight with old things, dust, and the feeling that no one had been living here for years.

  I was putting things in boxes, mopping the floor, washing the windows, putting up the wallpaper.

  And what’s this? I thought, cleaning dust from the shelf of a built-in cabinet, when suddenly something heavy fell on my head.

  “Oh!” I rubbed the injured forehead and looked at the floor in search of what it could be. It was a dirty, shabby envelope, stuffed with something.

  “It hurts!” Again I rubbed my forehead. “What could that be, so heavy? Did he put stones there or what? Probably more photos.” I was talking to myself. No one else to talk to while cleaning the house. But there were no pictures. It was money. One, two, three, four, forty-nine, fifty. Fifty C-notes. Exactly five thousand!

  I could not believe it! Five thousand dollars fell on my head!

  If it had happened to someone else, I would have never believed it. My eyes filled with tears, recollecting that night five years ago, when under the influence of my friend’s convictions, just for fun I wrote on a piece of paper: “I want five thousand dollars to fall on my head!”

  “It can’t be happening,” I kept saying to myself, “just impossible.”

  “It’s good you found this, honey.” Mike was glad for my discovery. “This was money I saved while working on the road construction in Kenai, and totally forgot about it for a while now. So, since you have found it, we will spend it on your training. You wanted to work as a hairdresser here, am I right? Tomorrow I’ll sign you up in school.”