But I am not a lucky woman,” Mom said with a sigh.
Silence followed that last, quietly spoken sentence.
Nina wiped the tears from her eyes and stared at her mother in awe.
How could that pain have been in her all along? How could a person survive all that?
Mom stood up quickly. She took a step to the left and stopped; then she turned to the right and stopped. It was as if she’d suddenly awakened from a dream only to find herself in a strange room from which there was no escape. At last, with her shoulders rounded slightly downward, she went to the window and stared outside.
Nina looked at Meredith, who looked as ruined as Nina felt.
“My God,” Maksim finally said, turning off the tape recorder. The click sounded harsh in the quiet room, reminded Nina that the story they’d just heard was important not only to their family.
Mom remained where she was, her splayed hand pressed to her chest, as if maybe she thought her heart would stop beating, or tumble right out of her body.
What was she seeing right then? Her once-sparkling Leningrad turned into a frozen, bombed-out wasteland where people died in the street and birds fell from the sky?
Or maybe it was Sasha’s face? Or Anya’s giggle? Or Leo’s last heartbreaking smile?
Nina stared at the woman who had raised her and saw the truth at last.
Her mother was a lioness. A warrior. A woman who’d chosen a life of hell for herself because she wanted to give up and didn’t know how.
And with that small understanding came another, bigger one. Nina suddenly saw her own life in focus. All these years, she’d been traveling the world over, looking for her own truth in other women’s lives.
But it was here all along, at home, with the one woman she’d never even tried to understand. No wonder Nina had never felt finished, never wanted to publish her photographs of the women. Her quest had always been leading up to this moment, this understanding. She’d been hiding behind the camera, looking through glass, trying to find herself. But how could she? How could any woman know her own story until she knew her mother’s?
“They take me prisoner instead,” Mom said, still staring out the window.
Nina almost frowned. To her, it felt as if half an hour had passed since Mom’s last sentence and this one, but really it had been only minutes. Minutes in which Nina had glimpsed the truth of her own life.
“Prisoner,” Mom muttered, shaking her head. “I try to die. Try . . . Always I am too weak to kill myself. . . .” She turned away from the window at last, looked at them. “Your father was one of the American soldiers who liberated the work camp. We were in Germany by then. It was the end of the war. Years later. The first time he spoke to me, I was not even paying attention; I was thinking that if I’d been stronger, my children would have been with me on this day when the camp gates opened, and so when Evan asked me my name, I whispered, Anya. I could have taken it back later, but I liked hearing her name every time someone spoke to me. It hurt me, and I welcomed the pain. It was the least of what I deserved. I went with your father—married him—because I wanted to be gone, and he was the only way I had to leave. I never really expected to start over—I was so sick. I expected, hoped, to die. But I did not. And, well . . . how can you not love Evan? There. That is it. Now you know.” She reached down for her purse and picked it up, swaying slightly, as if balance were something she had lost in the telling of her story, and started for the door.
Nina was on her feet in an instant. She and Meredith moved in tandem without a word or a look. They bookended Mom, each taking hold of one arm.
At their touch, Mom seemed to stumble harder, almost fall. “You shouldn’t—”
“No more telling us what to feel, Mom,” Nina said soft ly.
“No more pushing us away,” Meredith said, touching Mom’s face, caressing her cheek. “You’ve lost so much.”
Mom made a sound, a little gulp.
“Not us, though,” Nina said, feeling tears sting her eyes. “You’ll never lose us.”
Mom’s legs gave out on her. She started to fold like a broken tent, but Nina and Meredith were there, holding her upright. They got Mom back to her chair.
Then they knelt on the floor in front of her, looking up, just as they’d done so often in their lives. But now the story was over, or mostly told, and from here on, it would be a different story anyway. From now on, it would be their story.
For all of her life, when Nina had looked at her mother’s beautiful face, she’d seen sharp bones and hard eyes and a mouth that never smiled.
Now Nina saw past that. The hard lines were fought for, imposed; a mask over the soft ness that lay beneath.
“You should hate me,” Mom said, shaking her head.
Meredith lift ed up just enough to put her hands on Mom’s. “We love you.”
Mom shuddered, as if an icy wind had just blown past. Tears filled her eyes, and at the sight of them—the first tears Nina had ever seen in her mother’s eyes—Nina felt her own tears welling.
“I miss them so much,” Mom said, and then she was crying. How long had she held back that simple sentence by force of will, and how must it feel to finally say it?
I miss them.
A few little words.
Everything.
Nina and Meredith rose again, folding Mom into their arms, letting her cry.
Nina learned the feel of her mother then, and realized how much she’d missed by never being held by this remarkable woman.
When Mom finally drew back, her face was ravaged by tears, her hair was askew, and strands were falling across her red-rimmed watery eyes, but she had never looked more beautiful. She was smiling. She put a hand on each of their faces. “Moya dusha,” she said quietly to each of them.
At Vasily’s bedside, Maksim rose and cleared his throat, reminding them that they weren’t alone.
“That is one of the most amazing accounts of the siege of Leningrad I’ve ever heard,” he said, taking the tape from the machine. “Stalin kept the lid on it for so long that stories like yours are only lately beginning to surface. This will make a real difference to people, Mrs. Whitson.”
“It was for my daughters,” Mom said, straightening again.
Nina watched her mother strengthen and she wondered suddenly if all of the Leningrad survivors knew how to harden themselves like that. She supposed so.
“Numbers are difficult, of course, coming out of the government, but conservatively, over one million people died in the siege. More than seven hundred thousand starved to death. You tell their story, too. Thank you.” Maksim started to say something else, but Vasily made a croaking, chirping sound in the bed.
Maksim leaned closer to his father, frowning. “What?” He leaned even closer. “I don’t understand. . . .”
“Thank you,” Nina said quietly to her mother.
Mom leaned forward, kissed her cheek. “My Ninotchka,” she whispered. “Thank you. You were the one who wouldn’t let go.”
Nina should have felt pride at that, especially when she saw Meredith nodding in agreement, but it hurt instead. “I was only thinking about me. As usual. I wanted your story, so I made you talk. I never once worried about how much it could hurt you.”
Mom’s smile lit up her still-damp eyes. “This is why you matter to the world, Ninotchka. I should have told you this long ago, but I let your father be both our voices. It is yet another of my wrong choices. You shine a light on hard times. This is what your pictures do. You do not let people look away from that which hurts. I am so, so proud of what you do. You saved us.”
“You did,” Meredith agreed. “I would have stopped her story. You got us here.”
Nina didn’t know until then how a word like proud could rock your world, but it rocked hers, and she understood love in a way she hadn’t before, the all-consuming way of it.
She knew it would change her life, this understanding of love; she couldn’t imagine living without it—without them—again. And she knew, too, that there was more love out there for her, waiting in Atlanta, if only she knew how to reach for it. Maybe tomorrow she would send a telegram, say, What if I said I didn’t want to go to Atlanta? What if I said I wanted a different life than that, a different life than everyone else’s, but I wanted it with you? Would you follow me? Would you stay? What if I said I loved you?
But that would be tomorrow.
“How will I go again?” she said, looking at Meredith and her mom. “How can I leave you both?”
“We don’t need to be together to be together,” Meredith said.
“Your work is who you are,” Mom said. “Love makes room for that. You will just come home more, I hope.”
While Nina was trying to figure out what to say to that, Maksim said, “I’m sorry to be rude, but my father is not feeling well.”
Mom pulled away from Meredith and Nina and went to the bed.
Nina followed.
Mom stared down at Vasily, his face left lopsided by the stroke; there were tears on his temples and water stained the pillow where they’d fallen. She reached down and touched his face, saying something in Russian.
Nina saw him try to smile and before she knew it, she was thinking of her father. She closed her eyes in prayer for perhaps the first time in her life. Or maybe it wasn’t a prayer. Actually, she just thought, Thanks, Daddy, and let it go at that. The rest of it, he knew. He’d been listening.
“Here,” Maksim said, his frown deepening as he offered Mom a stack of black cassette tapes. “I’m pretty sure he wants you to deliver these to his former student. Phillip Kiselev hasn’t worked on this project in years, but he has a lot of the original material. And he’s not far from here. Just across the water in Sitka.”
“Sitka?” Mom said. “We’ve already been there. The boat won’t be going back.”
“Actually,” Meredith said, looking at her watch. “The boat left Juneau forty minutes ago. It will be at sea all day tomorrow.”
Vasily made a sound. Nina could tell that he was agitated and frustrated by his inability to make himself understood.
“Can he not mail the tapes?” Mom said, and Nina wondered if her mother was afraid to touch them.
“Phillip was his right hand for years in this research. His mother and my father knew each other in Minsk.”
Nina looked down at Vasily and thought again of her father and how a little thing could mean so much. “Of course we’ll deliver the tapes,” she said. “We’ll go right now. And we’ll have plenty of time to catch up with the boat in Skagway.”
Meredith took the stack of tapes and the piece of paper with the address on it. “Thank you, Dr. Adamovich. And Maksim.”
“No,” Maksim said solemnly. “Thank you. I am honored to have met you, Veronika Petrovna Marchenko Whitson.”
Mom nodded. She glanced briefly at the stack of black tapes in Meredith’s hands and then leaned down to whisper something in Vasily’s ear. When she drew back, the old man’s eyes were wet. He was trying to smile.
Nina took Mom’s arm and led her to the door. By the time they reached the front door, Meredith was at Mom’s other side. They emerged three abreast, linked together, into the pale blue light of a late spring day. The rain had stopped, leaving in its wake a world of sparkling, glittering possibility.
They arrived in Sitka at seven-thirty.
“I could be in Los Angeles by now,” Nina said as she followed Meredith out of the plane.
“For a world traveler, you complain a lot,” Meredith said, leading the way up the dock.
“Remember when she was little?” Mom said to Meredith. “If her socks were wrinkled inside her shoes, she’d just sit down and scream. And if I put too much ketchup on her eggs—or not enough—out would come the lip.”
“That is so not true,” Nina said. “I was the good daughter. You’re thinking of Meredith. Remember that fit she threw when you wouldn’t let her go to Karie Dovre’s slumber party?”
“It was nothing compared to the way you made us all pay when Mom didn’t wave good-bye to you before that soft ball tournament,” Meredith said.
Nina stopped in the middle of the dock and looked at Mom. “It was the train,” she said. “You couldn’t put me on a train and watch it go, could you?”
“I tried to be strong enough,” Mom said quietly. “I just couldn’t watch . . . that. I knew it hurt you, too. I’m sorry.”
Meredith knew that there would be dozens of moments like this between them. Now that they’d begun the reparation process, memories would have to be constantly reinterpreted. Like the day she’d dug up Mom’s precious winter garden. It was as if she’d pulled up headstones and thrown them aside. No wonder Mom had gone a little crazy. And no wonder winters had always been difficult.
And the play. Meredith saw it all through the prism of her new understanding. Of course Mom had stopped them from going forward. She and Jeff had been blithely acting out Mom’s love story. . . . The pain of that must have been awful.
“No more apologies,” Meredith said. “Let’s just say it now—once—we’re sorry for all the times we hurt each other because we didn’t understand. Then we’ll let it go. Okay?” She looked at her mom, who nodded, and then at Nina, who nodded, too.
They walked into Sitka and found rooms at a small bed-and-breakfast at the edge of town. From their decks, they could look out over the placid bay, to the green humps of the nearby islands, and all the way to the snowy peak of Mount Edgecumbe. While Nina took a shower, Meredith sat out on the deck, with her feet up on the railing. A lone eagle circled effortlessly above the water, its dark wingspan a sliver coiling around and around above the midnight-blue water.
Meredith closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. As had been true all day, her mind was a jumble of thoughts and memories and realizations. She was reassessing her childhood, taking the pieces apart, reexamining them in light of her new understanding of her mother. Strangely, the strength she now saw in her mother was becoming a part of Meredith, too. Jeff’s comment, You’re like her, you know, took on a new significance, gave Meredith a new confidence. If there was one thing she’d learned in all of this, it was that life—and love—can be gone any second. When you had it, you needed to hang on with all your strength and savor every second.
The door behind her slid open and clicked shut. She thought at first it was Nina, here to tell her the bathroom was free, but then she smelled the sweet rose scent of Mom’s shampoo.
“Hey,” Meredith said, smiling. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”
“I cannot sleep.”
“Maybe it’s the color of the night.”
“I cannot sleep with the tapes in my room,” Mom said, sitting down in the chair beside Meredith.
“You can put them in our room.”
Mom coiled her hands together nervously. “I need to give them away tonight.”
“Tonight? It’s nine-fift een, Mom.”
“Da. I asked downstairs. This address is only three blocks away.”
Meredith turned in her chair. “You mean this. What’s wrong?”
“Honestly? I do not know. I am being silly and old. I know this. But I want to be done with this task.”
“I’ll call him.”
“There is no listing. I called information from my room. We are going to have to just show up. Tonight is best. Tomorrow maybe he will be at work and we’ll have to wait.”
“With the tapes.”
Mom looked at her. “With the tapes,” she said quietly, and Meredith saw the vulnerability Mom was trying to hide. And fear; she saw that, too. After all that Mom had been through, somehow holding on to the physical evidence of her life was the thing that had finally scared her.
“Okay,” Meredith said. “I’ll get Nina. We’ll all go.” She got up from her chair and started to go back into the room. As she passed Mom, she paused just long enough to put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. Through the cable-knit wool of the hand-knit sweater, she felt the angular sharpness of bone.
She couldn’t walk past her mother lately without touching her. After so many barren, distant years, that was a miracle in itself. She opened the sliding glass door and went into the small room. Inside, there was a pair of twin beds, both dressed in red and green plaid, with moose-shaped black pillows. On the walls were black and white prints of Sitka’s Tlingit past. Nina’s bed was unmade already and piled with clothes and camera gear.
Meredith knocked on the bathroom door, got no answer, and went in.
Nina was drying her hair and singing Madonna’s “Crazy for You” at the top of her lungs. With her short black hair and perfect skin, she looked about twenty years old.
Meredith tapped her on the shoulder. Nina jumped in surprise and almost dropped the hair dryer. Grinning, she clicked it off and turned. “Way to scare the crap out of me. I need a haircut. Badly. I’m starting to look like Edward Scissorhands.”
“Mom wants to drop off the tapes tonight.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Meredith couldn’t help smiling at that. There, in a nutshell, was the difference between them. Nina didn’t care what time it was, or that it was rude to stop by without calling first, or that Mom had had a hard day and should be resting.
All Nina heard was a call to adventure, and she always answered that call.
It was a trait Meredith was determined to cultivate.
In less than ten minutes they were on their way, the three of them walking up the sidewalk in the direction the innkeeper had shown them. It still wasn’t full-on night; the sky was a deep plum color, with stars everywhere. From here, they looked close enough to touch. A slight breeze whispered through the evergreens, the only real noise out here besides their footsteps on the cement. Somewhere in the distance a boat’s foghorn sung out.
The houses on this street were old-fashioned-looking, with porches out front and peaked roofs. The yards were well tended; the smell of roses was heavy in the air, sweetening the tang of the nearby sea.
“This is the house,” Meredith said. She’d taken charge of the map.
“The lights are on. That’s cool,” Nina said.
Mom stood there, staring at the neat white house. Its porch railing was the same ornate fretwork as they had at home, and there was more ornate decor along the eaves. The embellishments gave the place a fairy-tale appearance. “It looks like my grandfather’s dacha,” Mom said. “Very Russian, and yet American, too.”
Nina moved in close to Mom, took her arm. “You sure you want to do this now?”
Mom’s answer was to move forward resolutely.
At the door, Mom drew in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and knocked hard. Twice.
The door was opened by a short, heavyset man with thick black eyebrows and a gray mustache. If he was surprised to find three unknown women on his doorstep at nine-thirty, he showed no sign. “Hello there,” he said.
“Phillip Kiselev?” Mom said, reaching for the bag of tapes in Nina’s hand.
“There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,” he said.
Mom’s hand drew back. “You are not Phillip Kiselev?”
“No. No. I’m Gerald Koontz. Phillip was my cousin. He’s gone now.”
“Oh.” Mom frowned. “I am sorry to have bothered you. We have mistaken information.”
Meredith looked at the piece of paper in her sister’s hand. There was no error in reading. This was the address they’d been given. “Dr. Adamovich must—”
“Vasya?” Gerald’s mustached lip flipped into a big, toothy smile. He turned, yelled, “They’re friends of Vasya’s, honey.”
“Not friends, really,” Mom said. “We are sorry to have bothered you. We will recheck our information.”
Just then a woman came bustling toward them; she was dressed in silky black pants with a flowing tunic blouse. Her curly gray hair was drawn back in a loose ponytail.
“Stacey?” Nina said in surprise. A second later, Meredith recognized their waitress from the Russian restaurant.
“Well, well,” Stacey said, smiling brightly. “If it isn’t my new Russian friends. Come in, come in.” To Gerald she added, “They stopped by the diner the other day. I broke out the caviar.”
Gerald grinned. “She must have liked you on the spot.”
Nina moved first, pulling Mom along.
“Here, here,” Stacey said. “Have a seat. I’ll make us some tea and you can tell me how you found me.” She led them into a comfortably decorated living room, complete with an ottoman bed and a holy corner, where a trio of candles was burning. She made sure each of them was seated, and then said, “Did Gere say you are friends of Vasily’s?”
“Not friends,” Mom answered, sitting stiffly.
There was a crash somewhere and Gerald said, “Oops. Grandkids,” and ran from the room.
“We’re babysitting our son’s children this week. I’d forgotten how busy they are at that age.” Stacey smiled. “I’ll be right back with tea.” She hurried out of the room.
“Do you think Dr. Adamovich was confused? Or did Maksim get the address wrong?” Meredith said as soon as they were alone.
“Kind of coincidental that these people are Russian and that they knew the doctor,” Nina remarked.
Mom stood up so suddenly she hit the coffee table with her shin, but she didn’t seem to notice. She walked around the table and across the room, coming to a stop at the holy corner. From here, Meredith could see the usual decorations: an altarlike table, a couple of icons, a family photograph or two, and a few burning votives.
Stacey came back into the living room and set her tray down on the coffee table. She poured the tea and handed Meredith a cup. “Here you go.”
“Do you know Dr. Adamovich?” Nina asked.
“I do,” Stacey said. “He and my father were great friends. I helped him with a research study for years. Not academic help, of course. Typing, copying. That sort of thing.”
“The siege research?” Meredith asked.
“These are tapes,” Nina said, indicating the wrinkled paper sack at her feet. “Mom just told her story to Dr. Adamovich and he sent us here.”
Stacey paused. “What do you mean, ‘her story’?”
“She was in Leningrad then. During the war,” Meredith said.
“And he sent you here?” Stacey turned to look at Mom, who stood so still and straight she seemed to be made of marble. "Why would he do that?"
Stacey went to Mom, stood beside her. Again the teacup rattled in its saucer. “Tea?” she asked, looking at Mom’s stern profile.
Meredith didn’t know why, but she stood up. Beside her, Nina did the same thing.
They came up behind Mom.
Meredith saw what had gotten her mother’s attention. There were two framed photographs on the corner table. One was a black and white picture of a young couple. In it, the woman was tall and slim, with jet-black hair and an oversized smile. The man was blond and gorgeous. There were pale white lines that quartered the picture, as if it had been folded for many years.
“Those are my parents,” Stacey said slowly. “On their wedding day. My mother was a beautiful woman. Her hair was so soft and black, and her eyes . . . I still remember her eyes. Isn’t that funny? They were so blue, with gold . . .”
Mom turned slowly.
Stacey looked into Mom’s eyes and the teacup she was holding fell to the hardwood floor, spilling liquid and breaking into pieces.
Stacey’s plump hand was shaking as she reached for something on the table, but not once did she look away.
And then she was holding something out to Mom: a small jeweled butterfly.
Mom dropped to her knees on the floor, saying, “Oh, my God . . .”
Meredith wanted to reach out and help her, but she and Nina both stood back.
It was Stacey who knelt in front of her. “I am Anastasia Aleksovna Marchenko Koontz, from Leningrad. Mama? Is it really you?”
Mom drew in a sharp breath and started to cry. “My Anya. . . .”
Meredith’s heart felt as if it were breaking apart and swelling and overflowing all at once. Tears were streaming down her face. She thought of all that these two had been through, and all the lost years, and the miracle of this reunion was almost more than she could believe. She moved over to be with Nina. They put their arms around each other and watched their mother come alive. There was no other word for it. It was as if these tears—of joy perhaps for the first time decades—watered her parched soul.
“How?” Mom asked.
“Papa and I woke up on a medical train going east. He was so hurt. . . . Anyway, by the time we got back to Vologda . . . We waited,” Stacey said, wiping her eyes. “We never stopped looking.”
Mom swallowed hard. Meredith could see how she steeled herself to say, “We?”
Stacey put a hand out.
Mom took it, clutched it, really, hanging on.
Stacey led her through the living room and out a set of French doors. Beyond lay a perfectly tended backyard. The scent of flowers was a sweetness in the air—lilacs and honeysuckle and jasmine. Stacey flipped a switch and a string of lights came on throughout the yard.
That was when Meredith saw the small, squared garden-within-a-garden tucked in the back of the yard. Even from here, with the inconsistent light, she could see an ornate bit of fencing.
She heard her mother say something in Russian, and then they were moving again, all of them, walking down a stone path to a garden that was almost exactly like the one Mom had created at home. A white ironwork fence with ornate curliques and pointed tips framed a patch of ground. Inside was a polished copper bench that faced three granite headstones. There were flowers blooming all around them. Overhead, the sky erupted in amazing, magical color. Darting strands of violet and pink and orange glowed amid all those stars. The northern lights.
Mom sat—collapsed, really—on the copper bench and Stacey sat beside her, holding her hand.
Meredith and Nina stood behind her; each put a hand on Mom’s shoulder.
VERONIKA PETROVNA MARCHENKO
1919–
Remember our lime tree in the Summer Garden. I will meet you there, my love.
LEO ALEKSOVICH MARCHENKO 1938–1942
Our Lion
Gone too soon
But it was the last marker that made Meredith squeeze her mother’s shoulder.
ALEKSANDR ANDREYEVICH MARCHENKO
1917–2000
Beloved husband and father
“Last year?” Mom said, turning to Stacey, whose eyes filled with tears.
“He waited his whole life for you,” she said. “But his heart just . . . gave out last winter.”
Mom closed her eyes and bowed her head.
Meredith couldn’t imagine the pain of that, how it must feel to know that the love of your life had been alive and looking for you all these years, only to miss him by months. And yet he was here somehow, in this garden that so matched the one her mother had created.
“He always said he’d be waiting for you in the Summer Garden.”
Mom slowly opened her eyes. “Our tree,” she said, staring at his marker for a long time. Then, slowly, she did what she always did, what she could do that so few others could: she straightened her back and lift ed her chin and managed a smile, wobbly and uncertain as it was. “Come,” she said in that magical voice, the one that had changed all their lives in the past weeks. “We will have tea. There is much to talk about. Anya, I would like to introduce you to your sisters. Meredith used to be the organized one and Nina is just a little bit crazy, but we’re changing, all of us, and you will change us even more.” Mom smiled and if there was a shadow of sadness in her eyes—a memory of the words I’ll meet you there—it was to be expected, and it was soft ened by the joy in her voice. And maybe that was how it was supposed to be, how life unfolded when you lived it long enough. Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps, was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly because you never knew when a strong heart could just give out.
Meredith took her new sister’s hand and said, “I am so happy to meet you, Anya. We’ve heard so much about you. . . .”