March 20th, 5 p.m.
I HAVEN’T seen Mama all day, even during lunch. Papa tried to distract me with conversation about school and the new piano piece he’s working on, but sometimes his eyes would focus on the stairs as if she’d magically appear. He’s been playing the piano for a good part of the afternoon, and I’ve been upstairs in my room rehearsing.
This hasn’t been the weekend I imagined. At all. It’s been so long since I spent time at home. I really believed that at least we would have dinner together, that maybe we’d cuddle on the couch and watch a movie, that Mama would ask me about my audition, that we would go on a walk like we did when I was younger and was obsessed with finding the perfect leaves to draw.
“Zatknis!” I hear Papa shout from downstairs. I startle. It means “shut up” in Russian and I’ve only heard him swear twice before: once when he lost the bid to compose a soundtrack and again when Becca’s parents dropped a bucket of water on him at the lake. I leave my music on, hoping my parents won’t hear me coming down the stairs. Something shatters on the floor, and a door slams. Now they’re in the study, and they’re screaming at each other in a mixture of English and Russian, their voices muffled so I can’t understand what they’re saying.
The doors flies open, and Mama’s eyes widen when she sees me. “Natoushka,” she whispers. Her hand hovers in the air, as if she wants to touch my cheek or pull me close to her. But instead, she sighs and goes back to her bedroom without a word. There’s a shuffle, and sound of a dresser opening.
Papa’s still in the study.
“Papoushka,” I say.
He’s holding a picture of the family at Christmas two years ago. The picture was taken right after eating my babushka’s famous vinegret—iced boiled beet roots, potatoes, carrots, chopped onions, and sauerkraut. We’d convinced Babushka to stay with us for two weeks. Yuri had come down from the city with his girlfriend at the time, Tawna. Everyone’s laughing in the picture.
“Papoushka,” I repeat.
“Everything’s fine, Nata. Everything’s okay.” But his shoulders are slumped and he continues to stare at the picture. “It’s okay.”
Mama stumbles down the stairs with her suitcase.
My eyes dart from him to her. She pauses at the door, and my heart’s screaming for him to stop her. He’s always the reasonable one. He’s always the one making sure they keep it together. But he doesn’t say a single word.
“Mama?” I call, hoping against all odds that she’ll stop and listen to me.
When she does stop and turns around, I hold my breath. I take a step forward, but Papa slams the picture down on the shelf, and in a voice of steel, says, “Zatknis, Katya.”
Mama flinches and then hurries out the door.
A car honks. Out the window, I see a cab in front of the house; Mama disappears into it. At least she doesn’t intend to drive; the way she swayed as she stood didn’t look too good.
“What happened?” I ask Papa. “And don’t tell me it’s fine.”
“We had a fight, but nothing to worry about. I’ll make us something for dinner.”
“Mama just left. She packed a suitcase and left, and you want to stay here and eat dinner? I know she’s not easy, and I know the way she treats you is wrong, but you never let her go like this before!”
“It’s only for a few days. Until we both calm down.”
“What if she drinks too much?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“What happened?” I rub the back of my head. There’s glass from a shattered vase on the floor, probably what I heard earlier. Books are scattered on the floor, and the lines around Papa’s eyes look deeper. He looks like he’s aged ten years in ten minutes.
He softly touches my cheek. “It’s got nothing to do with you, my Natoushka. Sometimes people just need some time apart.”
“Are . . . are you going to stay together?”
“No matter what we decide, I want you to know that we both love you. It has nothing to do with you.”
“But—”
“No more questions, Natoushka.” He runs his finger over the picture he held earlier, clears his throat, and then strides out of the room. I pick up the photo. My dad’s arm is around my mom and she’s leaning into him.
When did my family start falling apart?