by Kelli Stuart
When we get inside the house, Nina helps me out of my coat and hangs it up for me. We stand and stare at one another awkwardly for a few moments.
“I think I will go change my clothes,” I finally say. She nods her head.
“Do you need anything?” she asks.
“No, I’m fine on my own,” I respond.
Turning slowly, I shuffle to my room and close the door behind me. I stand still for a long moment, my hand on the doorknob as I remember all the years that have swollen the space between Nina and me. They were quiet years when she lived with me at home, but when she left the silence grew suffocating. The silence was why I finally had to leave—why I had to do the thing I swore I would never do. I had to leave the land of my youth, the home that had molded me in all the good and bad ways, and I had to come here, to this foreign, loud world filled with colors and smells that were as unfamiliar as the language. I had to come because I couldn’t stand the silence.
I didn’t realize that it would follow me here.
Nina
A toast to love, to happiness,
to a life that’s full and free,
is given then with great finesse
but it can never be.
Nina collapses onto the couch, pulling up her slippered feet and tucking them underneath her. The house is quiet. She hears the shower running upstairs and the familiar shuffling and puttering of her mother behind her closed bedroom door. Nina grasps her mug of hot tea between her hands and lets her mind wander back to her eighteenth birthday.
She’d come home late that night, having spent the afternoon drinking with her friends in the ditch behind the courtyard of the school. They’d taken turns offering toasts in her honor, draining a bottle of port that her friend Pasha had stolen from his grandfather’s liquor cabinet.
“May your future be bright!” her friend Marina had giggled, the liquor pushing its way immediately to her head.
“To your health!” Evgeniy said with a wink, making her heart flutter. He was her first love, the boy she thought she would marry until she later found out he was the love of several girls around town.
“May you get out of this hell hole and find peace in another land. And may you prove your mother wrong.” Pasha’s eyes locked with Nina’s as the alcohol made the ground around them swirl and dance. She looked at him and clinked glasses, then poured the searing hot liquid down her throat. The memory burns. She takes a sip of her tea, wishing she could go back to that moment so long ago when the future seemed so very hopeful. Even then, as a young girl trapped behind the Iron Curtain, Nina had a sense that her life would look different. She craved adventure and longed to experience the world that her country, and her mother, worked so hard to hide from her. When she drank to Pasha’s toast, it was as though a bit of magic swam through her, convincing her that her life would be different. But right now, she finds herself unsure. Perhaps his toast had not been a blessing, but rather a curse.
Nina puts her mug down on the table next to the couch and rubs her eyes. She’s suddenly exhausted. She leans her head back for a brief moment, then opens her eyes and sits back up to find Elizaveta standing in front of the couch. Nina yelps in surprise.
“Mama!” she gasps. “You scared me! I didn’t hear you.”
Elizaveta has changed into her nightdress, a long cotton gown that makes her look twice as large as she is and hangs to just above her feet, which are covered in the thin, white slippers that she refuses to replace despite Nina’s many attempts.
“I’m sorry,” Elizaveta replies. “I did not mean to.”
“No, it’s okay,” Nina says. She pushes herself to a stand and gestures for Elizaveta to sit in her place. “Would you like something to eat?” she asks.
Elizaveta waves her hand in the air. “I am fine. I don’t need to eat as much as Americans need to eat. I survived the war, you know. Didn’t eat for months, but I survived because I’m strong, and my body knows how to conserve its own fuel.”
Nina closes her eyes and counts to five before reopening them and offering her mother a thin-lipped smile. She’s heard this story a thousand times, always with some kind of variation. Sometimes it’s that Elizaveta didn’t eat for a year, sometimes she went only days with no food. Today it is apparently months. And predictably her mother always mentions the cold.
“It was also devastatingly cold. Not what the Americans call cold here, of course. This is practically the tropics compared to the cold of the war. No, the cold I survived was the kind that you felt in your bones. It was the cold that made your teeth ache, and there was no escaping it.”
They settle into uncomfortable silence. Nina has no response for her mother’s ramblings, so she stands still, staring blankly at the wall of the kitchen where Annie’s kindergarten picture hangs slightly lopsided over the table. She had gotten a pair of scissors the night before picture day and cut her bangs painfully short. Nina tried to slick the fine little sprouts of hair back into a bun, but it didn’t work, so she’d finally combed them down flat against her forehead where they fell about a quarter of an inch below her hairline. Annie’s wide smile revealed a large gap where her two front teeth used to be, and her eyes sparkled with childish curiosity and mischief.
Nina thinks about that little girl—the way the light would dance in her eyes when she told a story, her lisped words tumbling out of a mouth that couldn’t seem to keep up. Nina remembers when laughter and tenderness were the pillars of this home they shared.
“Nina!”
Nina turns her face to her mother and looks into her eyes. “I asked you a question,” Elizaveta says.
“Sorry,” Nina says rubbing the back of her neck. “I was distracted. What did you ask?”
“I want to know when you will see Viktor again,” Elizaveta responds.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Nina says. She grabs her mug and walks to the kitchen, pouring a little more hot water into her cup and settling in another tea bag. “We didn’t talk about it.”
“Oh, Ninochka,” Elizaveta says with a sigh. “You must act fast and not lose that man. He is the one you have been waiting for.”
“Mama,” Nina says, annoyance now creeping into her voice. “I...” she breaks off and lets her head drop for a moment, fighting back another wave of emotional fatigue.
Taking a deep breath, she looks back up at her mother. “I haven’t been waiting for anyone,” she continues, the words quiet. “I’m perfectly fine with my life the way it is right now.” But even as she speaks, Nina knows that’s a lie. Her teenage daughter is pregnant, her nagging mother is ailing, and she’s got a family background that doesn’t make any sense. The truth is, she knows her mother is right. Viktor is the kind of man that one doesn’t let get away, but Nina can’t decide if the fact that he meets her mother’s approval is a positive, or a strike against him.
“Oh my darling,” Elizaveta says leaning forward just slightly. “Are any of us ever really happy in this life?”
Nina takes a long drink, then sets her glass down and grabs a new glass, filling it with water. “I need to go check on Annie,” she murmurs.
“What’s wrong with the girl?” Elizaveta calls out. Nina stops, immediately formulating an explanation that doesn’t involve telling her mother the truth.
“Nothing,” she says with a small wave of her hand, a gesture so similar to Elizaveta’s that Nina almost cringes. “She’ll be fine.” Nina turns and walks quickly up the stairs, ignoring her mother’s narrowed, knowing eyes.
Annie
Lying back against her pillows, Annie stares at the pictures in her hand. The first is a picture of her and her mom taken years ago at Nina’s office Christmas party. Annie keeps the photo under her mattress, pulling it out occasionally to remind herself that she once felt happy.
Nina’s arm is around her daughter’s shoulders, and Annie leans into her mother’s side. Their mouths are open, both of them mid-laugh. What they were laughing at, Annie cannot remember, but this photo, captured in a sing
le, brief moment of time, reminds her of the joy of laughing out loud.
Annie lays the photo down and stares at the second image. This grainy black and white photo is evidence of the truth she’s carried silently for months, and she blinks back tears. She traces her hand over the fuzzy silhouette of the child in her womb—proof of its existence. She closes her eyes and thinks of the way her mother embraced her today. It was the first real connection she’d felt in a long time.
At the knock on her door, Annie quickly shoves the pictures under the pillow and turns on her side, closing her eyes.
Nina comes in silently and walks to her daughter’s bedside. Her room smells fruity, the scent of Annie’s shampoo lingering in the air. Nina sets down the mug of tea on the bedside table, then sits softly on the edge of the bed.
“I know you’re awake,” she says. Annie opens her eyes and shifts them to Nina. The bandage over her left eye is already peeling away at the corner. Annie has re-wrapped her stitched arm in fresh gauze. Mother and daughter hold one another’s gaze for a brief moment before Annie looks away. She traces the pattern of her quilt with her finger, taking in shallow breaths through the thick, tense air.
“How are you feeling?” Nina murmurs. “Are you in pain?”
“I’m fine,” Annie confesses. She slowly pushes herself up and leans back against her pillows. The corners of the pictures push out from beneath her. Nina reaches over and takes hold of them, sliding them out from beneath the pillow. She looks first at the picture from the Christmas party, and a fresh wave of emotion courses through her. She remembers that night. The man who took the photo was one of her colleagues and he’d just told them a joke.
“What’s black and white and red all over?” he called, holding the camera up to his eye.
“I don’t know! What?” Annie replied.
“A penguin with a sunburn!” he yelled, and Annie had collapsed into her mother’s side in a fit of giggles, which set Nina laughing as well.
She shifts her gaze to the other picture. She stares at it closely, studying the small profile, the tiny legs kicked up above a round and forming abdomen. She closes her eyes briefly as the doctor’s words from earlier in the day run through her mind once more.
Pregnant. About 12 weeks.
“Are you ready to talk about this?” Nina asks. She holds up the ultrasound.
Annie shrugs. She crosses her arms over her midsection and leans her head back, closing her eyes. As quickly as the tenderness came, frustration replaces it and Nina sighs.
“That’s not an answer, Nastia,” she responds.
Annie’s eyes snap open. “Fine,” she replies. “Then, no. I’m not ready to talk, alright? What do you want me to say anyway, Mom? I screwed up. I ruined everything. I destroyed your image of my perfect future. I’ve embarrassed you. Babushka will now be even more ashamed of me than she already is, and she will know for certain now that you’re a failure, which I’m guessing is the most disturbing piece of the whole puzzle for you, isn’t it? Is that enough talking for you?”
Annie turns her face, immediately regretting the horrible, hurtful things she said to her mother. Nina stands, her knees shaking and weak. The lump in her throat swells and she stares at her daughter. Impulsively, she leans forward and places a firm kiss on the top of Annie’s head. She lays the two photographs down on the bed before turning and moving quickly to the door, closing it behind her and blinking furiously against the tears that threaten to spill on her cheeks.
Annie rolls back over just as the door clicks shut, preparing to call her mother back. She stares at the white door, the large puppy poster on the back hanging slightly crooked and frayed at the edges.
“I’m sorry,” Annie whispers into the void of space. She covers her face with her hands to muffle her sobs.
Nina
Nothing cures an aching heart
quite like a scalding cup of chai.
Nina makes her way shakily down the stairs. She glances at her mother, who still sits stoically on the couch.
“I’m going to make some more chai,” she says, her voice thick. She clears her throat. “Would you like some?”
Elizaveta nods her head once. Nina fills the teapot and sets it on the stove. She’s reaching for two mugs when her phone rings on the counter beside her.
Nina grabs it and answers without even looking to see who it is, grateful for the distraction from her mother’s probing stare.
“Allo?” she answers.
“Hello yourself.” Nina’s hearts skips at the sound of Viktor’s voice. She turns her back to Elizaveta and lowers her voice.
“Hi, sorry,” she murmurs. “Sometimes I forget to make the switch from Russian to English.” Her face flushes as she sets the mugs on the counter. She turns her back to her mother.
“It’s alright,” Viktor chuckles. “I wanted to give you some of the results from today’s tests.”
Nina stops moving and presses the phone more firmly against her ear. “Oh?” she replies. “I didn’t realize you would have them so quickly.”
“Well,” Viktor begins. He clears his throat. “It will be a few days before we get any definitive answers, but overall it seems she is in fairly good health. For her age, and as little exercise as she gets, as well as her sparse diet, she is in as good a shape as we could hope for.”
“But,” Nina injects.
“But there was the episode this afternoon, and the fact that she is struggling to retrieve words. There is still some concern about dementia.” Nina takes in a long, deep breath as Viktor continues.
“For now, I think it’s best that we urge her to make a few lifestyle changes.”
“Like what?” Nina asks. She removes the whistling teapot from the stove and pours the steaming water into the waiting mugs, watching as the bags of tea float lazily to the top of the cup.
“Well, for starters, she needs to be moving around a little more. I know that it’s hard for her, but even if she could just take a few laps around the kitchen table every day to increase the circulation in her legs, that would help.”
Nina swallows hard, knowing that this suggestion will be ruefully scoffed by her mother. “What else?” she asks.
“I’d like to start her on a vigorous round of vitamins to increase some of the positive effects in her bloodstream and memory, and she needs to stay consistent with her cholesterol and blood pressure medication.”
Nina’s mouth stretches into a thin-lipped smile. “You obviously haven’t spent enough time with my Mama,” she says, sarcasm dripping from her words. “I will let you be the one to give her those instructions. She’ll dismiss me with one, quick wave of her hand if I try.”
She can hear the grin in Viktor’s voice as he replies. “Fair enough,” he says. “I’ve got a way with Russian mothers, you know.”
“Yes, you do,” Nina murmurs. Viktor clears his throat on the other end of the line.
“So that’s all I have for now, but like I said I’ll have a more comprehensive report in a few days. Now...how is your daughter doing?” Viktor asks.
Nina draws in a deep breath and closes her eyes, the vision of Annie pressed back into her pillow looking angry and sullen filling her mind.
“She’s...fine,” Nina says. She suddenly feels very, very tired. “She will be fine.”
There’s a pause at the other end of the line before Viktor clears his throat and continues.
“I didn’t only call to talk about your mother, Nina,” he says. She can hear the nerves in his voice, and her heart starts beating a little more rapidly. “I know it’s been a long day for all of you, and I was going to wait to ask, but...well, I can’t wait.” He coughs nervously. “I was wondering if we could meet sometime soon? I’d like to see you. Alone. Without your mother watching.” She can hear the smile in his voice.
Nina feels her shoulders relax as she considers meeting with Viktor. She turns to hand her mother her tea, and Elizaveta’s eyebrows shoot up, almost disappearing into her hairline as he
r eyes bore into Nina’s, and immediately the muscles seize back up as reality sets in. She cannot meet with this man. Not tonight - maybe not ever. Not under the steady gaze of Elizaveta Mishurova.
“That’s very kind of you to ask,” she says, turning her back again and lowering her voice. “But I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get away. There is just...a lot going on these days.” Nina walks out of the room, pushing open the front door and stepping out onto the porch to get away from her mother’s persistent stare.
“Of course,” Viktor says, and Nina cringes at the disappointment in his voice. “I understand. It’s not a good time.”
There’s an awkward pause as Nina tries to come up with the right words to say to smooth over this bumpy conversation. Finally, Viktor clears his throat.
“Well then,” he says. “I’ll let you go. Feel free to call me if you need anything at all.”
Nina nods. “Yes, of course I will,” she answers. “And...perhaps another time will be better,” she offers. Her voice sounds timid, unsure of how to proceed with this man whom she wants to know, but can’t find the space in her already muddled life to fit in.
“Yes,” Viktor said. “Perhaps. Good night, Nina.”
The line goes quiet and Nina pauses for a moment, contemplating the potentially terrible decision she just made. With a deep breath, she turns around and steps back into the house, walking back into the kitchen to grab her mug of tea.
“Was that Viktor Shevchenko?” Elizaveta asks. Nina nods slowly.
Elizaveta raises her eyebrows. “Well good,” she replies. “I knew he would call. He is a good man. A good Russian man, and the good ones always call right away.”
Nina takes a sip of her chai and offers her mother a barely discernible nod of the head.
“Did you know,” Elizaveta continues, “that Russian men are actually smarter than men of other nationalities? It’s true. It’s a scientific fact, actually.”
