The Legacy of Lost Things

by Aida Zilelian

  She took the remote and went through the stations, briefly pausing at the turn of each channel. There appeared on the screen a pair of lustrous red shoes, sparkling against a bright yellow road, as the owner of the shoes clicked her heels together.

  She was embarrassed to admit how much she liked The Wizard of Oz, and sensing her unease, he said, “Leave this on if you want. I like it. I learned in English class this year that it was actually a protest against the Industrial Revolution.”

  The two sat on the couch as the rest of the party continued. The sound of splashing could be heard from where they were sitting as Sophie’s classmates jumped in and out of the swimming pool, laughing and chasing each other around the backyard.

  “Don’t you want to go in the pool?” he asked at one point.

  “Not really,” she said, her eyes watching the screen, sensing his eyes on her, but not wanting to look at him.

  It wasn’t until she was ready to leave that she realized how close they lived to one another. She was about to call her parents to come pick her up when Adrian said he was walking home.

  “Do you want a ride home?” she asked, knowing full well neither of her parents would appreciate the inconvenience.

  “I’ll just walk,” he said. “It’s not far at all.”

  “Where do you live?” she asked.

  “Off 69th Avenue and 113th Street,” he said.

  “Me too,” she said.

  “Really? Which house? Mine is the one with the green door and the black security gate,” he said. She noticed his face had reddened.

  “You’re across the street and two doors over from us,” she said. “We’re the house with the big ivy bushes in the front. The one with the closed-in porch.”

  She called her parents and asked if she could walk home with a friend who lived nearby. It was her father who answered the phone, and without much pause, he said yes. Although it was already eight o’clock the sun had barely set, but as they left the party, she wondered how her father could agree to this; it was not customary of him to let either her or Araxi walk alone, and now that her sister was gone, shouldn’t he be more vigilant? She looked at the ground as they walked, clenching her teeth to keep from crying, hoping the tears would pass.

  As night came, the glow of the fireflies became more visible, and the evening cooled the warm summer air.

  “So how come we’ve never run into each other?” Adrian asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sophie said. “How long have you lived on our block?”

  “Two years,” he said. “My dad sold our house in Woodside and we moved here.”

  “How come?” she asked.

  He did not answer right away. “Lots of reasons,” he said. “My mom died.”

  “My sister’s gone,” Sophie blurted, and as if she had lost all control of her legs, she sunk down on the pavement. The grief of her parents’ sadness that afternoon and the feeling of desolation finally unleashed themselves, and she began to sob. “Oh God,” she cried. “Oh God.”

  He knelt next to her and put his hand on her back. After a moment, she recovered and stood up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m very embarrassed.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, and they walked in silence until they reached the front of her house.

  “Thanks for walking me,” she said. “And I’m sorry about getting upset. We just met. Now you think I’m weird.”

  “No I don’t,” he said.

  He watched her open the front door of her house and walked himself home.

  Sophie would recall the next day with a mixture of amusement and reproach at her actions. She woke up and heard the muffled sound of the television from her mother’s room—a clear indication that she would not be leaving her bed anytime soon. Her father had left hours before she had woken. It was her first day of summer vacation. Without giving it much thought, she combed her hair and got dressed, and before she could move backward in time and undo her steps, she was standing in front of the house with the green door, having already pressed the doorbell. It rang sharp and clear, and as if it had broken her trance, her senses rushed back to her and she felt sheepish. She considered counting to ten and then racing back to her house, but the door opened slowly and there stood Adrian squinting at the morning light, wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt.

  “Hey,” he said. He did not seem particularly surprised or annoyed.

  “Hey,” Sophie said. “I guess I woke you. I should go. I wanted to say hi …”

  “No. It’s fine,” he held the door open wide. “Want some cereal?”

  “Sure,” she said, and hesitantly walked in. “Is your dad home?” she asked as she followed him into the kitchen.

  “No,” he said. “He leaves early.”

  He pulled out two boxes of cereal from one of the cabinets. “Do you like either of these?” he asked. One was Cocoa Pebbles and the other Cinnamon Life.

  “I’ve never had them,” she said. “But I like cinnamon. I’ll take the Life.”

  Adrian fixed them the cereal and they went into the living room. He turned on the TV. “Is this okay?” he asked.

  She didn’t know if he meant the show that was on or that they were eating on the floor. “Sure,” she said.

  It was not often that she visited friends’ homes. In their own tacit way, her parents had always discouraged her and her sister from having American friends. As she ate, she became anxious at the thought of either one of her parents knowing where she was right now. She could not believe she had found the gumption to go over to a boy’s house she had only met once and ring his doorbell.

  “My parents would kill me if they knew I was here,” she said.

  “Why?” He was sitting in a patch of light that highlighted the faint gold tones in his brown hair.

  “Because they’re strict,” she said. “And I don’t really know you.”

  “That’s true,” he said, and then after a moment, “You can hang out as long as you want.”

  During the weeks that followed, the two spent the afternoons together. Sophie usually went over to Adrian’s house in the morning, where they ate breakfast together and played video games until the early afternoon. When he first taught her how to play, she found the games daunting. They were all collections of old games from the eighties—Pac-man, Q*bert, Millipede—but she had never played them before. Initially she was embarrassed by her lack of coordination, but it was not long before she became competitive and was enthralled with the new universe she had unwittingly entered. The two sat side by side, clutching their joysticks, their eyes fastened to the screen, their camaraderie like brother and sister. Sophie made sure to be home before three o’clock, which was usually the time that her mother came out of her bedroom. On the rare occasion that she was up before that, Sophie would lie and say she was at the library.

  “I hate sleeping in my room alone,” she told Adrian once.

  “You must miss your sister,” he said.

  “I do,” she said. “Most nights we would talk until I fell asleep. My parents fought more then. The house is quiet now. But still.”

  That evening she heard a soft knocking on her window. She was already asleep, and usually did not wake up easily. She lifted the blinds and saw Adrian crouching beneath the windowsill.

  She had to unlatch the locks, and struggled at first to open the window.

  “Do you want some company?” he whispered.

  She let him climb in and went over to lock her bedroom door. She realized she was wearing an old, thin cotton nightgown that her grandmother had sewn her, and self-consciously placed a pillow in her lap.

  “This is crazy,” she said, grinning. “If one of them tries to open the door, just let yourself out of the window. By the time I go to unlock the door you’ll have enough time.”

  The two sat cross-legged on Sophie’s bed in the near dark. The dim light of the lamp made their faces barely visible to one another. Aside from the evening they had walked to their neighborhood together, it was the
first time they were together at nighttime.

  “My mother’s memorial service is this Sunday,” he said.

  “Is it at church?” Sophie asked.

  “Yeah. Two whole years,” he said. His bangs fell in his eyes, but he did not brush them aside.

  “That’s a pretty terrible feeling,” she said.

  “Yeah. I found her in the morning,” he said.

  Sophie had never wanted to ask, but wondered how Adrian’s mother had died.

  “She had a brain aneurysm,” he said. “My dad had left for work. I woke up and realized I was late for school—she always woke me. So I went to her bedroom and she was lying on her side. It explains why my father hadn’t noticed. I touched her shoulder and she didn’t move, and then when I touched her hand, it felt cold.”

  “My grandmother Anoush died in our bathroom,” she said. “There was a huge Con Edison explosion. She had a habit of locking the bathroom door—my mom always told her not to—but she did, and then the explosion that afternoon … it was so loud and scary. And before my mom could get to the door, Araxi had already pried it open with a knitting needle. And there she was on the floor. She had had a heart attack.”

  She shivered.

  “Are you cold?” Adrian asked.

  “A little. My dad really cranks up the central air,” she said.

  “Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned around to lift the window shades.

  “How about I sleep in Araxi’s bed and you can lie down in mine?” she said. “When you get sleepy you can just climb out and I’ll shut the window behind you.”

  It was in this way that Adrian began visiting Sophie in the evenings.

  Now she lay in bed wondering who had called the house at such an early hour, and was tempted to wake her mother in case she knew. Instead, she went to the living room to watch TV. Adrian was away with his father upstate for two weeks, and Sophie knew she had many long hours of boredom to contend with. As she flipped through the channels thinking of how to spend her time, the phone rang. She reached over toward the table lamp and answered it before it could ring a second time.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hello,” a woman’s voice said. “Who is this?”

  “This is Sophie. Who is this?” Despite the fact that it was early morning, the woman sounded alert.

  “This is Penny Gradore. I’m Cecile’s mother. Do you know Cecile?”

  A slow panic crept into Sophie’s stomach. “Yes. I know her. Are you her mother?”

  “I just said that. Yes, I am,” the woman said. “Have you seen her?”

  “Cecile?” Sophie managed to say. She began to cry.

  “Yes,” hissed the woman impatiently. “Who else could I be talking about? Have you seen her?”

  “No,” Sophie said. “I haven’t.”

  And before she could ask if the woman had seen Araxi, the woman said, “Well, I have a pretty good idea that Cecile and your sister ran off together.”

  “Cecile’s gone?”

  “For over a month now, yes. She disappeared. Took her grandfather’s car and drove off in the middle of the night. I called the police and they weren’t able to trace her. I’ve been looking through her things and I found something your sister must have written her. A little poem or something. I guess they’re friends?”

  “Is that why you think my sister’s with her?” Sophie asked.

  “Yes, that. And because as brilliant as my daughter is,” the woman said sarcastically, “she can’t pull anything off by herself. She always finds someone to buddy up with. And as far as I know, Araxi is the only person she’s friends with at school.”

  “Araxi also disappeared,” she said, and before she could continue, she began crying. “We called the police that morning and now they’ve declared her missing. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “Oh gosh,” the woman’s voice softened. “Honey, are your parents around? Can I talk to one of them? Maybe we can figure out where they went.”

  “Hang on,” Sophie said. “My mom is still in bed. She’s always in bed,” she said, unable to catch herself, she kept going. “She’s been terrible since Araxi left. I’m going to try to wake her up. Can you please hold on?”

  She walked down the hallway with the phone in her hand, and without knocking, went into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother was lying on her side, sleeping.

  “Mom?” she whispered.

  After a moment, she shook her mother’s elbow. “Mom,” she said loudly.

  Her mother turned over. She scowled at Sophie. “What is it?” she mumbled. “I was sleeping.”

  “Araxi’s friend’s mother called. She’s on the phone. She wants to talk to you. She thinks they ran away together.” She thrust the phone at her mother and sat on the bed waiting to hear the exchange. Her mother sat up, and pushed her hair out of her face.

  “Hello?”

  She cleared her throat as she listened to the other end of the line.

  “Yes. For five weeks. We called the police.” Pause. “In the morning.” Another pause. “Yes. They said there’s nothing else we can do.” Sophie could hear Mrs. Gradore’s voice from the other end of the line, the words unclear. “Yes, I will. And please do the same … Okay … Thank you.”

  Her mother hung up the phone.

  “What did she say?” Sophie asked.

  “They left together,” her mother said. She sat with a dazed expression. “I’ll call your father. Although what difference would it make? She’s gone.”

  Sophie had always regarded Cecile with a sense of curiosity. On the rare occasions that the girl had visited the house, Sophie found her to be oddly self-assured and brassy. It was the same sensation she felt when she watched a wildlife segment on NatGeo, fascinated and disturbed by the irrepressible instinct of animals that lived by their own laws of nature. She felt a strange comfort in knowing her sister was with Cecile, that she was not alone. The image of the two together now came to mind. She pictured them walking alongside each other, Araxi with her long dark hair and brown eyes, hands shoved in her pockets, and Cecile with her shoulders thrown back, and her waist-length blond hair tied in a high ponytail. The sharp contrast of their physicality was a keen reflection in the difference of their characters, and she knew her sister was drawn to Cecile for this very reason. And for this reason she understood the appeal of Araxi leaving with Cecile, but she could not see Cecile’s side of it. From what Sophie had gathered, the girl was free to do as she pleased, with no curfew or any of the other restrictions exclusive to teenagers. What need was there to run away, and take her sister along, no less?

  She went back to her room and pulled open one of her bureau drawers. She reached towards the back of the drawer until she felt the smooth hard surface. For years, she had kept this wooden music box buried behind a mound of stray socks that she had resisted throwing away. She knew the tune by heart. It was the theme song to the movie Love Story. Their mother had given it to Araxi as a gift years ago, and when Sophie had opened it the first time, she was startled by the tiny ballerina that sprung up from beneath the lid and twirled around in a brief frenzy. She remembered touching the crimson red velvet lining of the box, the pleasant feel of the soft fabric, unexpected and soothing. Now she lifted the box and placed it on her bed. She had not wound up the lever on the side, and knew there would be no music or burst of dancing. She opened the lid and inside was the small piece of neatly folded paper that she occasionally opened and read. She had never shown the writing to her parents, nor did she still find any reason to. Her sister’s small, slanted handwriting filled only the first two lines of the page:

  Hi Sophie. Please don’t be scared when you see that I’ve gone. I’ll be fine and I will call you or write you as soon as it’s okay. Love, Araxi.

  Tamar

  During the years of her marriage to Levon, Tamar had taken trips to San Francisco, usually unsure of whether or not she would return. Her two sisters, Anahid and Shoushan, were like a pair of
clenched fists, self-assured and firm in the way they sent Tamar back to New York—armed with confidence and resolve to stand up for herself. Predictably, she eventually quieted down to her true self, feeling weak and deflated from Levon’s accusations that she wanted to leave him. She lay in bed now, knowing she would not be visiting her sisters for quite some time. They called several times a week asking if there was any news of Araxi. It was painful to hear the same questions asked each time she spoke to either of them and more painful still was the deep well of anxiety that, once stirred, was a gateway to nightmares that she was glad not to remember. But what disturbed her most of all was the needling sensation that she envied her daughter in some strange way; she had left, had been able or at least had the courage, impulsive or not, to run toward the unknown with no obvious plans of returning. Tamar regarded her own life as a series of feeble escapes, each of them a failure or a grossly misdirected avenue to freedom. She knew that what made her return to New York each time she visited her sisters was not their coaxing, but her guilt in knowing that marrying Levon had been one of her ploys of escape.

  “Do you want me to call Dad?”

  Sophie was standing at the edge of the bed staring at her. Tamar looked at her for a moment, wanting to touch her thick, long brown hair. She remembered that as a newborn Sophie already had fine, dark hair. It had felt like silk beneath the palm of her hand.

  “No, I’ll do it,” she said, and threw the covers off.

  She stood in the shower, letting the warm water stream down her face. Very rarely did she regard herself when she was naked. The sight of the scars from her two C–sections made her grimace, and her once lean and slender thighs had become fat and unshapely. As a young woman she was so slim that she could even feel her pelvic bone jut out slightly. She ran the bar of soap over her hips, ignoring the layer of fat that now padded them. Despite the many years that had passed, she remembered how Faris used to place his hand on her waist, and eventually settle on her hipbone. Sometimes he would place his thumb on the bone and lightly pinch it and say, “You eat more than I do. Where does it go?” and smile.