The Town

by Bentley Little

  Julia felt numb. She’d been thinking of the present, keeping the future at bay, worrying only about whether they would get out of this alive, but now Jedushka Di Muvedushka was history, the crisis was past and the future was here. She could avoid it no longer.

  Sasha was dead.

  Gregory was dead.

  Her firstborn and her husband were gone, and it was brought home to her in strange ways:

  The knowledge that Sasha would not need the college fund they’d started for her years before they’d won the lottery.

  And the realization that from now on she would be making all the decisions alone. There was no one to whom she could turn for support or advice, and if Adam or Teo disagreed with her, they could no longer appeal to their dad.

  Their dad was dead.

  And he had killed their sister.

  Gregory had shot Sasha, but she did not blame him. It might be nothing more than rationalization, rationalization borne of love, but in her mind he had been guided and corrupted by a power far stronger than himself, under the influence of such an evil force that an army of people from two different cultures had to band together to defeat it. Her death was not his fault. Sasha had not really been murdered by her father—he had been someone else at that point—and Julia could not find it in her heart to blame him.

  She did blame Agafia for murdering her son, though she knew that was unfair. Agafia had done it to save her life. And her life had been saved, as had probably many others. The old woman had gone against her religion, her upbringing, her beliefs, had sacrificed not only her son but the best part of herself for the rest of her family. Julia knew it had been an impossible situation and an instant decision had to be made, but she could not help second-guessing and wondering if Agafia couldn’t have shot his leg or hit him over the head or somehow just injured him rather than killing him.

  She could not see herself absolving her mother-in-law for what she’d done, could not find it in her heart to forgive her. At least not at this point. But she knew, for her own sake as well as the kids’, she would have to somehow work through it.

  She ran the last few steps to the van—

  The van that Gregory had bought

  —and before she even reached it, the door was opening, and the kids were tumbling out, rushing up to her.

  She hugged her children—

  the two children who were left

  —and she thought about Gregory and thought about Sasha and thought about the life they’d had and the life that they were no longer going to have, and she held them tightly and she began to sob.

  Epilogue

  They went back to the old house in Downey, he and Babunya.

  She drove her old car, her Pontiac, and she drove it in an old-lady way: seat far forward, posture ramrod-straight, steering wheel gripped tightly at the top, chin practically touching the wheel. Before, Adam would have been embarrassed to be seen with her like this, would have ducked far down in his seat and hoped that no one he knew would see him.

  But nothing embarrassed him anymore.

  They were staying at Babunya’s house in Montebello until they found a place of their own, and though it was nice being back in California, it felt strange to be living in someone else’s house—even Babunya’s—and he was anxious for them to move into their own home.

  Teo and his mom were at Aunt Tanya’s house this morning, looking over real estate brochures, and his mom had wanted him to come with them, but Babunya told her that she was going to go shopping and that she needed him to help carry the groceries out to the car.

  Instead, they’d come here.

  He didn’t like to think about what had happened. He avoided talking about McGuane or anything that had happened there, and he tried not to let even a stray thought about those months cross his mind. He’d promised Scott and Dan that he would call them, but he hadn’t, and he was glad that they did not have Babunya’s phone number or address. He did not want to talk to either of them.

  He just wanted that part of his life to be over. He just wanted to put it behind him and forget it had ever occurred.

  Babunya pulled up in front of the house.

  He looked at the front lawn, the garage, the corner window of what had been his room, and he suddenly felt like crying. He had not cried since the funerals, not even in the privacy of his own bed alone at night, but he felt like crying now, and it was all he could do to keep the tears from coming. He glanced away from the house, down the street, wondering if Roberto might be around, but it was a school day, and the street was deserted.

  A stray tear escaped from his right eye, and he quickly, angrily, wiped it away.

  The house was for sale. The people who had bought it from them had obviously done so only for investment, and there was a realty sign on the lawn, emptiness visible through the curtainless windows.

  His mom must know that the place was for sale, but apparently she didn’t want to go back there. He understood how she felt. There were too many memories. It would be nice to live near Roberto again, to go back to his old school and his old friends, but he didn’t really want to take up residence in this house again, either. It would be too harsh a reminder, and it would be better for all of them if they found some place new, got a clean start.

  “Come,” Babunya said, unstrapping her shoulder harness and opening the car door. “We go inside.”

  He nodded silently, unbuckled his own seat belt, opened his door, followed her. They’d talked about this ahead of time, and he knew what they were going to do, but he still wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

  The locks of the house had obviously not been changed, and Babunya took her old keys from her purse and unlocked the front door. She said a quick prayer, walked inside.

  Adam held his breath as he walked through the familiar doorway, into the furnitureless house. He glanced around. It had looked exactly the same on the morning they left, but time and distance had altered his perspective, and it felt weird to be back. It was his home but at the same time not, and he felt lost, adrift.

  They walked slowly through the rooms, Babunya repeating the same Russian prayer as they moved from the living room to the family room to the dining room to the kitchen. Memories and emotions were pressing in on him from all sides, threatening to crush him, and it got harder and harder to breathe as they made their way through the once-familiar house. He wanted nothing more than to bolt, to run, to get the hell out of here, but he remained next to Babunya, concentrated on keeping his emotions at bay.

  They came to the last room. His parents’ bedroom.

  Once again the tears threatened to well up, and he would have probably started crying had his attention not been distracted at that moment, had he not seen movement in the far corner of the room, a faint shimmering.

  Babunya had just finished her prayer, and he looked over there, where the dresser used to be, and he thought he saw him, Jedushka Di Muvedushka, the Owner of the House. He didn’t look like that Rumpelstiltskin picture, didn’t look like the shadow on the wall of the banya, didn’t look like a leprechaun. Indeed, he was not strange or unusual in appearance at all. He looked like a miniature man, a little Russian, and he was dressed in white Molokan church clothes, and had a long gray beard and the kindest eyes Adam had ever seen.

  Adam glimpsed him only for a brief second, if at all, and then he was gone.

  There was nothing there.

  After everything that he’d been through, after everything that had happened, he would have thought that he’d be scared, that contact with anything even remotely supernatural would terrify him, but there was nothing terrifying about the small man, and in the brief second that he thought he saw him, he’d felt strangely at peace and at ease—something he had not felt for a long time.

  Babunya looked at him, smiled.

  She’d seen him too.

  Looking toward the corner, she said some words in Russian, then nodded to him. He repeated them in English, just as she’d coached him: “Owner of the H
ouse, please come with us and protect us.”

  The little man appeared again, flickering into an existence that was still only barely visible. He nodded politely, started walking toward them . . . then faded into nothingness.

  Adam looked over at his grandmother. “Is that it?”

  “He with us,” she said. She put an arm around his shoulder. “He protect you in new home. Do not worry.”

  Adam said nothing, and the two of them walked silently back through the house, outside.

  He with us.

  He would have laughed at that before, would have thought it was stupid, but now it cheered him up, made him feel better.

  He protect you.

  They walked out to the car, got inside.

  On their way back, they stopped at a grocery store, bought some food for tonight’s dinner, and she bought him a Spiderman comic book that he read to himself on the silent trip home to Montebello, where Teo and his mother were waiting.