“I want him to have a normal life. I do, more than anything.” She looked out the kitchen window. A red cardinal was pecking at the bright yellow bird feeder on the wooden deck. “I see how his face lights up when Finn visits him. I can hear their chatter about baseball, all that innocent, boyish banter. And I want him to have that every day. I do . . . I’m just . . .” She stopped midsentence.
“You’re just scared,” I said, completing her thoughts. “Which is perfectly understandable.” I reached for her hand. “I know you worry about Yuri and keeping him as healthy as you can, but he can’t stay in this house forever and live in a bubble. Even as a teacher, I know there’s only so much a child can learn from books.”
She nodded her head. “I know you’re right. My husband says the same things . . .”
I knew Sasha had taken Yuri out to a few baseball games in years past. “Why not bring him to one of the basketball games at Franklin?” I suggested. “And when it gets warmer, you can take him to some of the school’s baseball games, too. He can see Finn play and cheer him on.
“Yuri’s growing up,” I said gently. “Even I can see the changes in him just over the past few months. You’ve had this whole year with him at home, but you don’t want him to become completely cut off from the world. What sort of life would that be?”
Katya lifted her eyes, now glassy with tears. “I want to keep him safe, because I blame myself for his condition.”
I squeezed her hand again. “Don’t say that; there’s nothing you did that caused it.”
“Chernobyl. Do you know of it?” She bit her lip and her whole body seemed to shiver. “How could I not have known that something was wrong when it was as hot as summer that April? I baked in the sun that afternoon. I swam in the river that was as warm as bathwater.” Her expression was pained. “And now I hear they’re saying that the radiation was absorbed in the mushrooms. I ate so many mushrooms before I got pregnant.” She let out a nervous laugh. “My body must have soaked up all that poison like a sponge. I’m surprised I’m even still here.”
Katya pressed her face into her open palms and shook her head. As I listened to her, I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Her grief was contagious, and I thought I might start crying along with her. “Katya, you’re not to blame. It was all a terrible accident.”
“They waited three days before telling us anything had happened,” she muttered, her words lost in her sobs. “Three days, can you imagine? That whole time, I burned myself like a lobster, sunbathing like a fool.”
54
THAT night, I had difficulty sleeping. I had been excited to talk to Katya about the prospect of Yuri’s coming to class a few times a week once the weather warmed up, but our conversation that afternoon revealed much more than I had expected. Katya was terrified that something might happen to Yuri when she wasn’t around. Getting her to agree was not going to occur overnight.
As frustrated as I was that Katya hadn’t yet agreed to let Yuri attend school once a week, I was bolstered by the fact that Yuri seemed to be channeling his frustrations into his writer’s notebook. Now that he had been transparent with me about his restlessness, he knew he didn’t have to put on a happy face for me. He even started speaking more frankly with Finn, saying how excited he was for him to have made the middle school baseball team but how much it stunk for him knowing he’d never get the chance to do it himself.
Then, to my surprise, I learned that Sasha had taken Yuri out to Franklin to sit on the bleachers and watch one of Finn’s games.
“He came out in full Yankees regalia,” Finn told me after class. “It was really cool. I got the game ball and gave it to him after. You should have seen his whole face light up after that!”
I found myself getting emotional and wished I had witnessed the scene myself.
“Wow, that’s really amazing, Finn,” I gushed. “Fingers crossed, with each baby step, we get closer to having him come in one day a week for class.”
“Yeah, I’m really hoping that happens, Ms. Topper. And I think so is he.”
* * *
• • •
WHILE my professional life was consumed with trying to navigate the best options for Yuri, my personal life, on a good note, was improving. Daniel and I began to spend more time together, taking a few more trips to my father’s workshop. He said he was even thinking of attending the summer program in the Midwest that had kick-started my father’s education in learning how to make violins. At first I worried that he was only feigning interest in me in order to spend more time with my father, which, as Suzie pointed out, sounded pretty crazy when you said it out loud.
As the weather changed from snow to spring rain, I still lit fires on the weekend. But now Daniel would arrive around four p.m. most Saturdays, and we’d make dinner together. He’d stop off beforehand at the local grocery store to pick up a few provisions, and we’d play a game in which we had to prepare something out of the random items he had purchased.
“I can make anything tasty with a little garlic and olive oil,” I challenged him. He’d stand over me as I chopped the garlic and sautéed it in a pan, the aroma permeating the house and making me feel instantly like I was back at home.
After dinner, as the fire roared, he’d place his violin beneath his cheek and play whatever came into his mind. Some nights it was an Irish jig and other times it could be Stephen Foster. It was interesting that he sounded so different than my father did when he played. My dad always made the violin sound almost melancholy, but Daniel’s playing was bright and cheerful. The notes sounded high and springy, as if life were bursting off his strings.
“Let me see if I can play ‘Cat’s in the Cradle,’” he teased. “Something a little more somber for a change.” He picked up the violin and began plucking the strings, searching briefly to find the right notes. And then, above the music, I heard him begin to sing. “Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon. When you coming home, Dad?” I suddenly felt the urge to cry.
“Did I do something wrong?” He stopped and lifted his bow off the strings. “I thought you’d like that one.”
“I do,” I muttered. “I do.” I wasn’t sure why it had suddenly made me so emotional. It wasn’t as if I had a father who never made time for my brother and me when we were growing up. We’d had the opposite, and I knew it.
Daniel put the violin down and sat next to me on the couch. He placed his arm around me and inched closer.
“I hope you’re not going to be mad at me for doing this,” he whispered into my ear.
Then he leaned over and kissed me.
55
THE kiss. I replayed it over and over in my mind. And not just the kiss. I replayed from the moment Daniel leaned in and surprised me with it to the minute he left my place later on that night.
That kiss had brought me all the way back to the seventh grade, when Timmy Mitchell, the boy I’d secretly had a crush on for three years, kissed me behind the cafeteria. I had the same rush of emotions, even though I was now twenty-seven instead of twelve. I was over the moon that our attraction to each other was mutual. But on the other hand, I was scared out of my mind that the other teachers might find out. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that having a relationship with a coworker in a small school wasn’t necessarily the smartest idea.
“You can’t think of ending this before it even begins,” Suzie counseled. “Now tell me how it happened again.” She was having fun with me. “I’m having a hard time imagining the sudden transition from a depressing song about a delinquent dad to a passionate kiss on the couch.”
Suzie started humming the melody to “Cat’s in the Cradle.” Then she began singing it in a country-western voice, even though it wasn’t that kind of song.
“And then, bam, kiss?” She burst into hysterics.
“It does sound kind of out of left field,” I agreed. “But I can’t stop th
inking about him. I feel like I’m back in middle school again.”
“Hate to break it to you, Mags, but you are.”
I playfully hit her on her shoulder. “Stop it, you know what I mean.”
“Listen, Daniel’s got that poet’s soul that you love. That was what was missing with Bill. And it’s hard to find, trust me.”
I didn’t say a word, but I knew Suzie was right.
“Anyways”—Suzie took a jab at me—“I thought you preferred James Taylor when you were making out.”
I didn’t answer her. There was a reason that Daniel loved Harry Chapin’s songs as much as I did. The best things in life came down to people sharing their stories. And that first kiss felt like a first chapter. It was filled with curiosity and an invitation for more.
* * *
• • •
SPRING had come. The crocuses had pushed forth. The enormous trees that bordered the winding roads from Franklin to my cottage had started to bud. Everything seemed to grow more positive and hopeful after the thaw of winter.
After much deliberation, Katya decided to allow Yuri to come to Franklin one day each week.
I could hardly contain my excitement that she had finally agreed to the one thing I had been hoping for all year. Knowing I would have to make my classroom as germ-free as possible, I rushed off to the grocery store and loaded my cart with paper towels, Fantastik, and lots and lots of Clorox wipes. The janitors were supposed to use disinfectants provided by the administration, but I worried the room might not be as clean as it needed to be. So with my new set of supplies in hand, I rolled up my sleeves and secretly started spraying every surface in the room with a vengeance. I cleaned desk after desk, scrubbing away all the pencil doodles and the stickiness, especially Zach’s grimy desk, which I attacked as though it were a hothouse of germs. Then I scoured every surface I could reach, from the top of the bookshelves to the rim of the chalkboard. Next I focused on the doorknobs, both the one inside the classroom and the one that faced the hallway. Not leaving anything to chance, I even wiped down all the pens and pencils in the canister on my own desk.
* * *
• • •
THE next morning, my stomach was so tightly wound, I could barely eat any breakfast or drink a cup of coffee. How would my other students react to Yuri? Would they accept him, or would they think he was too much of a fragile outsider? I couldn’t help but think of how chickens peck at the weakest in their group, or piglets force out the runt of the litter.
Still, as delicate as Yuri might appear when he first arrived, I comforted myself that his buoyant personality would ultimately prove to be infectious. Despite his physical limitations, no one could deny that he had a certain spark about him. After all, he had won over Finn immediately. So I had to tell myself that even though he wouldn’t be coming in each day and I would not be able to control every interaction he had at Franklin, at the very least, Yuri would have a solid friend in Finn from the get-go.
Despite Suzie’s efforts to reassure me that I’d always striven to maintain a classroom full of kindness and a safe learning environment for all my kids, I was still anxious to protect Yuri from any harm or discomfort. The administration had sent a letter out to the parents, letting them know that we would have a new student in the classroom with special concerns. But I knew that the other children would be immensely curious about anyone new joining the class midyear.
“I have exciting news,” I told my third-period class the day before Yuri’s arrival. “We’ll be having a new student in our class. Yuri Krasny. He’ll be coming in one day a week, and we’ll need to give him a warm welcome.”
“Why only one day a week?” Rachel asked.
“That’s a very good question,” I answered. I knew one of them was going to ask this, and I had rehearsed my response over and over in my head. I didn’t want to alarm the children or make them afraid to interact with Yuri, but I also had to give them an answer that would satisfy their curiosity.
“Yuri was born with a special health condition. His parents have had to take very good care of him so he can maintain his strength. That’s meant that, over the years, he hasn’t always been able to come into a classroom and be around other kids.” I gave the class a big smile to inspire them to be happy about this new addition, not nervous. “The good news is that I’ve gotten to know him, because I’ve been tutoring him at his home a few days a week this year.”
Lisa appeared unsatisfied with my explanation, which I had purposely kept vague. “What sort of condition?” she persisted.
“Let’s just say we need to keep things as safe and as clean as possible in here, as we discussed in the letter home to your parents. So I’m going to be passing out antibacterial wipes on the mornings he’s with us. Everyone’ll get one,” I said, lifting a canister of Handi Wipes. “And everyone will use them. No exceptions. Understood?”
Oscar raised his hand. “Is he going to die?”
Before I could formulate an appropriate answer, Finn blurted out, “Of course not!”
I glanced over at Finn’s desk. The determination on his face said it all. He wanted this to work out for Yuri as much as I did.
* * *
• • •
I spoke to Katya the night before Yuri’s first day, informing her of all the safety measures I had implemented. “I’ve told the class they should make sure that if they felt sick or had a cough or sneeze, to let me know right away,” I reassured her. If one of the students showed the first signs of having a cold on any of the days before Yuri was to come into class, I would call her that evening. We couldn’t expect the parents of the other students to keep their children home for a cold, especially working parents, but we wanted to make sure Katya had all the facts she needed to ensure that Yuri was never at any undue risk.
“I’m still a nervous wreck,” she said. I had to press my ear hard against the receiver to hear her, her voice sounded so faint.
I tried my best to reassure her. “If it ends up being too much for Yuri, we’ll go back to the way things were. For his sake, let’s see if he can have a little more interaction with the other students his age.
“Get some sleep,” I urged her gently. “You know I’ll look out for him as though he were my own. I promise you.”
“Sasha tells me I need to let him live as full a life as he can, while still minimizing the risks,” she said. “I just can’t let anything happen to him. I know it sounds wrong to say, but he’s not only my son . . . he’s also my best friend.”
56
I met Katya and Yuri at the front office the next day. He was dressed in clothes I knew were chosen by his mother, not him. The red-checkered button-down shirt. The navy knit vest. The khaki pants pressed with a pleat down the front. For Katya, this was how you dressed on the first day of school. Little did she know that for most of the other boys in Franklin, that just meant jeans and a T-shirt that wasn’t stained.
“Don’t you look handsome?” I complimented him. He was wearing his backpack, the straps on each shoulder. “Are you okay with your bag?” I asked. “It looks so heavy.”
“Yep,” he answered immediately. He was so eager, you could feel it lifting off his skin.
“He’s so excited about today,” Katya said. “He already met Principal Nelson, who introduced us to Ms. Stern, the school nurse. Yuri knows to go to her if he ever has a problem.”
“Great. I’m glad we’re all set.” I glanced at Katya and gave her a confident nod. “So let’s get you to the classroom, Yuri.” I made a playful flourish with my hand. “Everyone’s bursting at the seams to meet you.”
* * *
• • •
THE room smelled like fake lemons. Between the Handi Wipes and the disinfectants I had used the day before, the air was laced with the message of “clean.” One thing was certain: Yuri was walking into a pristine classroom.
As soon as he entered, I could sense the energy in the room change. The familiar became the unfamiliar. Except for Finn’s, all eyes were on him, each child trying to immediately form their own opinion about this new addition to the class.
“Everyone, please, let’s give a warm welcome to Yuri,” I said brightly.
The students gave him a wide range of greetings, from a few half-hearted waves to some more enthusiastic hellos.
I saw Robert not greet Yuri at all. And this, despite it not surprising me about him, made my heart hurt.
Zach gave him a nice nod and a smile. He started to give Yuri a high five, but then realized quickly it was best to keep his hands to himself.
“There’s a seat next to Finn.” I gently ushered Yuri toward it. “Why don’t you go sit down and we’ll get started.”
I watched as he slowly made his way toward his desk. I had cleaned it so many times, the metal legs and the beige top were sparkling. He slipped his backpack off his shoulders and settled in. I could tell how nervous he was, but when I looked up, I saw Finn reach over and give him an affectionate slap on the back. I noticed Oscar and even Robert take note. And I knew that Yuri was now going to be okay. Finn had his back.
* * *
• • •
YURI was much more tentative than when he was with me alone. But I also saw in his eyes how interested he was in hearing what the other students had to say during our class discussions.
Then, on his third visit, we were discussing metaphors, and I asked the class if they could give me an example of a metaphor they remembered from one of the books we had read in class and explain to me what it meant.
Lisa’s hand shot up. “The wheel of life in Tuck Everlasting. In the book, Tuck says life is meant to turn and turn and never stop. That it has to keep moving like a wheel.”
The Secret of Clouds Page 21
