I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that is no longer on my plate. I tell myself I won’t give it another thought. Now, I really have no one stopping me from doing anything I want. And, unlike before, I know exactly what that is. It’s definitely not going to Ukraine; I’ve flirted quite enough with danger, I don’t need to risk more. And it’s not going back to school. It’s something else altogether. I pick up Liam’s cell phone from the floor and call a number I have used so many times that I have it memorized.
“Hey,” I say into the speaker. “Where are you right now?”
FEBRUARY 2008
MASHA
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The following morning, I wake up yet again to a very loud banging on the door.
“Masha!”
I sit up, hitting my head on a hanging plant. “Ow,” I say aloud as I walk to the door, rubbing my head with a palm. Who would be knocking like that so early in the morning? Who even knows I’m here? It certainly doesn’t sound like Rose. She has a spare key hidden somewhere, and, as always, she doesn’t seem to enjoy being home. Spending so much time in her apartment without her there reminds me why I moved out so quickly after she’d replaced June; Rose was practically never there. And Emily, she’d disappeared almost entirely, too, after June had died. I couldn’t blame her now, though I did, then. We should have both moved out right away, instead of trying to live there like nothing had ever happened. Because everywhere we looked, we saw June’s dead body; I saw it every time I passed the door of her old room, I remembered it when I used her dishes, I dreamt of it, so cold and blue, my sleep. She may not literally have been haunting us, but in a way, her presence did plague us. And because I never addressed it, it only grew from there. Soon she began haunting Center Street, and Riverwest, and the entire city of Milwaukee, until I had to get as far away as I could.
I’m not sure why I no longer feel her here—maybe time really does heal—but now, I am starting to remember what I used to like about Riverwest, not only the bad stuff. How every other block, you run into people you know, or at least look familiar. How cyclists speed by you no matter what the weather; it could be blizzarding out and a guy in all black would still ride past you through the snow, covered in winter gear. Most importantly, it’s so small; you could walk from any bar or cafe in Riverwest all the way home in less than fifteen minutes. And this, the fact that people will show up at your door with no warning and knock on it. It’s like we’re living in the eighties.
“Who is it?” I ask. I turn to check the clock on the microwave and am surprised to learn it’s eight in the morning. I’m so tired I thought it could still be the middle of the night. Or, maybe I’m hungover. Yes, that’s it. I’m hungover for the first time in years.
“It’s your dad,” the voice answers. Either I am still half asleep or unusually bewildered, but I can’t figure out why my dad would be here. So I open the door partway, trying to blink the sleep away from my eyes.
“You’re not answering your phone,” Papa says in Russian. “I’ve been worried.”
I open the door further to let him inside. The blanket I am wearing around my body falls to the floor, and a shiver passes through me momentarily before I can get it back on. “Papa, I told you I wouldn’t be able to call you or drive back. It’s Shabbat. No phones, no cars.”
He lets out a breath of air, as if he’s been holding it since we last saw each other. “I didn’t know that. Sorry.”
“I told you that like three times!” I complain. Is fifty-five is too young to have Alzheimer’s? Or is it just the constant lack of sleep eating away at his memory skills?
Papa doesn’t move from the doorway. “Maybe you did. I can’t remember.”
If he didn’t look so worried, I might be annoyed at him, possibly angry, too. But he’s too pathetic-looking to be angry with. This stuff with Anna is clearly getting to him. I’m sure it doesn’t help that Mama is gone. My dad was never good at being alone; he went straight from his parents’ house to living with my mom and her parents. Then we came along, and it had been a full house ever since. The quiet, vast emptiness is likely starting to get to him.
“Come inside,” I tell him now, gesturing towards the very messy living room.
“This is okay. I came to take you to your grandparents,” he says. “They calling me nonstop.”
“Oh,” I say, grabbing my coat and bag. “Okay.”
“How did you even know where I was?” I ask Papa, sitting down across from him in the car.
“I remember house,” he explains.
“Did you talk to Zoya?”
“No,” he says. “I didn’t.”
“Papa! I’m doing everything I can out here and—”
“I tried. I couldn’t get. Odnoklassniki where we talked. The account is deleted. Emails got returned.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” I say, looking out the window as we zoom past Gordon Park and over the Locust Street bridge. “I’m tired.”
“What about you?” he asks. He moves away from me, a funny look on his face. “Other than getting drunk, did you find something?”
“Maria?” my dad asks again.
“Sorry. I did make some progress. I got some phone numbers from a friend of mine,” I say. “Got” is probably a nice way of putting it; I had forced Liam to write down the numbers for me before I would get out of his shitty van. “For her old roommates.”
“Da?” Papa looks pleased. He reaches into his cigarette carton and takes one out to light. “That could help.”
“Problem is…”
“Shabbat.” He smiles a little. “See, I do listen.” He looks out the window in thought, then opens it to let out the smoke. The sound of birds twittering enters the room, and for a moment, I feel relaxed. It’s easier now when my dad is relatively calm. When he is nervous, or anxious—which happens often—it’s like there’s so much of it inside him it spills over onto me and I can’t feel anything else. It’s probably why I am so much more relaxed in Israel. “Okay. Well, I can call them after grandparents.”
He turns down Oakland Ave, and becomes quiet for a moment. Then he gazes at me with a strange expression. It’s part wistful, but disappointed or angry too. “Did you know your sister smokes?” he asks.
“What? No.”
“She thought she could hide it from me…” he starts, then shakes his head. “I’m not as stupid as I look.”
“I can’t imagine anyone calling you stupid,” I grimace.
Papa inhales deeply. “No matter what I try to do for you two, you just do the opposite.”
I swallow. “She’s nineteen. I’m sure it’s a phase.”
My dad looks me right in the eye. “Was it a phase for you?”
I turn away. I don’t think he’s talking about smoking anymore. “Give her a break,” I say. “It’s not like it was when you were her age. People don’t have time to ask questions when they’re starving.”
“And this better?” Papa says, gesturing to the ceiling of the car, meaning the entire world of 2008.
“In some ways it’s better. In other ways, it’s worse,” I shrug. “But that happens with every generation, don’t you think?”
Papa sighs, then pulls into a parking spot on Farwell Avenue. He puts his coat back on and opens the door, all in one swift motion. I follow him outside as we walk into the apartment building more familiar to me than any of our previous homes because my grandparents hadn’t lived anywhere else in nearly twenty years.