I stop sorting through a pile of DVDs with Russian titles on them. Brat and Brat 2. Night Watch and Day Watch, an apocalyptic vampire series I have seen numerous times already, and follow her east towards the boardwalk, even though I have to be at work soon. I don’t feel like I have much of a choice.
“Does your dad know where you are?” Mom finally asks me.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Does he know where you are?”
The sidewalks are glistening, the trees dripping. It’s cold, even under my sweater and leather coat. Not quite winter anymore, but not quite spring either. “Why don’t you come back to New Jersey with me?” She turns to me, putting a hand on my shoulder, brows pointed with concern. “Sveta has plenty of space. You can share your cousin Olga’s room.”
“Why don’t you go back to Milwaukee?” I ask, annoyed. She knows perfectly well that I can’t stand my cousin Olga or New Jersey.
“Anastasia.”
“What?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. The leather of my coat swishes and pulls. “Are you going to stay there forever? Have you moved in with them? What about work?”
“Not forever, no.” She pauses, looks down at her manicured hands. “Until…”
“Until what? Dad goes back in time and doesn’t sleep with his accountant?” I ask.
My mom looks like I’ve slapped her, and now I feel bad. It’s not her fault. Why am I taking it out on her? Probably it’s just guilt. I’d been expecting to be discovered at some point, but I thought it would most likely be Masha who found me, or maybe even my dad. Not my mom. I had no idea my mom wanted to see me after everything I put her through. Well, after everything that my dad put her through and that I maybe helped bring to light. “Sorry,” I say softly.
We start walking again, and even though I can’t hear it, I suddenly know my mother is crying.
“How did you find out anyway?” I ask, softly.
“I’m not blind,” she says. “And your father can’t ever remember to log out of his emails, which I’m sure you’ve noticed.” She shakes her head and almost laughs.
“I see.”
“Anyway, it’s none of your concern.”
“But did he… is she…?”
“We never heard from her again, if that’s what you’re asking.” She looks at me sternly. “And let’s keep it that way.”
“All right. Whatever you want.”
“I just don’t understand what you’re trying to prove. That you don’t need us? Fine. Point taken,” she says, her voice shaky. Her heels click against the pavement, and mine drag, one of the flaps of my boot coming loose. I feel embarrassed and yet defensive at the same time. We don’t usually have these types of conversations—honest ones—and I can tell it’s hard for her. I can’t help but wonder, too, how much Masha told her about what I was up to. She doesn’t mention it though, so neither do I.
“Isn’t that the point you’re trying to make?” I ask her. She stops and stares at me, her brows furrowed. Then, to my surprise, we both burst out laughing. I suppose it is funny in a way. Like we are leading some sort of parallel life, so different than the ones we had mere months ago.
“Can we sit?” she tells me more than asks. I follow her to a nearby bench on the boardwalk, where she sits, then takes off her heels and starts rubbing her feet. I don’t dare to take my own shoes off, even though my feet are sore too. The smell would probably knock us both unconscious. Alternatively, I look out at the clear blue sky, the jagged skyline and smooth water reflecting it, calmness and chaos in equal parts. Like yin and yang; or me and my mom; or life in general, always balancing precariously on the precipice of that fragile line between. It’s a beautiful image, and it fills me with a convoluted mess of emotions, which, as it often does, turns into an idea for a painting. I try to imprint the image in my brain to use later. I picture myself with my paintbrush, blocking in the shapes of our bodies on the bench, the line where sky meets water. One of those Russian couples walking past in the distance, next to a Russian mom pushing a carriage, like my mom used to push me. It could be my best piece ever. Something about the circle of life.
That I can never stop painting is basically all I’ve really learned from this little adventure that started with Zoya’s absurd message. That, and that everybody lies, so you should do your best not to.
And that includes lying to yourself about what you need.
“How about this,” Mom says. “I’ll go back if you go back. We can go together.”
“I just got here,” I say. What I avoid explaining is how that is not an option right now. Liam wouldn’t be the only one after me if I was to return.
“Okay, here’s another option,” Mom says. “Why don’t you go to Israel with your sister?”
I groan. Somewhere I must have known this would come up. “Israel, again… why is everyone always trying to send me to Israel? I would rather go to art school.”
“You want to go somewhere, that’s somewhere. The flight is free if you go on Birthright first.” My mom puts her heeled boots back on her feet. “You won’t be alone, and living who knows where. You can stay with Masha or her boyfriend.”
“What? Isn’t her boyfriend a cop?” At the mere mention of a cop, my heart starts to race. Ever since what happened with Tristan, when I see a police car, I automatically look away even when I haven’t done anything wrong. What if David could see just from looking at me all the terrible things I’d done?
“He works for the government,” my mom explains. “He’s not a cop. He doesn’t arrest people for speeding.”
“Well, that’s way better. I definitely want to live with some government spy,” I say. “Especially one who made my sister all religious out of nowhere. Have I mentioned how creepy that is?”
“Your sister isn’t that religious, Anastasia. She celebrates a few holidays, maybe she goes to synagogue sometimes. She’s happy, so what? Is the problem that you’re not happy so you don’t like seeing her happy?” My mom sighs again.
If I have a superpower at all, it’s the number of times in one conversation I can make someone sigh.
“I don’t understand how you can hate a place you’ve never even been. Do you have any idea how ignorant you sound? You’re almost nineteen years old. It’s not cute anymore.”
I’m not sure how to answer this. I stare ahead, watching as a little blonde girl in a red dress chases her dog down the boardwalk. I wish I could be that girl, entertained so simply, with so many years still to figure everything out, everyone constantly singing your praises no matter what you do. When we’re children, ninety percent of our lives consist of adults touching us and staring at us, most of the time telling us how cute and great we are. It’s a miracle that, as adults, we’re able to overcome all the constant devotion and learn to function without it.
Perhaps we never really do.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It just… always gives me a bad feeling. I don’t know why.”
“I know why. It’s because you’re embarrassed to be Jewish.”
“No, I’m not,” I say, automatically.
How old do I have to get for my mother to stop telling me what it is that I think and know?
“Yes, you are,” my mom says. “I get it, I do. We all have to struggle with being Jewish in our own way. And maybe it’s our fault. Your dad and I didn’t grow up with it. We didn’t show you how to be Jewish because we didn’t know how, either. But I always felt Jewish in my heart. Maybe I thought it was automatically a part of you, that we didn’t have to do anything. But I was wrong; I see that now.”