Who couldn’t wait to remove the label.
Once I had realized we were married—the moment I woke beside her in that Las Vegas hotel room—I knew I had to do everything in my power to make this a reality. So I took a chance.
Well, first, I panicked and said nothing had happened, but once I left the room, I had resolved to tell her over breakfast.
But then I got the call about my father.
The next few months were a whirlwind of doctors’ appointments, care instructions, and planning for the future. Not just my father’s but my own. I pushed for the trade to Chicago, knowing that the only way to make my marriage work would be to put down roots in her town. I would woo my wife while I cared for my father.
Sasha’s illness would test me in ways for which I was not ready. I would eventually lose him. Losing Lauren as well, when we had found our way back to each other, would have killed me. So I fudged the timeline.
And now it looked like I would lose her anyway.
I picked up the divorce papers. For once, I hadn’t lied about sending them to an attorney for review. No alimony or custodial arrangements needed. Clearcut and easy.
It just required my signature.
The alarm on my phone went off. 6:30—time for my father to rise.
I knocked on his door and pushed it ajar. Since the day he attacked me, I was cautious about my entry.
“Papa, are you awake?”
He was already sitting on the side of the bed. He had put his shirt on, but it was unbuttoned, and seeing him there in his underwear, helpless as a child, made my heart pang.
His head turned toward me, slowly, almost robotic, and the familiar confusion flickered in his eyes. I waited, each second longer than the last.
Only this time, the clouds didn’t clear.
“Kto ty?” Who are you?
I responded in English. “It’s me, Papa. Alexei.”
He shook his head and asked who I was again in Russian.
I answered the same as before, but in our native language. “Ya Alexei, Papa. Tvoy syn.”
“Nyet.”
No.
There had been moments of bewilderment before, but usually something in his brain clicked into recognition. The last few weeks, it had been taking longer. I had comforted myself with the fact that as long as he still recalled who I was, then there was still hope.
Hope for what, I wasn’t sure. That he would still be the Sasha I knew? That we could talk about hockey and books and all the things that bound us together as family? If those touchstones were gone—if he could no longer acknowledge me as his son—then who were we to one another? He would always be my father, but was I still the boy he had loved and raised?
“Gde Natalia?”
Natalia was my mother. I replied in Russian, “She is …” Was I supposed to tell him she had died over sixteen years ago? The cruelty of it made me a coward. “… at the market.”
He looked around, baffled by his surroundings.
“Let me dress you.” I reached for his shirt buttons, but he slapped my hand away.
“Natalia! I want Natalia.”
This, he spoke in English, which I took as a good sign. About the only one there was.
I heard the front door open below. Maya was here, thank God.
