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“I didn’t steal anyone. They were separated. He wanted nothing to do with her. After she’d left, he’d gotten a job at a factory, and he was doing better. Katia… had made her own choices. She was barely seventeen… I admit now, we judged her too harshly then. I judged her too harshly. All I could see was Stepan and how she’d broken his trust and his heart.”
“And you thought you could mend his heart.”
She smiled. “You’re judging me harshly now.”
“I’m not. I’m just stating some facts.” She nodded but didn’t say anything. “Where do I come into this picture. Or… when?”
“Years after. Stepan and I were married, and we were planning to move to the US. We’d worked hard to save enough money. She just appeared out of nowhere, at our door, with a baby in her arms. She said she needed me to take her. Take you. She had no one else she could trust, and she said it would only be for a while, until she got back on her feet. Stepan wanted to hear nothing of it. But I couldn’t turn her down. She said… no more than a month. Two, at the most. Until she managed to get some money and rent a better place. She couldn’t keep you, a mere baby, in the same room where she…” Her voice cracked.
“Worked,” I finished her sentence.
“I’m sorry, Mila. You were never supposed to hear this. I never wanted you to find out about your mother and what she… did. She didn’t come back for you after a month, and she didn’t come back after two months, either. We kept waiting, Stepan and I. Three, four, five months. A year passed, and there was no word from Katia. We went to the police. We just wanted to track her down. They looked for her for half a year, maybe, and then they gave up. She was nowhere to be found. It was as if she hadn’t existed in the first place. Completely vanished. And Stepan and I had to leave. We couldn’t wait any longer. What were we supposed to do? Abandon you? Take you to a children’s home and leave you there? We adopted you and made a promise to each other that we’d never tell you about Katia. There was no point. Just pain, shame, and disappointment. We didn’t even know who your father was. Stepan thought it must have been one of her clients. We gave you our name, took you to the US with us, and raised you as our own. Later, I found out I couldn’t have children. So, in the end, you proved to be a blessing.”
We were silent for a while. I finished my gin, and when she tried to pour me some more, I refused, covering my glass with my hand.
“So, she’s dead.”
My mom shook her head. She sighed as if she was in pain and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know. All I know is that she never came back, and the police never found her. Dead or alive.”
I nodded. “What was her name? Her surname.”
“Katerina Angelov.”
“Angelov. Mila Angelov.”
My mom smiled. “Not half bad.”
I wasn’t going to tell her that Headmaster Colin had started calling me Mila Morningstar since the day I found out who my real parents were. GC and Paz were doing the same when they wanted to piss me off. If she didn’t know who my father was, then that was a good thing. But did she… Impossible. Still… Dad did tear my letter to pieces.
“Mom, I want you to promise me something.”
“Anything, baby.”
“No more lies. From now on, only the truth. I need to know I can trust you.”
She reached over the table and took my hands into hers. “I promise, baby.”
“Okay, because I’m going to tell you something, and then I’m going to ask you something. And it’s important that you don’t lie to me now.” She simply looked at me, her eyes as big as saucers. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating a bit, but I needed her to understand how serious the situation was. “When I left a year ago, I went to Grim Reaper Academy. I accepted their invitation to apply, and I got in. I study there now.”
She furrowed her thin, overly plucked brows. “Grim Reaper Academy? Oh! I remember the letter… But I thought… I thought that was a prank. What even is Grim Reaper Academy? It can’t be a real school.”
I studied her closely. “You’re telling me that you know nothing about the place?”
She blinked. “Baby, I promise you, I know nothing about it. When you got that letter, that was the first time I heard of it, and I thought it was a stupid joke. You thought the same, remember?”
“But Dad… He took the letter from me and tore it to pieces. Why would he do that? If you don’t know anything, then he does.”
She shrugged. “You know most of his outbursts make no sense.”
“This one does.” I jumped to my feet and grabbed my backpack. “He knows something. He wouldn’t have snapped like that because of a joke that didn’t even concern him. Come on, we’re going home. I need to talk to him.”
She stood up slowly. “Baby, are you sure?”
“What do you mean?” I was already across the room, my hand on the doorknob.
“I want you to come back home. I do. But you’re angry now, and if you confront him…”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
