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My phone signals a text from Kat. She’s getting worried, but there’s still a lot to discuss with Maxim.
“Are you going to be around tomorrow?” I ask him as I tap out a message to Kat.
“Why?” he grumbles.
“I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
He opens his mouth to protest, but I don’t let him get that far.
“It’s Ciara’s daughter.”
8
Kat
“Can we go to the playground, Mommy?”
Josh is getting bored of being cooped up indoors all day, and the allure of his unlimited TV time has worn off.
I check the time on my phone, refreshing it in the hopes of a message from Lev while I’m at it, but he’s been quiet since his call a couple of hours ago.
“It’s getting late for that, but I saw a Dairy Queen around the corner. Maybe we can walk over in a little bit and get some ice cream?” I want to wait until full dark, which will be very soon.
“Ice cream sundae?”
“Yep.”
He smiles wide as he nods enthusiastically.
“You have to eat your dinner first, though,” I tell him, eyeing his half-eaten bowl of spaghetti which came from a can I warmed up in the kitchenette.
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
He makes a face but picks up his spoon and starts to eat again.
I walk back to the desk and stare at the nearly blank sheet of paper.
Lev wanted me to write down everything I remembered about my mother, but what he suggested, that she was in some way involved with Vasily, it makes no sense. She can’t have been.
Although there is one detail about the accident that killed her that always stood out to me.
I don’t remember much about the few years I was with my mom, but I think that’s pretty normal. I’m not sure at what age one begins to create memories—at least more than blips of scenes. And even those, I don’t know if I made them up or if they truly happened.
Singing. I remember that. She had a pretty voice. And I remember her hair. I think it’s the way Josh holds mine when he sleeps that makes me think of it. She had beautiful red hair.
But again, are they true memories or my brain creating history to fill in the empty spaces?
Red hair and a pretty singing voice. And maybe love.
That’s not a memory, though. It’s a feeling. I felt loved. Or maybe it’s that I felt the absence of exactly that after she died and my time in foster care began that makes it so visceral a thing.
I got my hands on the police report once I was out of juvenile detention and legally an adult. There were photos of the scene, of the car, a simple little black Kia, something unremarkable, wrapped around a tree. There were white streaks around the driver’s side door, and when I’d asked about them, the officer had said she’d probably been in another accident prior to that one. When I pushed for more, he admitted there wasn’t any record of another accident, but that he wasn’t surprised because my mother hadn’t been insured, which would mean she probably wouldn’t have reported a previous incident.
It had seemed strange, but I hadn’t had any reason to question him further. The accident was fifteen years old and the case closed. Slippery conditions on mostly deserted roads. Period. The one officer I did manage to get ahold of who was at the scene had retired a few years earlier and only recalled what a pity he’d thought it for her to have died so young and how lucky it was that I’d survived.
Strangely enough, I’d only survived because my car seat wasn’t attached to the safety harness correctly. My child seat had smashed into the back of the passenger side chair. I was a little small for the seat and the seat itself had taken the blow. No one was even sure if I’d been knocked out or asleep through the whole thing, but I was mostly unhurt. When I’d woken up, I’d walked away.
I don’t remember anything about that. You’d think I would, considering I was found two miles from the accident along the side of the road, but nothing. They told me I was freezing cold, dirty and starving, and that it was a wonder I survived at all.
I slip the photo of my mom out from inside the folder, which I’ve read through a hundred times, and I look at her.
Did Vasily kill her? Why?
“Mommy, that’s you!” Josh is suddenly beside me, wearing a circle of orange sauce around his mouth.
I tuck the photo away.
“That’s actually your grandma,” I tell him, putting the pen down and getting up. I’ve only written down that detail about the white streaks on the driver’s side on the page. It’s a sorry little list. “Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll go for ice cream.” I could use some fresh air too, honestly.
