Chapter 4
Four
AURELIA
We search for a pawn shop for almost an hour, walking up the streets of San Francisco until my legs start to drag and the air felt heavier with every step.
Just when it begins to feel pointless, we finally find one. A flashing sign blinks above the door, impossible to miss, buzzing like it is calling us in.
We don’t know what we are walking into, but at this point, it feels like the only option left.
We step inside. The smell hits first, metallic odor mixed with dust that has been sitting too long.
“We have a ring to sell,” Dasha says right away.
A bald man stands behind the counter. He strokes his dark mustache with two fingers. His shirt is unbuttoned too low, exposing a thick patch of chest hair. He lifts his hand slowly and motions for us to come closer.
I place the ring in his palm, and I grip the edge of the counter, trying to steady myself. My legs still feel weak.
He turns the ring under the light, like he is in no hurry. Then he pulls a small magnifying glass from his pocket and brings it to his eye. He tilts the stone once, twice, watching how it catches the light. His mouth shifts slightly, and he lowers the glass.
“It’s fake.”
“Fake?” My lips part when I hear his words.
“Yes,” he says. “See how the light passes through? Not a diamond.”
“How much can I get for it?” My voice comes out quietly.
“The band is silver.” He shrugs. “Fifty, maybe sixty dollars. Not more.”
Dasha’s brows pull together. “Daniel wouldn’t give you a fake,” she says, stepping closer, her eyes fixed on the ring.
“Look,” the man replies, lifting it toward the light again.
The stone looks dull.
Dasha goes quiet.
She lowers her gaze, then looks at me, and something in her expression changes. There’s no confusion anymore, nor doubt. Just pity.
And in that moment, it feels like something I had always known finally takes shape. Like a memory that was there all along, just waiting to be seen. Daniel gave so much to everyone else. Just never to me.
It’s just a ring, I tell myself. It doesn’t mean anything anyway.
“Okay,” I say. “Sixty it is.”
The man slides open the wooden drawer beneath the counter, and counts the bills without looking at me, then presses them into my hand.
Just like that, the last thing I have from Daniel is gone.
Dasha grips my arm and pulls me outside. The door shuts behind us as we leave.
“1Idyot.“ She straightens, shaking her head. “Money like that and fake diamonds,” she mutters. “I never liked that boy.”
The sunlight hits too hard. I blink against it, my eyes stinging.
Mom used to say we shouldn’t speak badly about the dead, that they can hear us.
So, I stay quiet. The silence surprises me.
Not because of the ring, but because there’s nothing beneath it.
No crack in my chest, no sharp pull. Just this empty calmness, like something inside me has gone quiet in a way it shouldn’t.
Maybe the grief is supposed to come later.
Right now, it still feels like he could walk around the corner, like nothing has ended at all. And somehow, the numbness feels easier.
“Maybe he didn’t know,” I squint at Dasha. My vision is still adjusting to the brightness.
“I’m glad they never found the body,” she narrows her eyes. “If they did, I’d dig him up and stab him all over again.”
She pulls a cigarette from her purse, flicks the lighter, and cups the flame against the wind.
“In Russia, we chop dicks for this behavior,” she adds, smoke slipping from her lips.
I almost smile. Almost.
“Enough about him.” She hooks her arm through mine again and starts walking. “Let’s get you to the bus station.” Her grip tightens.
“Bus to Mendocino will take at least seven hours.”
“Maybe more if there’s no direct one. Last time, they sent me to Santa Rosa first. Then you take a local bus from there.”
“Once you’re there, don’t talk to anyone. Avoid people.” She takes another drag. “And on the bus, put a bag on the seat next to you. Pretend to sleep so no one asks to sit.”
“I don’t have a bag,” I say.
She stops mid-step and turns me toward her.
“Then take the window seat and put your legs up,” she says. “You don’t want to be stuck on a seven-hour ride with some weirdo trying to get into your pants.”
“You know I’m not six, I know how things work.”
“I know,” her tone is softer. “I would hate to lose you, too.”
She pulls me into her chest, her arms wrapping around me tight.
“I’ll be careful,” I say into her shoulder. “I promise.”
She pulls back, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, cigarette still trembling between her fingers. She nods, but her lips press together like she doesn’t believe me.
The bus station is just down the road, but it feels further.
We walk slowly, stretching each step, as if it might keep the end from finding us.
She lights another cigarette before finishing the last one. “Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
Her hands won’t stop shaking. “Not even if they seem nice.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t trust…”
“I know,” I gently cut her off. “Don’t trust anyone.”
She exhales.
“Just… not right away.”
We pass the old bakery on the corner that closed years ago. The windows are still covered with yellow paper. I used to think something was waiting behind it. Now I know some things don’t change.
A bus rumbles somewhere in the distance. The sound rolls through the street.
My chest tightens.
“You will be okay, malyshka,“ she says quickly, like she can hear it. “You have more strength in your little finger than most people have in their whole body.”
We reach the station. There’s a bench sitting at the very beginning, slightly crooked, with chipped paint at the edges. As my gaze lands on it, we start to walk toward it.
I sit. Dasha steps away, her heels tapping lightly as she checks the bus schedule pinned to the board. She scans the paper, then turns back and walks toward me, slower this time.
“The bus to Santa Rosa leaves at three.”
“We have an hour.” She lets out a small breath. “This reminds me, of the day I first came to San Francisco.”
“I had no one. I came alone.” Her gaze drifts somewhere past the station, past the street, like she’s looking at something only she can see. “I left my love in Moscow.”
A tear slips down her cheek. She doesn’t wipe it away.
“I came here to survive. And I did.” Her voice grows quieter. “But I lost my home, my family… my love.”
She finally wipes her cheek with the back of her hand.
“And people here, they don’t look at you with welcoming eyes. Not at first.” She shrugs slightly. “Time has changed, but people still judge.”
She sniffs, straightens a little.
“You will always find good and bad in this world, malyshka. There is no place without both.“ She looks at me now. “Battle always takes something. No one really wins.”
Her fingers tap the cigarette against the bench, ash falling between her shoes.
“What life taught me is this. Wherever you go, you carry both with you.”
“Did you love him?” I ask.
“Him?” She chuckles, then corrects me. “I loved her very much.”
I take her hand and squeeze it, holding on a little tighter than I mean to.
“Time did change,” I say quietly.
She waves it off, but her smile fades. “She forgot about me. Time changes differently in Russia.”
I reach into the yellow envelope tucked inside the notebook on my lap and take out my passport, slipping it into my pocket. The papers go back. I close the notebook, let my fingers rest on the cover for a beat, then hand it to her.
“You told me to write,” I say, holding it out. “But maybe you’re the one who needs the words more than I do.”
She looks at it, then at me.
“Write a happy ending,” I add softly. “For her, and for you.”
She takes it carefully, like it might fall apart in her hands. Her eyes fill again, turning glassy with tears.
Love comes in so many forms. It shifts, changes, slips through your fingers before you even realize you’re holding it. But when it leaves, it always takes something with it.
And still… we choose it. Because even the smallest piece of it feels better than nothing at all.
She waits with me a little too long. When the bus finally comes, we say goodbye without many words. I step inside, glancing back while I stand in line to buy the ticket, but she is already walking away.
Dasha has said so many goodbyes. I’m just another one.
Still, her heart, even when it seems cold, feels warmer than anything I have known.
She was there for me when even my own family wasn’t.
Not just now, but back then, too. She raised me while everyone else stayed absent.
She never made rules or told stories with happy endings.
She let me fall, then caught me, lifted me, and taught me how to keep going.
I look down at my hands, tracing the small scar as a faint pain moves through me. It’s what took the piano from me. I raise my head, push myself forward, and leave it behind.
“Ticket to Mendocino,” I say.
The driver looks at me, blinking once. “Bus goes to Santa Rosa.” He waits.
“Okay. To Santa Rosa, then.”
He keys in a few numbers on the small plastic machine beside him. It whirs, then spits out a stamped ticket. “Eight.”
I pull out a bill and hand it over, taking the ticket from his fingers.
“Take any seat that’s available.”
I move down the aisle and slide into a seat by the window. The bus is almost empty, so I leave the seat beside me untouched. I lift my blazer, slip the ticket into the inside pocket, then take out the photo of the little girl.
I look outside, watching everything slip past. The road stretches ahead, everything around it blurs into soft streaks, shrinking the further we go.
I close my eyes, holding the picture still in my hand, and dark slowly comes to my eyelids.
Little flashes come to me. I don’t know if they are memories or dreams trying to take shape.
Through the darkness I see a door. When I open it, I stand in a long corridor.
A little girl laughs somewhere ahead, and then I feel her hand in mine, tugging me forward.
“Hey, slow down,” I say, but she only giggles, pulling me into her room.
Inside, blue wallpaper wraps the walls. A dark wooden bed stands against one side, dressed in blue linens. In the middle, a beige carpet softens the floor, and on top of it sits a small table with a dollhouse.
The little girl turns to me, and I finally see her face. I don’t recognize her, but she looks exactly like the girl from the photo.
“Why are you so still, silly?” Her British accent wraps around the words as she grins. She holds out her hand to me. “My name is Lilly, silly. What’s yours?”
“Aurelia,” I say.
“Your name sounds lovely,” she giggles, already turning back to the dollhouse. “And this is a lovely house.”
“It is,” I step closer. “Is it yours?”
“No, silly.” She shakes her head. “This is just a dream. And this is just a lovely dolly house.”
I draw my brows together, looking at it more closely. Small dolls are scattered around, each one made from pieces of cloth, their heads shaped from chestnuts. She picks one up, places it carefully into a tiny bed, and begins to hum a lullaby. A lullaby my mother used to sing to me.
“Dilly, dilly, lavender’s blue,” she sings softly, then glances at me. “Sing, silly. Don’t you remember dilly-dilly?”
As I move closer, I notice a picture of a boy. His face feels familiar, like I should know him, but I can’t place it. It slips through me, just out of reach.
My mind circles it. I don’t know what’s memory and what’s dream.
I stare at the picture, unable to move, while the song goes on and on, carried by her small voice and soft hums. It feels like I am falling, as if I’m there all over again, and the song never stops.
My eyes open the moment the bus stops.
I push myself up, still disoriented, and I hear the driver call out the last station. I follow everyone toward the exit, moving with the crowd. As soon as I step outside, a large clock catches my eye, hanging above the station. The ride to Santa Rosa only took two hours.
I walk toward a bench, scanning for a schedule that might tell me when the next bus leaves, but I don’t even have to wait. Another bus is already there.
At the front, near the driver’s mirror, a list of stops is taped up. My eyes move down the lines until they land on Mendocino.
I hurry toward the entrance and slip into the line. The driver watches each person as they step in, his eyes moving from face to face. By the time I reach him, the bus is almost full.
“To Mendocino, please,” I say.
“Fifteen dollars.” He pulls a ticket from the machine and hands it to me.
I give him the money and move down the aisle, slowing down at the first empty seat I see.
An older woman sits by the window, staring outside. A fur coat wraps around her shoulders, and a red scarf covers her head.
“Is this seat taken?” I ask.
She shakes her head once.
I sit down beside her.
She doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. My eyes drop to the ticket in my hand. Paper shows the drive will take five hours. I’ll arrive at night.
I lean back and close my eyes again.
This time, the dream is different.
There is nothing. Just me, floating in darkness. Peaceful.
1. Idiot