Chapter 17 I Missed You
I Missed You
Vitali relocated us to apartments across the city the day of the outage.
No one just got up and moved—not even someone as highly regarded as the Senator.
It was a lengthy process, and apartments hardly ever became available.
You had to have connections to get on a wait list, and here we were with a few hours’ notice in the middle of winter—and Vitali still had somewhere we could go.
Mama protested, but even that was handled with the firm hand of not actually asking for her input. She wasn’t around for it anyway. After some calls, Misha took her to a hospital with an open bed. I didn’t ask questions as to how, only when we could go see her.
His guys showed up an hour later, and largely ignored me as Vitali gave out orders as to what needed to be packed.
Maxim and I stood by and watched them empty our childhood into boxes, leaving only its shadows on the sun-bleached wallpaper. I had no right to mourn this, because I had been the one to make the call. I had been the one who decided for us, again.
Boris handed Maxim a tub of Legos to hold on to, and thankfully, that was enough to subdue him, because the whole thing was overwhelming for me, and I couldn’t imagine how my little brother must have felt.
Plus, he wasn’t drunk. I was.
“Is this all necessary?” I asked, following Vitali room to room as he inspected drawers and cabinets for anything missed by his men. “I thought this was temporary?”
“No,” he said, “this isn’t a good district. These will keep happening. I’m putting you somewhere it won’t ever happen.”
“Vitali—”
“Katya, it’s alright.” He waved me off and reached for a tall shelf, patting it to make sure nothing remained where neither of us could see. “The school is better there. The teachers are being funded by private parties.”
“This is my home…”
“And the apartment will remain under Mama’s name. If you decide you don’t like the one I give you, you can come back when the weather is nice. Possibly in July, ten years from now.”
“Funny.”
He stopped moving and turned, appraising me in a way that formed a crumb of panic in my gut.
“You’re drunk.”
What was I supposed to do? Deny it?
“It’s been really tough…”
“Why didn’t you call me earlier?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head, more to chase away the reality of the confrontation than to give him an answer.
“Kotik, how much have you had to drink?”
“Just something to make it easier today.”
“I asked how much.”
“I don’t know.”
Again, he put his arms around me, and I allowed myself to sink into him. Safe. For those few moments, I’d be safe.
“Go sit down,” he said, and let go. “They’re almost done, then we’ll go buy groceries and lunch, and whatever else you need.”
I didn’t. I kept following him, and the pea-sized bit of panic grew as he stepped into my bedroom.
Glass clinked, and I knew he’d seen the empty bottles under my bed.
“It’s not what you think…” I mumbled as he crouched, scooping my damning collection out into the open.
There was a lot more than I remembered. A horrifying amount more. What was worse, I noticed one a quarter full, and the back of my brain prickled with excitement. Vitali didn’t turn, just looked over them, then opened the drawer of my nightstand and pulled out two more.
My shame suffocated the room. I could hear his disappointment vibrating through the silence—then I realized it was me who shook.
“Are these from the past month?” he asked.
I told him I wouldn’t lie—I told myself I wouldn’t lie—
“No.” And then I lied anyway.
He set the empty bottle down and stood.
“Did I do this to you, Kotik?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head, but my tears already gave me away.
“I’ll make this better,” he said, and placed his hand at the nape of my neck, gently stroking. “I’ll make all this better. Let’s get you home.”
The pain pulsed behind my eyes, returning tenfold since the first drink that morning, and only worsened as the adrenaline wore off. It didn’t take long for me to start nodding off in the car to a conversation between Vitali and Maxim.
I fell asleep.
* * *
I woke to complete darkness and cold, fine cotton under my cheek, and no memory of getting there.
It wasn’t my bed, was it? Too soft. These weren’t my blankets.
I let my arm drop and petted the floor underneath, my exhausted brain telling me I’d just seen a quarter-full bottle, and it had to be around here somewhere. God, my head hurt.
Instead of linoleum, my fingers sank into a thick rug. No bottle.
And I just saw Vitali.
Was I in his… was this… did I…
I shot up, immediately feeling for a nightstand, and praying it didn’t have a nice watch and a lamp.
Instead, I knocked over a cup of water, which went clanking and rolling under the bed. Alright… but these weren’t my pajamas—and I ran a hand between my legs to check how badly I’d messed up. The pants I could vaguely recall putting on that morning were still on.
After a careful shuffle along the wall, I located the switch and prayed that when I flipped it, there would be light. There was.
The room revealed to me was not my own, but it was not Vitali’s either.
It wasn’t much bigger. The decorations consisted of heavy curtains over one window and two landscape paintings on the opposite wall.
There was a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, and a mirror.
The Soviet lace-pattern wallpaper caught the light and turned everything the same yellow as the inside of a taxi cab.
Then the memory came, swaying and bobbing: there was a new apartment, and this must be it.
I could hear the sharp thrash of wind against the window even with the drapes closed, but nothing else…
Oh God—Maxim…
I swung the door open, quickly learning about my unsteady feet, and had to grab the doorframe to keep from teetering.
A single lamp lit the living room, which looked eerily like every living room I’d ever seen.
There was the wall-long bookshelf with a nook for the TV, the couch (although admittedly bigger than my own), a china cabinet with a set of creepy porcelain dolls, and a windowsill-length bench holding several potted plants and a stuffed animal of uncertain species.
Two more rooms, just as lived-in and old-fashioned (although I wasn’t the one to judge; our apartment hadn’t been any more stylish), were stacked with boxes of our things. Maxim’s toys and clothes were in the smaller one. I noted it had its own TV.
Absolutely not. God, where is he…
I heard the voices a moment before the key scraped its way into the lock, and then Vitali appeared with Maxim at his back. Each carried heavy plastic bags.
“You’re lying,” Vitali told him matter-of-factly, and catching sight of me, winked. If my heart ever planned on bursting, that was the moment. Right there.
“No, honest—I did! I can show you!” Maxim protested.
“Don’t say it in front of Katya. She won’t let you. We’ll discuss it later.”
I would bet money Vitali put the TV in there, even if it was his money.
“What’s all that?” I followed around the corner where they set the bags on a table big enough to seat four.
The kitchen was much bigger than my own, and blue instead of pale green.
Age had touched everything equally, and things had been painted and repainted, but well cared-for, and to my disappointment, didn’t feel like a soulless temporary space.
And, I could finally see where we were through the big window behind the pushed-back curtains.
At first, I noticed the not-so-distant lights and endless windows of the next apartment building. But they didn’t completely block the urban scenery. Beyond the power lines and streetlights, the onion domes of Orthodox churches and the lit-up buildings of Old Town came into view.
We were on the southmost side of Kurov.
There was no chance he’d gotten the apartment that day. Besides being the safest district in the city, there were museums and parks and… McDonald’s.
“We got everything I could think of,” Vitali said as he began pulling spices, flour, and cooking oil out of the bags, “but I don’t cook, so I’m not sure if all this goes together. Maxim gave some suggestions, but I suspect with an ulterior motive.”
I spotted the chocolate eggs before my brother snatched them up into his coat pocket.
“Go change,” I told him. Snowflakes caught in the creases of his hat and across his collar. Everything would be wet in minutes if he didn’t hang it to dry. He was about to argue, but I think I looked deathly enough to age me into being respected, and he obeyed.
Vitali grinned and focused on sorting out the assorted, individually wrapped cheeses.
“What am I supposed to do with so many cheeses?” I asked as I sank onto a chair. Gravity conspired with the pounding in my head, and they were winning.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I keep them in my fridge. Sometimes you get up in the middle of the night and just want something specific, you know?”
“Milk?” I asked.
“Blya—” He caught himself, and hid the pause by rubbing his chin, which was both ingenious and convincing. “No, didn’t think of that. I can pick some up tomorrow.”
“Vitali…” I took a deep breath, unsure of how l could address his generosity without bringing attention to the fact that I hadn’t spoken to him in a month.
But that was vulnerability, wasn’t it? Honesty?
The relinquishing of control that’d stretched me thin for so long.
Not just the apartment, because that would be easy, but the knowledge that if I needed something I could ask someone else. Depend on someone else.
If I needed milk, he would pick it up tomorrow.
He was merciful in that he didn’t look at me when I said, “I don’t know how to… I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I told you, I’ll take care of it. Of you.”
“You didn’t have to…”