Right Where You Left Me Read online

  She laughs, and it takes everything I have to stay in my seat and not get up and hug her.

  “Our boat almost collided with theirs,” she says. “They were classical musicians, and they’d been driving very slowly to protect their instruments. One man waved his violin in the air and screamed at us.”

  “Words we won’t repeat now,” Tatya Nadine says, raising an eyebrow at Mom, who doesn’t feel the same need to shelter me from the profanity I use liberally.

  Mom cocks an eyebrow in return, laughing. She takes another sip of wine. “Fine.” This is why they resemble mother and daughter more than sisters: Nadine’s bossiness and Mom’s almost petulant responses.

  “This was before the fireworks started and more boats cruised past us,” Mom says. “Our driver didn’t care about them. He just wanted to beat the musicians. They were shouting, and one of them threw a music stand at our boat. He hit the driver smack on the forehead.” She strokes a spot above her brow. “He wasn’t too hurt, but he couldn’t see through the blood gushing down his face. Your father didn’t know how to drive the boat. I hiked up my dress and pushed the driver out of his seat. That was when I smelled the alcohol. He reeked. So I told him that he had to give us our money back. He couldn’t charge us for the ride. I drove us to the best place to watch the fireworks. We got there just in time. That was the first time your father proposed.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I ask. Dad is the family storyteller, and he’s super talkative, but he’s never spoken of this night.

  “Because I said no,” Mom said. “It wasn’t practical. I wasn’t ready to leave Russia. My babushka had just died. This was right after my mother got sick. My English was good, but I didn’t know if I could live in such a different country. I couldn’t leave my family. Not yet. Your father came back when my mother died, and that was when I said yes.”

  That’s the story I know by heart, the one of Mom grieving, her second big loss. She doesn’t count her father leaving when she was little. She doesn’t remember him.

  “You were a badass, Mom.”

  She smiles. A little proud. I sip the Prosecco, which bounces off my tongue, and find Mom staring at me. I gesture at my glass. “Nadine’s idea.”

  “I wasn’t looking at your glass. I was looking at you. You’re growing up to be a krasivyy girl.” Beautiful. She holds my gaze. “It will be strannyy when you leave.” Strange.

  I’m a flower and she’s the sun. I absorb her warmth and remind her, “I may not, remember?”

  “It’s impossible to predict the future,” she says. “We don’t know what the next few months will bring. You’ve done so well in school, and you could end up anywhere. How wonderful. We’re very proud of you.”

  “If you go, you’ll come home as much as you can,” Tatya says. “Summer and holidays.”

  “We’ll visit if you move away,” Mom says.

  I nearly choke on my Prosecco. I examine the food on the table to determine the exact ingredient that awoke my mother. When she raises that impenetrable wall, it feels like she’s sleepwalking. You aren’t supposed to wake a sleepwalker. It’s unpredictable and even dangerous. Now, she sits before me, alert. The wall has crumbled down, just as it did in Berlin so many years ago. This moment feels as momentous.

  “I’d love that,” I say in a soft voice, hoping I won’t scare her away.

  “You know your dad wants you to go to NYU. I love New York,” she says. “I’d love to visit Boston, too. I don’t know much about this Rhode Island city, though. New York is the best choice, don’t you think? Better than here. So much culture. The museums and opera. Perfect for your age. I hope you choose there.”

  My heart fills with dread. Is it possible that she wants me to move across the country? Maybe that would be easier for her—to have me far away so that when we’re back together, she would have the ability to set her grief aside. Our visits would be like this meal, a stark contrast from our daily life as a family.

  “Berkeley is nice and only across the bay. You know that’s my top choice. And San Francisco has some of the best museums. I hate opera anyway,” I say.

  Mom asks, “Aren’t you excited? Your father is giddy about all of your possibilities. I’m sure he’s thinking about that right now—thinking about you and your future. He’ll tell you that as soon as they find him. When he calls.”

  “Of course I’m excited, but it’s hard thinking about college with the whole Dad-is-missing situation. We don’t know when he’s going to call, Mom.” I stop myself from saying if he’s going to call. So much for staying positive.

  “You need to be strong,” Tatya says. “Your mother is right. It helps to think about the future and all of the good things that will come. We need to stay hopeful. This is part of that.”

  “What if all of your friends go away?” Mom says, pressing on.

  “I thought you wanted me to stay,” I say.

  Nadine nearly knocks over her glass when she reaches for my hand. “Of course we do.”

  I wait for Mom to say the same. “The world is big, Charlotte. You should see as much of it as you can. I’m glad I came here even though I was scared. Some things are more important than your home. Go have a priklyucheniye.” An adventure. “That would be best.” She breaks my gaze and sips her Prosecco.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I say. I don’t want to cry at the table.

  I close the door behind me and lower myself onto the bath mat, blinking away tears as I replay her words in my mind. I realize she didn’t say it would be sad for me to leave, or hard, or difficult. She said it would be strange—not exactly a loving description. It would be strange if it snowed in San Francisco. It would be strange if dogs suddenly had the ability to speak. It would be strange if I declared myself a vegan. I want her to get misty-eyed and say it would be heartbreaking to have her only living child leave home, to see me only a couple of times a year. I want that absence to be as painful for her as it will be for me.

  A knock at the door. “Charlotte,” Tatya says.

  I open it and Nadine squeezes in. “What are you doing on the floor?”

  I shrug.

  “She loves you.”

  I nod and feel more tears.

  “She wants you to have the world. To have everything you want.”

  I think of my many long conversations with Emma, how we detail the great things about the cities we may call home. All of that excitement evaporates with the idea that Mom might want me to leave. I can’t tell Nadine that all I need is my mother, so instead I ask, “Why isn’t she telling me this? She didn’t say anything like that at the table. Why isn’t she in here?”

  “She’s serving the soup.”

  “Don’t let me keep her from the soup. I know how important soup is.”

  She reaches down and pulls me to my feet. “You are the most important thing in the world to your parents. To me, too.”

  This is supposed to be our celebration dinner, and I’m ruining it by locking myself in the bathroom, but I can’t face the idea that my departure could bring Mom relief, even peace. I wish Dad were here so I could ask him if this is true or if this is just a figment of my hypersensitive imagination. I hug Tatya.

  When I let go, she holds my face in her hands and says, “You’re a wonderful girl. You are your parents’ serdtse.” Heart. “You know I was there after you were born. You should have seen your mother. You were sleeping on your mother’s chest, and I held your hand. Your fingers were so small. When you woke up, you did something extraordinary. You kissed my hand. From the minute you were born, you were filled with so much love and tenderness. Your mom pulled you to her neck, to that soft spot.” She taps her collarbone. “And you did the same thing. You gave her a kiss on the finger. You’ve never changed. You still love deeply. You show people that love. That’s not so easy for your mother to do, but you need to understand that she loves nothing like she loves you. Absolutely nothing.”

  This makes me cry harder, but I manage to
nod through my tears. “I’ll be right out,” I say.

  Before she leaves, she kisses the top of my head. I wash my face and hope I can pull myself together enough to eat.

  When I finally emerge, I’m startled to see Mom’s red and swollen eyes. She doesn’t look up when I sit down. Food fills our plates, and I pull the soup close and taste it. We have the habit of dipping Mom’s bread into our soup, letting the crust absorb the warm broth. I reach for my plate and nearly gasp. When I look up, Mom’s watching me with tears falling down her cheeks.

  She’s removed the slice of kalach and replaced it with an enormous piece of black bread, which she’s covered in delicate icing script that reads: Gde by vy ni moye serdtse budet sledovat’. Wherever you go my heart will follow.

  Mom hands me the basket, and when she rests it on the table, she says, “It’s too sweet to eat. Have some of the kalach.” She covers my hand with hers, and I look at her fingers, the ones I kissed when I was freshly born.

  I set the black bread aside and wonder if it’s possible to somehow keep it fresh, to fight away the mold and prevent decomposition. I want to frame it and hang it above my bed like one of those cross-stitch doily things embroidered with greeting-card clichés. Now I understand why people adorn their walls with those sentimental verses. They’re hanging on to moments like this, a reminder that even in the worst moments of doubt and despair, there can be a time of clarity, when your heart feels full with the fact that you’re not alone. That even if you don’t believe it at the time, even if you can’t see it, you’re totally and completely loved.

  Ten

  By morning, Mom’s love message, the delicate words written in icing, has seeped into the bread, the words fading like a picture drawn on the bathroom mirror after a shower. A temporary image in the steam. I need to preserve last night beyond a memory. I blow through two rolls of film, one color and one black and white.

  Tatya and Mom are busy in the bakery. Before school, I pop in for coffee and good-byes, and Mom’s different. She doesn’t stay in the kitchen. She doesn’t offer her usual quick smile and wave, almost a dismissal. Now, she lingers behind the counter and asks about school. I tell her about my bio quiz, but not that I’m unprepared. I promise to come straight home this afternoon. I want to help. Mom suggests ordering takeout and watching a movie together. Unless I have too much homework. Unless I have plans with my friends. Whatever I want, she says. She looks me in the eye, not once glancing at her flour-covered hands.

  The fog’s so thick, it looks like it’s still dark, and I drive through the empty parking lot close to the entrance, claiming one of the most coveted spots. I see a few teachers’ cars, but all of the lights are on, the classrooms bright, the fluorescents combating the darkness outside. When I walk inside, though, the hallway is unlit, and I make my way through the shadows.

  A certain sense of peace fills me in the darkroom, as though my body occupies the tray, becoming clearer the longer I stay in the solution. Photography is my meditation, my connection to the world. My camera demands me to see—really see—the details that fill the frame. When I develop pictures, especially portraits, faces peer at me through parting clouds. I stare into their eyes until I can see the color of their irises. The camera lens functions as an X-ray machine, allowing me to look inside someone and bring their feelings to the surface. From pressing the shutter release to hanging the finished print, I’m filled with a deep sense of appreciation. What if my parents hadn’t given me a camera for my twelfth birthday?

  Once I turn on the lights, it takes a second and several blinks to adjust. The drying photos are carefully pinned in a tidy line like my neighbor’s clothes hung to dry in the sunlight. Even I, who second-guesses every formal photograph I snap, recognize their merit. I’d taken the pictures in a rush, wanting to get to school. Mom’s faint words, which I worried would be too light to capture, are easy to read. But it’s the composition, the way I hurriedly snapped the bread on the bare wood of Mom’s well-worn butcher block. I hadn’t given myself time to overthink. Not once did I fiddle with the placement of the bread, or even the lighting. The pictures appear rustic and at least fifty years old. I guess this is what timeless looks like.

  Sometimes I feel as if I’m two different kinds of photographers: the one who takes photos like a journalist. The one Dad is so proud of. The one who filled out college applications for the schools with the best journalism programs. The one everyone expects me to be. And I want to be that, just like I want to be like Dad. Like Emma and Isaac and Megan. I love the news and I love being on the paper, but if I really, truly, seriously admitted it, that’s not the kind of photographer I’d choose to be.

  If I didn’t have to think about parents and expectations and getting a job, I’d do something different. A lot of things. I’d take art classes and apply to art schools. I’d make collages and books, pages filled with portraits. I’d make more prints like I did during camp over spring break: digitally overlapping pictures to create something entirely new. I’d have a room like Josh’s brother Ian, a gallery of images I created. Not beaches, though, but people.

  That has to stay a hobby, though. Because I want to be the same as Dad. I want to be part of the paper. I want to get a real job someday and travel and be paid to take pictures.

  I love my time in the darkroom, how the peaceful blackness clears my head and opens my heart. That time needs to be contained, though, limited to developing film. Because however much I require my solitary creative moments, I also need my friends, and I need to be a member of something bigger. The Editorial Roundtable. My family. And now Josh.

  Eleven

  Just like on TV, I think, one agent fat, the other thin. Both bald and dressed in suits, similar to the one hanging in Dad’s closet, bought begrudgingly on clearance from Men’s Wearhouse. The third guy, young and wearing khakis rather than a suit, looks out of place. A sidekick or an intern or a curious bystander.

  I came home to them sitting in the living room with Mom and Uncle Miguel. I don’t know what was said before my arrival.

  I don’t want to know. It’s clear that they’re here with bad news. I want to turn around and run out of the apartment, and keep running until I pass out. Not this. Please not this.

  I don’t run, though. The tears are immediate and forceful, like waterfalls crashing down my cheeks.

  Under her apron, Mom’s still in yoga pants and Dad’s shirt. The coffeepot gurgles in the kitchen. Uncle Miguel looks worse than before, even more haggard and stressed.

  My stomach clenches, and no matter how hard I squeeze my eyes shut, the tears keep coming. They’re relentless.

  No one speaks. I look at Mom, who seems as anxious and confused and devastated as I am. I join her on the couch.

  Uncle Miguel introduces the men as agents from the FBI. Their names are long and forgettable. I want to cover their mouths to prevent them from speaking. I want to scream so loud that I shatter every window and piece of glass in the house.

  “Please,” Mom says, her accent thicker than usual, the telltale sign that she’s nervous. “Go on.” Aside from her clothes and accent, Mom seems composed. She offers coffee, and the men shake their heads. The thin man shifts in his seat. The young one stares.

  Uncle Miguel meets my eyes, and I’m unprepared for his expression: hopeless and distraught. I clench my fists. I want to hear the news from him, not these strange men who should climb back into my TV and continue acting in some stupid crime show. They can’t be real. They can’t be here. They can’t know Dad’s name or whereabouts or fate.

  “Tell me,” I say to Uncle Miguel. If I ignore the men, maybe they’ll disappear.

  When Mom grabs my hand, she’s not tender, she holds it too tight, like she wants this to stop, for everyone to stay silent. I feel her pulse as she squeezes harder. Now I sense the depth of her grief. It’s like she yanked out her heart, fuller than I ever feared, and put it in my hand. It’s almost too heavy to hold. She releases her grip, and my palm is blotched red a
nd white where her fingers were. She crosses her legs and scoots over, and I know she’s gone. She’s climbed back inside herself.

  “Please tell Charlotte what’s going on.” Her voice sounds steadier now, clear, like she’s lived in this country longer than twenty years.

  When the round man speaks, I see that he has a kind face, that he doesn’t want to be here either. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your father has been abducted. We’re doing everything we can to free them.”

  “Him and Pascal Baudin,” I say.

  The agents look startled. “How do you know that?” They stare at me like I’m an animal with a magical ability to speak.

  I know better than to divulge Megan’s investigative news assignment. I nod in Miguel’s direction. “He told me when Dad went missing.”

  “Listen to me,” the round one says. “It is critical that you don’t mention your father and Mr. Baudin to anyone. That’s very important. No one must know that your dad is missing. Do you understand?”

  “My friends know. I filled them in at school.”

  The agents look at one another, and the tall one speaks. “Don’t discuss it further. Don’t tell anyone new, especially adults. If your friends ask, you can say that the newspaper has some leads. Everything is under control.”

  “But it isn’t,” I say, looking at the agents, daring them to contradict me. Miguel takes the empty seat next to me. I can barely look at him after I realize he’s been crying.

  “Lottie, if your friends ask, deflect everything back to me,” Uncle Miguel says. “The government is working on bringing your dad home. Hopefully, this will be over soon.”

  “How do you know he’s been taken?” I ask, ignoring the agents, focusing only on Uncle Miguel. One, I’ll know if he’s holding back. Two, I’ll sense if he’s lying. I’ve watched him and Dad play cards my entire life. I can tell when he’s bluffing—even before Dad can. He pushes up his glasses with his index finger, an ordinary gesture, but one he always does when drawing a disappointing card.