“SHE DOESN’T WANT ANY MORE,” said Nadia.
Clicking her tongue, her mother took the bowl to scrape back into the pot. Boiled potatoes fell splat, splat. Onions sprouted out of old mayonnaise jars on the counter. “It’s because you’re not eating. You don’t set a good example for her.”
Nadia flushed. “It’s because she ate on the way.”
“What?”
“IT’S BECAUSE SHE ATE ON THE WAY.”
“That’s not why,” her mother said.
Nadia ducked her head so her hair made a dark wall between them. “Papa, doesn’t she wear her hearing aid anymore?”
“Your mother’s an excellent woman,” her father said. He was lifting his spoon.
Nadia’s nose prickled and she raised her face in surprise. She wasn’t going to cry! Silly. But the way her father said that reminded her of the best of Chegga. The compliments Chegga delivered to Nadia through Mila—Isn’t your mama funny? Aren’t we lucky? The way he did show he loved her when he remembered to try.
She was simply getting sentimental because she was worn out after days of mutual silent treatment. Exhausted from the coordinating it took to get Mila out of preschool and herself away from the currency-counting machines.
Tired, too, from covering for the insufficiencies in their household. She could only imagine how people in Esso talked about their situation. That Chegga Adukanov, who lived in a dump, couldn’t afford to fix his rented pipes. Maybe they did not even say “couldn’t afford”—people could assume instead didn’t care. They might think, There’s a certain type of man, indigenous, probably drinks too much, seems polite when he’s on the job but then see how he acts at home. Lives with a woman but doesn’t follow through with marriage. Acts sweet enough to take on another man’s baby but lets that child freeze. Except for the drinking, all those potential whispers were true. And Nadia could not stand being subject to more gossip.
This month and a half would give her the time to sort out what propelled her toward him in the first place. If she had been willing after high school to spend a few more days here, instead of getting pregnant by the first man who approached her, would she have ended up a couple lovers later in an even tinier village than where she started, with someone who took her and her baby on double dates to a communal swamp?
Once the lunch dishes were cleared, Nadia opened their suitcase in the living room. Mila’s things were microscopic, rhinestone-dotted. “You’re a very brave girl,” Nadia told her daughter. Mila wrapped her arms around Nadia’s neck and leaned into her lap. The girl smelled soupy: dill, black pepper, lemon juice. Nadia hugged her tighter.
Nadia shouldn’t, but she could not resist. “We don’t miss Daddy, do we?” she asked against Mila’s cheek.
At first Mila was quiet. Then she turned her face in to Nadia’s shoulder. Sniffed. Sniffed again—Nadia had made her daughter cry.
“Oh, my duckling,” Nadia said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She held her daughter hard, trying to squeeze the tears back in before Mila really started to go off.
“He’s not coming?” Mila asked. Her voice was all choked. Nadia released some of the pressure around her daughter’s ribs.
“He’s back at home. Remember? We’re staying with Grandpa and Baba for a while.” Mila got louder, saying no—no-o-o—Nadia tried to talk over her. “Don’t you remember how he broke the kitchen? He has to stay to fix it.” Nadia had put Mila in this position, she’d asked her daughter about Chegga, and still she was getting angry at the girl. Nadia wanted to ask her, Remember Tuesday? Leaving the house cold and sobbing? The frost up the walls—the school attendant’s pity—the way Chegga afterward had acted so defensive and put-upon? For once, couldn’t Mila remember whose side she was on?
Nadia pushed her nose into her daughter’s round cheek. “Do you want to watch TV?” There. Snot sucked back up into little sinuses. Cheburashka cartoons could undo any tragedy.
A swollen-faced Mila curled into Nadia on the couch. When Nadia was growing up, this was the spot where she slept, did her homework, fantasized about freedom; now she came back to this place as a mother and a professional. Together, she and Mila watched animals dance on her laptop. The light faded overhead.
When her phone buzzed, Nadia slipped out. In the hush of the hallway she looked at Chegga’s picture on the screen. Then she silenced the call. The vibration stopped, but his face remained, backlit by last summer’s southern sun. His smile.
She felt that old tug he put in her. A finger hooked under her ribs.
The phone screen went black for a second, then lit up again. Another call. She knew exactly the conversation that was going to come—why didn’t you, when are you, why not, and so on. She silenced the call again and pulled up their text message chain. In Palana, she sent. Will call when I’m ready.
The phone stayed silent. She watched the screen until she had to close her eyes against it. From the living room leaked the tinny sound of a song about trains.
Picture that hovel in Esso. Her daughter’s breath fogging as she dressed. His barrel of a body looking ridiculous in gym shorts as he stood with his feet in ice water. Imagine anything but his voice rough at night, the toast and jam he prepared for Mila each morning, his breath over Nadia’s shoulder as he showed her his latest work on his computer, the way his mouth must have fallen when he came home today and found his family was not there.
Again the phone vibrated. The tug was a yank, and she rocked with the urge to answer. The number coming up was unknown. Maybe he’d bought a new SIM card…Impressive, Chegga. She exhaled, picked up. “What is it?”
There was silence on the other end. A guy she didn’t recognize: “Nadia?”
She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Yes? Sorry. Hello?”
“It’s Slava Bychkov.”
“Ooooh,” she said.
“You don’t still have my number, huh.”
“I’m surprised you still have mine.”
“Nadechka, it’s not a question. So. How does it feel to be home after this long?” Nadia narrowed her eyes. Had her mother told the neighbors she was coming? But then he said, “My aunt saw you at the airport. You can’t hide anything from anyone in this town.”
“I guess I forgot.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll remind you.”
“Uh-huh,” Nadia said. “We’re having a great time here—my daughter and I.” She lay on daughter a little harder than she needed to, probably, but she would like to hear him lose that ease in his voice. She and Slava had been seeing each other when she was pregnant. He left once she really started to show.
“Do you ever tell her about me?”
Nadia laughed. “No, Slav.”
“Maybe she’s too young to understand fairy tales.” Nadia chose not to respond. “Does she like hot chocolate?”
“Yes, Prince Charming, she does.”
“Would she and her mother like to be taken to Palana’s finest café?”
Palana’s only café. “Unfortunately, she can’t make it. She has plans with her grandparents.”
“And her mother?”
She still hadn’t gotten a text back from Chegga. “Her mother,” said Nadia, “is free.”
The next morning, after she and Mila woke to the slam of the front door from Nadia’s father leaving, after their bed linens were folded, the couch cushions rearranged, and the breakfast dishes washed, Nadia called the Far Eastern headquarters of Sberbank about an international transfer. A manager provided the number of the main office in Moscow, which, because of the time difference, would not open for another nine hours. Mila was sitting in Nadia’s lap drawing. Nadia tapped her daughter’s fist, pulled the pen out of her hand, and wrote on the top of one notebook page the phone number that would change their future.