Page 80 of Pageant

The fury melts from her face, and she smiles.

Atme.

Not a cruel smile, either. A smile filled with warmth and…love?

Babushkacomes over to me and draws out the chair beside me with a shaking hand and sits down. Are those tears swimming in her washed-out blue-green eyes?

She pulls a handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabs her cheek, half crying, half laughing. “So many sleepless nights not knowing if it would work. Thank God, Lilia. You can stay.”

I stare at her, not understanding anything that’s happening, least of all the soft, gentle expression on my hard and bitterBabushka’sface. I feel like this is how she used to look at me before my mother died, but the memory is hazy.

Babushkagets up and moves around the kitchen, making tea in a pot and getting a biscuit tin from the pantry. She pours black tea into gold and glasspodstakannik, her beautiful Russian tea glasses, and sets one and a plate of jam tarts in front of me.

“Eat,kroshka,” she says with a smile.

Sweetie. Isn’t that what she used to call me? I haven’t heard that word in such a long time. I stare at the jam tarts, filled with gleaming raspberry jam and looking delicious and perfect, but I don’t dare reach out for one, fearing my hand will be slapped away.

“Yourpapatold me that you are not allowed home. He is ashamed.”

A sob rises in my throat. I struggle to hold it down but my chest convulses. To my surprise, pain fillsBabushka’seyes. She reaches out and touches my cheek, and I flinch, waiting for the strike, but she only caresses me softly.

“Thank God,” she whispers. “Come here,kroshka. Today is a happy day.”

She opens her arms to me, but I just stare at her. “But you hate me.”

Babushka’ssmile grows sad. “I have been cruel since your mother died. A horrible, mean old woman.”

I wonder if this is a trick question, and I don’t answer.Babushkatakes a sip of her tea.

“Yourpapanever liked his mother-in-law.Babushkasaw everything he did to Lilia. Made her bruised. Made her cry.” Her face transforms in anger at the memory. “I knew he would turn on you one day. He beat poor Alyona—” She stops with a hitch in her voice.

Alyona, my mother.Babushkatakes a deep, steadying breath, her hand clenched on her tea glass. “I knew you would need to be out from that man’s roof one day. I knew it the day you turned six and he sent a little girl to her room without birthday cake.”

The memory comes back to me in a blaze of emotion.BabushkasingingHappy Birthdayin Russian and me clapping along. I got so excited that I knocked over my glass of red soda and it soaked into the white carpet. Dad leapt to his feet and raised his hand to me.Babushkagrabbed his wrist, and he growled at her and then shouted at me to go to my room.

The next time I sawBabushka, she was cold and mean and criticized everything I did.

“If you were older, I would have told you the day he left you here. You must call your father every day and cry to him that you wanted to go home, I would have said. He needed to believe that you are miserable here.”

I stare atBabushka. “You wanted me to be miserable here?”

“Da.”

“And you wanted Dad to know this?”

“Da.”

“Have you really hated me all these years?”

Her face creases with emotion and she cups my cheek again. “No,kroshka. It broke my heart to be cruel to you. Every time I saw you, I came home and cried, begging your mother to forgive me. Do you know why?”

She pushes my glass of tea closer and regards me hopefully.

I think carefully and take a sip of my tea. She always loved me, but for years and years, she pretended to detest me, waiting for the day that Dad would abandon me here as punishment. I compare the warm and smiling woman I remember from years ago to the one sitting before me now, and my heart bursts with happiness as I realize they’re the same.

“You wanted me out from under his roof and safely here with you. You needed me to call Dad every day and cry to him that I wanted to come home so he believed he was punishing me?”

“Da, kroshka. You are a sweet girl, and I wasn’t sure if you could give him tears if I asked you to pretend.”

---