Page 16 of Spring's Arcana
Nobody here had the courage to do something worth forgiving.
Dmitri finished his drink, leisurely sips as it bubbled. When the cup was drained, he chewed the lid, swallowing chunks of masticated plastic with a gulp, and set his strong sharp white teeth to the waxed paper.
That way, he didn’t lose a single delicious drop.
When he was done, he rose, crossed himself, kissed his fingers to the altar, and left with a spring in his silver-toed step.
There was much to be done.
DESTINY ON TIME
De Winter saidbe ready at seven thirty. So Nat was, with ID and cash tucked into her peacoat pocket and her gloves pulled securely over each finger, her favorite green knitted hat over her tightly braided hair, and her secondhand combat boots bought over on Stroy Avenue securely laced.
The old woman had also saida party,but Nat knew better than to get dressed up or even pack a Santa hat. She could be the one person who showed up to whatever this was in real clothes, it wouldn’t do her any harm. At least now that she wasn’t going to work she wouldn’t have to wear business casual, either. If you were in a damn office where the customers only heard you over the phone, why not wear jeans? It was ridiculous.
Everything was absurd. The world was a giant April Fool’s, grinning and sayingjust jokingwhen you knew damn well it wasn’t funny. And Mom, with her morphine-addled riddle—Baba was going to have to tell Nat precisely where this fucking thing she wanted was, but at least Maria knew her daughter was doing what she’d demanded.
Maybe the best that could be hoped for was de Winter agreeing to cover the hospice care. Nat lingered by the big front picture window, watching the snowy street while Uncle Leo muttered in the kitchen. He didn’t like this at all, but what uncle would?
At least he didn’t say he disbelieved her. He never really had, even when Mom rolled her eyes at Nat’s “imagination.”
Thinking about that was unpleasant, because it led to her mother in the adjustable bed, the rasping breath and the pauses betweeneach lungful, and how thin Maria Drozdova was, her wrists like sticks and her chest sunken. Every time Nat visited it seemed impossible her mother was still holding on, still awake and alert.
But then, Mom was a force of nature. You couldn’t keep her down for long, and she wouldn’t die until she was good and ready. Or so Nat thought, picking nervously at the peacoat’s cuff. Little wool balls, just right for worrying at until you realized you’d worn a hole right through.
The plows had been at work all night and all day too; even though the sky was a featureless gray lid promising more snow the roads were reasonably clear. It was amazing how human beings clustered around solving a problem, like white blood cells swarming an intruder.
Which just made her think of Mom again, a frail body eating itself in tiny cellular bites. The Black Forest cuckoo clock in the front room chimed the half hour, a pleasant little carillon as familiar as Nat’s own breath.
The mobster was officially late.
Instead of relief, a mounting anxiety bubbled under Nat’s diaphragm. Maybe it was all a vicious little prank, and they were laughing at her right now just like the kids in school until Sister Roberta Grace Abiding went down on the playground. One moment blowing her whistle, the next she was an empty doll in a dislodged wimple, lying on the bark chips under the swings.
The other kids left Nat alone after that, except for the taunting while she was walking home.Witch-girl,they would hiss.Freak. Or, like the nuns,Devil’s child.
Mom brushed off child-Nat’s tears.They’re fools,she said, briskly.Now go polish my figurines.
It was Leo who comforted her, who taught her to make a fist—thumb outside, little doll, otherwise you break it, see?—and who sometimes shuffled to the corner to accompany her the last block home, a baleful glare and the fact of his adulthood keeping the worst at bay.
Nat’s eyes prickled. Living in the past was no good. How long until Leo was in a hospice bed too? Then she would be utterly, completely alone.
It was terrifying to contemplate that kind of freedom. All paperwork for the house and everything else lived in a locked file cabinet, deep in Mama’s bedroom closet. Getting it open would require a crowbar, or at the very least, the key from Leo.
Her uncle had taken over the monthly paperwork, and at least he didn’t sigh over each bill and stare balefully at Nat. Instead he wrote checks with a distracted expression and spidery, precise penmanship, handing each envelope to Nat to be sealed and stamped.
They hadn’t done the ritual yet this month. She was afraid to ask how much was left in Mom’s accounts. Afraid to admit she’d been about to move out, afraid to ask Leo if maybe he thought an apartment would be better for the two of them.
What if he said no, or worse, told Mom?
Headlights cut a cone through winter night, bouncing aggressively off plow-piled but still sparkling snow. They were bright as halogens, or brighter, and Nat wiped at her cheeks. Tears were to be expected when your mother was dying by inches and childhood stories were coming to life, but she still hated them. The little yellow house was silent except for a faint clinking—dinner dishes, grilled cheese again, though neither she nor her uncle had eaten much.
The car was a giant black SUV, no clumps of filthy ice daring to cling to its gleaming sides or pristine mudguards. It paused on the other side of the sidewalk near the garden gate, white puffs idling from its hindquarters though its lower half vanished under a tiny mountain range of packed white freeze. The neighbors’ Christmas lights reflected tiny multicolored gleams off its paint.
It looked a little bit like a rhinestone-bedazzled, cigar-chomping dragon smoking from the wrong end; Leo said they used to try to treat drowned people with nicotine-smoke enemas.
A jagged sideways laugh tried to crawl out of Nat’s chest. She swallowed it, felt the weird internal bubble that meant she’d given herself hiccups.
Great.
