Page 8 of Spring's Arcana
Oh, God. Nat found one lone paper napkin left in the wire holder on the table and blew her nose with a honk that would have done an ancient Siberian train proud.
“Eh? What’s this?” Her uncle swung around, his broad-knuckled hands turning into knots. “Something happen to my little girl?”
“I’m f-fine,” she managed. “I just…” The entire afternoon balled up in her chest like a rat king made of licorice whips.
Nowtherewas a vivid, ugly mental image. Mom loved the salted black stuff; it was the only candy she’d eat. Why anyone bothered when there were Snickers bars around was beyond Nat.
Leo studied his niece—although by the time she was ten Nat had figured out that “uncle” was really a figurative instead of truly descriptive term—and his expression was a usual one, pained affection mixed with deeper anxiety. “I make you coffee.” He dug in his pockets, one after another, vainly searching for another rag and coming up empty. “You visit your mama?”
Well, that was a fair guess. Sobbing in the kitchen was, after all, what Nat usually did after daily hospice visits. She’d missed today and would have to call instead; Mom was going to be wondering about that. Or maybe Maria Drozdova was drifting on palliative morphine.
Was it wrong Nat was hoping for the latter? Drugged to deal with the pain, her mother was sometimes even affectionate.
She could have lied, she supposed, but she was dismal at it and besides, she never had to hide from him. Even if he didn’t believe her, he’d at least listen. He never told her she was too imaginative, or too frightened, or—Mom’s favorite—too dreamy. “No,” Nat said, finally, and unloaded her nose into the napkin again.
It was holding up well, one of the pretty ones with flowers dyed in the corners; Leo must have splurged at the store. Mom always got the cheap ones unless Company Was Coming, in which case the folded linen, each edge crisp and re-ironed before arrival, made an appearance.
There hadn’t been company for years, now that Nat thought about it. Not since she was in middle school and Mom started losing weight each winter, her face thinner and thinner until spring returned and pasta-bingeing came back into fashion.
“I went to Manhattan,” she added. “Took a powder from work, actually.” Goodbye to the accounting office; Nat wasn’t even going to bother checking her email for the severance notice.
The only thing worse than low-tier jobs was the depressing ease with which they were acquired. You could tell how bad a place was by the turnover rate alone.
“Manhattan?” Leo washed his hands carefully, as usual, but not with the peach soap. His grease-stripper was harsher, and he carried the tube in an overall pocket because Mom didn’t want it sitting next to any of the inside sinks. “I am an old man, tell me slowly.”
But not too slowly, or I might die before you finish. He hadn’t said that last bit in years; Nat tried to summon a forlorn smile. “I visitedher. The woman in the Morrer-Pessel building. She was just where Mom said.”
The water, warming reluctantly even though the hot tap was turned all the way, made a musical, secretive noise in the sink. Uncle Leo’s hands hung, soapy and suspended, a few inches from the stream. He stared out the window like he was seeing raccoons along the back fence instead of just a snowed-under postage-stampyard Mom kept trimmed, weeded, and neat until the snow came and obliterated all trace of green each year.
There was more salt than pepper in his hair now, and his small potbelly was no longer the hard gut of a gentleman worker but the sag of an elderly retiree. His shop shoes were battered and daubed with successive splatters of paint so ancient they had lost color, and his suspenders were darned along the left strap with Mom’s careful stitchery. His ears stuck out from his head as aggressively as ever, and his shoulders were still wider than Nat’s or her mother’s.
But her beloved, basso-voiced, beery-smelling Leo had somehow gotten old when she wasn’t looking.
“Manhattan,” he repeated, harshly. He must have been smoking in the garage, as usual; he coughed immediately afterward and bent back to washing his hands. “Grandmother Winter.”
“That’s what Mom calls her.”I have my doubts.It was a good thought, something she might have said to a best friend if she was in a sitcom. There was no laugh track riding in to save her, though, and she hadn’t had a “best friend” since sixth grade. Or maybe before. “Anyway, I went like she wanted me to. It’s done.”
He muttered something, shook his head.
“What?” Nat smooshed the sodden napkin in her cold fist. “She wanted me to, Leo. She wouldn’t stop about it.” It was an effort to saystopinstead ofshut up.
You thought you’d shut a dying woman up?Well, that was one thing “Grandmother” had in common with Mom; both of them could say terrible things without batting an eye.
If it was a genetic trait, it had missed Nat entirely.
“May Christ forgive her,” he said, softly, reaching for the sunflower towels before remembering and opening the cabinet for one of the floursacks. Nat rarely heard him utter that phrase unless he considered someone truly beyondhumanforgiveness, and now she was wondering just what her dear old uncle had against the woman in the penthouse.
It didn’t look like the iron-haired lady was interested in making friends.
“Is she really my grandmother? I don’t see the resemblance.”AndMom won’t say. Just “go see her, go see de Winter, have you gone yet?”The glow from kitchen fixtures stung her eyes; the more light the better, Mom always said. Or maybe it was the tears again, prickling at her lids.
Stop sniveling,Mom hissed once, exasperated at Nat’s stubborn insistence that she wouldn’t pass the haunted house at the south end of the block, even if it was the shorter way to school.I will march you into that place at midnight, if I have to.
Swallowing your tears and finding a way around the pronouncements of an uncaring authority was a skill, too, and one Nat Drozdova was depressingly familiar with.
“Grandmother?” Her uncle laughed, a short humorless bark. “Oh,da, da. She istheGrandmother, littlezaikabunny-girl, and don’t you forget.” He moved to the coffee machine and began his ritual; according to Leo, there was nothing caffeine with a slight dusting of vodka—or vice versa—couldn’t fix.
The silver samovar crouched on the stove turned everything upside down on its bright belly. His reflection swelled, hiding behind sudden mist. Nat blinked furiously, even though it made her eyes leak more.
