The Language of Sisters (49 page)

“Bless that man,” Lucya said, her husband and sons nodding. “But why did he take you? It broke me, not having my sister, not having my nephew. I missed you, Dmitry. We all grieved for you both.”

“My father told me that he knew I would freeze out there alone in the house, that I would die, but that he couldn't bring me to the village, as then it would raise suspicion. We were leaving the Soviet Union immediately and he couldn't risk it, couldn't risk his daughters, his wife, not getting out. He had been warned by the KGB not to try to leave Moscow. My mother, they believed, was soon to be arrested for her outspokenness against the government, about her Christian faith, so my father took me with him. He said he thought about dropping me off at an orphanage in Moscow but couldn't because he knew my life would have been ruined.”

“Ruined without question,” Nestor said. “The orphanages are abusive. Desolate.”

“My father said he has felt guilty his whole life, that he knew I probably had other family who would miss me. Please.” Dmitry put up his hands. “I know it will be impossible to forgive my father for taking me, but he didn't know what else to do. He was panicked. He had been jailed, he had been tortured by Rurik, he was trying to get his family out alive. He had a window to escape through, and he took it. He saved his family, knowing he was causing grief to another. If he had more time, would he have done the same? No. I speak on behalf of my father, please try to forgive him.”

“I forgive your father,” Lucya said. “If you had lived with Rurik, he might well have killed you, too. If not, you would have been motherless and a victim of his abuse. My grief on losing you, and my sister, has never ended, but you had a better life in America than here, and now you are home. Tell me, darling Dmitry, tell us about your parents, your life in America ... you are so fortunate to have these three lovely sisters ...”

And he did. Dmitry's family loved his blog, and they treated Valerie, Ellie, and me like well-loved family.

* * *

Later, we all went to Dmitry's childhood home, two cars. We drove down a winding street, then onto gravel, then dirt, to get to the home, small, tucked away, in the woods, isolated. For a young mother beaten by her husband, a sadist, it would have been her prison.

The home slouched on the land, rustic, ugly. I felt sorry for Dmitry's young mother. Only twenty-two or twenty-three when she died and she had to live here. The roof was now caving in on one side, the paint was chipping, the shutters hanging haphazardly.

“Dmitry, the door is blue,” I said.

“Yes, it is.” He told his family how a blue door kept coming to him in his dreams.

The door unlocked with a key that Nestor had, but he and Dmitry and Ruslan had to lean a shoulder into it to get it open. Dust fell down from the rafters. The floors squeaked. The mice scurried away. A larger animal skittered on out. I hoped it was only a cat. We all entered the cramped, bleak house. It was like entering a tomb.

Inside, everything was covered in dust. It was eerie, unearthly quiet. If there had been anything, ever, of value, which was unlikely, it was long gone.

Dmitry stood in the center of the living area, turning to see it all. His eyes landed on something. He crossed the room, dusted it off. It was the blue box he'd told us about. There was a woman in a dress from the 1890s or so, a parasol, a carriage.

“There she is,” Ellie said. “It wasn't your imagination, Dmitry.”

“It's the box you have seen so many times,” Valerie said.

He opened it, and inside was a brooch. It was the red and purple butterfly that he remembered. He sniffled. “I remember playing with this butterfly, holding it.”

“I gave your mother the box and the butterfly for her birthday,” Lucya said.

Next to the blue ceramic box were the carved wooden ducks. Dmitry held them in his hands. “Thank you, Nestor.”

Nestor nodded. “It was my pleasure, Dmitry, to make those for you.”

Dmitry didn't even bother wiping his tears, and Rodian handed him a handkerchief.

“Thank you, Rodian.”

“You are welcome, friend.”

Dmitry held the ducks, reverently, one by one, a tear dropping on each.

Andon and Artur each put a hand on his shoulders.

“Take them,” Lucya said. “Take the ducks, the box, the butterfly.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Lucya said. “They are yours, Dmitry. Everything in here is yours. Not ours.”

“We couldn't take anything,” Nestor said. “It was too painful. It belongs to you, Dmitry. These are your mother's things.”

In the corner of a back bedroom was the rocking horse. “I've seen this rocking horse in my mind so many times.” He turned to Nestor. “Did you?”

Nestor nodded. “I made it for you. I made one for all my boys. You loved it. You were a loving boy. Our fifth son.”

“Thank you, Nestor, Lucya.” He hugged them both, hugged his cousins, everyone emotional and sniffling. “Was there a garden?”

“Oh yes,” Lucya said, running her hands over her wet cheeks. “Your mother had one every year. The soil here, the temperature, it's tough to grow in. But she planted potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, kale.”

“Were there beets?”

“Yes, but you wouldn't eat them. Your father”—she spat on the floor—“when you were a baby, my sister told me that he forced you to eat them, one after another, until you threw up. She had a bruise on her face the next day. She was crying.” Lucya stopped, unable to go on.

“And potatoes. I hate potatoes,” Dmitry said. “It's the strangest thing. I don't know why.”

“I do,” Nestor said. “Rurik threw them at you when you wouldn't stop crying as a baby. He knocked you off your feet.”

“I wish that my father had come to kill Rurik before Rurik killed my mother.”

“Us too,” Lucya said, taking Dmitry's face in her hands. “Us too.”

* * *

We followed our father's directions to the graves. We walked east into the woods. We had to walk a long way. No wonder the grave had never been found. We found a large rock. At first we found nothing more than that. No cement slab. But the earth shifts, weather changes the landscape, and there it was, overgrown, buried under inches of dirt, further than expected from the rock. Lucya found it.

We stood around the slab and held hands, all of us. Dmitry, me, Ellie, Valerie, Dmitry's aunt and uncle, his four cousins. Lucya said a prayer, then said, sobbing, “Nelly, Nelly ... sister, see who has returned. Your beloved son, Dmitry. He is back.”

Nestor cried, too. Then we all cried, hugged each other, for Nelly, for Dmitry, for his Russian family.

Dmitry said, “I'm home, Mama. I am home.” We let Dmitry have his time alone with her, the gold locket in his hands. When he rejoined us, he was sadder, pale, eyes puffy, and his cousins surrounded him, arms along his shoulders.

We found Rurik's grave. We had to return to the house and then walk back into the woods, a straight line from the kitchen window. We found the rocks, still piled up.

Nestor swore, furious. Lucya picked up a rock and threw it at the grave and swore, too.

Dmitry said, “I hate you, Rurik, for killing my mother. You are not my father, you never have been.”

Nestor indicated that Lucya, my sisters, and I were to leave. We didn't understand why, but then a quick peek back told us.

All the men were peeing on Rurik's grave.

* * *

That night we stayed with Dmitry's family. We had dinner. We talked and heard all about Nelly. They gave Dmitry photos of her to take. We sang songs. At five in the morning, we finally went to sleep under blankets on the floor of their home. We insisted on buying the groceries and making lunch for Dmitry's family the next day. My mother would have been proud of the feast we made.

We hugged Dmitry's family good-bye, tears blending face to face. There were promises of a return visit, soon, and we left. Dmitry's treasures from his home—the box with the woman with the parasol, the butterfly, the wooden ducks, a red truck, the rocking horse, which we would have to ship out—in the car, where they would soon find a new home, with Dmitry, where they always should have been.

* * *

We had dinner with Gavriil and Bogdan and their parents, Stas and Irina Bessonov, in Moscow. It was as if we had never been away from each other, except Gavriil and Bogdan were wealthy, which was unsurprising. There had been accusations of their being in the Russian Mafia, but it also appeared they had normal businesses in gas, oil, and minerals. Each had four children. The children were charming. We ate at Bogdan's house. Formal. White linens. Crystal. Expensive wine.

We told Gavriil and Bogdan's children about our exploits as children—although not the pickpocketing. We told them about Gavriil and Bogdan saving Valerie, how their grandparents gave us food and cash. Stas and Irina said, “It was nothing.”

We laughed and laughed.

We thanked Stas and Irina for bribing and buying our father out of prison.

“You saved his life,” I said

Irina waved her hand. “We loved your parents.”

Stas said, “I am glad that you all left and built a new life, although we have missed you. From our family to yours, it has been a long friendship.”

“A friendship that calls for more wine,” Bogdan said.

“To the Bessonovs and the Kozlovskys,” Gavriil said. “To our friendship. May we all have long and happy lives.”

We cheered to that.

* * *

We had one more thing to do in Russia. Gavriil and Bogdan helped us. There may have been a bribe or a threat involved. Some things you don't need to know.

Two days later we were on a plane leaving Moscow.

Peace, finally, for Dmitry.

And for our mother.

* * *

We met at my parents' house, in the kitchen, on a rainy afternoon, the rainbow tiles a welcome reprieve from the weather. They always reminded my mother that she was no longer in the Soviet Union. She had made her chocolate fudge cookies and coffee strong enough to give me a hairy chest. The cookies were on the train station table.

My mother held in her trembling hands the paper that we brought to her, stamped by a Russian prison.

It told her officially what she had always wanted to know.

Leonid Sabonis. Entered February 18, 1984. Death of natural causes May 3, 1984.

The date of Leonid's death was the day he came to her and told her he was not going to last the night.

“Natural causes,” my mother snapped, a look of such thundering rage coming over her face, I thought she'd scream. “I hate them. I curse them. They murdered my brother.”

My father hugged her. “Svetlana, I have spent years of my life, like you, missing your brother, missing our parents. The grief and anger has been a constant for both of us. But we must let it go. We cannot let the grief win, we cannot let bitterness win, we cannot let the KGB or the Communists win for one more minute. They win every time they bring us to our knees.”

She nodded. “You are right, Alexei. I have cried a million tears for Leonid already. I have raged enough already.”

All of the Kozlovskys came for dinner that night. We lit candles for Leonid. We turned down the lights, and my mother talked about Leonid, then Uncle Yuri and Aunt Polina spoke, followed by Uncle Sasho, Uncle Vladan, and my father. We turned on his favorite piece, Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, and listened to it, as if Uncle Leonid were there with us. We took a moment to raise our glasses to Leonid. My father said, “To you, Leonid, my brother-in-law who became my brother, my friend, we bless you, we will see you again one day.”

We clinked glasses.

Then we did what Kozlovskys do best.

We ate, we laughed, we had a couple of shots of vodka. Leonid would have approved.

26

“The other day Ailani called me from school,” Valerie said, as she sewed a pillow at Ellie's house. Her pillow was for a young boy. It would have a green dinosaur on a blue background.

“And?” I said. I was making a furry pillow in the shape of a blue teddy bear. It would have a huge, pink plaid bow around its neck and paws made from leather.

“Did she get in trouble again for detailing a crime scene?” Ellie asked. Her pillow was a patchwork quilt in blues, greens, and browns.

“No. She heard Koa. Koa had crawled up on the bookshelf when he was at home with Kai, and the bookshelf tumbled down. He cut his head open.”

“And Ailani heard that?”

“She said he told her, in her head, ‘Blood on my face.' ”

Wow.

“It's the Sabonis line,” I said.

“Through our widow's peaks,” Ellie said.

“And it's on to the next generation,” Valerie said.

“Are we ready to cart this load of pillows to the children's hospital soon?” Ellie asked, later that night. “I got a call from the director today... .”

* * *

You Are Toast Day started with a bang.

I could feel the buzz at the newspaper when I walked to the third floor. People were laughing, chuckling, staring at computers, and pointing.

“What is it?” I asked Ricki. She was in a red wraparound dress and black heels.

“This is the reason I get up in the morning.” She put her hands out, palms up, her rings glittering under the lights. “For glorious moments such as this. Ball-banging moments. Rip-your-spleen-open-laughing moments. Momentous moments on a grand, gossipy scale that resonate with you forever.”

“What's going on?”

Shantay was laughing so hard, she was bent over. Zoe was leaning over her, cackling like a witch.

“Look here, my friend, feast your eyes. I believe you know these fine feathered people.” Ricki sat down at her computer. “Behold YouTube.”

I pulled up a chair. “What in heck ... is that? ... Yes, it is, isn't it? ... Oh, this is ripe.... There's another video? Such a surprise ... a
hilarious
surprise.... Who knew the truth about those two?”

So that was it. You Are Toast Day.

I started to laugh. Ricki laughed, too, then laughing Zoe hobbled over, her legs crossed, followed by laughing Shantay, who handed me a Kleenex for my laugh-tears. I crossed my legs and had to run to the bathroom. Ricki was right behind me.

“I'll need a diaper to get through today,” she yelled, still laughing. “A diaper!”

* * *

Lindy had told us “not to worry,” repeatedly, that she had Tweedle Dum Dee and Tweedle Dee Dum “handled” and the dock would not close.

She certainly did have things ...
handled.

Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee, otherwise known as Shane and Jerald Shrock, were “new” clients of Lindy's. She had propositioned them both at a bar they frequented. They came to her houseboat and told her what they wanted. She told us that they came in disguise, as we would have recognized the two Tweedles.

Tweedle Dee Dum, for some reason, wanted to act out his fantasy of being a woman with long blond hair, a velvety red dress, and sparkly red heels. He was heavy, paunchy, balding.

He wanted to be spanked and ordered around. Lindy dressed up as a dominatrix with brown hair and tons of makeup. She was unrecognizable as they acted out his fantasy. She filmed him dancing, kicking up his heels, and twirling. He didn't know the camera was up and rollin'.

Tweedle Dum Dee had a fantasy of wanting to dress up like a medieval knight. Lindy was supposed to be a young male knight. She dressed up in the outfit he brought, hair tucked beneath a hat—as a young man. They jousted with their swords, they rode their “horses,” they fought in battle.

The videos landed on YouTube with an untraceable URL, or something like that. Lindy used another client who was a computer whiz to set it up. She also had him add entertaining music and songs.

When the brothers called her, out of their minds with humiliation, she told them that if they didn't back off the dock project that she would post the other videos she had made of them in different costumes, including the Scottish warrior and the pirate.

The brothers made threats of impending lawsuits. She referred them to the contracts she had them sign, and of which they had copies. She had had her attorney slip in a clause about how Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee gave her permission to film them and to “use the film and their names in advertisements, marketing, or in any public domain, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.” Lindy stripped while they were “studying the contract,” and they signed it.

Tweedle Dee Dum had a poor kick and was an unattractive woman.

Tweedle Dum Dee could not joust. No princess would ever want him now.

The brothers were toast, hence, You Are Toast Day.

* * *

“You Are Toast Day was today. Did you see it?”

“I did,” Nick said.

I rarely called him at work. I couldn't say anything more. We both laughed until I was making hyena-like sounds, which made us laugh harder.

I saw Ricki laughing again, hobbling back to the bathroom. “I'm going to have to run home for fresh panties!” she yelled.

Nick heard it and cracked up. I made the hyena sound again.

* * *

I called Lindy next. All I could do was laugh. She said, “I waited until you came back from Russia. I didn't want you to miss out on You Are Toast Day.”

“You're a true friend,” I gasped out.

“So are you, Toni. My best friend.”

My hyena laugh and I hung up.

* * *

That night I went to Lindy's place to celebrate You Are Toast Day. I was still laughing thinking of the slumlord man-woman in a red dress and a knight who could not joust.

I was not the first one there. Vanessa and Charles had already arrived. Jayla and Beth were there, both in scrubs. Daisy was there in a blue hat with daisies around the rim. Take-out dinners from a local seafood restaurant arrived, from Georgie and Skippy, aka Slash and Slugger.

Nick walked in, strong and lovable, and I hugged him. Lindy was smiling. She was wearing a pink blouse and brown skirt and a new pair of glasses.

“I don't think we have to worry about the dock shutting down,” Charles said.

We cheered to that, glasses clinking.

“Splendid work, Lindy,” Vanessa said. “Although”—she tipped her head down and glared—“I don't want you to do this anymore.” She waved her hand.

“There are other jobs that you would enjoy,” Charles said, “and are better suited to your intellect and your ambitions.”

“Safer,” Jayla said.

“More interesting,” Beth said.

“This job needs to stop,” Nick said, his tone brooking no argument from her, “before you're killed.”

“I quit. I'm going to school to become a librarian. Being around books makes me happy. I like the smell of them.”

We cheered.

“Being around whales makes me happy,” Daisy said, her daisy hat bopping. “Being with my river family makes me happy, too. I love you.”

“We love you, too, Daisy,” we said.

“Being around shrimp and steak makes me happy,” Charles said. “Shall we eat while it's hot? And thanks to Slugger and Slash.” Charles cleared his throat. “I mean, uh, thanks to Georgie and Skippy.”

“Thanks to my sons, naughty boys!” Daisy said. “They took my bullets out of my condom box.”

Those naughty boys. We ate shrimp and steak on Lindy's houseboat, the sun went down, and we celebrated. Jayla did a spot-on imitation of Tweedle Dee Dum in his red dress dancing like an electrified pig, and Beth was clearly talented in her saber skills. “My name is Tweedle Dum Dee, and I'm a knight,” she declared. “See me fence.” She put the “sword,” a small stick, between her legs, up by her crotch.

We about died laughing.

Daisy sang at the edge of the dock that night, the moon in front of her, high and white, like a ball dropped from the clouds, an invisible string holding it in place. She wore her whale hat. I had never seen it before. It was blue. She'd sewn a blue tail and flippers. Googly eyes. A yellow daisy was sewn onto its head.

Nick and I sat together in my chaise lounge. I leaned against his chest, his arms wrapped around me as Daisy sang “You Are My Sunshine”; “Yesterday,” by the Beatles; and “Crocodile Rock,” by Elton John. She finished off with “Hallelujah” and “Jesus Loves Me
.
”

Every note soared into the sky, waltzing or crashing or busting along, depending on the tune, a story in itself.

I could see why Skippy and Georgie couldn't sleep at night until their mother had sung them a lullaby.

At the end of a song about a mother's love for her son, she shouted, “Whale, whale, where are you? Laughing with the fish, dancing with the dolphins, into the deep blue, I'll come and visit you.”

We heard her footsteps down the dock, then she opened the door to her houseboat and stepped inside.

* * *

The Tweedles agreed not to close the dock if Lindy took down the videos. They agreed to all repairs. They agreed not to build any slumlord apartments near us, or anywhere else, and to make repairs in the existing slumlord apartments. “Or else.”

The videos came down.

The next day, by coincidence, a court date was set for all of their slumlord crimes. The Tweedles' callous recklessness had finally caught up with them.

The Tweedles' wives filed for divorce.

Rumor had it that both men were moving to Idaho.

* * *

Skippy pounded on my door at seven-thirty in the morning on Saturday.

Nick flew up and was at the door, his jeans yanked on, before I even made it to the stairs.

“Momma's gone,” Skippy panted.

I skidded up behind Nick in my socks. “What?”

“Momma's gone.” Skippy had his hands in his hair. He was pulling it. “I came by to check on her this mornin'. Last night Georgie was here, and he said Momma was makin' up rhymes about whales, talkin' to her whale hat. He got her into bed about ten, stayed to make sure she was asleep until midnight, then went home.”

“Maybe she's on a walk,” I said.

“She likes to walk,” Nick said. “I see her often.”

“I know, I know, but the problem is”—Skippy said, almost hyperventilating—“that she left all of her daisy hats on her dresser stand. She has twenty-one. I counted. All there today, but her whale hat with the daisy on it isn't there.”

I felt cold. Sick. “That's not right.”

“I know, I know!” Skippy, in his expensive clothes, shined shoes, a face that had been hit more than once, started to cry. “It's not right.”

“We'll help you,” Nick said, a hand on his shoulder.

“I'm coming, Skippy.” I ran up the stairs, Nick behind me, and we threw on clothes, then ran back out. Skippy was on the phone, crying harder, talking to Georgie. Then he said something that I'm sure neither Episcopo son has ever said. “Call the cops, Georgie! Call the cops!”

* * *

Everyone in the marina was soon searching for Daisy. We covered the dock, people's boats and homes, the streets above, the neighborhoods and shops beyond that. People drove downtown, following the route that Daisy always took.

Charles and Vanessa took their boat out, as did others, including Lindy, who had the most expensive boat. She'd named it
Hookin' It
. The police were there, on the dock and out on boats in the water. Nick and I went out on
Sanchez One
, knowing the futility of it all, but trying anyhow.

Daisy was eighty-five years old. If she was in the water, she was long gone.

And that's what it ended up being. Daisy was long gone.

We searched all day long, into the night. She was on the news. She was on our online newspaper immediately. I wrote the article. She was listed as missing. We hoped that she had taken a walk and simply gotten lost, but I knew that wasn't true.

Nick and I stood at the end of the dock at two that morning holding hands. It had been a long, long day. Jayla and Beth were there beside us, as were Vanessa and Charles, and Lindy. Georgie sat on the dock, his feet in the water, and cried. Skippy had his arm slung over Georgie's shoulders.

Daisy Episcopo was a ball breaker, a bar owner, a tough single mother who had kicked a man out of her house because he beat her, and raised her boys on her own. She was smart, hilarious, generous, and loyal. She was an outstanding businesswoman. She sang like a nightingale, like a Madonna, like a beer-brawling, rough-talking son of a gun.

I knew without a doubt that she had gone to talk to the whales, to take her last ride on their backs. My guess is that her mind slipped that last millimeter and she took a step off the edge of the dock, drowned quickly, her mind and body shutting down, and the river took her out to the whales in the ocean.

She had been headed for a nursing home, probably within weeks. She would have hated it. She would have felt as claustrophobic and trapped as she had when her own hard-drinking father locked her in a closet. This death was more merciful than any nursing home could ever be.

I would miss her. We would miss her.

Nick pulled me in and hugged me.

It was Skippy who started singing.

We joined him in “Amazing Grace.”

Daisy would have like that.

Then we sang Elvis Presley's “Hound Dog” and followed it up with a couple of raucous drinking songs.