Waking Anastasia (5 page)

“No? What’s not to believe? You’re right. I was lying . . . she’s not pregnant, the Rabbi is, and it’s not my baby. Fine, Mom. I’m still packing. I told you that I have to be in Victoria by Christmas to start the new job.” Seeing a recently opened bottle of vitamin water, he grabbed it and took a gulp.

“Mom, I could tell you the absolute truth, and if it didn’t fit with your view of how your world should be, you’d disbelieve it. Look, I love you, this chat is fun, and I’m glad you called, but I really can’t talk right now. How about I call you tomorrow after breakfast? A quick call before I leave.” He rolled his eyes and took another drink. “Of course I’m not brushing you off. Yes, I’ll call. Tomorrow morning. Bye, Mom.”

He hung up. “Holy shit, that woman drives me nuts. I need a run before I explode.” He checked his watch. “Forty minutes until dinner downstairs. Thirty minutes of pulse-pounding stress-relief and then ten minutes to clean up. Easy peasy.” Changing quickly into his Gortex winter running gear, he was down the stairs and out the door in record time. He turned right and headed south, setting the countdown timer on his watch for fifteen minutes. With every pounding step along the snowy sidewalks and gulping breath of cold air, Jerry felt his frustration with his mother fade. He let his mind slip into run-mode, counting steps in tens, then counting breaths in fives. The houses slipped past, unnoticed. The only thought that inserted its way into his running mind was an image of the cover of the book from his great-grandfather. Why would he keep a stained and damaged book?

His pace was steady until his watch beeped at him, then he picked up the pace and began to make his way back home. He pushed himself hard, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. His pulse pounded in his ears and it felt great, not even a hint of a headache. By the time he ran up the stairs and let himself into the apartment, he was soaked with sweat and felt great. He even had five extra minutes to get cleaned up for dinner. With so many boxes already packed and taped shut, the shoebox’s antique contents stood out. He didn’t dare put it away until he’d had a shower, but he couldn’t resist taking another look at the book of poetry sitting innocently in the bottom of the box. He leaned over and squinted for a better look, but a big glob of sweat dropped off his brow and landed on the stained cloth.

“Shit!” He bolted to the bathroom, peeled a foot of toilet paper off the roll, and then charged back into the living room where he gently dipped a corner of the absorbent paper into the drop as it rolled slowly across the brown stain. The drop was quickly sucked up and the book seemed no worse for wear. “What a dumb ass.”

He left everything else right where it was, and charged into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

SHE FELT, OR
rather
saw
, a spark in the interminable darkness, and it seemed to push away some of the cold, growly emptiness. That was new, she thought. There was a warmth to the spark, but it was fleeting. She watched for another spark, but it was apparently a solo effort. Nonetheless, the dark didn’t seem so empty now, and the weight of her world seemed a bit less oppressive.

FIVE MINUTES LATER
Jerry rushed out of the steamy bathroom, wearing a dark green bath towel around his lower half, drying his shaggy hair with a smaller hand towel. Singing along with another Harry Chapin song now filling the apartment, he walked into the living room, refreshed and happy.

He stopped in his tracks, letting Harry go on about being a taxi driver on a rainy night, without Jerry’s disharmony. Sitting on the couch, watching him and grinning much too widely, was Isis.

Jerry dropped the smaller towel in shock and grabbed the larger one as if it might fall off. While holding the shifting towel with one hand, he tried to sign and talk, too.

“Damn, girl! What are you doing here?” He moved toward the bedroom, trying to keep stacks of boxes between himself and Isis.

“Mom sent me to get you. Dad made a fresh batch of Irish Cream and thought we could try it before dinner.”

“I’ll be ready in a couple minutes, so go tell them I’ll be right there.”

“Oh no. I’m not leaving. If this is as close as I get to seeing you naked, I’m not missing a second of it.”

“Isis! You’re only fifteen! And you have a boyfriend!” He stopped behind a stack of boxes as high as his chest and signed with both hands over the top box. “I could get arrested for just standing here talking to you like this.”

Isis stayed on the couch but leaned left then right, trying to see around the boxes blocking her view. “Don’t be silly. I’ll never tell.”

“That’s not the point.”

“No, the point is that Chad is sweet, but he’s too immature. He doesn’t understand me like you do.”

“You’ve been out on a total of three dates with him. Give him a chance, Isis. Love takes time. It doesn’t happen in a couple weeks.” The towel slipped but he caught it before it revealed anything. “Damn! Go or stay, but I’m going into my bedroom,
alone
, so I can get dressed for dinner, with your whole family. If your dad walked in right now he’d kill me. No questions asked, just a bullet between the eyes. He’s a cop—he could get away with it.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Right. Remember that. Me old man, you jailbait. No fun. No fun at all.” He backed into the bedroom, both hands holding the towel securely in place and then closed the door with a resounding thump.

JERRY EVENTUALLY RE-EMERGED
from the bedroom, dressed in jeans and a faded red Fanshawe College sweatshirt fit for a casual dinner with friends.

“There. Shall we—” Isis sat on the couch, crying softly and clutching his bulky, olive-green, cable-knit sweater. “Hey, I’m sorry, Kiddo.” He moved a couple boxes off the couch and sat down beside her, keeping a polite distance between them.

“It’s not your fault I’m going to miss you, Jerry.”

“But, Isis . . .” He had no idea what to say and she interrupted him before he could come up with anything.

“Can I ask a big favour?”

“Of course.”

“This sweater. Can . . . can I have it? I’ll buy you a new one, but I want this one.”

“Um . . .” The sweater had been a Christmas gift from his mother, four or five years before.

“It’s my favourite. I just want something to remember you by.”

“You betcha. It’s yours, for a trade.” He’d started to think that leaving his friends in St. Marys wasn’t going to be as painless as he’d first thought.

“What trade?”

“Something of yours, something I will remember you by. And nothing kinky.” The last thing he needed was to get caught driving across the continent with the cute frilly nightie of a fifteen-year-old girl in his suitcase. His hopes of taking the shortcut through the States would be dashed.

“Oh, yes! Can I pick it? I want it to be something special!”

“Sure. Your choice, but with your mom’s full approval. Now, we have to go—your folks will wonder what’s keeping us.”

“Don’t worry.” She wiped way the last of her tears and grinned. “I told them I was going to give you a blow-job before we join them for the Irish Cream.”

He leaped off the couch and nearly fell over a box on the floor. “WHAT?!!”

“Psych! Mom said you’ll be late like always and I was to stay and hurry you up.” With the sweater held close she got up from the couch and started down the hall to leave the apartment, laughing as she went.

Jerry relaxed and followed her. “Then let’s go get some Irish Cream.” Her back was turned so she didn’t hear him, but at the door she stopped and faced him, then threw her arms around him. He hugged her back, lightly, and broke the embrace first. Isis stepped back, pulling the cherished sweater to her chest.

“Thank you, Jerry.”

DINNER WITH ISIS’
family went well, and her parents were grateful when they saw the sweater and understood it had been a gift of sorts to their daughter. They knew all about Isis’ crush on their upstairs neighbour, but they also knew that Jerry had never treated Isis with anything but respect and kindness. He’d been their neighbour since Isis was twelve and they trusted him completely.

When he got back to his apartment, the hot meal and Irish cream teamed up to give him a sense that everything was right in the world, and he was making the best decision he could. He gently packed up the shoebox again, slipped it into a nearly full liquor box, and padded around it with one of the sweaters Isis left him with. He was so tired that he didn’t even bother to turn off the lamp on Sushi’s bowl, letting the glow show him the way to bed.

LIKE THE FIRST
rays of morning sun cresting a hill and breaching her window, she felt warmth and light and an invitation to simply move up and out of the dark. She shed that absolute absence of light like a blanket, and emerged into a dream world. The dream around her was dim and without form at first, but eventually it began to take the shape of a small flat with nice high ceilings. It was not
her
bedroom, of that she was quite certain. Nor was it any room she knew in either the Palace or that last bleak house she remembered before . . . before . . . before she remembered nothing. She was not dreaming of a familiar place, but there was no darkness. There were also no soldiers, no guns, and no screams. She knew it was obviously a dream, but it was a much more pleasant dream than the ones she had been haunted by for so very long. This was a dream she could linger in.

Never before had she experienced a dream of such rich, clear detail. It appeared to be a flat, but full of boxes. Why would she dream of such a strange place? And where was Alexei? Or Olga or Tatiana?
Where was Mashka?!
She spun around, thinking they could be behind her, out of sight, but she was alone. She worried but then she felt an irresistible draw, a tug of sorts, pulling her away from the dream. The dream faded back into the darkness she had become so accustomed to.

THE NEXT MORNING
, Isis’ parents were as sad as their daughter when Jerry finally placed his camera bag in the packed-full Jeep and backed out of his parking spot for the last time. They waved, he waved, Isis cried, and even Jerry shed a tear or two.

HE CROSSED THE
Canada-USA border at Sarnia rather than Windsor to the south, in order to bypass Detroit, a city he liked to visit but hated to drive through in any weather, let alone winter ice and snow. For the most part, road crews kept the interstates as clear of snow as could be done and every few miles he came upon sand-and-salt crews spreading their traction-assisting mix.

Stopping only for gas and one hot meal, Jerry made it through Michigan, the top of Indiana, through the always-congested Chicago, and up the I-90 to Rockford, where he let his GPS lead him to the closest Super 8. He got a room for himself and Sushi, and after a quick chat with the desk clerk for directions just before he closed up for the night, Jerry was off to the local Little Caesars for his favourite comfort food—a medium veggie pizza and a bottle of Coke.

Back at the Super 8 he dropped some food flakes in Sushi’s bowl and watched the local news while munching pizza, propped up on a stack of pillows on one of the two double beds. He had three texts from Isis so he quickly rattled off an “I’m okay, Sushi is a lousy co-pilot, miss you, too” reply. He couldn’t spend the entire trip hearing the beep of waiting texts from a sweet but infatuated teen, so he muted the ringer and placed the phone on top of his wallet on the bedside table.

He couldn’t believe that he’d finally left Ontario and the road was under his feet. Like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady in the late 1940s, Jerry felt the electrifying thrill of being on the road, leaving behind the known and facing into the unknown. Thankful he wasn’t hitchhiking like his two heroes had, Jerry tossed the empty pizza box onto the other bed and fell asleep sometime after midnight.

SHE FELT STRONGER
than she had in ages and sensed that she was finally moving in a direction she was destined to go. An energy reached for her that was in defiance of the darkness and she listened to it, heeded its call. Pushing away the solitude, though, she found only more darkness . . . then within that darkness there appeared light, so she pushed further out into it and found herself in a brightly lit yard full of the oddest looking automobiles, with smooth lines and curved glass, nothing like the boxy conveyances her family rode in.

There appeared to be snow on the ground and on some of the vehicles, but she couldn’t feel the cold. It was all the oddest of dreams, but unlike most of her dreams since she tumbled into the darkness, this was peaceful. Odd, but peaceful. She gained some strength in knowing that there was now light and life, even in her dreams. When the darkness tugged at her once again, she returned to it, no longer as afraid as she had been.

DAY TWO FOUND
Jerry following I-90 up through Wisconsin, into Minnesota and on to South Dakota. Except for stops to sample real Wisconsin cheese, pick up a souvenir ceramic mouse-and-cheese salt-and-pepper set, dip his toe into the mighty Mississippi River near Lacrosse, and a half-hour detour south on I-35 over the Minnesota-Iowa state line—just so he could say he’d been to Captain James T. Kirk’s home state—he made good time to Chamberlain, South Dakota. The Best Western he found was a block away from the Missouri River. He didn’t know a lot of American history, but knew enough to be awed for the second time that day. He must have stood on the Chamberlain Bridge for half-an-hour watching what Google said was once North America’s longest river, as it flowed beneath his feet. He soaked up the rhythm and found a peace he hadn’t felt in a really long time. Eventually he wandered back to the motel for much-needed sleep.