Winter Garden

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Nina said. “I should have told you at the beginning. ”

“You thought I would not agree to the trip. ”

“Yes,” Nina said. “It’s just that I want to get to know you. And not only because I promised Dad. ”

“You want answers. ”

“How can I—how can we,” she said, including Meredith in this, “not want answers? You are part of who we are, and we don’t know you. Maybe it’s why we don’t know ourselves. Meredith can’t figure out if she loves her husband or what her own dream is. And I’ve got a man waiting for me in Atlanta and all I can think about is Vera. ”

Mom leaned back onto the teak chair. “It is time, I suppose,” she said quietly. “Your father spoke to Professor Adamovich, I believe, although I never did. He thought we should talk—I should talk. It’s probably why he kept the letter all these years. ”

“What does the professor want to talk about?” It was Meredith who asked this, and although her voice was quiet, the look in her eyes was intent.

“Leningrad,” Mom said. “For years the government hid what happened. We Soviets are good at hiding things, and I was afraid to talk about it. But there is no reason for fear now. I am eighty-one years old tomorrow. Why be afraid?”

“Tomorrow is your birthday?” they said at once.

Mom almost smiled. “It was easier to hide everything. Yes, tomorrow is my birthday. ” She sipped her hot chocolate. “I will go see this professor with you, but you two should know now: you will be sorry you began all of this. ”

“Why do you say that?” Meredith asked. “How could we be sorry to learn who you are?”

It was a long moment before Mom answered. Slowly, she turned to Meredith and said, “You will. ”

Ketchikan was a town built on salmon: catching it, salting it, processing it. The rain gauge—called a liquid-sunshine-o-meter—attested to the dampness of the climate.

“Look at that,” Meredith said, pointing to a grassy area across the street where a man with long black hair was carving a totem pole. A crowd was gathered around him, watching.

Nina dared to reach for her mother’s arm. “Let’s go check it out. ” She was surprised when Mom nodded and let Nina guide her across the street to the small park.

Rain started to fall as they stood there. Most of the crowd dispersed, running for cover, but Mom just stood there, watching the man work. In his capable hands, the metal instrument cut and gouged and changed the wood from rough to smooth. They saw a paw begin to appear.

“It is a bear,” Mom said, and the man looked up.

“You have a good eye,” he said.

Nina could see now how old he was. His dark skin was lined and leathery, and the hair at his temples was gray.

“This is for my son,” the man said, pointing to the beaked bird at the base of the totem pole. “This is our clan. The raven. And this thunderbird brought the storm that washed the road away. And this bear is my son. . . . ”

“So it’s a family history,” Meredith said.

“A burial totem. To remember him. ”

“It’s beautiful,” Mom said, and just then, in the falling rain, Nina heard the voice of the fairy tale, and for the first time it made sense. She understood why her mother only told the story in the dark and why her voice was so different: it was about loss. The voice was how her mother sounded when she let her guard down.

They stood there long enough to see the bear’s claw take shape. Then they finally walked toward Creek Street. Here, the old red-light district had been transformed into a boardwalk of shops and restaurants positioned above a river. They found a cozy little diner with a view and sat down at a knotty pine table by the window.

The street outside was full of tourists with shopping bags, moving like wildebeests in the migration season from one store to the next, even in the rain. The bells above the store doors were chiming a random tune.

“Welcome to Captain Hook’s,” said a cute young waitress dressed in bright yellow overalls and a red checked blouse. A yellow fisherman’s hat sat firmly on her brown curls. A name tag identified her as Brandi. She handed them each a large laminated menu in the shape of a fishhook.

In no time at all the waitress returned to take their orders, which were three fish-and-chips baskets and iced teas. When she left, Meredith said, “I wonder what our family totem would look like. ”

There was a moment’s pause after that. In it, they all looked up, made eye contact.

“Dad would be the bottom,” Nina said. “He was the start of us. ”

“A bear,” Meredith said. “Nina would be an eagle. ”