Winter Garden

Maksim leaned closer to his father, frowning. “What?” He leaned even closer. “I don’t understand. . . . ”

“Thank you,” Nina said quietly to her mother.

Mom leaned forward, kissed her cheek. “My Ninotchka,” she whispered. “Thank you. You were the one who wouldn’t let go. ”

Nina should have felt pride at that, especially when she saw Meredith nodding in agreement, but it hurt instead. “I was only thinking about me. As usual. I wanted your story, so I made you talk. I never once worried about how much it could hurt you. ”

Mom’s smile lit up her still-damp eyes. “This is why you matter to the world, Ninotchka. I should have told you this long ago, but I let your father be both our voices. It is yet another of my wrong choices. You shine a light on hard times. This is what your pictures do. You do not let people look away from that which hurts. I am so, so proud of what you do. You saved us. ”

“You did,” Meredith agreed. “I would have stopped her story. You got us here. ”

Nina didn’t know until then how a word like proud could rock your world, but it rocked hers, and she understood love in a way she hadn’t before, the all-consuming way of it.

She knew it would change her life, this understanding of love; she couldn’t imagine living without it—without them—again. And she knew, too, that there was more love out there for her, waiting in Atlanta, if only she knew how to reach for it. Maybe tomorrow she would send a telegram, say, What if I said I didn’t want to go to Atlanta? What if I said I wanted a different life than that, a different life than everyone else’s, but I wanted it with you? Would you follow me? Would you stay? What if I said I loved you?

But that would be tomorrow.

“How will I go again?” she said, looking at Meredith and her mom. “How can I leave you both?”

“We don’t need to be together to be together,” Meredith said.

“Your work is who you are,” Mom said. “Love makes room for that. You will just come home more, I hope. ”

While Nina was trying to figure out what to say to that, Maksim said, “I’m sorry to be rude, but my father is not feeling well. ”

Mom pulled away from Meredith and Nina and went to the bed.

Nina followed.

Mom stared down at Vasily, his face left lopsided by the stroke; there were tears on his temples and water stained the pillow where they’d fallen. She reached down and touched his face, saying something in Russian.

Nina saw him try to smile and before she knew it, she was thinking of her father. She closed her eyes in prayer for perhaps the first time in her life. Or maybe it wasn’t a prayer. Actually, she just thought, Thanks, Daddy, and let it go at that. The rest of it, he knew. He’d been listening.

“Here,” Maksim said, his frown deepening as he offered Mom a stack of black cassette tapes. “I’m pretty sure he wants you to deliver these to his former student. Phillip Kiselev hasn’t worked on this project in years, but he has a lot of the original material. And he’s not far from here. Just across the water in Sitka. ”

“Sitka?” Mom said. “We’ve already been there. The boat won’t be going back. ”

“Actually,” Meredith said, looking at her watch. “The boat left Juneau forty minutes ago. It will be at sea all day tomorrow. ”

Vasily made a sound. Nina could tell that he was agitated and frustrated by his inability to make himself understood.

“Can he not mail the tapes?” Mom said, and Nina wondered if her mother was afraid to touch them.

“Phillip was his right hand for years in this research. His mother and my father knew each other in Minsk. ”

Nina looked down at Vasily and thought again of her father and how a little thing could mean so much. “Of course we’ll deliver the tapes,” she said. “We’ll go right now. And we’ll have plenty of time to catch up with the boat in Skagway. ”

Meredith took the stack of tapes and the piece of paper with the address on it. “Thank you, Dr. Adamovich. And Maksim. ”

“No,” Maksim said solemnly. “Thank you. I am honored to have met you, Veronika Petrovna Marchenko Whitson. ”

Mom nodded. She glanced briefly at the stack of black tapes in Meredith’s hands and then leaned down to whisper something in Vasily’s ear. When she drew back, the old man’s eyes were wet. He was trying to smile.

Nina took Mom’s arm and led her to the door. By the time they reached the front door, Meredith was at Mom’s other side. They emerged three abreast, linked together, into the pale blue light of a late spring day. The rain had stopped, leaving in its wake a world of sparkling, glittering possibility.

They arrived in Sitka at seven-thirty.

“I could be in Los Angeles by now,” Nina said as she followed Meredith out of the plane.