Taking a sip of the whiskey, I followed her out into the living room and sat down on the couch.
The news played on the screen.
Footage showed protestors in cities all over Russia. The news correspondent was male with a receding hairline.
English subtitles rolled at the bottom of the screen.
With each spurt of Russian, he glanced over his shoulder as if worried he might get pummeled by the raging crowd. “These protests are seen as the first real challenge to the Kremlin for years.” His face creased in concern. “But the ongoing protests in President Tikhon Smirnov’s traditional heartland — places like Gukovo and St. Petersburg —may be the better measure of how deep current discontent runs in Russia.”
“Is there another bottle in here?” Grandma rose from the couch and headed to the kitchen.
I took a sip of my glass. “Yeah. In the cupboard over the stove. O kept liquor around.”
“What about Hennessey?”
I gave her a weak smile, knowing that was her favored drink. “No. It’s just O’s stuff. Whiskey or vodka. I have some wine in the back.”
“This isn’t a wine night, baby.” Grandma went to the cupboard and rummaged through the contents. “Lord Jesus.”
I let out a long breath and watched the screen. “Have they mentioned the. . .deaths from the theater.”
“No. It’s been all about the protesting.”
Nodding, I sighed. “I guess that’s good.”
“That boy called the cops.” She shook her head and headed back. “Did you know he had so much power?”
Feeling stupid, I muttered. “No.”
“How do you feel?”
“Numb, but sad and terrified. So maybe I’m not numb. I don’t know how I feel.”
“Then, you’re scattered.” She sat down on the couch and poured a little vodka into the glass—no ice or chaser. “I tried to call your cousins to come up here.”
I snapped my attention to her. “The ones in New Orleans?”
“Yes. I called them when I first got here. Your uncle said he was sending people.”
“No, grandma.” I shook my head. “We don’t need that right now.”
My male cousins were a rowdy bunch. Many of them had been in and out of jail. Grandma had barely let me spend time with them, once we hit our teen years. Grandma pretty much made me cut off all contact. The only cousins I could keep in touch with was Gwen and Natalie, and even that had been difficult. Since the time I left for school in Russia, we barely spoke a few times a year—mainly holidays.
Grandma sipped her drink. “It doesn’t matter. I talked to your uncle tonight. He said that all the flights to Russia had been booked.”
I quirked my eyebrows. “All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Maybe, it’s the protests.” She grabbed her glass, took a sip, and scrunched her face. “Lord, this burns.”
“O could drink.”
“I see.” Grandma took another sip and shook her head after she swallowed. “This damn sure is going to do the job.”
I turned to her. “What am I going to do, grandma?”
“Go to sleep, wake up, and do what you need to for the day.”
“What about Misha?”
“I can’t tell you what to do about him.”
“Why not?”
“It’s your heart. Your life. If I didn’t think you liked him, I would have more to say. But you look hurt. Love makes a person hurt like that.”
My eyes stung with sadness.
“And if I didn’t think he loved or respected you,” grandma continued, “I would have more to say, but a man don’t kill others like that, without something burning wild in his heart.”
She ended her words with another gulp of the vodka and moved her attention back to the screen. “Looks like we’ll have to take this day-by-day.”
“I won’t be the same after this.”
“We never are, when people die, whether we wanted them to or not.”
I swallowed down more whiskey. It filled my mouth with a heated hiss and slid down my throat, burning everything in its path. A little dizziness came over me. I blinked and focused on the screen.
The screen showed a digital moon spinning in the center of the tv. “In lighter news, this month’s full moon will not only be a super blood moon, but it will bring a lunar eclipse. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth lies directly between the Sun and the Moon. And the Moon remains in the Earth’s shadow. For a total lunar eclipse to occur, all three bodies lie in a straight line. This means that the moon passes through the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow—the umbra.”
Sitting between a glowing sun and rotating earth, the digital moon darkened in front of us and then tinted red.
“People throughout Europe will witness parts of the eclipse, including when the entire Moon turns red. We’re told the best time to see this will be around 2:30am, when the Moon will start to enter the Earth’s shadow. The full eclipse will occur just before 4.30am. The entire eclipse lasts for more than five hours, ending at 7.50am.”