“Okay,” Cynda agrees with a laugh. “But tell me more about this second wedding. My boyfriend and me are dying to make vacation plans.”
“Wait, did you say boyfriend?” I demand around Cheslav’s broad shoulder.
“I thought you did not do boyfriends!” Cheslav says, sounding equally surprised. I guess he really does listen to and remember every word I say.
Cynda glares at me through the phone. “You’ve been talking about me?”
I wince, but Cheslav is not at all apologetic. “Cynda. We are in quarantine. What else is there to do but make puzzle, board game, and gossip?”
“Have you tried watching TV?” Cynda shoots back.
“Da, and we have watched it all. Now back to this boyfriend Billie and I will be discussing for many days over our puzzle.”
By the time we get off the phone, we’re all laughing. And as it turns out, Cheslav was right to dig.
Cynda really is claiming a boyfriend for the first time in the history of my knowing her. And who he is turns out to be is even more surprising than my Russian hockey player.
“But we’re not quite to the marriage point yet,” she tells us.
“Mm-hmm…” I answer next to Cheslav, not bothering to hide my skeptical tone.
Cynda’s finally slowed down enough to let someone catch her, and I have a feeling Cheslav and I won’t be the only ones planning a much bigger second wedding for 2021.
Chapter Twenty-One
The day after our Cynda’s call, Cheslav and I make our relationship Instagram official with a sped-up clip of our Just Dance routine to “Taki Taki,” which ends with us laughing and kissing at the end. I don’t do anything to draw attention to it, but of course, everyone who sees the post notices the big fat diamond now gracing my wedding ring finger.
My phone immediately starts blowing up. Local news sites looking for a story, a few of my co-workers, and friends who haven’t been in touch in years but suddenly felt the need to reconnect when they saw my Instagram post. I ignore all the calls and texts, but while I’m eating lunch with Cheslav, my phone lights up with a name that makes me frown.
“Who is it?” Cheslav asks across from me.
“My brother,” I answer. There’s a strange feeling inside my chest. Like a piece of rope being tugged at from both ends.
Cheslav goes very still. “Do you plan to answer it?”
I think about his question. Then think about my mother only worrying about my brother even as she was dying herself.
I wait for the usual guilt to jog me out of my paralysis and motivate me to pick up the phone.
But it doesn’t.
Instead, the memory of her last moments unfurls inside my head, clear as a movie clip.
I’m in the hospice center, holding my mom’s hand. And this time, I remember everything that came before her “no matter what.”
I don’t realize tears have begun to drop from my eyes until Cheslav is suddenly there beside my chair, his face worried as he asks, “Billie? Billie? What’s wrong?”
I’ve waited so long; the phone has stopped ringing.
And I blink back tears to answer. “My brother…he never showed up at the hospice to say goodbye. He called crying thirty minutes after he was supposed to be there, saying he couldn’t do it. And I had to tell my mom. And you know what she told me?”
Cheslav takes my hand and presses it to his face like he’s trying to do a skin-to-skin transfer of strength. “What did she tell you, krasotka?”
“She said, ‘He’s not as strong as you, Billie. That’s why you’ve got to take care of him…no matter what.”
As if to punctuate my memory, my phone abruptly starts ringing again. It’s Clem, trying to get through a second time.
He does this when he’s in a crisis. Calls and calls until I pick up.
Usually, it’s not necessary. Usually, I drop everything and pick up as soon as I see it’s him.
But he hasn’t called me since moving out of my place.
Hasn’t so much as texted to check in after he left me alone with the man he owed money.
“Clem is my blood,” I realize out loud to Cheslav. “But that doesn’t mean we’re family.”
I pick up the phone and send the call straight to voicemail. Then, before Clem can call me back, I block his number.
I know some people would call me cruel for not even telling Clem how I feel before blocking him. But those people probably don’t understand the fundamental truth I just got hit with.
“Family goes both ways,” I explain to Cheslav, putting the phone down. “And if you have to tell somebody that, they’re probably never going to get it.”
Cheslav looks at me for the longest time. He seems conflicted by what I’ve just said. That’s because he comes from a strong, close-knit family. One that works to ensure that each and every one of its members are taken care of. I’m sure he’s having a hard time reconciling me just cutting my brother off when he talks to his every day.