Мария Кузнецова - Something Unbelievable

“When you were a little girl, I was out of my mind with sadness,” she said. “It took me years to find work in America because I had such a hard time learning English. It was just full-blown depression, I see that now, but at the time, I just felt like my thoughts were the truth, that I needed to take myself out of the equation and that you and your father would be better off. Thank God we didn’t have guns lying around! That would have been the end of me….” she said, laughing a bit.

I could see how the general coldness I remembered from her when I was a kid was more like sadness, but the whole suicide angle was too much and I was both horrified and annoyed. Who wants to talk about almost-attempted suicide on vacation, let alone her own mother’s? I was still feeling pretty sorry for myself, after Jake dumped me, and having a mother with cancer and all, so this was just too much to take. I was glad, after a moment, when I saw that she was not waiting for me to say anything, that she was just thinking.

“Your grandmother saw how upset I was, more than your father, I think. Remember that first dump where we lived in America, that awful-smelling apartment next to the big dirty swimming pool? She would see how sad I was and would say, ‘Oh darling Valentina, why don’t you just go for a swim in the pool?’ Like that would solve anything! I never set foot in that dirty pool, it was beyond me, but your grandmother swam in it every day when she visited….”

I laughed a little bit. “I do remember that,” I said. “She had a big smile on her face the whole time, keeping her head above water.”

“Exactly,” Mama said. “And then, one summer, we took her to Wildwood, but I didn’t think she’d actually go in the dirty water, though she did. And you followed her! I trailed along and I watched you going into the water. You were maybe nine and a good swimmer, but I was still nervous as you walked farther and farther into the choppy waves. The sun was beating down on me, everyone was in a good mood. But there I was, thinking, no, I can’t kill myself, Natasha still needs me, I still have to look out for her, I can’t let her drown. But then you swam on just fine, right toward your grandmother, and I thought again, no, Natasha’s a big girl now, she can take care of herself, she doesn’t need her mother anymore after all…and, well, that fall, your grandmother knew someone who knew someone who got me my first part-time accountant job, and she basically saved my life. No, no, she did save my life, I see that now.”

I was standing there, tears streaming down my face, while the sun was shining down on us just like in the story, mad that I was feeling so much, that I never knew the depth of the pain I had caused her until that moment, wishing I could help. What was I supposed to say—what difference does it make that she saved your life if you’re just going to go and die anyway?

“The water’s pretty warm today,” I said pointlessly, but Mama looked at me directly now, the spell was broken. She was no longer reminiscing, and she was maybe even mad that she had let herself reveal so much, let her guard down instead of being tough, tough, tough.

“What happened to your drummer?” she said, a bit meanly even.

“You scared him away,” I said, swallowing down everything she had told me.

A thin smile crept along her face. “Good.”

“Why do you like seeing me get my heart broken?”

“He’s not good enough for you,” she said. “None of these men are. What do you want from them?”

Her question struck me as ridiculous. I looked up at the birds high in the sky, the crags sticking out of the water in the distance, and three blond siblings fighting over a sand castle. Men—they gave it all meaning. Without them, the world was fluff.

“Everything,” I said.

“But why, kitten? Your father loves you. Your mother loves you. Why do you insist on chasing after these deadbeats—what are you trying to prove?”

“You can’t love me like they can,” I said. “It’s different.”

“No,” she said, shifting her gaze away from me. “I guess I can’t.”

And then she looked at the water again, but it was clear she had nothing more to say, that she was embarrassed about having said anything at all, and even resented me a little bit for hearing it, as if it was my fault she had decided to talk about being suicidal or whatever. And then she put her hands on her hips and stared at me, like she was waiting for me to reveal something in turn, and for a second I even racked my brains for something embarrassing I could tell her to make up for her revelations.

But I wasn’t as dumb as she thought I was. I knew what she was doing, distracting me with her stories of sadness when we both knew what the problem was. She was the gatekeeper between me and my men, and she was determined that if she had to suffer, then I had to suffer too, that there would be no love in my life as long as she was clinging on to hers. We both turned to see my grandmother strutting toward us with her swim cap on, looking refreshed after her day of romance.

“What’s the matter—why are you two just standing there?” she said, shaking her head. “Isn’t it time for a swim?”

I don’t feel ready at all to see my grandmother by the time Yuri tells me to get up. I stayed up for most of the night, sweating and tossing and turning and feeding Tally once and thinking of Mama, of how cruel I had been to her that summer, caring only about what she said about my stupid boyfriends instead of hearing how hard it was for her, the whole fucking motherhood business in a new country. But how could she have expected me to understand then? There’s nothing to be done about it now, obviously.

I manage a shower-and-coffee resuscitation before we haul ass to JFK to pick up Baba in our rental car on a thankfully not-too-hot morning, to snatch her up before she does something stupid like take the train like she did the last time she visited, saying it was because she didn’t want to trouble us. But really she had done it out of her fake proletarianism, her need to be a woman of the people though she’s basically Kiev royalty. I’m hoping she doesn’t even think about it this time, that she knows she was way too old to pull that stunt before and is definitely too old now. I’m so nervous and strung out after the sleepless night and my talk with Yuri and then Stas and not knowing what the fuck I’m doing that I realize I’m actually saying some of this stuff out loud.

Yuri says, “I don’t think she’ll take the train at this point.”

“I hope not,” I say. I’m in the back with Tally, watching her gnaw on her plastic keys, relieved to be sitting away from my own husband.

“You haven’t told her about us, have you?” he says, and this nearly makes me choke.

“Of course not,” I say. “Plus, I’m not sure what I would say.”

“Me neither,” he says.

He turns onto the highway and as we crawl forward, I wonder if he’s going to tell me what I should have said, if he knows our status better than I do and has already made all the decisions. Since I told him about Stas, he hasn’t exactly stopped talking to me, but he won’t look me in the eye and only talks about Tally-related matters, like I’m one of his problem students that he’s just being cordial to because he’s stuck with her for the rest of the semester, except he knows he can’t get rid of me quite as easily. And it’s not like I’ve tried to have long soul-searching conversations either; I’ve just been working on getting the play right, hoping we’ll figure it out once it’s over.

“Listen,” he says. “Next week—”

“Can we not have some big serious conversation right now? Can we give it a few days?”