Zhanna Slor - At the End of the World, Turn Left

My dad sighs and reaches toward the knob of the radio, turning it down. “Babushka also says your cousin Yulia is stealing all her bedsheets,” he says.

“She didn’t mention that to me…”

“She’s sick, Anastasia,” my dad says. “You know that.”

“I guess.”

I want to say more, but my dad looks so lost in thought that he might as well have put a brick wall between him and the passenger seat. Furthermore, he won’t look up from his phone, and keeps furiously typing away. His expression reminds me of the nights when I was little, and he used to check if Masha and I were asleep in our room, how angry he was to see us still awake, playing games or giggling about something. Once he even locked us in separate closets as punishment. Now, when I think about it, I wonder why he did that. Didn’t he want us to be friends? Later, when we were older and had our own rooms, he never had to do this again, but mostly because we were no longer interested in talking all night long. Sometimes I miss those nights, even though at the time it felt so unjust. Having to share a space will make anyone closer, even if you don’t like the person. They become as necessary to you as your bed or desk or clothes, if only because of their constant presence. It’s probably why even though my grandparents on both sides didn’t always get along, they still treated one another like family. And why I’ve always felt so close to them. Some of my earliest memories include walking to school with my grandpa, or playing card games with them for hours while our parents were at work. I spent far more time with my grandparents the first five years we lived here than I did my parents or Masha, who was older and made friends easily.

“Who are you emailing anyway?” I finally ask. I cannot fathom being able to email someone from my phone, let alone needing to so urgently. “Is it work?”

“It’s nothing,” Dad says, but he stops typing on the phone. I turn my focus to the floor of the car, at the wrinkled, coffee-covered pieces of paper. An empty bag of Fritos. This is also strange for my dad; usually his car is spotless.

A door slams shut outside, and I see my grandparents finally meandering towards us. My dad slips out of the driver’s seat, and goes to the back of the car, clearing it of papers and folders. He leaves his phone in the cupholder, and I glean what appears to be a long email exchange with a lawyer. The header says from the Law Offices of something or another. I catch something about a living will, and a question about inheritance. Why would he be asking about that? I can’t get a better look, because soon my grandma is guided into the backseat, a tirade of complaints following her. “…He’s not my brother,” she spits.

“Mama, come on. How can you say that?” my dad asks, coming back around to his seat.

“A brother comes over once in a while. A brother at least sits down for tea.”

“Maybe Marcus doesn’t like tea,” he offers with a forced smile.

“Marcus is her brother?” I ask of the quiet, elderly man I’d seen on occasion in their building, who is now standing outside waiting near a bus. “I thought they were friends or something.”

My dad moves to the other side of the car to help my grandpa into his seat, then answers me: “Anastasia, how can you possibly think that after all this time?”

I shrug. “He never comes to anything. He seemed familiar to me but that’s it.”

“That’s what happens when you always fight with your siblings. You can live on the same floor and never speak,” he says. “That’s why I always tried to encourage you and your sister to be friends.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” I snort, thinking again of the separated closets. If anything, we became friendly despite his efforts. Until she up and left me, of course. Since then, it’s been basically crickets. I’m self-aware enough to realize my obsession with the email from Zoya has something to do with this; an urge for more family, when the rest of mine is either gone or doesn’t speak the same language or, in the case of my dad, totally disinterested in talking to me. He doesn’t even pretend to wonder what I mean; he simply gets back into the driver’s seat and pulls the car out of the parking lot, turning onto Farwell Avenue.

I’m taking off my coat again when my grandma clears her throat. Her breath smells fishy and I have to cover my nose with a shirt sleeve.

“Pavel,” my grandma starts. “Don’t you know someone in Ukraine named Zoya?”

My heart plummets. Considering she has on occasion forgotten which grandchild I am, or who the president is, I hadn’t expected my grandma to remember that I said anything. I barely remember that I said anything; it’s already so far out in the back of my mind. Now, all I can do is hope she doesn’t call me out.

“I do not,” he says tightly. If he is worried, he is good at not showing it. I squeeze my nails into my palms and wait anxiously to see where this conversation will end. I don’t expect him to admit much, but maybe it will throw him off his game. Deep down, I suspect the message couldn’t have been random. Plus, why would he be talking to a lawyer? Could the two things be connected?

“Are you sure?” my grandma asks. She stares ahead, deep in thought. I watch my dad’s face. If I’m not mistaken, he looks a little sweatier. This seems like an overreaction for what he claims to be a spammer, but what do I know? It is getting pretty hot in the car. I open the window a little to get some air.

“Yes.” My dad glances in my direction, then turns back to watch the road. “Why do you ask?” he says. I wonder if we are both thinking the same thing: did Zoya find a way to contact my grandma too? If so, I must admit the girl is thorough.

“Oh,” Babushka shrugs. She thumbs a crumb from her chin and then folds her hands across her lap. “I don’t remember.”

Inwardly, I breathe a sigh of relief. My dad, on the other hand, grips the wheel with an intensity that was definitely not there before. Then he turns the radio back on and doesn’t speak for the rest of the drive.

Later, I’m standing on the balcony of my uncle Marik’s house with my fourth glass of wine when someone comes outside to smoke. For a moment I think it’s my dad, wanting to confront me about my grandma’s question, but it’s only Marik.

“Privet, Annushka,” he says, starting his cigarette with a shiny gold lighter. “How are you?”

“Horosho,” I respond. Uncle Marik is really my dad’s cousin but in our family everyone’s just an uncle or aunt. It took me until I was quite old to work this out; when I was young, I assumed my parents had tons of siblings, but they’re both only children. Marik is married to one of Baba Mila’s nieces, my great-aunt Rachel’s daughter Marina. He owns a painting and remodeling company and is super rich, judging from the location of this brand-new riverfront condo, replete with string lights and perfectly assembled patio furniture that is very clearly not from IKEA. I can’t begin to imagine what any of it costs. All I ever do, when it comes to money, is think about how to not spend it. “How are you?”

“Good, good,” he mumbles back, about as bored with my question as I am asking it. Below us, a few tiny boats buzz down the Menomonee River, transforming the water into icy white streaks. Beyond the river is an unimpressive constellation of skyscrapers; further on, lights of factories burn yellow. “Life is good.”

I watch as Marik takes another long drag of his cigarette. Maybe it’s the four glasses of wine, but for a second he no longer looks like my uncle—a tall, muscled man in his late forties, always dressed in outrageous silk suits and pointy leather shoes at family functions—and instead seems like some old-timey Russian gangster. I wonder if this is how others see him: like a person to be frightened of. I really have no idea what he did for work before we immigrated, besides spend three years in the Russian army. It’s possible someone mentioned it before, but if so, I no longer remember. This happens to me a lot; the way I didn’t realize I was losing my native tongue until years after it was already happening, I somehow managed to misplace everyone’s histories too. I wonder how much farther I can stray before it all disappears entirely, forever. Is heritage a lighthouse, blinking in the night, always prepared and preparing you for an eventual return? Or is it an unmapped land, a place that, if you leave, you may never find your way back to? Look at any immigrant family once it’s had a generation or two of kids. Histories fade into anecdotes; foreign words are buried along with elderly grandparents. Every year that passes we are closer and closer to losing everything that makes us what we are. It’s the shadow that lingers behind every American dream. The one you don’t even realize is there because you never see it.