Tell Me No Lies (14 page)

"You don't have a sister either?"

She shook her head, trying not to feel bereft. "Just me."

"And your mom and dad." She said it with a touch of wistfulness, and Alex recalled that Hank had said her father was dead. She wondered how fresh that wound was.

"No, just me. My mom died when I was a little girl. And my dad..." She paused, remembering the net of lies she'd woven around herself, and opted for the most basic truth. "My dad is also gone."

Mandy stilled. "Really?"

Alex nodded, and she saw Mandy's face change, her gaze turn hot and intense.

"What is it?"

"My parents... my parents died, too." The admission came out in a hoarse whisper, as though wrenched out of her.

Alex's stomach turned over. Parents. Then both were... She exchanged a glance with Rose, and immediately Mandy sensed the tension.

"But it's all right," she said quickly. "It's fine." She smiled, and the pretense of it, wide and false, nearly broke Alex's heart. "We live here, now. With Nana. And Uncle Hank. And everything is wonderful."

Oh, no,
malishka,
no it's not.
Alex stooped so she was on a level with the girl. "Then you really are lucky. I was sad for a long time."

"You were?"

Alex nodded.

Mandy looked at her feet. "Did you cry?"

"Buckets."

"I have bad dreams." Her voice was small, as though she were afraid to say it out loud.

Something tightened in Alex's chest. "I had nightmares, too."

"You did?" She searched Alex's face for the truth, and Alex gave it to her.

"For a long time."

They stared at each other, understanding instant between them. Suddenly, Mandy threw her arms around Alex. "I like you," she whispered.

"That's enough, you," Rose said, and Alex heard a tremor in the older woman's voice.

"It's all right," Alex said. And then she whispered to Mandy, "I like you, too."

"Go on now, see who needs help with the flowers."

Mandy started to run off, then turned, walking backward. "I brought her a pie, Nana." She pointed to the bag on the ground. "It's a present from us. Uncle Hank said so."

"Well, if Uncle Hank said it, it must be so. Scoot."

Rose turned to Alex, a troubled look on her face. 'I'm sorry. We've had a lot of losses in the last year. She didn't mean to burden you with them."

"She didn't. Please don't apologize."

"Well, you were kind to her. And that means a lot to us." She noticed a line forming at the register, and shook her head. "Sorry I can't talk."

"Go ahead. You have customers."

"Why don't you stay for lunch? Nothing fancy, we just set up in the orchard and take turns eating, but we'd love to have you join us."

Alex shrank back. She was already too close, too involved. And involvement meant questions, lies, secrets. She had to cut this off now, before she wasn't able to. "Oh, I couldn't possibly."

"Couldn't possibly what?"

She turned to find that Hank had returned from his tour and parked the tractor. He came up behind her, slapping his gloves against his thigh and clearing them of dirt and hay from the wagon.

"Henry, I have to go ring up those folks. See if you can talk her into staying for lunch."

Rose hurried away, and Hank's brows rose. "You work fast. I was barely gone and already you got yourself invited to a meal."

She looked away from the grin on his face. She couldn't get sucked in. Not by him or his family. "It's not necessary. I just stopped by for some apples. Sonya is making an apple
kissel
a kind of fruit drink and she thinks Bonner apples make the best."

"Sonya does?"

She felt her face heat. "Well, I do, too, of course, but..." She backed away before she made a complete fool of herself. "I should be going."

Mandy ran up, breathless. "Nana says you're invited to lunch. Is she going to stay, Uncle Hank?" Mandy turned to Alex, slipping a hand into hers. "You are, aren't you?"

She opened her mouth to refuse, then saw the hopeful look in the little girl's eyes. How could she disappoint her?

Hank saw the split-second change come over Alex. More than that he saw a bond where once there had been none. A tie that had somehow developed between remote A. J. Baker and his own Mandy girl. Wonder of wonders.

Something went off inside him, an odd little burst of pleasure. That compulsion rose up again, the unwanted desire to draw Alex in. He was playing with fire, tempting the universe, daring it to bring her close without immolating her.

He should know better.

But the day was so fine and Mandy looked so happy.

And there was something in Alex's face, a kind of yearning as though all she needed was a little push to stay.

So before he changed his mind, he gave it to her. "Oh, she'll stay." He grinned down at his niece, then at Alexandra Jane. "Not for me, Mandy girl. But for you, yeah, I think Miss Baker would do just about anything."

***

Sonya grunted as she mixed the ground beef. She did it with her hands, her fingers digging into the raw meat, blending in the cooked onions and rice. The effort cost her, and she breathed heavily. Aleksandra would have given her a long-bandied wooden spoon, but what did that child know about food? You had to get in with the bare hands and feel the ingredients.

Sonya couldn't say why she wanted to make
golubtsy
that day. Her head was fogged from the sleeping pill Sashenka had given her, and she had a pain in the center of her chest as though her heart were afraid to beat.

Preparing the stuffed cabbage rolls comforted her. Later, after her Sashenka returned, she would make a rich
kissel
with the apples she brought. Both were mementos of the old days, and Sonya so, yearned for them. For the time when everyone had been safe.

But
nyanya,
Sashenka always said with a frown, thoge days were not the best; many people suffered. In her mind, Sonya could hear the irritation in Aleksandra's voice.

It was a truth she preferred not to know. To her, the past was haloed. Back then, before the world changed, her hands never trembled. She always had meat on"the table and every year Comrade Baklanov gave her a new coat for the winter.

Nyet, nyet.
She paused, hands mired in the meat mixture. There were no more comrades. Why could she not remember? Sashenka would be very angry with her.

She sighed, added salt and pepper and a bitof dill. Everything was different now. The whole world was different. Sometimes she got confused, as mixed up as
golubtsy
stuffing. More and more it was easier to remember the past, the good time, the safe time.

She mixed in a bit more salt, then clumped a ball of meat and set it in the center of one of the cabbage leaves she'd already boiled. Hands clumsy, she tucked in the ends and rolled it up.

This
was the safe time. She was far away from Russia, she had nothing to fear.

Then why did her heart bang against her ribs? Why did they send a dead rat to her door?

She'd told them what they wanted to know. Years ago. She was an old woman, she deserved her rest. Why could they not leave her alone?

She rolled another leaf around a ball of meat Were those unsteady fingers hers? She wiped her face with die back of one wrist She was sweating. It was so hot hi the kitchen.

She tried not to think about the rat nailed to the door. Sashenka said it was a trick done by children, but Sonya knew better. If only she could wish if away like a magic baba-yaga in the old stories her mother had told her long ago.

Her heart mumped with a wild pain, and she paused, her fingers formed around a bit of meat Flashes of memory went through her, memories she thought she had buried deep. The cold, sterile room, the long metal table, the uncomfortable chairs.

The light had hurt her eyes and the questions had seared into her brain. Who had Comrade Baklanov spoken to? Where had he gone? Who had called? Come to visit?

They had put things on her. Small pieces of metal attached to wires. And when she couldn't answer, or when the answers didn't please them, they jolted her with them. Burned her so she jumped and jerked uncontrollably. Until she sobbed and names came out of her. Names she didn't even know, names she had heard in passing. Names that made the pain stop, that got her sent back to the dank, dim room with the lock on the door.

A rush of shame went through her, even after all this time. What had she done? What had happened to the people whose names she'd cried out?

No one ever told her, and she hadn't had the nerve to ask. She didn't want to know. She begged forgiveness from the great unknown, hoping no one had been punished because of her.

Eventually, they'd let her go. Her hair had gone snowy though she didn't know it until she'd seen herself in a dirty mirror in the train station on her way back to Moscow. She'd looked old. An old, ragged peasant woman whose hands shook.

She'd made her way to Baklanov's apartment, but of course, Baklanov was no longer there. The apartment manager, a fat, pinched-faced pig of a woman, pretended not to know her.

With nowhere to go, Sonya had been forced to throw herself on the mercy of her sister, who was already squeezed into a tiny apartment with her daughter and her daughter's husband and new baby. They had welcomed her, but not without a tinge of resentment, and Sonya could hardly blame them for that.

No one had ever questioned her again, though for years afterward she felt people watching her. Men in black leather jackets, with hard faces and nasty hands, would stop by her street stall for her
golubtsy
or
pelmeni,
the hearty little meat pies she was allowed to sell. They asked for the spiced honey cake called
medovnik
or the
romovaya baba,
the rum cake with nuts, which she made only when the ingredients were available. And she'd wrap the food, give it to them, and decline the fistful of rabies they offered.

But then her Sashenka had come. All grown-up like a warrior queen, sweeping down with her American clothes and her American dollars.

"I have been looking so long for you,
nyanya?"
she had said, her voice catching on a whisper.

And then the nightmare was over. They left Russia and came here, to this beautiful house. It was all done in great secrecy. Her Sashenka had many friends, many contacts. No one would know who Sonya was or who she'd been. She would be safe here.

But those burned by milk blow on cold water. Sonya knew they were still out there.

Wasn't the dead rat proof? They had found her, they would take her once more, question her. She rolled up another cabbage leaf, her heart going crazy again.

And then she heard it. Footsteps outside the kitchen. She stilled, the blood beating into her chest like thunder.

"Sashenkar

No answer.

"Who is there?" Her voice came out on a quiver, no bigger than a mouse's. "Who ... who is there?" she whispered.

But she knew. She'd always known. Evil never went away.

Hands shaking, she grabbed the knife she'd used to cut up the onions. She felt light-headed, dizzy, the thump in her chest violent and erratic.

Footsteps outside the kitchen drew closer.

The door opened.

The monster stared at her, clad in black leather, huge as she remembered, the face cruel and vicious as all the others. A different monster, but the same. Always, always they were the same.

He looked at the knife she clutched, her grip so tight her fingers hurt. A smile worked the lips on the monster's face. A smile she remembered well. Amusement at her pain,

laughter that she could ever be a threat, ever be anything more than a beetle to squash.

And then it spoke, the words tumbling out like a breath of poison. Russian words, as though she needed proof.

"Are you going to kill me, old woman?"

She lunged, and her breath hitched. A pain snaked up her arm and burst inside her chest.

She was falling, falling.

***

Alex disconnected the call on her cell phone and stared at the rickety picnic table. It was set amidst a clutch of ancient apple trees whose sweet-smelling blossoms permeated the air with a luscious bouquet.

"Problem?" Hank spread a white cloth over the table and lifted a cooler.

"Sonya didn't answer." She frowned. Had Sonya stepped out for a few minutes? Sometimes she enjoyed sitting on the patio in the sunshine. But when Alex left, the elderly woman had been boiling cabbage for
golubtsy.
Had she finished cooking already?

"She's probably in the bathroom. Give it a few minutes and call back."

Alex nodded, an uneasy feeling sifting inside her. But she pushed it aside when Mandy grinned at her from above a huge chocolate cake with caramel frosting.

"No apple pie?" Alex asked.

"Uncle Ben and Trey like chocolate," Mandy said.

"Uncle Ben?"

"My brother," Hank said, handing her a pile of paper plates. She put them on one end next to a pile of napkins anchored by a stone. "He'll be here for lunch, too."

More Bonners. A wave of strangeness shot through her at the thought of so much family, so many connections and support. She felt dizzy with the closeness and, to cover it, focused on the one Bonner she understood. "What about you, Mandy? Apple or chocolate?"

Mandy giggled. "I like chocolate, too."

Alex felt a goofy smile etch itself across her face, and noted with alarm that Hank had lifted an amused brow. What was happening to her?

She ducked her head so he could no longer see her expression, and set out hunks of cucumbers and tomatoes, cheese and bread with homemade apple butter and preserves, sliced meats and a bowl of red Bonner apples. To drink, there was cider. Several gallons of it, in old-fashioned glass bottles.

"Hand-pressed," Hank said, with an edge of family pride.

When they were done, the table looked like a true peasant's feast Nestled among flowering apple trees that looked like they had stood for centuries, the scene held a magic glow, one of her Russian miniatures come to life. All it needed was a cluster of women with embroidered skirts and beribboned tambourines to dance around a troika.