“Wait. You really give Swedish massages?” She didn’t smile. She didn’t even respond. He sighed. “I am a lazy ass.”
“You didn’t get all those promotions by being a lazy ass.”
“I got fired.”
“Laid off. Bought out. Restructuring. It’s different. You ran that place.”
“Hardly. I got lucky is all, but the gig’s up. No, Janie. When it comes to getting things done, I’m as competent as a clam. Hence, Mr. Happenings. My dad would love the guy.”
She stepped back. With her small tight fist, she punched him once firmly, squarely in his chest. “Your father has been dead twenty years. They all have been. Anniversaries are hard, I get that. But this has been going on forever. Kache, you didn’t die.”
She grabbed her shoe from him, pulled her heels back on. Balancing on one dancer’s leg then the other, she kept her eyes locked on his while he stood, hands in his pockets, the slight sensation of her punch already fading. Her bottom lip trembled.
Her words came loud and fast. “No. You know what? Forget it. We’re done. I hate that I wrote that creepy blog. Jesus, I need an actual life. Get the hell out and don’t come back.” She turned and slammed the door so loud the floor quaked. Her final shout came from the other side: “And WAKE THE FUCK UP!”
“You hear anything I say, my friend? Taking nap after one beer? You need me to drive you home?” Kache wasn’t sure what he’d told the man. Had he been speaking out loud? He hoped not. But the man was smiling at him again. Something about him reminded Kache of Denny. That warm familiarity. The ability to chat with anyone. Kache was so tired after staying up all night with the squatter woman, he wouldn’t mind having someone drive him home. But he needed to get over to the Old Folks’ and fill in Snag, see Lettie. He thanked the man for the beer and said he hoped to see him around.
The man called after him, “Next time I see you, your life will be better. You find beautiful woman! Not like me, you live happily ever after!”
Instead of packing up a few things to leave as she’d planned, Nadia followed her morning routine. The chickens and goats shared in her jittery nervousness, calling their questions while she fed them. Feeding and tending to them usually cleared her head, but not this morning. She stopped before she began the milking and carried the eggs up to the house.
In the empty living room the imprint of Kache remained. She could still see him running his index finger over the bump on his nose, staring at objects around the room, lost somewhere deep in his mind. She picked up one of the photos of him on the piano and, no, just as she thought, there was no bump.
She boiled thistle and drank it to soothe. She ran a hot bath and retrieved one of the wooden chairs from the kitchen, then locked the bathroom door and jammed the doorknob with the chair. Her shirt came off first, then her jeans, until she stood in the cold room naked and gently swatted herself with the birch broom—the same calming remedy her mother had used when Nadia was young and awoke from a nightmare. Lying in the bathtub with her ears under the water, she bathed in the echoes of her mother’s soothing voice, the laughter of her sisters and brothers, her father’s chanting of the old scriptures, voice rich and dark as braga.
Her family had once belonged to the small village of Ural, about a thirty-minute drive from the road that turned off toward the Winkel homestead. She grew up with a loving if strictly religious family, a close, secluded community of equally religious friends, and a boy named Nikolaus, whom she had loved since she was eight. Everyone knew she and Niko would marry as soon as she turned thirteen.
But right before her birthday, an unforeseen rift tore the village in two. Some of the Old Believers wanted to appoint a bishop to act as a leader in the church. Not allowed, not in a church committed to no hierarchy. Instead, a Nastoyatel had always been enough, just a man in the village who volunteered to help out with church duties. Nadia’s parents were strongly against a bishop. For them and nineteen other couples, this deviated from the truest interpretation of Christianity. Many before them had died in Russia trying to protect the purity of their religion. Compromise meant contamination. So thought her parents and some of the others, though they were in the minority. They devised a plan to break off from the group and settle even deeper into the wilderness in a new village they called Altai.
Niko’s family stayed, and so did Niko. Nadia didn’t blame them. If only the division had taken place two months later she and Niko would have been married and she too could have stayed. But she still fell under her father’s rule, and he insisted she go with them. He had once treated Niko as his son but now treated him with disdain.
“I want my daughter and my future grandchildren to be of the purest faith. Otherwise your mama and I, we would have stayed in Oregon, where the world weaves in and out of one’s soul. You understand this, Nadi?”
No, she did not.
Whether or not they appointed a bishop did not concern her in the least. The truth—the truth that she’d shared with no one, not even with Niko—was that she didn’t know if she believed any of it. She did not even know if she believed in heaven or hell. She certainly did not believe that it mattered whether you crossed yourself with three fingers or two, or crossed yourself at all. She did not believe women needed to wear long skirts or scarves, or men long beards. In town she’d seen the other women in their pants with their uncovered hair and the men with their shaven faces. Lightning did not break out from the sky and strike any of them dead. It was obvious to Nadia that the world was an interesting place but the adults spoke of it with acid on their tongues.
She believed in the mountains and the water and the trees and the animals. She believed in Niko.
When all this was happening, Niko pulled her aside from picking blueberries with her sister. They ducked into the woods. He said, “We will find a way to be together.” He kissed her urgently, his green eyes held tears. “We will. I promise you, Nadi.”
The day came when the group departed, peacefully, lovingly saying goodbye despite their differences. Except for Nadia, the once-complacent child, who had to be physically dragged away by her father and brothers. She did not scream or cry or even speak as she scratched and kicked against them, her father breaking the silence, saying, “Nadi, Nadi. Nado privyknut
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