kitchen, the TV hummed at low volume. Her mother, Olga Ivanovna Gracheva, was waiting for her so that she could go home. Her house was next door. If Elena’s ex-husband had not arranged for her mother to live next door after Nastya was born, Elena would have long since had to quit the her job.
«Catch a lot of killers? Or was it rapists today?» buzzed Mrs. Gracheva pouring the tea. Her tone indicated that a serious conversation was coming. Elena knew the topic too: Normal people work so that they can live – not live so that they can work.
«I don’t want tea, mom. I’m just going to shower and go to bed.»
«Sergey called.» Mrs. Gracheva placed the cup in front of her daughter, like a cable bollard in front of a ship. «He’s inviting you and Nastya to go to Thailand with him during her Fall Break. He’ll pay for the tickets and book you a nice hotel.»
«What’s got into him?»
Sergey Petelin owned a transportation company that was always either on the up and up or barely making ends meet. Nonetheless, he made alimony payments promptly and was never stingy about it. Whenever he made any extra money, he’d bring Nastya expensive gifts and pay for vacations in warmer climes.
«I think he mentioned that he’ll get a room for himself in the same hotel.»
«So that he can show off another long-legged girl for my edification?»
«You have your mother’s legs, Lena! There are none better! But you get your temper from your father.» Mrs. Gracheva glanced at the television and turned it off but remained facing away from her daughter. «Have you called him recently?»
Lena figured that she meant her dad. Out of principle, neither the mother nor the daughter ever called their respective ex-husbands: Over time, they had crossed the lines of communication, as it were. Typically, the daughter would tell her father about how her search for Anatoly was going, while trying to usher him to a point where he’d tell her what had really happened that day. It didn’t work. Meanwhile, her mom had long since labeled the entire topic taboo. After her granddaughter was born, she had redirected all her unspent love toward her disappeared son at Nastya.
«I spoke to him last week.»
«And?»
«He’s living by himself, in case you care,» lied Elena to avoid tormenting her mother.
«Well, who’d give him a second look?» Mrs. Gracheva turned around and looked kindly at her daughter. Her voice became unctuous. «But Sergey, that’s a completely different matter. He’s intelligent, well-off and he loves little Nastya. Sure, he acted like a complete dog but that happens to the best of us. Now he’s suffering from loneliness and thinking of you, Lena. He’s been calling for a month straight, asking how he can fix things between you two.»
«And so you recommended we go to Thailand,» Elena grasped the larger picture.
«Why not? It’s a good excuse to start over. A romantic voyage.»
«What’s romantic about it?»
«Why, everything.» Mrs. Gracheva took a seat next to her daughter and turned serious. «I looked through your swimsuits. Really, you should be ashamed. You need new ones – a one-piece and a two-piece. Also a light dress. Though, you can probably find one in Thailand. I’m sure Sergey will be happy to get it for you as a present.»
«Can you just leave me out of this? If you think he’s so generous, why don’t you go to Thailand with him and Nastya?»
«What do I have to do with it? Sergey wants to see you, not me.»
«It would do you good to get out to the beach. I won’t even be able to get the time off. They won’t let me go.»
«I want to see them try. I’ll go to your boss and let him have it.»
«I told you: I don’t want to, mom.»
«You still can’t forgive him?» Mrs. Gracheva shook her head. «It’s been four years since the divorce.»
«And? Sergey spent the four years before that tumbling around with his sluts, following the example set by his drivers.»
«Have you considered that, maybe, it’s you who is to blame? It’s always work, work, work with you. You come home and pass out. Who could live with a woman like that?»
«That’s enough,» Elena boiled over. «Go home! I want to sleep.»
Mrs. Gracheva stood up, shuffled to the door and stopped.
«Think about it, Lena. Sergey isn’t a bad guy and he has money. Where are you going to find another one like that at thirty-five? And don’t forget about Nastya. The girl needs a father.»
«No one took her father away. And if I’ll need a husband, I’ll find him myself.»
«What?» The mother locked onto the daughter suspiciously. «Are you still thinking about your Tatar? About Marat? He wore out the bench down in our yard when you were in high school and wiped our windows clean with those black eyes of his. And now, like some curse, he’s come back around.»
Lena remembered how stubbornly Marat Valeyev worked to win her friendship. She remembered the shy kisses they exchanged at their senior prom. Her brother’s disappearance, her father’s arrest and her mother’s illness had all created distance between the classmates. Later, Lena found out that Marat had gotten married. Word had it that his parents had arranged it. There was no one to blame, but regret lodged itself like a splinter in the young girl’s soul. Years later, when she was already twenty-three, she ran into another classmate named Sergey Petelin. Sergey had become a businessman and was confident and assertive. Lena was afraid of becoming a spinster. That’s how Nastya came about – first a flustering miracle in her stomach, then a rushed wedding in a roomy dress.
«What does Marat have to do with this?» Elena flared. Her indignation, however, did not come out sounding very convincing.
«Don’t look away! You said yourself that Valeyev asked to move to your district on purpose.»
«He was transferred. That’s just work.»
«Where there’s work, there’s friendship. You know very well what men think about.»
«Come on, I haven’t seen Marat in ten years.»
«Uh-huh. You hear nothing from him for years, but as soon as he finds out that you’re divorced, he starts to put the moves on you.»
«His apartment is in our district. That’s why they transferred him there.»
«You’ve been to his apartment already?»
«Mom, we work together. Our paths cross. And even then, not often,» Lena added for some unknown reason.
«Forget about him, Lena. Forget him! You can’t even take him to a church.»
«I don’t go to church, mom!»
«I never went either. But as soon as I started getting sick, I started going. It’s never too late to come to God. It never hurts to ask Him – nothing bad can come
