Yet somehow, I managed to find myself up in the attic.
I set the shitty scrapbook in my lap and ripped out all the pages. I crumbled them up and shredded the athletic articles until they were nothing but paper snow. I decimated it. I destroyed every shitty lie that sat on those damn pages. I tossed the entire book down into the hallway, telling myself I’d use it as kindling later.
Then I reached into the box and pulled out another photo album.
I opened it up, prepared to continue ripping out the pages. That is, until my eyes fell to a picture of a familiar face. Much younger than I remembered it looking, but that same shock of white hair and those same stoic eyes I’d never be able to mistake. My fingertips stroked the picture of Anton. He smiled broadly with people in the community I recognized. And as I flipped through the pages, he Benjamin-Buttoned in front of my eyes.
He grew younger, and younger, until he was back in Russia.
I found a shirtless photo of him and my eyes widened. His chest and back were covered in tattoos. Faded colors and thick black outlines. Each one of them, precious to him. I scanned the pictures of the man I’d come to know as my godfather, and I smiled when my eyes fell onto the angel on his chest.
The tattoo Michelle mentioned in the field that day.
It was done in heavy black ink, with that Russian lettering she spoke of. I continued to flip through the pages, watching as Anton’s life unfolded in front of my eyes. He had his arm slung around people in the old yellow photos. Smiling broadly against the harsh Russian landscape. There was more lettering on his back. Thick black letters that matched the lettering inside the tattoo on his chest. I wondered what it meant. What those letters spelled. I tossed the album to the floor and stumbled down the ladder, then picked it up before I fell over onto the floor.
Somehow, I managed to pull both myself and the album back into the kitchen. I sat down at the table and stared at the photo album as I drowned my thoughts in alcohol. I could puzzle over that shit later. I could find someone who knew Russian to tell me about those tattoos.
What I wanted in that moment was to drink until I couldn’t remember. Drink until my life rewound back to the blissful ignorance of a few months ago. Drink until Anton was alive again. Drink until my dreams no longer haunted me when I slept.
I wanted to drink until Michelle was in my arms again, smiling up at me and caressing me with her fingertips.
Chapter 8
Michelle
I stood in the kitchen with Nick, helping him batter the fish we caught that morning. Dinner already smelled so good with the parmesan-garlic fries he was cooking up. My mouth watered as I handed him bits of fish I soaked in batter. But silence hung thick between us. I felt emotionally hung over from that morning still, and the mood between my brother and I was still somber. I knew he still had a lot he wanted to ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to start the conversation.
So, I moved to the stove to get the broccoli steaming over some water.
“What else happened in Stillsville?” Nick asked.
I looked over and found him leaning against the counter, his eyes on me while the first batch of fish fried up in the pan.
“What do you mean?” I asked, as I chopped the head of broccoli.
“I know something else is bothering you.”
“And judging by the look in your eye, you already know what it is.”
“Then why are you having such a hard time telling me?” he asked.
I looked back down at my broccoli, trying to shove the moment away.
“I know when you’re hiding something, Michelle. You make the same face you always did. Ever since you let our turtle out of the terrarium when we were kids.”
I giggled at the memory as I dropped the broccoli into the double-boiler.
“Say it, Michelle,” Nick said. “Just—say it.”
I didn’t want to tell anyone about the humiliation I suffered at the hands of Gray. But I also didn’t want to keep things from my brother any longer. He was home for the first time in over two years, and I didn’t want things to be like that between us. So, I took a deep breath and steeled myself for my own spiel.
“Anton’s godson—Gray? He and I had a—thing.”
Nick’s eyes burrowed into the profile of my face as I covered the broccoli t
o steam.
“A thing,” he said.