But at least her baby would understand her if she was an American. No more back and forth, living on the edge of two worlds. She would be fully in one world. Her baby couldn’t live in the balance as Tess had for years. Her baby needed to be borninthe world, not on the edge of it. She deserved that.
If she hadn’t left work early the day before, she would have gone home to her apartment today. She had actually put herself into a depression about it. Shoving the emotions down, she forced herself to work; she had things piling up on her desk. Close to 4:00 pm, she got another text from Mathias.
Math:Do you want to come out for supper? The kids will be here.
Looking at the text, she wondered what it meant. Did he want her to meet his kids? He must; the text said he did. Without overthinking it, she typed,
Tess:Yes.
So now she was going to meet his kids, her baby’s siblings. They would be the names her baby would talk about all the time if she told Mathias about her.
After her dream, Tess knew the baby was a girl. Since the day she realized she was pregnant, she had thought it was a girl, felt it was a girl. But after the dream, she knew it was a girl. Her daughter.
By 5:00 pm, when she was locking the bank for the night, she was about ready to text Mathias to say she wasn’t going out there. But she needed a distraction, and a bunch of kids was perfect for that. After changing into jeans and a pink blouse in an attempt to raise her spirits, she headed out to his farm.
On the way, she called Tasha. “Hi Tasha, it is Tess.”
“Hi, Tessy! I can only talk for a second; supper is almost ready,” Tasha stated, sounding busy.
“Is there something going on with my papa?” No need to hedge with Tasha. They knew each other too well for that.
“Well, how much do you know?” She could tell Tasha stopped whatever she was doing.
“Nothing, just that Mama didn’t sound right this week. She didn’t talk about Papa like usual. What is happening there?” Tess demanded, her heart in her throat. Something was wrong with her dad.
“Something happened after you left at Easter. He was in the hospital for a day. Mike got him out, and he has gotten much better,” Tasha admitted.
“What kind of something?” Tess needed to know. She suddenly wanted to drive the nine hours to be with her mom and dad.
“Heart something. They did not tell me everything. Mike might not even really know. He doesn’t understand as much English as he likes to think he does.”
“When were they going to tell me? Ever?” Tess asked again as she stopped just after turning into Mathias’s driveway. Throwing on the parking brake, she got out of the car to pace.
“I don’t know. Maybe when they knew more,” Tasha offered.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me when he was hospitalized?” Tess pushed, knowing Tasha was not part of the decision to not tell her.
“I wasn’t there,” Tasha defended herself.
“But you knew. You could have called me,” Tess said, leaning against the car and closing her eyes.
“I know. I just felt….” She stopped talking.
“I feel like I am not a part of the family anymore,” she whispered. She knew she had switched to speaking in Russian, but she didn’t know when it had happened.
“Your too far away, Tessy.” Tasha didn’t say anything Tess didn’t already know herself.
“Should I walk away from them, Tasha?” The words slipped out. Tess needed her best friend to say it, so she knew it was what she needed to do.
“That’s not what I said. We are your family.” Tasha said through tears.
“Thank you, Tasha,” Tess whispered as she hung up on her niece despite her trying to say something else as the call ended.
Her dad was failing, she was nine hours away, and nobody was telling her about it. Would they even call when he was dead? Would they hide that from her? What else have they been hiding from her?
Tess picked up her phone to call Ilya to ask about their dad, but she saw Mathias walking down the driveway toward her. There was no time to make the call, so she tossed her phone back in her car through the open window and closed her eyes.
Images of her father rushed through her mind—when she was young, and he was already middle-aged, and now when he was old. To her, he was never a young man; she had never even seen pictures from before they came to America. In her mind, she heard him shaking his head in disappointment, saying, “Terezilya, you know better.” How many times had he said that to her?