I let the silence hang for a long moment. I tuck my hair back into place, and my voice falls, quavering. “And you come back and say you’re tired of waiting. You hypocrite.”
“I’m sorry, Faina,” she says, and as it comes out, I realize Mr. García was right. I didn’t want her to say she’s sorry. I wanted her embrace, her comfort. I wanted her to promise I could still have everything I ever wanted from her.
But instead she gave me a feeble apology. As if that could ever patch over what she did.
I shake my head and back offstage, still unsatisfied.
· · · · · · ·
I LURK OFF LEFT FOR THE REST OF THE SECOND ACT. Ani remembers every move she’s supposed to make. Elizabeth hits the center of every pool of light. I don’t know what we did to please the theater gods, but the show goes off like chain lightning, each line crackling one to the next, each scene tenser and more electric than the one before.
Finally, the last scene starts. I enter the old schoolhouse at sunset. The mass of gray threads that makes up our backdrop is stained with light, dappled bloody orange. As I enter, the specials up front brighten, pouring down onto me like red paint.
“Faina,” Emily says. She stands at the chalkboard, writing the beginnings of an equation.
“Natalya,” I greet her.
“I thought I might see you here. I thought you might be back.”
“I always come back to this place.”
She smiles. “Did you know I would be here?”
“I supposed.” A beat passes before I add, “But I must go home soon for dinner. My daughter is awful at cooking. She’ll have to marry someone who cooks, or she’ll starve.”
“How old is she?” Emily asks.
“Nearly fifteen.”
“Is she still in school?”
“Yes,” I say. “Good child, but she doesn’t have my mind or my husband’s determination. She does write well. That, she can do. The younger one, now—the younger one has a mind for math. I can tell, young as she is.”
Bits of chalk crumble off as Emily scrawls up square roots and summation signs.
I let the words tremble at the front of my lips for a moment before they burst forward. “I thought of you as a mother, you know,” I say. The momentum of it carries me toward her step by step, but she doesn’t face me. “I was young. I thought the world of you. I thought you cared.”
“I did, Faina,” Emily says, sounding dazed. Engrossed in what she’s writing. “I did care for you, and yes, there were times I thought of you as my own child. But . . .” At last, she finishes the huge equation. She stands back, admiring it, and turns to me. “What do you think?”
I swallow hard, scanning the chalkboard. My index finger brushes the last term. I pick up the chalk and trace the tiny piece of the line I erased. “It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful work.”
“So you see why I had to go?” she says. “Why I had to resume my research?”
“No, I don’t. But it is still beautiful work.” I let the chalk drop to the stage. With a crisp little snap, it breaks in two. I look down at it for a moment. The space shared between Emily and me hangs heavy, and my heart beats hard. Her age makeup is dark in the spotlight, whitish bags drawn under her eyes and creases pressed in at the sides of her nose.
The apology spreads across her face. Emily approaches me, and anticipation prickles at my palms. Finally, she’ll try to take me back and keep every promise she ever made.
“Do you want me to show you the rest?” she says. “I could try to find a way. I could go back and ask the other professors if you could join us at the university. I could—”
“Mama?” says a voice. I turn, and my daughter enters. “I did it,” she says. “I made dinner. And—and we are all waiting for you at home.”
I study Ani, struck by the hopefulness in her voice. The plea for acceptance and love. For one second, I swear to God her blue eyes look like my sister’s.
All at once, I understand what García meant when he asked me to rethink the end of the show. This play doesn’t close with my character’s defeat. I might have hoped for something years ago, but in the meantime, I found something else beautiful. Something that I haven’t valued until the closing scene.
What I saw this whole time as an obligation to my family isn’t an obligation—it’s a privilege. And at the end, I’m finally happy to have it. Lucky, even.
I’m lucky.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” I say to Ani, choking on the words. I turn back to Emily. “No,” I say. “I can’t go with you.”
“But—”
“I won’t go,” I say, and it’s not resignation this time. It’s self-acceptance. Here, I choose to love what I have. Here, I choose to love what I am now.
Walking away from Emily, I half smile. My cheeks are wet and cold with salt and water.
As I exit, the curtain collapses toward the stage, billowing down as if in exhaustion. The dark smack of applause thunders out in the audience like heavy, cleansing rain.
I imagine
him next week, driving I-70 East, steady hands, steady wheel, steady pace,
steadily disappearing.
I imagine
myself next year, walking a stage, steady feet, steady breath, steady pace,