On Friday Irina Bazili arrived early at Lark House to look in on Alma before starting her day. Alma no longer needed her assistance to get dressed, but she was grateful to the young woman for coming to her apartment to share the day’s first cup of tea.
“Marry my grandson, Irina; you’d be doing all the Belascos a favor,” she often said to her.
Irina ought to have explained that she hadn’t yet succeeded in overcoming the terrors of the past, but could not mention it without dying of shame. How could she tell Seth’s grandmother that the monsters of her memory poked their lizard heads out of their lairs whenever she thought of making love with him? He understood that she wasn’t ready to talk and stopped pressing her to see a psychiatrist; for the time being it was enough for him to be her confidant. They could wait. Irina had proposed a drastic solution: to watch together the videos filmed by her stepfather, which were still circulating around the world and which would go on tormenting her to the end of her days. But Seth was afraid that once unleashed, these deformed creatures would become uncontrollable. His prescription consisted in taking things little by little, with love and good humor, advancing in a dance of two steps forward and one step back. They now slept in the same bed, and occasionally awoke in each other’s arms.
On this particular morning, Irina did not find Alma in her apartment or see any trace of the overnight bag she took on her secret outings, or her silk nightgowns. For the first time, however, Ichimei’s portrait had also gone. She already knew the car wasn’t going to be in its parking place but Irina was not alarmed, because Alma had grown steadier on her legs and she assumed Ichimei would be waiting for her. She wasn’t going to be alone.
Since it was Saturday, Irina did not have a shift at Lark House and had snoozed until nine, a luxury she could afford on weekends now that she was living with Seth and had given up washing dogs. He woke her with a big cup of milky coffee and sat beside her on the bed to plan their day. He had come in from the gym, freshly showered, his skin moist and still pumped up from the exercise, never imagining there would be no plans with Irina that day: it was to be a day for farewells. At that moment the phone rang. It was Larry Belasco calling to tell his son that his grandmother’s car had slid off a rural track and rolled fifty feet down a ravine.
“She is in the intensive care unit at Marin General Hospital,” he told him.
“Is it serious?” Seth asked, terrified.
“Yes. Her car was completely wrecked. I’ve no idea what my mother was doing driving out there.”
“Was she on her own, Papa?”