"Did you have a good day?" Olena asked hopefully as her only son came through the door after school. He hadn't been himself since before New Years, and it didn't escape her attention that Rose had only called once since she'd been back from Scotland. She'd pressed and pressed Dimka for information, but he'd refused to say anything other than he and Rose had fought. After days of him moping around, she'd finally done something she usually tried to avoid; she'd asked her daughter Sonya what was going on.
Sonya was a sophomore at St Vlad's and knew exactly what was being said. But she wasn't stupid enough to tell her mother that Dimitri had been drinking or that he'd apparently had sex with a girl that wasn't Rose! So she'd just told her Dimitri and Rose had broken up, and it looked like it might be final.
Olena looked to Sonya as she followed her brother in, sighing when she shook her head slightly. She'd hoped Rose and Dimitri seeing each other at school might be enough for them to reconcile, but apparently not.
"Dimka – Mrs. Dodov needs some help in her apartment. Can you give her a hand before you start your homework? There's a plate of pryanik on the counter – take that down with you."
Dimitri nodded, washing his hands, changing into home clothes and grabbing his tool belt. The Belikovs lived on the third floor of a three-story walk-up. Separate units with a shared staircase, the widowed landlady Mrs. Dodov lived on the first floor, the other flat on that level occupied by elderly Mr. Smirnoff. There were two apartments on the second floor that were rented out to students, and the Belikovs shared the third floor.
As accommodations in the city went, their apartment was huge. Two flats side by side, Mrs. Dodov had allowed them to make an arch in the adjoining wall to turn it into one huge apartment, which is just as well given there were seven of them living there; Dimitri, his three sisters, mother, grandmother, and nephew.
The block itself was falling apart. The plumbing was shot, the wiring suspect, the heating unreliable and just about every window leaked. But Mrs. Dodov knew Olena and Yeva from church and understood the family's financial situation was dire, so she rented them the two apartments for less than half the rate she could get for just one. She was a kindhearted lady, and his grandmother's only real friend here in America, so every morning Dimitri or Sonya would help their Babushka down the stairs to Mrs. Dodov's apartment when they left for school, and every afternoon Olena would help her back upstairs. In addition, Olena made sure a serve of dinner found its way downstairs every evening for the widow, and a portion of anything else she baked, too. Plus every Saturday Olena and her younger daughters Sonya and Viktoria would endure taking the two Russian widows to the market.
"Did she say what's wrong?" Dimitri asked, wondering what other tools he should take downstairs with him.
"I think it's the plumbing again," his mother said, giving him a sympathetic look as he grabbed a wire coat hanger, some plumbing tape, a wrench and the plate of biscuits, and headed downstairs.
Just eighteen, he was already twice the man his father was, Olena reflected. Like all her children, he'd been born in Russia in a small town a couple of hours outside Omsk. He'd spent his first eleven years living in his grandmother's large home, attending the local school. Randall, his father, had been educated, handsome, charming and a dreamer. God's gift to eighteen-year-old Olena when they'd met. Even then he'd always been onto the 'next big thing,' yet somehow whatever scheme he was embroiled in never seemed to eventuate.
He'd been loving, ebullient and great fun to be around when things were going well, but violent, abusive and a drunkard when they didn't. America had been his idea. Olena had been reticent to sell everything they owned and move countries with their four, nine, eleven and thirteen-year-olds, but Randall had been so insistent. No one could make a living in Russia, he'd argued. America was the land of opportunity, and he had a good solid job lined up. So they'd set off to their new life, saying goodbye to her family and all the friends she'd ever known.
The 'sure thing' evaporated almost as soon as they arrived, and Randall had found if work was hard to come by in Russia, it was almost impossible to find in America. He'd become more and more violent; hurting her more viciously than he'd ever dared when she'd had the protection of her family and friends back home. Olena was forced to find work to try and keep them afloat, barely seeing her children as she worked two jobs to keep the wolves from the door. And then one day she'd come home to find all his things and anything of value gone, her almost five-year-old parked alone and hungry in front of the TV, and a note telling her he'd gone, he wasn't coming back, and that two months was owing on the rent.
Her mother had been a godsend, flying across to take care of the children while Olena worked to settle their debts and prepare to move back to Russia. The debts proved to be more extensive than she'd initially thought, and by the time she was in a position to think about moving, Viktoria had started school, Karolina was in high school, and all the kids were happy. It seemed cruel to uproot them, so her mother rented her home in Russia to some relatives, they'd found the apartments with Mrs. Dodov, and they'd been here ever since.
A little later the sound of banging reverberated up through the building. Plumbing again then, Olena thought with a sigh, putting Dimitri's plate of food into the oven to keep warm and sending her youngest Viktoria down with Mrs. Dodov's meal. It was a wonder there was any plumbing in the place left to fix. Surely Dimitri had replaced most of it by now?! Over an hour later she heard his weary steps on the stairs and heard him call out that he would have a quick shower before eating. Ten minutes later he brought his plate into the living room where they were all cuddled up under quilts on the sagging sofas watching TV. It was January, so it was freezing out, and thanks to the temperamental heating only marginally warmer within.
"All fixed?" she asked.
"For now. I'll need to get some parts and do more over the weekend," he explained between mouthfuls of his dinner.
"Can you stay and watch TV with us?" his mother asked.
"Sorry, Mama, first day back and there's already homework," he said with a small smile, taking his empty plate back to the kitchen before grabbing his school bag and heading off to his room. He turned his small radio onto an easy listening station and powered through his homework, taking the time to read over the material they'd be covering in class tomorrow and annotate his texts with sticky notes detailing questions to ask. Then he packed his bag and gym bag for the morning so he'd be ready to go straight after breakfast.
Finally, he switched off the radio, his lamp and climbed into bed. It was still early enough that his family was up. He could hear the muffled sound of the television through the thin apartment walls, but he didn't want to bring them down with his company. Instead, he lay in bed, remembering how good Rose had felt in his arms today. He fell asleep wiping the tears from his face, wishing he could have that night over again and never gone to that damned party.
"Do you want a snack?" Janine asked as her only child let herself into the house, tracking sludge from her boots into the clean entryway before she changed into house slippers. "And can you wipe that up..."
"... before Tata has a fit? Yes I know, I know," Rose said with a sigh. For a man who probably didn't know one end of a mop from the other, her father was ridiculously particular about his floors. Or at least it seemed that way to Rose. Actually, Abe Mazur was ridiculously particular about a lot of things!
Having arrived in America twenty years ago with a new bride and not much else, Abe believed in hard work, not cutting corners, only buying that what you needed and taking care of your belongings. And these philosophies extended to his home.
Buying a dilapidated single family attached home during a dip in the market in a suburb that at the time couldn't even be considered up and coming, Abe had slowly restored the ugly duckling into a showpiece, as other young families in the area did likewise. Pouring hours of his blood, sweat, and tears into the project, Abe and Janine were now the proud owners of a beautiful four bedroom plus attic and basement family home in a neighborhood of similar tasteful houses.
The plan had always been for Janine and Abe to fill those bedrooms with lots of little Mazurs, but a complication during Rozalia's delivery left Janine unable to have another child, so once Rose had started at school, Janine had begun studying and was now a physiotherapist. She worked school hours in a nearby rehabilitation center for returned serviceman. She said she liked to give back to the stalwart guardians of life and liberty who'd been injured defending their homeland.
Abe worked as an overseer for the city in construction. A qualified building surveyor, his job was to attend work sites, checking and signing off that the regulatory requirements had been met on construction and renovation jobs. With his eye for detail, meticulous record keeping, and strong ethics he'd quickly risen through the ranks and was now the deputy for his part of the city. It also gave him exposure to numerous tradespersons, allowing him to make contacts with those who shared his own exacting standards – one of whom was presently out the front relaying the front steps to the house, hence the sludge.
"I don't know why Tata is having those steps redone," Rose grumbled, grabbing some paper towel and wiping the floor in the entryway until it was dry and clean. "They were fine!"
"You know your father," Janine said rolling her eyes. She'd given up trying to persuade Abe it was an old house, and some imperfections were to be expected. "How was your first day back? Did you see all your friends?"
While Janine had been close with Rose when she was little, the teenaged years had brought a distance between them. It was understandable, she supposed, that her little girl would become her own person and want to spend more time with her friends than with her mother, but she missed the easy conversations and confidences she used to share with her only child.
"Yeah it was ok," Rose said, starting on the sandwich her mother put in front of her.
"Did you see Dimitri?" she asked leadingly.
"Yep."
"And?"
"And... I saw Dimitri," Rose said looking at her mother and refusing to be drawn any further.
Janine sighed. She knew something had happened between the two of them. They'd spoken when Rose first got back from seeing Janine's family in Scotland, and after that Rose had refused to take his calls. The boy had rung numerous times asking to speak with her, but she'd refused to come to the phone. Eventually, Abe had muttered something about Russians not knowing when they weren't wanted and had answered the phone, telling Dimitri that until his daughter said his phone calls were welcome again, he wasn't to ring the house. They'd clearly broken up, but what Janine wanted to know was why.
Seeing her mother was in a curious mood, Rose scarfed down her sandwich and headed upstairs, using the excuse of homework. Sadly it wasn't even a lie. First day back and she already had stuff to work through!
She settled at her desk, which was in front of one of the two large windows that opened into her huge room. Originally this room had been the master, but her parents had remodeled when she was an infant to add a new master and master bath for themselves at the back of the house. So she ended up with this bedroom, and her own bathroom right next door. Next to that was the spare room, which was opposite her parents' study, although her father spent most of the time in the basement where he had his workshop setup.
Knuckling down, Rose finished her homework, spending extra time on her maths and English literature. She and Dimitri used to do their math and English homework together. He had a way with numbers that bordered on genius and was able to explain concepts to her in ways which just made sense. In return, she helped him with English. While he'd grown up learning English at school in Russia, he'd only moved here when he was eleven, and it was still a second language to him so she'd explain unfamiliar terms or meanings to him. She remembered early on when they were dating she'd had to explain the phrase 'cooking with gas,' and he'd stared at her incredulously declaring the English language was strange.
Closing her books, she threw herself onto her bed. She opened her drawer to pull out a photo of she and Dimitri taken the middle of last year. It had been summer, and they'd caught a bus with Lissa and Christian out to a rural area to hang out and have a picnic. They'd taken way too much food, and had ended up getting lost in an area with no cell reception. But they'd found their way eventually, and it had been the best day. Lissa had taken this photo of them, and she'd loved it. They both looked so happy and relaxed. She'd always kept it in her bedside drawer as her father would flip if she had it out on display.
Looking at Dimitri's hair loose and hanging near his shoulders, she remembered the kisses and words of love they'd shared on the way home, cuddled up together on the bus.
"You said you wanted me and only me, Comrade," Rose said staring at Dimitri's beautiful smile in the picture. "You lied."
She was lying on her bed crying when she heard her father come home. Quickly wiping her tears from her face, she came downstairs.
"Rozalia!" her father greeted, giving her a tender hug. He noticed her eyes were red and was opening his mouth to ask, but caught his wife's look over his daughter's shoulder and chose to say nothing.
"Something smells good!" he enthused, saying the same thing he said every night.
"Pot roast and rumbledethumps," Janine said smiling at Rose.
"Really?!" she grinned. Rumbledethumps was one of her Mom's Scottish dishes, and it was delicious. Janine usually reserved it for 'comfort food,' and the loving smile she was giving her made Rose realize her Mom knew she was still upset.
Rose set the table and sat in her usual spot on one side, her Mom at one end, her Tata at the other. It was her mother's turn to lead in prayer this evening. Apparently who would lead the prayer before food had been one of the many religious disagreements between Janine and Abe when Rose had been a baby, so now they took it in turns. Abe had won the war; Rozalia was at an Orthodox school and practiced the Orthodox faith, but it didn't stop her mother doing things the Catholic way any chance she got! Rose was glad it was her mother's night; her Catholic prayers were a lot shorter!
The three of them started their meal, talking about inconsequential matters of the day. In fact, everything was going well, until her father asked, "Did you see the Russian today?" It irritated Rose that her father had always referred to Dimitri as 'The Russian' and only ever by his given name when he was speaking to him on the phone.
"His name's Dimitri and yes!" Rose snapped.
"So I take it it's all back on again then," Abe asked peevishly. Abe was an old fashioned man. He didn't like the idea of his seventeen-year-old girl dating. Sure the young man sounded nice enough, and he was hugely relieved the boy was Orthodox, but Rozalia needed to be focusing on her studies. Also, if the boy had wanted to date his daughter he should have come and asked permission, Abe thought.
"No."
"No? Well, that's just the sort of high-handed treatment you'd expect from a Russian," he said, starting in on one of his familiar rants. "There's a long history between Russia and Poland, you know," he started, surprised when Rose threw her cutlery onto the table.
"I don't care! Right now I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear about him! And if you decide you need to talk about him even though I don't want to hear about it, his name is DIMITRI!"
Bursting into furious tears, Rose ran up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Back downstairs, Janine shot Abe an irritated look before picking up Rose's half finished plate and taking it to the counter.
"You just couldn't leave it, could you?!" she snapped.
"What do you mean? If the Russian thinks he's better than our little girl then he's not welcome in this home," Abe blustered. While he didn't like the idea of his princess dating, he liked the idea of someone dumping her even less.
"Honestly, Abe? Can't you tell she's the one who broke it off? She's upset about seeing him, and the last thing she needs is you mentioning it!"
"She dumped him? What did the Russian do?" Abe demanded, standing up his brown eyes flashing.
"I don't know yet, but I'll find out," she promised in an endeavor to calm her husband down. "But in the meantime the boy's name is Dimitri!"