All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(27)

He’d definitely been running away.

He wasn’t so sure what he was doing now. He’d come back to Quarrytown without intending to stay longer than he had to, but a certain lethargy had overtaken him. If he wasn’t running, it was because he’d started sinking back into the quagmire of this small town, this house, his mother and brother, and the girl next door.

Oh, her.

He shouldn’t have kissed her. It was going to come back to bite him. Or haunt him, the way he’d been haunted forever already by the memories of her. He was supposed to be smarter, but it looked like he’d only gotten older.

Everyone was leaving by the time he got back from Allie’s house, and since Ilya had disappeared, Niko was the one who shook their hands and accepted the condolences. With the front door closed behind the last of the guests, he took in a long, deep breath and thought about the mess of food in the dining room he was certain his mother wouldn’t be doing much to clean up. To his surprise, he found her there packing away the leftovers into a pile of mismatched plastic and glass containers.

“Theresa and your brother went for a walk. She’s trying to get him to sober up, but good luck with that.” Galina shrugged and stuck a handful of dinner rolls into a plastic baggie, then sealed it. She straightened and shook her head so the fall of her long, dark hair skidded down her back. The silver in it glinted from the overhead light.

“Mom, let me take care of this. Why don’t you go sit down?” Niko went to the table to start packing up the food.

“I’ve been sitting all night. It’s good for me to be on my feet.” She gave him a sideways glance. “Where were you?”

“I took some casseroles over to Allie’s house. No room in the fridge here.” When she didn’t answer him, he glanced up.

Galina’s expression was neutral, her faint smile not reaching her eyes. “I thought maybe you’d gone away already. So eager to leave again.”

At least she hadn’t said “so eager to leave me again,” although he’d heard the whisper of it in her voice.

Niko put down the small box of cookies that had come from the local bakery. Nobody had even opened it. “I’m not leaving right away.”

“So, you’re staying here? For how long?” His mother tilted her head in a familiar mannerism.

He’d been given two weeks’ bereavement leave, but the Beit Devorah council had also approved six weeks’ sabbatical time. It was leave meant to be used for study and travel, accumulated over the years he’d been a chaver, a full member of the kibbutz. He hadn’t made any plans yet; he only knew he wasn’t going back to Israel right away. He’d booked only a one-way flight. He didn’t feel like explaining any of this to his mother, though.

“I don’t know,” Niko said.

“It will be nice,” Galina said, “to have us all here for a while. It’s been a long time since we had any time together.”

Niko wasn’t entirely convinced it was going to be nice, but he nodded anyway. “Yeah. Sure.”

“This is my house, now that my mother is dead.” She said the words flatly, with little emotion, but Niko wasn’t fooled. Galina could switch from hilarity to fury in a blink. He had no doubts she could just as easily erupt into grief. “We can all stay here together. You don’t have to go away so soon, Kolya. That’s all.”

He paused at that. Babulya had often referred to him and his brother by the Russian diminutives of their names, but Galina hadn’t made it much of a habit. If anything, she’d said more than once that the only reason she’d agreed to give her sons Russian names instead of American ones had been to please her mother.

“No, I guess I don’t,” he said.

His mother smiled then. It looked genuine. She looked at the table of food, then at him, and laughed. “Who else would help me eat all of this?”

“Mom.”

She looked at him. “Hmmm?”

“I’m sorry about Babulya. I know losing her had to be hard.”

Galina’s smile faded. “We didn’t get along very well, my mother and I. A lot like your brother and I don’t always seem to get along very well. You and I were always so much closer.”

“Mom—”

“She’s dead, Nikolai, there’s no point in telling lies to make it all better,” his mother said firmly. “That serves nobody. If anything, we should take this as a chance to remember that we never know how much time we might have left in this life, and if we want to put the past behind us, we ought to start now.”

He nodded, agreeing to keep the peace but knowing there was no way to leave the past behind. “Sure. Of course.”

“Maybe you should run some more of this over to Allie’s house.” She held up a platter of brownies.

Especially when the past still lived across the street.

Niko hesitated. “Ah . . . it’s late, Mom.”

“Maybe tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

They worked together in silence, clearing off the table and putting away the perishables. Galina paused at the back door, her cigarettes and lighter in hand. She said his name.

“Yeah?” Niko replied.

“Thank you. For what you said about my mother.”

Before he could answer, Galina had ducked out the back door.