The Memory Keeper of Kyiv (38)

“Bobby? What are you doing?”

Her grandmother spun around. Hair stuck out all over her head and her bare feet were covered in dirt and grass. A housecoat hung crooked and open over her long nightgown. Her eyes, wide and frightened, darted around the room.

“Alina! Did they follow you? Who knows you are here?”

“What are you talking about? Who would follow me?” Panic rose up in Cassie’s chest, and she tried to tamp it down. Alina again. Who is she?

“The activists,” Bobby scoffed. “You know that. We have to hide the food, or they’ll take it.”

Cassie held out her hand and walked slowly towards Bobby. “There are no activists here. It’s only us.” She took the tray from Bobby and set it on the counter. “Nobody is coming to take the food, okay?”

A deep sob tore from Bobby’s lips, and she shouted, “They did take it! They took everything from us!”

“I know they did.” Even though she had no idea what Bobby was talking about, Cassie played along, in hopes of calming her down. “But we’re safe now. Nobody is coming tonight.”

Bobby rubbed at her tear-stained face with muddy fingers, leaving streaks of dirt across her cheeks. “You’re sure?”

“I promise.” Cassie took Bobby by the shoulders and guided her out of the kitchen. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and back in bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Bobby shuffled along with Cassie, mumbling in Ukrainian. Cassie helped her get out of her housecoat and wetted a washcloth to wipe her face, hands, and feet before tucking her back in bed.

“Thank you, Alina,” she said as she closed her eyes. Cassie waited for a few moments to make sure Bobby was really asleep, then crept out of the room and went back to the kitchen.

Slipping on a pair of sandals, she flipped on the back-porch light and walked out into the yard, looking for where Bobby had dug. In the perennial flower bed, under the old white mulberry tree, she found freshly turned dirt and a small trowel. Poking around a bit, she discovered two cans of peas, a plastic bag full of what looked like flour, and three tins of sardines in a shallow hole.

She glanced at her watch—4:30 a.m. Too early to wake up her mom. There was no way she could go back to sleep, though, so she carried the food back inside and put it all away, mopped the muddy floor, and put a pot of coffee on to brew.





Cassie picked at the protein muffin her mother had brought for breakfast. After she’d called her mother at 6:30, Anna had come right over.

“I thought maybe it was Birdie up for a drink of water, but it was Bobby, carrying food out of the kitchen to bury it.”

“Bury it?” Anna’s eyebrows raised.

“Yeah. She probably has a slip of paper somewhere with the foods and their location written down. That’s what those notes were. I had Nick translate a couple for me.”

“Nick was here? You didn’t mention that.”

“It’s no big deal. Bobby tried to take a walk while I was in the shower, and he helped me get her home.” Cassie downplayed the whole thing. She did not need her mother getting ideas about Nick.

Anna sighed. “You didn’t mention a lot of things. So, she’s still trying to go off on her own?”

“I was going to tell you all of it when you came over for dinner tonight, but then this hidden food thing threw me off,” Cassie said.

“All right. One problem at a time, then.” Anna poured herself a cup of coffee and sat at the table. “Did she say why she was burying the food?”

Cassie shook her head. “She said the activists would come and take it, so she had to hide it. And she called me Alina.”

“Who’s Alina?”

“I don’t know. What are activists? And who are these two girls?” She showed her mother the tattered picture of the two girls in front of the sunflower field. “It looks like the drawing Birdie drew. The one that upset Bobby so much.”

“A little bit. Bobby must have shown it to her.” Anna squinted at the photo. “I think this one on the left is Bobby. It looks like her eyes and nose.”

“Who’s the other girl?”

“I have no idea.” Anna pinched the bridge of her nose, her lifelong tell that she was fighting off a headache.

Cassie sipped her coffee. “I think we need to get her to talk about it. Maybe if we can understand why she’s flashing back and wandering off, we can help her cope with it better.”

“Good morning.” Bobby shuffled into the kitchen, Birdie on her heels.

Cassie and Anna straightened in their chairs and shared a guilty look as Bobby opened the refrigerator. “Who would like blintzes for breakfast?”

Birdie waved her hands in the air and jumped up and down.

“Didn’t you just make blintzes the other day?” Anna asked.

“You can never have too many blintzes,” Bobby said. “Besides, they are Birdie’s favorite. What other reason do I need to make them?”

Cassie eyed her grandmother warily. She seemed normal and completely in control—no signs of last night’s escapade. “How did you sleep, Bobby?”

“Fine, fine.” Bobby leaned into the fridge and took out some strawberries and cream cheese. “Cassie, get me a bowl, please.”