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Although I no longer live with my mother, the need to please her claws my insides like a trapped cat. Spending Christmas break together was meant to lessen some of my guilt, to dull that sharp sense of inadequacy. Instead, she used my visit to remind me of all the ways I’m throwing my life away.
Like me, Father agreed to this Christmas reunion to join Mother’s holiday show featuring a devoted husband and a contrite daughter. The star is, as always, Madelaine Johnson Petrov. We were photographed and corralled through a series of gatherings and galas.
Sergei never has to participate in the ruse because he’s always had hockey season to blame. That’s the surface excuse. The truth is the rift between Sergei and Madelaine feels unbridgeable.
I sigh, snagging Father’s attention while he’s on a lounge chair flipping through work documents. My e-reader is in front of me, a prop for pretending to read books assigned for my winter break.
As we sit across from each other, I can’t help feeling like we’re taking shelter together. The storm of Madelaine's wrath isn’t explosive, but it is relentless.
“Your mother, she has an opinion about tomorrow?” He means to suss out Mother’s reaction when I told her I was leaving with Father before school restarts.
I’m narrowing down my choices of the West Coast colleges I applied to. Father offered to join me in a handful of campus visits. It isn’t just companionship he’s providing, though; we’re using the company jet so we can make the most of his busy schedule.
I shrug, uninterested in miming Mother’s harsh reprimands when I told her that the only colleges I applied to are thousands of miles away.
Living in California is bad for your skin! Think of the sun and the pollution! Your friend Caroline is heading to Princeton, don’t you want to be with your old friends? You are beginning to have that annoying Ohio accent. Stop dragging your a’s like a hillbilly.
“She said it’s fine.”
With this exchange, I’m transported back to my childhood when the few times they stayed under the same roof, Nikolay and Madelaine used me as a mobile phone, shuttling messages back and forth. They refuse to divorce, though they will never willingly be in the same room together.
Although Father isn’t fooled by the casualness of my answer, he lets the topic drop. “My assistant made arrangements for tours of UCLA and California Institute of Technology. How about Berkeley?”
“I didn’t apply to Berkeley or Stanford.”
He sighs. “You will be chosen wherever you apply, Anastasia.” He does not have to add that my last name and his connections would be a big factor. “Why not apply to the best?”
“You just want me to apply to Princeton, like Mom does.”
“And what is so wrong about that?” he asks gently. “If not Ivy League, how about somewhere in Chicago, where you are at least within driving distance to your brother. It has been a pleasant few months, has it not? Living with Maeve and Sergei, I mean.”
“They’re incredible. I love living with them. It’s just that, well, this is their life, not mine.”
Father is quiet for a few minutes, my words hanging between us like an anvil about to drop.
“Your life is with your family,” he says to comfort me.
I snort while glancing at the closed door past his left shoulder. To shut himself inside the room is unnecessary. Mother has never set foot in his private office.
What would the Petrovs know about a conventional family life? My American mother moved me from Russia to the US as an infant, leaving behind my eight-year-old brother in a boarding school and her inattentive husband to his endless work. I let the hypocrisy of my father’s statement go because his features are already deeply wrinkled with lines of regret.
“Maeve and Sergei have welcomed me with open arms. But… but I still don’t, I still don’t belong.” There’s no need to add that I’ve never truly belonged anywhere.
“Belonging does not have to be a location,” he says thoughtfully. “It could be a feeling. A purpose. You’ll have that one day, I promise. In the meantime, do you have to be so far away?”
We’re rehearsing a worn-out script. “I’m an adult and can take care of myself.” If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it dozens of times.
“I’m your father. I am allowed to worry about you, no matter your age.” This powerful man, whose daily decisions can affect the stock market, sounds so desperate I almost feel sorry for him.
“I’m not disappearing from the face of the earth. This move, it’s a way for me to find my, what did you call it? My purpose.”
“You make your purpose. You don’t chase around like chicken without head.”
English is his second language, which accounts for some of his stranger phrasing.
“The world is your oyster, my child.”
Crinkling my nose, I snark, “Being in an oyster sounds awful.”
