All These Things I've Done

  “Now kiss your cousin and make up,” Uncle Yuri instructed Mickey.

  “I’ve not had chicken pox yet,” Mickey said. “No offense, Anya. Vaccines don’t always work.”

  “None taken,” I assured him. “Did you have a nice honeymoon?” I asked.

  “We didn’t go on one. I couldn’t leave work,” Mickey said. “Yuji Ono was in town, breathing fire down my neck, and we’re still dealing with fallout from the Fretoxin poisoning all these months later, if you can believe that.”

  “Did you ever figure out who did it?”

  Mickey shook his head. “Some of us are starting to suspect it was an inside job.”

  “Enough business talk,” Yuri said. “Annie doesn’t want to hear this.”

  I nodded and turned to Yuri. “Perhaps it would be best if Leo didn’t work at the Pool anymore?” I suggested.

  “There is no need for that,” Uncle Yuri assured me. “He’s an excellent worker, and what has happened is of no consequence. Tell Leo to take tomorrow off and we’ll see him on Monday as usual.” Uncle Yuri offered to pour me a cup of tea, but I told him that I was needed at home. “How are things now that Galina has passed?” he asked. “Are you and your siblings managing?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure if we were, but the last thing I wanted was my family’s help.

  When I got back to the apartment, everything was quiet. I could see a light under my sister’s door, which usually meant she was studying. Though it wasn’t part of her job description, Imogen was washing dishes. I went into the kitchen to talk to her.

  “I made dinner,” Imogen said. “And I gave your brother an aspirin.”

  “Thank you very much,” I said. “You didn’t have to do any of this.”

  Imogen turned off the water. “I care very much for you and your brother and sister, Annie. Even though Galina is dead, I still worry for you.”

  I nodded and suddenly I had what I thought was a very good idea. “I hope this won’t offend you, but would you be willing to stay on for the next couple of weeks?” I asked her. “I know you’re a health-care worker, not a nanny, but I could really use the help. And it might make things more normal for them.” I gestured down the hallway toward where we slept. “Mr. Kipling will pay you the same amount you’ve always been paid.”

  “Only I won’t have to deal with any bedpans.” Imogen smiled at me.

  “If you ever wanted to stay over, you could use Nana’s room,” I said.

  “Sounds good, Annie. Honestly, I was hoping to be asked.”

  Though I am not much of a hugger, I hugged Imogen. She was holding her arms wide out to me, and it would have been rude not to.

  She offered to heat up some dinner for me, but I declined. My stomach was still a bit wonky.

  “Toast?” she offered.

  I had to admit, that sounded good.

  She cut off the crusts and set the toast on a pretty porcelain plate and then she sent me to bed.

  When I went into my room, I found Win waiting for me. He was reading a book.

  “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

  “You didn’t say goodbye earlier,” Win said, setting the book on the bed. (The book was one of Imogen’s.) “I didn’t know where you’d gone. I was just waiting to see if you’d been killed. Now that I see you aren’t dead, I can leave.” Win stood up. He was almost a foot taller than me. I felt small and wretched next to him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It couldn’t be avoided.”

  “‘It couldn’t be avoided’? Is that the best you can do for an apology?” He was smiling when he said this.

  “I … My life is complex. I really am sorry.”

  Win furrowed his brow and then he kissed me. “You’re forgiven.”

  “The only thing I’ve done today is apologize. I’m starting to feel like the sorriest person on earth.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Win said. “I doubt you’re the sorriest person on earth. Earth is a very big place.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I was starting to wonder if you’d run off with Yuji. Is that how you say his name?” Win asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I was starting to be jealous.”

  “Don’t be,” I said. “Yuji is twenty-three. He’s way too old for me.”

  “And you prefer me, right?”

  “Yes, of course I prefer you. Stop being so silly, Win.”

  “Twenty-three isn’t all that old,” Win teased me. “By the time you’re eighteen, he’ll only be twenty-five.”

  “Funny. That’s the exact same thing Natty once said about you. Except you’re only four years apart from her.”

  “Does Natty have a crush on me?” Win asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Can’t you tell? She’s sort of obsessed with you.”

  Win shook his head. “That’s cute.”

  The doorbell rang, and I went to answer it. I looked through the peephole. A man I’d never seen before carried a cardboard box wrapped in clear cellophane (the expensive kind that you didn’t see much in those days because it wasn’t recyclable). He was shorter than me with thin limbs that seemed suspicious in contrast with his round belly. I wondered if he was really fat or if all that padding concealed something nefarious: i.e., a weapon.

  “Delivery for Anya Balanchine,” he called.

  “Who’s it from?” I asked without opening the door.

  “Didn’t say,” the supposed delivery man replied.

  “One minute,” I called back. I went to Nana’s closet to retrieve Daddy’s gun. I tucked it into the waistband of my skirt and returned to the foyer. I left the chain on and opened the door a crack.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “If I told you, it’d spoil the surprise,” the delivery man replied.

  “I don’t like surprises,” I said.

  “Come on, all girls like surprises,” said the delivery man.

  “Not me.” I moved to close the door.

  “Wait! It’s flowers!” he said. “Just take them, will you? You’re my last stop of the night.”

  “I’m not expecting any flowers,” I told him.

  “Well, that’s how it works. People don’t usually expect flowers.”

  He had a point.

  “Sign here.” The man held out the cardboard box and then gave me an electronic device to sign.

  I told him that I’d rather not.

  “Come on, kid. Stop making my life so hard. Sign here, will ya?”

  “Why don’t you do it for me?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said. Then he muttered, “Kids these days ain’t got no manners.”

  I took the surprisingly heavy box into the kitchen. I cut open the cellophane with a knife. Twenty-four yellow roses cut short sat in neat rows in a shallow square vase. They were the nicest flowers I’d ever been sent. I tore open the cream paper envelope with my name on it and read the message:

  Dear Anya,

  I apologize if I was hard on you today. You have experienced a very great loss and my behavior was little more than that of a thoughtless bully.

  I, of all people, know the sacrifices you make. Know that you are neither alone nor friendless.

  Your Old Friend (I hope),

  Yuji Ono

  P.S. When I was still a boy, I once had reason to be in the depths of despair. Your father shared these words with me: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. These words have always stayed with me, which is why I now pass them on to you.

  P.P.S. One of these days, perhaps you will have opportunity to return to Kyoto.

  In order to fit all of that on the card, the writer had had to make his letters small and precise. Though I couldn’t be sure, I thought it was Yuji’s own handwriting—he could have stopped at the florist on the way to the airport—and this, along with the formal wording, were very great signs of respect to me. Beyond that, there was the gift of hearing something my father had said. I
could hold on to that long after the flowers had died. I bent down to smell the roses. The scent was clean and peaceful, suggesting a place I had never been but should very much like to visit someday. I did not particularly care for flowers, but these were … I had to admit, these were lovely. I had just slipped the card into my pocket when Win came into the kitchen. He asked me who had sent me the flowers, and without knowing why, I lied.

  “One of my relatives couldn’t make it to Nana’s wake,” I explained.

  “They look expensive,” he commented. “I should go,” he said. “I’m meeting up with some guys from the non-band.”

  “So soon?” I felt like I’d barely seen him.

  “Anya, I’ve been here eight hours!”

  After Win was gone, I sat down at the kitchen table across from my roses, and I read the card again. I wondered why Yuji had been in the depths of despair. Had it been the death of his father? Or had it been before that? I remembered that he had been kidnapped as a boy. That was how he had lost his finger, though I wasn’t sure of the specifics.

  I read the card yet again. Is it going too far to say that his card made me feel seen? I had spent so much of my life trying to keep us unseen: i.e., alive and well. And yet someone had guessed. Someone had seen. Someone had apologized to me. And not just anyone, but someone uniquely positioned to know how things stood, who knew the game from the player side. Someone who had suffered as I had.

  I was not alone.

  I slipped the card back into my pocket and then I went to Nana’s room to return the gun to her closet.

  XVII.

  i make plans for the summer

  THE FIRST THING I DID WHEN I got back to school was go to see Natty’s teacher. While I was convalescing, I had come to a decision about the genius camp: namely, that Natty should go to it and that I should do everything in my power to make this happen. Upon hearing the news, Miss Bellevoir behaved in an expectedly ludicrous manner—hugging and kissing me, then loading me down with instructions and phone numbers and deadlines and costs. “We are now joined together in this noble quest,” she said to me as I left. I did not want to be joined to her. I had more than my share of obligations as it was.

  My conversation with Miss Bellevoir took longer than I had anticipated so I was five minutes late to Dr. Lau’s FS II class. In general, Dr. Lau was relaxed about tardiness, especially mine, but on this day she lowered her glasses and said in a cement voice, “Ms. Balanchine, I’d like to have a word with you after class.” Her tone was such that it made my classmates ooh. I took my seat next to Win and waited for the hour to end so that I could receive my punishment. I liked Dr. Lau and I was a good student, but this had certainly not been my strongest year academically. I’d missed nearly a month of school in total, and FS II was an especially hard class to make up, having as much of a lab component as it did.

  The bell rang. I told Win to go on ahead. “Good luck,” he said.

  I walked slowly to Dr. Lau’s desk. I resisted the urge to apologize for my absenteeism. It’s a weakness to apologize before hearing what the other person’s grievances are. You don’t want to end up creating new grievances where there were none to begin with. (Another Daddy-ism, if you hadn’t already guessed.) “Ah, yes, Ms. Balanchine,” Dr. Lau said, “I’d like you to have a look at this.”

  She tapped the screen to send a file to my slate. I opened and then skimmed it:

  TEEN CRIME SCENE ENRICHMENT SUMMER

  JUNE 30–AUGUST 15, 2083

  Washington, D.C.

  Sponsored by the FBI and the National Society of Criminologists

  Deadline: April 8, 2083

  Teachers, only your best young criminologists need apply.

  Students must be rising juniors and seniors, have completed

  at least two (preferably three) years of forensic science

  (crime scene processing, the handling of trace evidence, etc.),

  and demonstrate extraordinary aptitude for the field.

  Selection will be highly competitive.

  I set down my slate and looked up at Dr. Lau.

  “You’ve only had two years of forensic science, but they’ve been with me. I feel confident that two years with me stacks up to three years with most any other teacher,” Dr. Lau boasted. “It’s a solid program,” she continued. “Lots of field research, which is not something I can provide for you here. And you’d get to spend the summer away with kids your own age. They have activities—ice cream socials and bowling and such. Not that this is the point. You have a mind for forensic science and this could be an important step for you, Anya.”

  The idea of visiting actual crime scenes was certainly appealing. But even more appealing than that was the possibility of spending the summer away.

  The summer away. Other people spent summers away. Scarlet, for instance, had passed several of them at a theater camp in Pennsylvania. I spent summers here, watching my brother and sister and Nana. And I knew for a fact that Win wasn’t doing anything this summer except filling out applications for college. There were worse ways to pass the summer than hanging out with my boyfriend, assuming I was able to keep him.

  “I can’t,” I said finally.

  “I thought you’d say that.” Dr. Lau nodded. “I know a bit about your circumstances and I’ve prepared a counterargument. Would you like to hear it?”

  I nodded.

  “Then I will speak bluntly. Your grandmother is dead, so you don’t have to watch her anymore. In all likelihood, Nataliya will be attending genius camp with Miss Bellevoir—”

  I interrupted. “How did you know about that?”

  “Teachers do talk, you know. Your brother, Leonyd, may be somewhat mentally disabled, but he is a grown man and you cannot babysit him forever. If anything, a summer away would be good practice for your inevitable separation from him.” She paused to see how I was responding. I made sure to keep my face blank. “That deadpan will serve you well as a criminologist, Anya. My final point is that you haven’t been accepted to the program yet. Despite the glowing recommendation I will surely write for you, they only accept one hundred students to the program, and you have a handicap, which is that you’ve only had two years of forensic science. In other words, you may as well apply now and decide later.”

  Her argument was well thought out and comprehensive. “Thank you,” I said.

  I put off my application until the last Sunday of Easter vacation. Mainly what tripped me up was the essay. There was a choice of five questions. After much deliberation, I picked the fifth: What is the relation of forensic science to your life? The writing did not come easily to me. It was such a personal subject, really. I wrote about my father being murdered and how the cops hadn’t done a thorough job investigating the crime scene because they had assumed he was a criminal. And though it was true that my father had been a criminal, he had also been a father and a son. I wrote that all people, no matter their background or how obvious the circumstances of their crime look, are owed a thorough investigation. I wrote that even more than the victims, the survivors of a crime are owed the peace of mind of knowing what happened, so that they can get on with their lives. Forensic scientists weren’t merely scientists for the dead, but, really, priests and therapists for the living, too.

  Then I paid the postage, hit send, and, for the moment at least, managed not to feel as if I was betraying anyone.

  The phone rang. I thought it might be Win, but it turned out to be Mr. Kipling. He said that he had some news for Leo. The animal clinic where Leo used to work had finally cleared up its health-code-violations situation, and would reopen on June 1. “I still don’t know where the original tip came from,” Mr. Kipling said, “but this is good news, right?”

  “You have no idea!” I said. I told him about my application to Teen Crime Scene Summer and Natty’s admittance to genius camp, and how much better I would feel knowing that Leo was back working at the animal clinic instead of at the Pool.

  “A summer away would be good for
you, Annie,” Mr. Kipling said. “Just the thing to get you on the road to your first-choice college. Have you put any thought into that yet?”

  “Um …”

  “Well, there’s still time for that. And, of course, the offer about the college tour still stands,” Mr. Kipling said. “Maybe on the way back from your summer program even?”

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  “As I mentioned, the clinic won’t reopen until the summer, and I’m not sure it’s the best thing for any of you if Leo appears to be switching jobs too often or has too long a period of unemployment. Nothing that bad has happened to Leo at the Pool, right?”

  “Aside from the punch, and it seems that was mainly his fault, not that I know of.”

  “So, perhaps we should leave well enough alone for the time being. Leo stays on at the Pool until the clinic reopens in June.”

  After I hung up the phone, I went down the hall to my brother’s room to tell him the good news.

  I knocked on Leo’s door. He was lying on his bed, staring out the window. Though his eye was much improved, he seemed preoccupied and listless. I asked him a series of questions about his day to which I received a series of one-word replies.

  “You seem tired, Leo,” I said finally.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Is it your head?”

  “I’m fine, Annie! Stop fussing at me.”

  “Well, I have good news for you,” I said brightly. “I was on the phone with Mr. Kipling. He said the clinic will be reopening in the summer!”

  Leo smiled for the first time in weeks. “Oh, that’s so great!”

  “Do you think you’d like to work there again?” I asked him.

  Leo thought for a moment, and then he said, “I don’t think I can.”

  I asked him why not.

  “They need me at the Pool, Annie.”

  “They need you at the clinic, too. What about the animals, Leo?”