The last time I saw her she ended the night sobbing into her tomato soup. Passing by, the waiter grimaced not out of sympathy towards her, but towards the Michelin-treaded dinner. Like so many times before, I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Anna wiped her cheek with her napkin, smearing tomato sauce across her face. I thought it best not to tell her. “Dr. Kelly had the brilliant idea to switch me to Prozac.”
“It takes some time for it to kick in,” I said.
“He changed it six months ago.”
I returned to cutting my chicken breast into ever smaller pieces.
“So, what airline are you, like, going on tomorrow?” I asked.
It was best to ignore her outbursts. In the oil aisle of Costco, in the middle of history class, or even on the sidewalk on her way to get the mail - she could cry in a fetal position anywhere. Some sort of dread or depression or shame overwhelmed her. She could never explain it, like speaking the words out loud would make it even more real.
“Delta. It will be four a.m. in Omsk when I arrive. Assuming no delays, obviously.”
She was nine the last time she visited. Back then I had to swipe the dark bangs away from her eyes with Hello Kitty clips. Funnily enough, she hated it there. During a street sale, our aunt bought Anna a matryoshka doll that she hurriedly deconstructed (but not without giving a forehead kiss to each one). After finding the last piece to be a dull block of wood, she cried and cried and cried. She thought there would be chocolate.
That’s why now, three years after she left for Omsk, I don’t understand why she brought a doll back for me as a souvenir. I don’t know why she brought anything at all, after three years of radio silence. Maybe there’s a dead rat right at the center of the doll, with a smaller rat lying limp in its teeth.
Shifting her weight between her boots - a vestigial feature from her cold nights in Omsk- she pushed the Russian doll into my hands, perhaps in an effort to skip to the forgiveness part.
I didn’t say anything.
Looking past her Gogol-esque overcoat, I noticed that she had gotten paler, and slimmed her face. She carried her brown locks in curls now, framing her newly discovered talents in makeup. Yet, the biggest change was that she was smiling. She never did before, claiming that it was too hard for her to remember.
“You look nice,” I said, from across the kitchen island.
Taking the green light, she moved towards me. “I’m sorry, Irina,” she said in a small voice.
How many times have I heard that?
“I wanted to make something of myself before I saw you and mom again. I can’t stand hearing you guys disappointed in -”
“We were never dis-”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m fine now.”
She did have the purse of a woman who was doing fine in life. But she had the weathered hands of a worker.
What did she do in Russia?
We paused in a stalemate, as she stared at the childhood photos of us I still had on my refrigerator. My fourth grade birthday party. For some reason, it embarrassed me.
“It’s okay if you need time,” she started. “But I want you and mom to visit my new apartment this weekend. I’ll send you the address. You haven’t changed your number, have you?”
I shook my head.
She gently placed her hand over mine. Cold. She would have never done this before.
In a moment of doubt, I squeezed her hand and flipped it over. While she smiled at the friendly gesture, I looked for the birthmark that punctuated the end of her hand’s life line.
“I’ll see you then,” I said. She disappeared from the doorframe.
There was no birthmark. I don’t know what that means- I don’t even know what that implies. I just know there was no birthmark. Should I confront her at her apartment next week? Will I sound crazy if I call the cops? Or maybe I just checked the wrong hand. I don’t know. I just want my sister back.