“Great. Meet me on the back patio. Don’t ring the doorbell.” Cassie set the phone down and ran to get her laptop. She paused in front of the mirror and smoothed her hair, then scowled at her reflection. “You’re being ridiculous on so many levels.”
She stacked the box on her laptop and stepped out onto the patio right as he came in the gate.
“Thanks for coming over at such short notice.” She set everything on the patio table and sat down.
“What’s all this?” Nick pulled a chair up next to her, so close she could smell the shampoo on his damp hair.
Her heart fluttered, and she took a deep breath. “It’s Bobby’s. A journal, letters, pictures. She never talks about her life before she came to America, but lately she’s been sleepwalking and having these odd flashbacks. She’s talking about getting ready to die and how she wants me to know everything, but she can’t bear to tell me herself.”
Nick frowned. “That’s pretty heavy. She’s okay with me going through all of this?”
Cassie nodded. “She suggested it.”
“This is all in Ukrainian?” Nick thumbed through some loose notebook pages, pausing to read a few lines here and there.
“Yes, and I’d like to transcribe it as you translate so I have a record I can read.”
His arm brushed against hers as he scooted his chair closer, and goosebumps popped up all over her body. She unwrapped the embroidered cloth, revealing the brown leather journal. Inside the scuffed cover was her grandmother’s life—a story Cassie had been waiting her whole life to discover. What had she seen? What had she survived? She opened the journal and more loose papers that had been tucked inside spilled out. Writing filled every available inch of blank space on all of them, front and back.
“Where do we even begin?” Cassie asked, amazed at the number of words.
Nick scanned through them. “At least she dated every entry.”
Cassie let out a sigh of relief as Nick laid out the pages and checked the dates in the front and back of the book.
“Some of these papers pre-date the journal,” he said, “and it looks like a few of them came after she finished it. Let me sort them quickly to make sure we’re going in order.”
As Nick organized the notes, Cassie flipped open her laptop. She’d plugged it in last night so it would have a full charge, but it had been fifteen months since she’d used it. Hopefully, it still worked. As it whirred to life, she ran her hands over the keys, reacquainting herself with the old friends. She didn’t realize how much she missed them. How much writing was a part of her life.
She smiled. “I’m ready when you are.”
Nick read for two hours as Cassie’s fingers flew across her keyboard. He was faster than he let on, and a few times she had to stop him so she could catch up.
“So, the P in the note was for Pavlo. Her first love. That explains a lot. And Alina was her sister.” Cassie pressed a hand against her chest and took a shaky breath. “I can’t believe she had a sister we never knew about. What if she had kids? Cousins we never knew? I can’t wait to tell my mom.”
“But we still don’t know what happened to them and why she feels so guilty,” Nick said.
“No, but we know Stalin’s men were taking their food.” A thrill of satisfaction ran through Cassie at the connection. “That’s probably why Bobby is hiding it now. Her memory is slipping back to when she had to.”
Cassie threw the purple sundress onto the pile of old clothes littering her bed and sighed. What did people wear on dates these days? Sure, she’d spent the night before sitting out on the patio with Nick for a second round of journal translating, but this felt totally different. Last night, they’d had a focus, a common goal. Tonight was a date.
She dug through her clothes one more time and pulled out jeans and a black V-neck shirt that hadn’t seen the light of day since her decision to live solely in yoga pants and T-shirts. Finally dressed, she took out the make-up she hadn’t worn in a year, and, with an out-of-practice hand, tried to apply it. Birdie, confused by the process, kept touching Cassie’s face and trying to feel her eyelashes.
“It’s been so long since I wore this that you don’t even remember what it is, do you?”
Birdie shook her head and pointed to her cheeks. “Can I try?”
Cassie tipped her head back and sighed with joy. Birdie hadn’t stopped talking, and every word felt like a gift.
“You’re so pretty you don’t need it, but we can use a little this one time.” Cassie swiped the brush down Birdie’s nose and cheeks. “Maybe we can get you some fun make-up to play dress up with.”