Читать книгу Alaskan Hero - Teri Wilson, Teri Wilson - Страница 14

Chapter Five

“Hi Mom, it’s me.” Anya followed the whirring sound of her mother’s sewing machine through the darkened living room of her childhood home, down the hall and to the sewing room.

The sewing room, formerly Anya’s bedroom, was where her mother could most often be found, bent over the Singer, stitching together brightly colored suedes, velvets and sometimes even furs. Today, like most other days, an array of traditional Inuit anoraks and parkas hung across the length of the curtain rod. Some were complete, ready to be shipped off to the native arts cooperative gallery in Anchorage, where her mother’s work was sold. Others still needed finishing touches here and there. But they were all beautiful, even in their various stages of completion. Beautiful and one of a kind.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Her mother glanced up from the machine but kept feeding fabric toward the needle. “Give me just a minute. I’m almost finished with this sleeve.”

“Sure.” Anya sat on the foot of the bed—the same twin mattress she’d slept on from first through twelfth grade—and watched.

As always, her gaze was drawn toward her mother’s hair, twisted into a thick braid that ran down the middle of her back. When she was a girl, Anya had wanted nothing more than to look like her mother. Or any of the other women in her family, really. They all had warm mocha skin, dark, mysterious eyes and long hair as black and shiny as raven’s wings. Anya’s mother may have only been part Inuit, but she looked every inch a native Alaskan, as did her aunts and cousins.

Anya’s appearance couldn’t have been more different. With her gangly limbs, ivory complexion and ribbon of chestnut hair, which glowed almost amber in the sunshine, she resembled a tourist from the Lower 48 more than any of the native Alaskan children in her classes at school. But it was her eyes that really set her apart.

Who had violet eyes?

No one Anya had ever seen, other than the strange-looking girl she saw in the mirror every day. As if her name wasn’t awful enough: Anya Petrova. A fleeting glance at her mother was sufficient to tell anyone who wondered about such things that the Russian name was solely her father’s doing.

Like most girls, all she’d wanted was to fit in, to be like everyone else. But she wasn’t like everyone else, not even her own mother. The differences between them were written all over Anya’s face.

“What brings you by, Anya?” The sewing machine slowed to a stop. Anya’s mother took her foot off the pedal and swiveled to face the bed.

Anya shrugged. “I just wanted to stop by and visit for a minute. I can’t stay long, though.”

She didn’t get into the reason why—Brock’s field trip. Because it was a nonevent as far as she was concerned. Not worth mentioning.

Then why is just the thought of it making me nervous enough to break into a sweat?

She shrugged out of her parka. “It’s warm in here.”

“Is it?” Her mother frowned and glanced at the window, completely obscured by the parkas hanging from the rod. “It’s snowing again, right?”

“Yes, it’s really coming down. I brought you a coffee.” Anya thrust a cup toward her. “An Almond Joy latte. Today’s special.”

She took the cup and gave the tiny hole in its plastic lid a wary sniff. “You know I can’t sleep when I drink this stuff.”

“It’s decaf, Mom.”

“Okay.” She took a dainty sip. “Mmm. This is really good.”

Anya smiled a relieved smile. She hadn’t actually stopped by for a simple visit. The flavored coffee was the buffer—bribe had a rather ugly ring to it—she hoped would help her mother accept the news she had to share.

She took a deep breath and prepared herself to spit it out, to just say it. Time was ticking, and Brock would be at her cottage in less than an hour. “A group of people at my church is getting together for a local outreach project in a couple weeks.”

“Oh?” Her mother’s mouth turned down in a slight frown.

Not a good sign. Anya plowed on anyway. “I signed us up.”

“What does that mean? You’ve signed us up to do chores for people? With your church?” Her mother couldn’t have looked more horrified.

If Anya had once been uncomfortable with the notion of God, her mother’s resistance could only be described as Alaskan-sized in its scope. After Anya had first heard those words—never will I leave you—she recounted them earnestly to her mother, struggling to explain how it had felt like God Himself had dropped down from the rafters of the sanctuary and whispered them in her ear. Her newfound faith had been a source of mystery to her mother. She was still reeling from the desertion of her husband, even after twenty-six years. The idea of a faithful God was too foreign for her to comprehend.

Anya sat up a little straighter, wishing they weren’t having this conversation in her childhood room. Sitting on the narrow twin bed made her feel like a five year old instead of a grown woman. “No. I put our names on the list of people who need help with certain projects. I was thinking mainly of the roof. There’s a good four inches of ice up there, Mom. All that weight can’t be good for the house.”

“My house. Not the house. You haven’t lived here in six years. So when you say you put our names on the list, you really mean my name, don’t you?”

“Sort of,” Anya said under her breath. “If you want to get technical about it.”

Although if things didn’t change with Dolce soon, she might be living in this small room once again. Moving back home wasn’t exactly an ideal scenario, but where else could she go?

Anya wasn’t about to admit that the outreach project was designed mainly to help the widows of Aurora. A technicality, in her opinion. Her mother might as well have been a widow. Actually, though Anya hated to admit it, she could already be a widow.

She hadn’t considered the idea before, even when she’d written her mother’s name and address on the list. But there was no guarantee her father was still alive, wherever he was. Anya blinked and waited for a wave of grief to wash over her at the prospect. The wave never came. Instead she felt a familiar, icy numbness in her chest.

“I don’t need any help from your church, Anya. I can take care of my own roof.” Her mother turned back toward the sewing machine, her wrist flicking angrily while she wound the bobbin.

“Mom, let them come help. They want to do this.”

“Then what? What happens after they deice my roof? They’ll expect me to show up at church, that’s what.”

“No, they won’t.” And even if they did, would that really be so bad? “It’s not like that, Mom. No one will expect anything of you in return. They’re just nice people who want to help.”

Her back may have been turned, but Anya could sense her mother’s skeptical eye roll, could feel the bitterness behind it.

Anya rested a hand on her shoulder. “I want to help. Please let me take care of this for you.”

Her mother stiffened, saying nothing, and the sewing machine purred to life once again.

Anya would have preferred a spoken agreement, but she figured this was as close as she was going to get. Before her mother had a change of heart, Anya gave her shoulder a final pat, then slipped from her old bedroom and back out into the snow.

* * *

“Where are we going again?” Anya asked as she climbed onto the passenger seat of Brock’s truck.

“Nice try.” He cast her a quick glance as she got settled. Then he closed the passenger door and jogged through the snow to the driver’s side, pausing on the way to check on Sherlock and Aspen situated in their crates in the back.

“We’re going on a field trip,” he said again as he settled himself beside her and cranked the ignition to life.