Katia's Promise

“I’m not leaving. Even if you ask me,” she said, climbing into the passenger seat.

“I won’t,” he said, wiping his tears on his tweed jacket sleeve. He folded his arms across the steering wheel and then laid his face on them. “I can’t believe he’s gone. What will I do?”

“What you’ve always done. You’ll grow. Learn and become a man,” she said with a tiny shrug.

“I miss him so much already,” Austin said. He gulped, sounding to Katia as if he’d swallowed something very large. She understood the feeling intensely.

“I know you do,” she said softly, looking at the round dials on the metal dashboard. “That part never goes away.”

His face twisted into a grimace of disdain and disbelief. “What do you—” He stopped abruptly. “I’m so sorry, Katia. So sorry. Of course you know how I feel. You know exactly how I feel. None of the people I go to school with have lost their dads. But you have.” Tears filled his eyes, yet he studied her as if he was seeing her for the first time. “It’s been a while since you talked about your father. Do you still miss him?”

“Every day,” she whispered, a flame igniting at the base of her esophagus and flaring up into her throat. “He—he used to call me Katia lyubov.”

“Louie bov?”

“Lyubov. That’s how you say it.” She nodded. “It means Katia love.”

“He was a sentimental man, then?” Austin asked.

“Yes. He worked hard all his life, but my mother said he had the heart of a poet. She always loved fine things, and he wanted to give them to her—that’s why he worked so hard to bring us to America. He told her he would give her the world, but—”

“He died,” Austin finished for her. “Just like my dad.”

“Yes. Now they’re together. Watching over us, my mother says.”

“Do you believe her?” Austin asked solemnly.

“I do.”

“But how can you know? For sure, I mean. Sometimes I think that whole heaven thing is just another fairy tale.”

“You’re just angry right now. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I am angry. My dad wasn’t supposed to die. He was too young. We had great plans for after graduation. He told me we were going to go to Germany together and drive the autobahn. I wanted to see how they made German cars. I wanted to take classes over there and learn to fix all kinds of foreign cars.”

Katia looked away from him. “Your mother was never going to allow that to happen and you know it.”

“My dad could have talked her into it.”

“She would never let you be a mechanic. Even I know that! She wants you to be a businessman and get a degree from Harvard.”

“Well, it’s not what I want. Besides, I don’t see any other man of the house around here now, do you?” he asked.

“No.”

“See? That’s how things have changed. I’ll be making the rules now.”

Katia chuckled at the lofty tilt to his chin and the smirk on his lips.

She pushed her face up against his. “Don’t you ever look at me like that again, Austin McCreary, or I will never speak to you again. You are not the boss of me and never will be. You got that?”

Austin moved back a few inches. “I just meant that things will be different.”

“Yes. They will. But our parents still make the rules. We don’t have any power yet.”

“Power?”

“That’s what my mom says all the time. She must remind me twice a day that I’m only a servant’s kid. I have no power. That’s why I have to graduate high school and go to college. I think your mother is right about that, too.”

“But I don’t want to run the family business. I want to work on antique cars.”

“Well, I want to be a movie star.”

“You’re pretty enough,” Austin said with a smile that Katia knew she’d remember the rest of her life.

“Austin, I’m not sure what I actually want to be. That’s just what I want right now. I’ll probably change my mind a bunch before I’m even your age. I only know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

She reached into the pocket of her winter coat and pulled out the envelope that she’d hidden in her drawer for a week. “I want to give you this.” She handed it to him.

Austin took the envelope. “What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

Carefully, he pulled out a folded piece of red construction paper. It opened into a heart. On it, Katia had glued bits of white lace she’d found in the attic, and she’d written snippets of Russian poems. She’d folded over pale blue pieces of construction paper and glued them to the heart, as well. Each of the folded notes contained dates.

“What is this? July 17? And September 26? I don’t understand.”

“Those are special days to me. On July 17, the summer I first came to live here, you taught me to ride a bike. On September 26, you finally let me play tennis with two of your friends. You said you needed another person for doubles.”

“Yes. Last year. And we beat them,” he said.

“Christmas is always a special day here. And so is Halloween. That’s why I put those dates down.”

Austin looked at her then, and for the first time, Katia was aware of a boy looking at her with love in his eyes. She felt her heart thrum and warmth surged through her. She didn’t know if what she was feeling was normal or not, but it was incredibly exciting.

“And today is February 14. Valentine’s Day,” Austin said, reaching over to touch her hand. “I don’t have a card for you. I don’t have one for anyone. I guess I didn’t think much about it.”

“I made the card a while ago.”

“Before my father’s heart attack.”

“Yeah.”

“So you didn’t give me this just to make me feel better today?”

“No.”