Chapter 8

Meredith couldn’t get over the feeling that the woman standing in front of her wasn’t the woman she had known as Alana. She shuddered at the eeriness of it.

“Here you go.” She passed Tatiana the large bags she carried. “Groceries. All stuff you can eat.”

“Even if I wasn’t a vegan I’d starve. The fridge and the cupboards are empty.”

“There’s a new cell phone and a prepaid card in there too.”

“You’ll find two hundred bucks on the kitchen counter. This time you really should take it. It’s Julian’s money. He won’t miss it.”

Meredith ignored Tatiana’s sardonic comment. “How is he?”

Tatiana raised an eyebrow.

“Tell me,” Meredith insisted.

“He sleeps all day. It’s the benzos.”

“Where is he getting them from?”

“Any doctor.”

“He needs help.”

“You have no idea.”

“What are we going to do?”

Tatiana examined the black underwear that Meredith had brought in the bag. She tossed them back in. “We? You help him.”

“Why are you two angry at each other?”

“He’s not angry with me.” Tatiana sounded bored with their conversation. “He’s angry with Sofia for lying to him. Since he can’t lash out at her, I’m the next best thing.”

“Listen, Alana, I can’t—” Meredith stopped herself as soon as she realized she had addressed Tatiana by the wrong name. “I’m sorry. You look and sound exactly like her…I still think I’m talking to your sister. It’s disconcerting.”

Tatiana didn’t appear to be taken aback by Meredith’s remark. “If she and I stood side by side you’d see a few differences.”

“Do you know why she didn’t tell Julian who she was?”

Tatiana’s defensive demeanor vanished. She now looked sorrowful. “Does it matter? She’s gone. Her mistake was getting tangled up with him.”

“Where is he?”

“Check his bedroom. He rarely comes out. He stopped teaching…is he even still working at Lurie?”

Meredith didn’t bother responding. In the last few weeks, she had learned that Tatiana didn’t ask questions because she wanted answers. She used it as a passive aggressive way to slip a disapproving comment into the conversation.

Meredith walked down the hall, wary of what she might be faced with. Cautiously, she opened Julian’s bedroom door.

The sight filled her with dismay. Drawn curtains blocked out the sunlight and discarded sheets covered the floor. Julian lay asleep naked on the bare mattress, on his stomach, his arms and legs spread out. Meredith entered and kneeled by the side of the bed. Memories of their time together the previous June brought tears to her eyes. They had spent many mornings in that bed, her head lying on his chest. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but she had been happy and she figured if Julian had ever felt the same way with her, it would have been then.

“Julian, can you hear me? You need to get up.”

She waited for a reaction, but he didn’t stir. There was no change in the steady cadence of his breathing.

“Julian? C’mon, get up. You can’t continue like this. Julian?” She shook him but he didn’t move. “Julian?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll wake up eventually.”

Tatiana watched them from the door.

“I don’t know what to do.” Meredith rested her forehead on Julian’s temple.

“There’s nothing for you to do. He needs to sleep it off.”

“What’s going to happen when he does? He’ll wake up and take more benzos?”

“Probably.”

Meredith faced her. “You don’t want to help him? Fine. But I took you to my place after the police left; I hid you from everyone, including my roommate. I took care of you. When it was safe, I was the one who brought you back here.” Meredith knew she sounded desperate. “Now I need you to do something; I need you to help me get Julian through your sister’s death.”

“You want me to help him?”

“You’re stronger than him.” Meredith truly believed that. Tatiana exuded a resilience she had never encountered before.

“That’s asking for a lot.”

“I’m asking you for what I need.”

Tatiana sat on the edge of the bed, not far from Julian. She went silent, and Meredith didn’t rush to continue speaking. She wouldn’t give Tatiana the opportunity to evade her request.

“I’ll help you,” Tatiana said. “He doesn’t deserve it, though. I hope you know that.”

“You blame him for your sister’s death.”

“I blame Julian for everything.”

The resentment in Tatiana’s voice made Meredith lean closer to Julian, as if to shield him from her. “He never understood what Sofia was afraid of, but he tried to protect her regardless. He’s doing the same for you. He’s protecting you from your husband. Do you recognize that?”

Meredith expected Tatiana to further attack Julian, but she didn’t. Tatiana’s silence drove her to press for answers. “Why did you make my stepmom and her partner think you were your sister? You still haven’t explained why you did it.”

“I guess I figured if Julian thought I was Sofia he would be more inclined to help me.”

“You didn’t think he would figure it out?”

Tatiana shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

“And you’d be okay with doing that?”

“I did it, didn’t I?”

Tatiana’s feelings became clear to Meredith and it unnerved her. “Why do you hate him?”

“I don’t hate him. For you everything’s either love or hate. Nothing else.”

“If that were true I wouldn’t be here.”

“What has Julian told you about me and my sister, about the past?”

“He said that he got placed with your family and when he spoke up about your father, your parents said he was the one sexually abusing Sofia.” Meredith remembered what Pam once told her about Olga Dulgorukova’s death. “Do you believe Julian shot your mom, is that why?”

“I don’t have to believe anything. I was there. I saw Sofia shoot my mom.”

“So Julian didn’t do it.”

“That’s what I just said. My parents were sick people. I’ll be forever grateful to my sister for shooting my cunt of a mother. They should have never been allowed to keep their own daughters, much less take on foster kids.”

Meredith recalled Julian only briefly mentioning Olga Dulgorukova.

“You and Sofia were eight-year-olds…you didn’t want your mom dead.”

Tatiana looked genuinely repulsed. “No, of course not. We never dreamt of seeing our mom having her brains blown out. I still have nightmares where she’s on the floor, a piece of her head missing, blood everywhere.”

“You spoke like you were happy about it.”

“No, not happy. Relieved. When abuse is all you live day after day, year after year, something weird happens. You start to feel a kind of fear that grows in the pit of your stomach and then spreads through your whole body. Like heat waves rolling over you. You can’t run, though. It’s like you become a trapped animal. And you don’t care what happens. You just need it to happen. You just need something, anything, to happen so the fear can stop.”

Tatiana started to braid her own hair, and just like Meredith had seen her do several times before, Tatiana undid the braid as soon as it was done and restarted braiding it. Her nervous habit endeared her to Meredith.

“At first I thought you were just a privileged girl,” Tatiana said. “But that’s not all you are. You might not be able to relate to what I told you, but you can understand how Sofia and I might have mixed feelings about our mom’s death.”

Meredith watched Tatiana run her hand along Julian’s back. While it appeared absentminded, her touch remained purposely tender.

“What did your mom do?” Meredith asked.

“When Julian came to us, he was a fourteen-year-old cutter, hooked on crack. My mom picked up on his weakness pretty fast. She’d give him money for his fix in exchange for him doing whatever she wanted.”

“Whatever she wanted?”

“They fucked. Often. I knew about it because she liked to have me there. She would tell him—go get Tatiana—and he would never say no to her. He would bring me into bed with them.” Tatiana stared at Julian’s body. “I can still hear the sounds she’d make when he was inside of her.”

Meredith desperately wanted Tatiana to say something that would break the heavy silence in the room, but at the same time, she was afraid of what that might be.

“When they were done, she never gave him the money directly. My mom would give it to me and then I would pass it to him. He also never said no to the money. After she got what she wanted she’d leave us alone and I’d watch him cut himself.” Tatiana touched Julian’s tattooed arm. “If it wasn’t for all this ink, his arm wouldn’t look so pretty, that’s for sure.” Tatiana traced the raised scars with her fingertips. “He used to cut his ankles too. Have you ever looked at his ankles?”

Meredith shook her head in response. She didn’t want to look.

“He didn’t tell anyone what my mom did because he thought Sofia, his favorite, was safe from all of it,” Tatiana continued. “But I told my sister what was happening. I had to tell someone. Besides Julian, she was the only one I trusted. Then Julian found out my dad was sexually abusing Sofia. At the time, I didn’t believe her when she described what he had been doing to her, but when I got older I started to.”

Meredith tried not to reveal how affected she felt by Tatiana’s words. She doubted Tatiana wanted her sympathy. “Why?”

“Because believing my sister was the right thing to do.”

A question formed in her mind and, even though the answer had the power to crush her, Meredith had to ask. “Did Julian ever touch you?”

“For two years he never once tried to stop my mom from forcing me to watch them together. Julian was like my big brother, but having me there, with them, put sex where it shouldn’t have been. I wish he had touched me—raped me. Then I could just hate him. But he didn’t. So, while I blame him for not standing up to my mom, I know he was just a kid, too.”

Meredith wanted to reach out to Tatiana, hold her hand, offer her some comfort, but she couldn’t get herself to move.

“Nothing hurt as much as when I heard Julian tell Social Services what my dad was doing to Sofia. By protecting her, it felt like Julian loved her more than he loved me. That he loved her more than he loved crack. And if Julian loved something or someone more than he loved crack, then it for sure was real love.”

Beneath her brash demeanor, Tatiana was sorrowful. Now Meredith understood the reasons why.

“Today, I’m aware that he was young, with no family—an addict that saw fucking my mom as the only way for him to get what he needed,” Tatiana continued. “Sometimes I feel like I’m eight years old again though. That’s when things get messy…my feelings toward Julian change. One minute they’re ugly, the next they’re beautiful. But they’re always strong.”

“I…” Meredith swallowed hard. “I don’t know if this is what I should be saying, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

“You should get the hell away from here, Meredith. Away from Julian and away from me.”

“I can’t.”

“What’s stopping you?”

Her knees had started to ache from kneeling for so long but still she did not move. “Should I hate Julian?”

“They’re your feelings. Own them. If you want to hate him, then hate him. If you want to love him, love him. I won’t judge you for it.”

“I lied to the police. I wasn’t always with Julian. Did you see who killed your sister?”

Tatiana slid from the bed to the floor and sat beside Meredith.

“You have scars all over your body from that night,” Meredith added. “Did your husband have anything to do with Sofia’s death?”

“Drop it, Meredith. I’m not doing this now. I can’t.”

“Julian won’t tell me anything about The Raven Room,” Meredith persisted. “One of the times I was there, I had a chance to explore it and ended up on my way to the lower level. I came across this man—security, I think. If it hadn’t been for Julian showing up, I don’t know what would have happened. What’s The Raven Room all about, Tatiana? Is it drugs? Sex trafficking? You go to the club. You must know.”

“There’s nothing I can tell you.”

“A woman, Lena Rusu, was found dead—murdered by an overdose of heroin. She went to the club, I’m sure. Her death is connected to The Raven Room. And so is Sofia’s.”

Tatiana faced Meredith. “How did you find out about this Lena?”

“My stepmom.”

“You need to be careful, Meredith. It’s not a safe time for any of us.”

She didn’t need Tatiana to tell her that. “How did you first learn about the club? Through your husband?”

“I’m not ready to talk about it,” Tatiana replied.

“It’s important—”

“Stop, Meredith. Just stop. Please.”

The pain in Tatiana’s voice made Meredith pause. She felt a pang of guilt. “I don’t mean to be so pushy. It’s just who I am. All of this is horrible. I can’t even imagine what I’d do if I was in your situation.”

“You’d do what I’m doing. Survive. There’s nothing else to do. We’re pretty much strangers, and even though you don’t owe me anything, you’ve been the one here for me.” She reached for Meredith’s hand and kissed the middle of her palm. “Thank you.”

Meredith didn’t pull away. “When Julian told me about you and Sofia I hoped the three of you would reconnect again one day and I’d have a chance to meet you both. I just wish it was different…and Sofia was still here with us.”

“Did you like her?”

Meredith heard the anticipation in Tatiana’s voice.

“Almost everything I know about her I learned through Julian. I only met her once. She was kind to me.”

Tatiana smiled.

When she first saw Tatiana at The Raven Room, Meredith had been attracted to her. That feeling hadn’t changed. She yearned to kiss Tatiana and, in that moment, Meredith wanted nothing more than to share her intention—despite the uncertainty of Tatiana’s response clawing at her stomach.

“What would you say if I told you I wanted to kiss you?” Meredith asked, bravely.

Tatiana’s fingertips brushed Meredith’s chin. “I’d say please.”

Meredith leaned forward and touched Tatiana’s lips with hers. She didn’t rush into the kiss and neither did Tatiana. Their mouths parted slightly and Meredith felt Tatiana’s warm breath on her face. In that moment, there was a promise of everything Meredith could ever desire, and she suspected she was about to do something she would either cherish forever or deeply regret. Their lips came together and their kiss remained unhurried. Tatiana didn’t demand more than she received, and Meredith, with her eyes closed, lost herself in the moment. She savored the sensation of pleasure that slowly spread through her body.

Meredith covered Tatiana’s face with small kisses. She enjoyed the feeling of Tatiana’s makeup free skin on her lips.

“Tell me, Meredith, on your way here, what did the air outside smell like?”

Meredith buried her nose in Tatiana’s hair. The familiar fragrance of Julian’s shampoo suddenly filled her senses. She was glad that she had brought a bottle of a different brand of shampoo for Tatiana.

“It’s that only time of year when, if sunshine had a scent, you would be able to smell it.”

“Tell me more,” Tatiana pleaded.

“There’s this little bakery at the corner of North Oakley and West Shakespeare, in Bucktown. Sometimes, on Sunday mornings in the summer, I wake up early and go for a walk in the park across from the bakery. There’s almost no one around—no people, no dogs. I take off my shoes and I sink my toes into the grass and feel the damp dirt beneath them…the smell of warm breakfast buns—all butter and sugar—hangs in the air.” Meredith wrapped her arms around Tatiana. “Maybe, one Sunday morning we can go together.”

Tatiana hid her face on the curve of Meredith’s neck. “Maybe.”