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Автор: Anastasia

"I want none of this," I said firmly.

Peter seemed surprised: "Why not, honey?"

"As soon as I’m old enough to handle on my own I’ll go to Bermudas." Pete had a perplexed expression: "But why? What do you want to find there?"

"I don’t know," I shook my head, "I just know I have to go there. I’ll be able to be with them. Pete, you have to understand, you’re the only one who could ever understand me!"

But this time there was a funny look in his eyes: "You can’t do this, AJ, please. I won’t stand losing you just like Lindsay, just like Connor. You have to live if not for you then for them. They wanted that you go on living!"

"But is it living?" I asked quietly. "Waking up in the middle of the night and be sorry you’re not dead? Feeling guilty because you’re alive and they are gone? Continue living when the whole parts of the body don’t want to go on any more? Continue living half dead?"

He didn’t answer anything like I knew he wouldn’t.

We sat in silence until he spoke: "AJ, are you that unhappy? What did we do wrong, me and Rachel?"

"Nothing," I shook my head vigorously, "nothing and it’s none of your fault, believe me. It’s just that I can’t go on living without my parents. I never could and I’ll never be able to do it. I feel so cold and so lonely in this world without them. And you can’t help me, Peter, this time you can’t help."

I saw how his sad eyes and felt sorry for him.

"You know," he sighed finally, "that was exactly what Lindsay said. As Connor was supposed to be dead in Russia."

I turned away to hide the pain in my face, which I knew worried Peter.

In the evening I heard him talking to Rachel: "Listen, darling, we have to do something about it. I don’t know what could distract her! The teacher said she’s got no friends at school and it seems she wants none. It was different as she was a child!"

"Pete, you have seen how she changed as her parents disappeared. She was different five or six years ago just because she kept on hoping. But now there’s no hope, Peter, neither for Connor, nor for Lindsay. You have to face it finally: both you and the child. She has to admit they’re dead, finally burry them."

"You think it’d help?" Peter asked quietly.

"I don’t know," she shook her head, "I don’t know."

"It won’t help," I whispered, "it won’t help."

I ran up the stairs to my room. It wasn’t my house, the house where I used to live with Mom and Dad. That one was sold long ago, after Peter got the letter from the officials. I closed the door and fell into the bed. It wasn’t happening the right way, none of this: I was so different from Mom and still I wanted so much to be like her. But when Peter used to talk about her, he usually described her as "sunny, happy, laughing." And it was exactly the way I remembered her: a sunray, dissolving all the sadness. It was so unfair she was gone!

"AJ!" suddenly I heard a voice and turned around, ready to face either Peter or Rachel or Linnet. But it was none of them: I saw my mother! "Mommy," I rushed over to the figure standing at the window.

"AJ, darling," it was her face, it was her voice. I thought I was going crazy.

"AJ, something is wrong?" she asked me and felt tears filling my eyes. "Mummy, are you really here?"

The ghost or I should rather say some kind of fog was filling the room and I could see a silhouette of a woman in it. Her silhouette.

"AJ, you have to be brave, darling, this is what both me and your father want," she wasn’t talking but somehow I heard her.

"But Mom, I can’t, I love you too much, I don’t want to live without you," I tried hard to manage the tears.

"Lovey, we had to go. You know that a usual life would be wrong for us. But I am sorry I left you behind."

"It’s going to be all right, Mom," I reassured, "I’m going to follow you." "You can’t," there was sadness. Too much sadness.

"Yes, I can’t, I can’t drag on, and I’m just too tired of it! Mom, please take me with you, take me away," I begged.

"I wish I could," a sad smile. She shouldn’t be sad; she should be cheerful like she always was.

"Is something wrong with Peter?" she asked.

"No, Pete’s got nothing to do with it, I need you – you and Dad! I don’t want any surrogate parents while you’re out there, waiting for me." "We’ll meet soon," she said and her voice started to fade away.

"No, don’t go, Mummy, please, don’t go!" I couldn’t hold back tears.

"AJ, what’s wrong?" a voice was asking. Linnet’s voice. "Please wake up, you scared me!"

It took an effort to open my eyes: of course they were standing at my bed, all of them. People who loved me but whom I couldn’t love strong enough. I thought my heart was going to break: it was only a dream! Of course couldn’t be real! But somehow I had a crazy hope.

Peter sat down on my bed: "AJ, do you need something?"

I shook my head. They wouldn’t understand, even Peter wouldn’t so I preferred not to tell them anything. I was going to see my parents and that was all that mattered.

Few weeks later I was walking home from school as I saw Pete’s car coming from around the corner. I sighed. It was really nice of him to take care of me but sometimes I wished I could be just left alone. However, Pete was the only one with whom I could talk about Mom and Dad, at least he seemed to suffer as strongly as I did.

The car stopped and Peter asked: "Young lady, would you let me give you a lift?"

I couldn’t help smiling, getting into the car: "It’s great to have a personal driver."

Peter grinned: "I’ve got new for you, AJ. You’re going to finish high school in two years, what do you think about going to Oxford?"

I didn’t answer, because my mind was racing. Oxford meant nothing to me, I could just as well stay in US but I knew Pete wanted that I had some privacy. One more thing crossed my mind: Mom went to Oxford. That’s why he proposed it. At this moment I wanted to hug Peter, to tell him how sorry I was for being such an impossible child but as I met his gaze, I knew he understood me.

"Thanks, Peter," I whispered, "You can’t imagine how grateful I am."

He only smiled. He knew it.

The two following years seemed to me the longest years of my life. I could hardly wait for the day to come when I could go away to Oxford. Things seemed better to me now and I even stopped grieving the way I did. Now that I knew I was going to a place Mom liked so much I felt elated. I didn’t mind going to school now and I stopped getting on my teachers’ nerves with stories they called "imagined". I have no friends in my class but I didn’t mind it. Linnet, who was already twelve years old, was quite enough for me. I loved her and considered her my younger sister though I did remember who were my parents and didn’t call Rachel "mother" though I knew she’d enjoy it. Both she and Peter were really sweet. I felt sorry I was being so selfish but couldn’t help yearning for the time I spent with my parents. LQ also became my friend. I knew it looked rather strange for someone who didn’t know me well. An elderly man, crazy about his profession, zoology, and me, then a child of barely six years obsessed with my parents and the wish to find them. Nevertheless Coop (I usually called his this way) understood my feelings very good and though he wasn’t good at philosophy, his way to see things was rather unsophisticated, I liked him for this and we were best friends now. I knew I could be considered lucky: the whole O.S.I.R. team loved me. Catherine and Anton were kind of grandparents, Claire also liked me in her special way. I was quite surprised that Mat Praeger, towards whom Peter had a strong dislike, was very nice to me and I liked his daughter Dana. Now she was a grown – up woman in her late twenties, married to a quite charming man. She liked to have me around and I enjoyed the company of an older friend, who never treated as if I were a child. Well, Dana was all right, I wished she could visit me more often. So I was content with my life and sometimes it seemed to me that I started to put pleasant memories between the past that hurt me and the future.

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