Stealing Time

don’t have real time here soit’s not like I can arrange a time for visits. Sometimes we’re herein the house when my Varya appears. Other times she just shows upwhen we’re strumming guitars at the music shop—which we found onlya week or so ago thanks to a printed map Varya brought us—poringover books at the book shop or just sitting on the grass watchingthe clouds roll by. Actually no, that’s me romanticising again. Theclouds don’t roll by anymore. They’re still… fixed in placed. I’mquite glad there were a few clouds around on day zero. Otherwise Iwould miss them. Blue skies are all very well but, somehow, theyfeel more transient than cloudy ones. Like an empty function roombefore the people arrive.
Today it’s definitely the smell. It’s mostlyburning plastic, like when you leave an ice cream bucket too closeto the stove and it starts—ever so slowly—to melt. But it’s alsoslightly sweet, as though someone tried to stop the melting bydrizzling honey over it.
Our Kir smells it too. He twitches his noseand frowns as his little jaw continues to work at breaking up hisbreakfast. It’s not until he hears the static sounds sparking inthe next room that he slams down his spoon and jumps up, cerealflying from his open mouth.
“Mummy!” He breathes the word out in a rushof air and bounces out of the kitchen door.
I smile and move to the sink to retrieve asponge. I start mopping up the flecks left on the table, pushingdown the slight pang of irritation that has started to surface withmy daughter’s visits. By my calculations I’ve now been parentingthis boy far longer than she did. Does that make me his parent,too? Doesn’t that give me the right to have him throw downeverything at the merest hint of my arrival?
Of course, my jealousy is ridiculous, I knowthat. I’m always here for our Kir. I have the privilege of spendingevery moment with him. Something that Varya would kill for, I’msure. Except that sometimes I’m not so sure. Sometimes, now, I feelthe time stretch between her visits and I wonder if more days thanusual are passing outside before she steps back through the portal.The way she runs her hand over Kir’s head seems more cursory, thenod and initial glance she sends my way have less warmth, moreguilt. But perhaps I am simply feeling worn out by living in thisendless loop. I’m a patient person but even the patience of a saintwould be tried by living through one single never-ending day, overand over again. Even if it is the best of days. Even if it means Iget to spend years with my grandson that I otherwise wouldn’t. Imiss people. I miss their faces.
I wipe up the spill and toss the sponge backin the sink, resume my seat at the table and sip my tea.
After a minute Kir returns, this timeattached to Varya like a back-to-front rucksack. Kir is grinning.Varya is not. Her face is a blank canvas, though her hand rubscircles around her son’s back. It leaves impressions against hisjumper. He wriggles. She is rubbing too hard, she is tense.
“Varya,” I say. It is both a question and anacknowledgement.
Her eyes slide over me, but I catch the wayshe’s biting the junction between the corner of her mouth and hercheek. Most people wouldn’t notice, but I do. I am her mother. I’vebeen watching this action since she was a tiny toddler: Varya isworried.
“Kir, your mother is not a tree. Pleaseclimb down and finish your breakfast,” I tell our monkey boy. Varyagently removes him and places him on the seat in front of hishalf-empty bowl.
“I’m not hungry!” he shouts gleefully,scrambling up to his mother again. It fascinates me, this habit ofhis. The way he seems to have imprinted on her so strongly in hisearlier years that even though he sees her for only a few minutesof each of his days, she still holds such a significant place inhis heart.
Varya sits at the chair next to him,opposite me, and lays her hands carefully on her legs.
“Eat, Kir,” she tells him.
He pauses and watches her, hoping she’llchange her mind. She turns away and his face crumples slightly,though he picks up his spoon, as instructed, and starts to poke athis cereal.
“Varya?” I say again.
“It’s Daniel,” she mutters, staring at thetable.
“Is he sick?” I ask, though in the pit of mystomach I think I already know.
She nods and starts picking at her cuticles.It’s a dreadful habit. I tried using that foul-tasting paint you’resupposed to use, when she was little, which stopped her from bitingthem. But ever since then, she picks at them instead. I supposethat’s better than biting. There’s nothing to say, really. I waitfor her to speak. I sip my tea.
“He’s… we don’t know how much time he’llhave left,” she says, finally looking me in the eye. I seedesperation, guilt, and pain all mixed up. In my heart, all I wantto do is comfort my child. She is hurting. But I don’t comfort herbecause she will not thank me for it. She must be allowed herstrength. I know this from long experience of being snarled at whenI’ve tried to comfort her. I stomp on my heart and tell it to shutup and take a back seat.
“Bring Daniel to me and Kir. He can staywith us until you work it out.” My mouth speaks without consultingmy brain. It’s the mother-conditioning. I know that Varya has takenon Daniel as a substitute son. I know that Kir’s little fistsclench every time Varya mentions him, though he doesn’t understandwhy. But it’s not Daniel’s fault. He’s only a child, too. Hedeserves to be safe until my Varya can find a cure for him aswell.
I reach across the table now and touch mydaughter’s fingertips with my own fingers.
“He’ll be safe here.”
Varya sheds tears then, rubbing at themquickly with her bony shoulder.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Then: “I have togo, I’m sorry.”
She stands and Kir almost falls from hischair in his hurried alarm.
“Mama!” he shouts, attaching himself to herleg.
“I’m sorry, baby, I have to go now. I’ll beback again very soon.” She tries