There’s no answer when I knock on the door, but it’s unlocked, and as I push it open just a crack I can hear the water running in the bathroom. I let myself in and stand at the window.
You can see Russia from here. I’d almost forgotten that. But now I remember stories about flashlights and Morse code, a long-running debate about the wisdom of stringing a laundry line between the two embassies so that no matter what — day or night — messages could be passed in between.
I hear my mother’s laugh when I think about it. I can almost see her close this window, blocking out the rain and the sun and the boy next door.
When the bathroom door swings open, the small bedroom floods with steam, and I hear my brother gasp. “Gracie! You scared me half to death!”
Jamie’s hair is wet, and he’s not wearing a shirt. He’s always been my big brother, but it’s hard to disguise the fact that, now, he’s even bigger. His arms are huge and his chest is broad, and it feels like he’s grown a foot. Or maybe I’m just smaller. It feels like I shrink a little more every day.
“You’re up early,” my brother says. He digs around in his dresser and pulls out an ARMY T-shirt, pulls it over his head. It wouldn’t do any good to tell him that I never went to sleep.
“How far did you run?” I ask instead.
“I did the circle,” he says. I don’t have to ask which circle. He means he looped the city, ran all the way around Embassy Row. Five miles. It’s barely six a.m.
“Is that all?” I tease.
Jamie shrugs. “I did it twice.”
Of course he did. It used to bother me, having a sibling who was so perfect. But now I’m glad Dad has him. I’m glad not all of our family’s expectations have to land on me.
“Gracie?” Jamie’s closer than I remember. I can see his reflection in the window as I look out at Russia. The sun’s just coming up.
“I’m sorry, Jamie.”
He turns to me. “For what?”
“For killing your mother.”
The wall that runs around Valancia is high and wide and strong enough to stand for a thousand years, but it’s nothing compared to the one I’ve built inside me. In the haze of early morning, though, I can hear it start to crack. I can feel my defenses crumble. And when the tears come they don’t slide down my face in slow motion. No, my grief comes out in wails and sobs.
I know Jamie’s arms are around me. I know that’s the reason I haven’t already fallen, broken, to the floor.
“I did it,” I say. “It was me. I did it. I …”
“Shhh, Gracie. Shhh. It’s okay.”
“I killed her. I killed Mom. I shot her, Jamie.”
“You didn’t mean to. It was an —” He stops himself before he says the word accident. “You didn’t mean to do it. It’s okay,” my brother says, like that will make it better. He doesn’t know that that’s maybe my least favorite lie of all.
Jamie drags me to the bed and makes me sit on the edge, his arms around me like a vise. He’s not going to let me split into a thousand pieces no matter how much I want to. He is going to hold me together.
“I was wrong,” I say.
“It’s okay,” he tells me. He has no idea I’m talking about Alexei.
“I was so stupid!” I say, then my anger shatters, fractures into tears. I’m not really mad, I realize. I’m betrayed. Like it or not, I know I’ll never trust again.
I’ve been quiet for a while now. Jamie must think it’s safe to speak again because he presses a kiss to the top of my head just like Mom used to do.
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
I can hear the tension in Jamie’s voice, the worry. He’s already wondering if he should call Dad, what he’s supposed to say to Grandpa. He wants to know how bad I am. He doesn’t even know the half of it.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” He rubs my back, mutters, “Man, you’re thin,” and I know it’s not a compliment. My brother is worried about me. It’s not his fault he isn’t a fool.
My sobs have turned to silent tears. The only motion is the feel of my brother rocking me as if I were still a little girl who’s had a bad dream. But this is one nightmare from which I will never, ever wake.
“Is this the part where I sing?” he asks me. “Mom always sang.”
“Hush, little princes, dead and gone —” I start softly, but Jamie pulls back and looks at me. He’s smiling.
“What?” I ask.
“You. You always get the words wrong.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes,” he says in that tone that must come standard in the Big Brother package. “You do.”
“No. I … never mind.”
“Fine,” Jamie says, and for a long time, he just hugs me. But I can hear him humming under his breath. And when the humming stops, his words are almost a whisper.
“What if I stay?”
“No.”
I push away and rub my nose with my sleeve as he tells me, “I could defer. Go back in a semester or two.”
“No!” I’m shouting now. Grandpa might hear us, get worried. Come to see what has become of his only grandchildren. But that’s not likely, and we both know it. “I’m not going to let you throw West Point away.”
“West Point isn’t going anywhere.”