Page 33 of Natasha
Natasha's mouth dropped open at her mother's admission. "Mama?" she whispered, her voice small. She didn't know how to process her larger-than-life mother, her always-the-center-of-the-borough, flamboyant mother saying that she was jealous.
Olya let out a bitter laugh. "I know it sounds terrible. A mother being jealous of her own daughter. What kind of animal does that?" She shook her head and opened her emerald green eyes that still sparked with fire. "It feels so good to finally admit it out loud. I'm so sorry, baby." Her mother opened her arms to her, and in that instant, it was like the years had melted away and Natasha was a small girl who had been given her first ballet shoes. She fell into her mother's embrace with a sob.
"My sweet girl," her mother whispered, tears running free and hot down her cheeks. "I only wanted the best for you. I didn't want you to live like me, stuck here in a borough, forgotten and alone. You've seen such beautiful things." Her mother pulled back and stared at her with a look of fierce desperation. "You were meant for so much more than this city. I didn't…I couldn't have you fall in love with a man like your father and waste your talent. You made the world forget about your grandmother's run. You were better than she was, so much more than I could ever hope to be."
Natasha shook her head. "Don't say that."
"You are the best of us. I-I…" Olya looked away, her eyes trained on the floor. "We should have handled you with more care. We dropped you too many times, and you broke," she said, her voice full of regret. "And now, you're here."
"There's nothing wrong with being here," Natasha replied, her chin set stubbornly.
"You should be in London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, even, not here."
"That doesn't change the fact that I couldn't do it anymore."
Olya sighed and rubbed her hand over her eyes. "You still have time. This director," she pointed at the window where the girls were still watching the director flit here and there, "he could be the beginning of your comeback."
"I don't know." Natasha wrapped her arms around herself and worried her bottom lip.
"Don't you want to dance again?" her mother whispered. There was pain on her face and a desperation in her eye that Natasha wasn't used to seeing.
"I don't know," she replied, her voice stronger now. She frowned at the groan her response elicited from her mother.
"What do you mean you don't know?" Olya threw her hands out. "You could have anything in the world if you just reached for it."
Natasha took a hesitant step back from her mother. "That's your life, Mama. Not mine."
"But if yo—" The older Ochenko woman tried to follow after her daughter, but Natasha held up a hand to stop her.
"No, Mama. Let me choose." Natasha raised her chin and met her mother's gaze. "Let me decide what to do with my life, this time. For as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was make you and Babulya happy, but that never made me happy. Never. Not once." Her lips twisted in a grimace at the memory of the lonely and harsh years she had endured to stay at center stage. "I hated my life. Don't push me into that again, or this time, I'll run from you."
Her mother gave a little gasp, but she nodded. "Okay, okay, Natalia. I just…okay. Don't leave us."
"I don't want to, Mama, but I'm not ready to dance again. I don't know if I'll ever be able to again, but maybe one day." Natasha paused but smiled when she said, "Silas thinks I should dance again, too."
"Silas?"
"That's, ah, the man I've been seeing."
"You love him?" Her mother sagged against the desk in the room and looked smaller, older, and tired, suddenly. She looked at Natasha with a watery smile and asked again, "Do you love him?"
Natasha tucked her hands behind her. "I think I might, or that I will very soon."
Her mother gave her a tired nod. "That's all I could ask for you. To know love. It's more than I ever had with your father."
Natasha frowned. "Mama."
"It's true. I didn't love him, and I drove him away." She looked down at her feet and gave a little shake of her head. "Sometimes I wish I had tried to see him for what he was instead of what he wasn't. I wasn't kind to him."
"We all make mistakes." Natasha came to stand beside her mother. Tentatively, she put her hand on top of her mother's and gave it a squeeze.
"I never knew how to love. Your grandmother is a very harsh woman; I don't know if you know." Her mother grinned wryly at her daughter, but then her face crumpled. "And I did the same thing to you."
"Mama, shhhh." Natasha wrapped her arms around her mother and held her. She let her mother cry into her shoulder and murmured softly to her, trying to calm her, "It's all right, Mama. Don't cry." She held her mother tightly for a handful of minutes before Olya Ochenko seemed to gather her bearings and sat up with a little laugh as she wiped her eyes quickly.
"Thank you," she said, giving Natasha a nod. She stood then and moved toward the door as if their conversation had never happened, but when she reached it, she stopped. "I hope you let this man love you, Natalia. And please, know that I am sorry I didn't protect you."
"I know. I will," Natasha replied, but it was to an empty room. Her mother had already swept from the room, the office door clicking softly shut behind her.
