Page 135 of The Scientist
“What is it?” I asked, wondering if my pronunciation had been terrible.
“She said you are way too beautiful for me,” he said, grinning. “I told her I agree.”
I smiled at her. “You’ve raised an amazing son. I’m very lucky.”
Lex translated that for me, and she said, “Spasibo,” which I knew meant “thank you.”
She said something else to him. “She wants to know if you’d come to Russia with me. She’d love to meet you in person.”
“When my mom gets better, I’d love to.”
“Your mom is sick?” Lex said, asking as his mom.
“She had cancer. But your son helped her get the treatment she needed, and now she’s in remission.”
He translated for me.
“I’m very happy to hear that,” Lex said for her. “Alexsander would do anything for the people he loves.”
I nodded, and of course, tears started to fill my eyes. Her eyebrows pinched together as she said something to Lex. The expression on her face was so similar to the way Lex looked when he was concerned, it was almost unnerving.
He turned to me and said, “She wants to know why you’re crying.”
I smiled, dabbing away the tears.
“I’m happy,” I told her before looking up at Lex. “I like hearing that I’m someone you love.”
There was a fierce tenderness in his eyes as he murmured, “You have no idea.”
She was watching our exchange with a smile on her face. She may not know English very well, but love was a language everyone understood.
Lex translated what she said next. “I’ve always wanted this for my son. He works too much. I’ve tried telling him thatthis,” she said, pointing between us, “is what is most important in life. Not work.”
I smiled at her, and Lex pressed a kiss to my temple. She asked me a few more questions about my family and my writing career. I was surprised by how much she knew about composing music. Lex explained that his grandmother had been an opera singer and was always passionate about music, but that gene skipped over him completely.
His mom was exactly what I imagined—warm, funny, and tough as nails. She reminded me so much of my own mother, who we were planning on seeing tonight so we could exchange gifts before Lex left for Russia. I thought of how Christmas this year looked nothing like the Christmases of years past. My mom and I wouldn’t be in New York to do any of the things we normally did this time of year, like driving to a Christmas tree farm in upstate New York to pick out our tree, or ice skating at Rockefeller Center. While I missed the nostalgia of Christmas in the city, I couldn’t feel anything but happiness, since Christmas would have meant nothing at all without her here with me. And there wasn’t a better gift I could have asked for.
???
“So you’re actually going to stick this thing out with that Russian fellow, huh?” Stuart asked as we browsed the local music shop. I had more guitars than I had fingers, but one more couldn’t hurt, right? I had my eye on an old Gibson J-180, and I dragged Stuart along to come look at it with me for about the hundredth time.
“I think I am,” I told him as I ran my fingers along its mahogany neck.
Lex had left for Russia three days ago, so I decided to treat my loneliness with a little retail therapy.
“What do we really know about the guy though? Claims he moved here from Russia at ten years old, but where’s the accent? Explain that to me.”
“Pretty suspicious,” I agreed absently. I could barely hear Stuart over the sound of the rosewood fretboard on this gorgeous guitar calling my name.
“All I’m saying is you should have really thought this thing through before jumping into a relationship with someone who, to this day, is still confused by Groundhog Day.”
“That one confuses me too, to be honest.”
“What’s confusing about it?” he asked. “Every year an overgrown rodent emerges from hibernation, and we base our winter forecast on whether or not it can see its shadow… makes perfect sense to me.”
“Okay, but why is it always named Phil?”
“You have something against the name Phil?”