Remembering Alina

The day after Alina’s funeral I tried again to comfort her mother, Anna. As she sipped her tea she said, “I miss my husband, Kuzma, but am thankful he wasn’t here to bury his daughter.”

I looked at Anna, a 37-year old mother of one child. Her features favored Alina but she was thinner and her face was weathered by past losses. She’d lost her husband, Kuzma and her older sister to the bombs of war. She’d lost friends as well. Tonight she wore her hair in a ponytail secured by one of Alina’s bows.

I remained silent, unsure of the right words to say.

"Kuzma would have liked you," Anna said, her voice soft with grief. Then she put down her teacup and placed her head on my shoulder. It was warm against me.

I looked down at the fullness of her breasts and thought of Alina.

“ I wish I could have known him,” I said.

As we sat quietly, memories of Alina came flooding back and I realized how deeply connected Alina’s mom and I had become through our shared loss.

Anna leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to my lips. Though I was surprised, I took it as a quiet gesture, a way to express the unspoken connection we now shared in our grief over Alina’s death.

When Anna gave me a second unexpected kiss, I felt her hip warming me. She draped her hand over my neck and rested her head on my shoulder.

“Alina told me you and she made love. You were the last man to touch her in that way.”

I wasn’t sure what Anna meant and thought she might harbor resentment toward me.

I stammered. “Yes, we were intimate. I should have waited but we couldn’t help ourselves.”

“Oh no, I’m thankful you gave her those moments before she left us.”

I breathed a sigh.

“You see, I want to know what Alina knew in her last days. I feel like she’s prompting me to let her live on in the feelings that capture me now.

God, I thought, what’s happening here!

Then, as if Anna wanted to make her intentions clear. “I want you to be with me exactly as you were with Alina.”

“No, we can’t do this,” I said.

Disappointment crept into Anna’s face. “But we must. My husband and daughter are dead. Any day we might die. We have only this day. Once we’re in the grave we hav only an eternity of nothingness.”

“We can’t,” I said again but as soon as the words left my mouth Anna kissed me again. I felt her tongue dancing against my lips and thought of Alina. Anna pressed herself into me again and realized I was firming from her overtures. We kissed again and again with no words passing between us.

A wave of conflicting emotions washed over me. The warmth of her touch and scent of her perfume stirred something inside me that I hadn’t expected.

Guilt gnawed at me. Was I betraying Alina's memory by feeling this attraction towards her mother. How could I possibly allow myself to be drawn to Anna in this way, so soon after Alina's passing?

Yet, a part of me couldn't ignore the spark that had ignited between us. Was it wrong to find comfort in someone who shared the same loss? Or was I simply grasping at any semblance of relief for my grief?

In the depths of my confusion, a chilling thought crossed my mind. What if Alina was, even in death, somehow orchestrating this unexpected connection between her mother and me? Was she guiding us, urging us to find solace in each other?

Anna interrupted my thoughts suddenly by dropping her hand to my firmness. I looked down to where her hand rubbed gently against me. I was on fire with raw lust for this woman who’d given Alina life.

“I don’t want Alina’s memory to die,” Anna said in a cracking voice. “She walked the earth. She had a name. I want us to remember the details of her life and celebrate her in our actions.”

We stood and embraced. Oh how I wanted her but I knew it was wrong. Anna loosened my jeans and slid them down to my ankles. I felt the heat of her wrapped around me. I looked down and saw her moving me in and out as her pony tail swayed with her.

Only minutes later we were joined in intimate union. I saw tears in Anna’s eyes but her face was not sorrowful. Her face shined the same way I remembered Alina’s face sparkling with life when we made love.

I decided to repeat what I’d done with Alina only days before. I pulled out and placed my seed on Anna’s chest. It was then that I saw blemishes like those on Alina but with a different shape. As the creamy beads collected on her breasts, I wondered if the patterns on her skin also matched the shape of a star constellation.