“Hello? How can I help you?”

“Эльмира. Эльмира!”

Ingush. She complied with no hesitation. “What’s wrong?”

“The children. Please. Please take care of them.”

“Slow down. What's wrong?”

“They're coming. I can't explain now. Please, Elmira. My children. They’re all I have left in life.”

“Okay, okay,” Elmira stood. She knew the man was not one to talk, and never one to call. “Address?”

The man gutted it out. Elmira plucked a pen from a cup and scrawled his words onto paper.

“I’m going there now,” she said. “Are you—”

Click

That was three years ago. Elmira had since kept his children under her care in Children’s Hope Foundation, the local orphanage she worked at. Gavrill didn’t want his children to be fostered or adopted, so Elmira kept a constant eye on them instead. She could afford it — if she wasn’t asleep, she was at the orphanage. Sometimes, she was on the administration team. Sometimes, she was a counsellor for the children. Sometimes, she was a tutor. And sometimes, she was a caretaker, like when five-year-old Hygd Vorobyev refused to touch her workbook.

“I don’t want to learn Ingush,” Hygd declared one day, in English.

Hygd and her older siblings, Hrodwyn and Merethel, were in Elmira’s office. Its size allowed the room to be transformed into a small classroom. They were here for their daily Ingush lesson Elmira promised their father.

“Why don’t you?” Elmira replied in Ingush. “I thought you liked learning Ingush. Look, your siblings are doing the same, too.”

“I don’t want to,” Hygd shook her head.

Elmira glanced down at the photocopy of an Ingush textbook. She had modified it to fit her curriculum. Next to it was the Ingush workbook she wrote herself.

She took in a deep breath. “Hygd, it’s Ingush class, so you’re learning Ingush.”

“Why do I need—”

“If you keep speaking English, that means you need to learn more Ingush!”

Hygd frowns. “I want to learn English instead!”

“But your English is perfectly fine. You use it all the time in school!”

“I talk to you and my siblings in Ingush more than I talk to my friends in English. It’s seven days of Ingush and only five days of English. If you don’t teach me, I’ll get worse!”

“If you want to learn English so badly, fine. I can teach it to you. But now, you learn Ingush. Learning Ingush will not make your English worse.”

“No. I don’t want to learn Ingush anymore.”

Elmira furrowed her brows. “If you stop learning Ingush, how can you talk to your father, hm?”

Hygd’s voice quietened. She looked away. “I don’t want to.”

There it was. Elmira’s face softened. She put a gentle hand on Hygd’s back. “Hygd, what happened? Did your friends at school talk about your father again?”

Hygd said nothing at first, but her silence was broken by a quivering lip and a scrunched nose. She nodded, and wet words bubbled out of her mouth. “Cassey is having a birthday party, but her mom doesn’t want me to go. Cassey said it’s because daa’s not a good person. Auntie Elmira, am I not a good person, too?”

Elmira brushed Hygd’s orange hair back. “Oh, Hygd… you are a good person. You are the kindest, sweetest little girl. Your father is a good person, as well.”

“Then why wasn’t I invited?”

“Because Cassey’s mom was wrong. Grown-ups make mistakes all the time, Hygd.”

“Then what about daa?”

Elmira pursed her lips. “Sometimes, bad things happen to good people, but that doesn’t make them bad. Do you believe your father is a good person?”

Hygd nodded.

“Do you believe it with all your heart?”

Hygd sniffled and nodded even harder.

“Then that’s what really matters. Okay, Hygd?”

Hygd nodded again. “But I still don’t want to learn Ingush. I don’t want to be like vosha and jisha-vosha.”

“What’s wrong with Merethel and Hrodwyn?”

“No one wants to talk to vosha because he’s not good at English. Jisha-vosha doesn’t want to talk to other people, and now they don’t have friends.”

Elmira thought for a moment. She offered a smile. “Hygd, do you want to see photos of your father and mother in Ingushetia?”

Hygd’s eyes lit up. “Yes, please!”

Elmira smiled. “I will show them after class. You can ask your father about them when we visit him, but you can only do that if you learn Ingush!”

“Mm… okay. Then I want to learn!”

Elmira taught Hygd the language of her family. After that, she took Gavrill’s photo album from the storage room and showed Hygd the memories of her family.

It was nighttime. Elmira pushed her way through the sea of children being ushered to sleep. She went from room to room, asking the orphanage staff and the children they tucked into bunk-beds, if they had seen the orange-haired girl. No one had — not her siblings nor her friends. When the orphanage grew quiet with sleep, the orphanage staff joined Elmira’s search. The other staff fanned out through the building, while Elmira checked every room Hygd visited and was last seen at.

“Hygd? Oh, where did that girl go?”

A streak of light caught Elmira’s attention. The door to the storage room was cracked open. Elmira frowned. She sighed and pushed the door. Of course Hygd would be here. As expected, a large suitcase was opened. Spilled open beside it was a thick, old photo album. Curled up near it was Hygd, fast asleep.

Elmira opened her mouth to scold the girl, until she noticed Hygd clutching a photograph to her chest. Slowly, Elmira bunched up her skirt and knelt next to Hygd. She reached and gently opened Hygd’s hand, upturning the photograph.

 

 

Elmira looked at the old photograph. Hrodwyn was at the front, beaming. Next to them, Merethel shyly smiled. Their mother — Elmira’s best friend — sat in a chair next to the two children. Her bright smile was unrivalled by her blazing hair of fire. The infant she cradled, Hygd, shared her hair. Behind them, Gavrill stood tall and proud. His toothy grin matched Hrodwyn’s. In each arm, he carried a child — one boy, one girl, both brunettes and both with the same face.

Elmira looked back at Hygd. She sighed, then tapped Hygd’s shoulder.

“...Mm?” Hygd rolled her head.

“Hygd Vorobyev, you should not be here. Come now. Put the photo back where you found it, give me the room key, and go to bed.”

The little girl rubbed her eyes and looked at the photograph. Her head drooped. “Sorry...”

“For what?”

“For taking your keys without asking you…”

Elmira’s expression remained stern, but her voice softened. “If you want to look at the photos again, simply ask me. There is no need to be sneaky, yes? You are old enough to ask questions, and I will always let you see photos of your family.”

The little girl nodded, her eyes still heavy with sleep. “Okay...”

That was nineteen hours ago. Silence followed his departure among his children. And silence continues to follow twelve-year-old Hygd into her school day. She didn’t talk to her classmates. She didn’t sit with her friends during lunch and recess. She stayed in her homeroom to sit in a corner and draw instead. This is what her homeroom teacher tells Hrodwyn, who dropped their work shift to pick up their younger siblings from school.

“Hygd is, you know, a very bright girl,” her homeroom teacher says, clutching her arms against the frigid cold. “She's very cheerful, she gets along with her classmates very well, and is very talkative. But today… I know she has bad days, but it doesn’t make her withdrawn for the entire day.”

Despite the effort to keep the conversation out of earshot, Hygd hears it all, even through her earmuffs. She hears Hrodwyn mumble something about adjusting to family matters, then hears her homeroom teacher ask if her father will come to school events and meetings. Hrodwyn says he will, and that they’ll translate for him.

Hygd can hear her homeroom teacher force a smile. “I look forward to seeing him.”

The walk from school to home takes a bit over the usual twenty minutes, thanks to unshovelled snow and frozen pavements. Hrodwyn breaks the silence in Ingush. “Hygd, how are you feeling?”

Hygd kicks blue road salt. “I’m fine…”

Hrodwyn takes her gloved hand and squeezes it. “Don’t worry about daa. He’ll be fine.”

Merethel, who has been walking with his hands in his pockets, plucks his earphone out of his ear. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. It’s not the first time he has done something like this.”

“It’s not?” Hygd looks up.

“Mmhm,” Hrodwyn nods. “He used to be in a rebel army in Ingushetia. I think that’s why he was hired in the first place”

“Really?”

“Mmhm,” Hrodwyn nods again. “I don’t remember a lot of it, but I remember that when we were still living there, he sometimes left home to fight. That’s what naana said, at least. So I’m sure daa will be safe.”

A dry scoff from Merethel. “I wasn’t thinking about that, but okay.”

Hrodwyn tilts their head. “Then what were you thinking of?”

“Daa leaving,” Merethel’s hands slip back into his pockets. “It used to happen all the time when we first moved to Canada. We barely saw him. He’d be gone before we went to bed. He’d tell you to put us into bed.”

“That’s because he had to work, Merethel. He had two jobs.”

“I know! I’m just saying,” Merethel smiles, his tone light and innocent.

Hygd’s gaze lowers. “I don’t remember that.”

“Of course you don’t,” Merethel says. “You were, like, three. That’s why I’m telling you now. He’d leave at night and come back when we were asleep. Then we’d have to wake up super early because he had to wake up super early for his job, too. He’d drop us off at school, pick us up later, stay for a while, and then disappear at night again.”

Hygd straightens up. “What’s wrong with that? Daa was just working really hard.”

“I never said there was anything wrong with that. The real problem isn’t him leaving or him dying. The real problem is when he comes home. Don’t tell me you forgot what he was like, jisha-vosha,” he looks at Hrodwyn. “If he came home from a regular job like that, what will he be like when he comes home from this job?”

Hygd furrows her brows. “What are you talking about?”

Merethel looks down at her. “Daa was scary, Hygd.”

“No he wasn’t. He was never scary!”

“Oh, yeah? What do you remember about him before he came back from prison, huh?”

Hygd presses her lips tight together. She thinks about the photographs in the album. “He was nice…”

“Ha! You don’t remember what he was really like! That’s fine, obviously. You were too young — lucky for you. Frankly, I’m surprised that he came back from prison all fine and friendly, but let’s give him a few months on this job and see how he turns out, shall we?”

“Merethel!” Hrodwyn glares at him. “If you’re as smart as your mouth, you know you’re being unfair to daa right now.”

“I’m not making up anything, am I?” Merethel raises his hands. “I’m just pointing out what has happened before. It’s for Hygd’s sake, so she won’t be so disappointed.”

Hygd’s nose scrunches. “Well, I don’t believe you. Daa is a good person! He even got you eyeliner! You’re just stupid!”

“No, you’re stupid! You’re the one believing things without any facts-OW! What the hell?!”

Hygd punches Merethel’s arm. Before Hrodwyn can say anything, she grabs her backpack’s straps and races down the street, clambering through snow.

Swathed in her blanket, she listens to Hrodwyn scold Merethel from the living room. Merethel eventually sighs and opens the bedroom door.

“Hygd? I’m sorry…”

Hygd stays still and says nothing.

Another sigh, but not one of frustration. “I mean it, Hygd. I’m sorry. That was unfair and mean of me to say to you.”

“...I’m sorry for calling you stupid, too.”

She hears Merethel step closer. “It’s fine. I deserved that. But don’t make it a habit.”

A hint of a smile grows on Hygd’s lips. She forces it away. “You should say sorry to daa, too. He doesn’t deserve what you said.”

“Well, he isn’t here, is he?”

“That’s besides the point!” Hygd finally moves. She sits up to frown at Merethel from her upper bunk. “It’s still mean.”

Merethel opens his mouth, then changes his mind. “Okay, whatever. Believe what you want, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Hygd shrinks beneath her blanket. She curls back up in her bed. 

“...Jisha-vosha’s  going to order pizza for dinner, by the way,” Merethel starts. “What do you want? Cheese pizza, as usual?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” Hygd mumbles.

Merethel leaves. Hrodwyn enters to check in on Hygd afterwards. They comfort her to the best of their abilities with their strong face and gentle words. But Hygd knows that there’s only one thing that can comfort her now.

When Hrodwyn leaves the bedroom, when the background noise of TV chatter begins, Hygd slips out to go into the adjacent bedroom — her father’s room. Standing by a wall is the same, familiar suitcase. She lowers it, opens it, and sits on the floor across it. The suitcase is mostly empty — most of its possessions have been moved to dressers and shelves. But what she hoped to find remains in the suitcase’s hollow shell: the family photo album, sitting dejected amid dark and dust.

Album in hand, she returns to her bedroom as silently as she left it. She climbs into her bed, nestles herself into her cove of pillows and blankets, and opens the album.

Hygd has long memorised the order of photographs in this album, but she still finds comfort in its predictability and its familiar faces. First, there are photographs of domed buildings, street markets, and green parks. These backdrops eventually feature people: there’s daa, there’s Auntie Elmira, and there’s Her. Next are photographs of her much-younger father. They are all candid, except for the one of him lying in bed with a thick book in hand. He looks straight at the camera, extremely bored.

Hygd grins. It’s one of her favourite pictures of her father, and it’s one of her earliest memories of him — his gentle smile when Hygd showed him the photograph, his soft laugh as he told the story behind it. And the warmth he exuded only shone brighter when Hygd showed him photographs from the album’s next section.

 

 

Hygd’s eyes always linger on this section. It contains multiple photographs of a figure with Hygd’s orange hair and Hygd’s large eyes. In one photograph, She writes at a desk. In another, She’s curled up with a book. Hygd’s favourite is one where She looks straight at Hygd and blows a kiss at her.

 

 

Hygd carefully traces Her face. She wonders if she will sound like Her.

She continues going through the old photo album. There are more photographs of her father, Her, and the life they once lived. Hygd immerses herself in these pockets of time, imagining the sepia-tinted rooms making up the four walls she spent her days in, trying to steal the memories of the smiling faces that existed long before she did.

But the more she tries, the more she claws a hole in herself. There were still so many faces she didn’t know, so many names she was never told, even if they once shared her blood. But her older siblings and her father know them all. Jisha-vosha, vosha, daa: they all got to talk to these people and hug them and hold their hands. They know all about little things that made memories of these people come to life. Hygd doesn’t. She never will. Not if Hrodwyn keeps saying she’s too young to know some things about their family. Not if Merethel keeps telling things that she believes, with all her heart, are wrong.

But even if they do tell her everything one day, will she feel the same way as her family did in the photographs?

 

 

The last photograph in the album is the one Hygd looks at most. There are many family pictures in the album, but there is only one with Hygd. She was an infant, and she was sitting in Her lap. After that, nothing.

Hygd lies down. She closes the photo album. She hugs it, wraps her blanket around her tight, and imagines her family embracing her to sleep.