Chapter Text
1992
The trees were changing colour, oranges, yellows, browns, all in front of Melina’s eyes. It was different than in Russia, where the changing trees were hugged by bitter winds. Where the cold air seeped in through poorly insulated windowpanes. Where the little girls in the academy were deposited alone in the woods for a week, survival of the fittest. Darwin’s theory of evolution. Science backed cruelty.
Melina remembered the days when she would get to the edge of the forest, would look out through the bare branches. She would see other school children jumping in fallen leaves, wearing thin woollen jumpers that were more patches than wool, watch as they would file back into the warm schools or back home to their parents’ loving arms.
Fully immersed in that life now, the loving warm arms the girls ran into, yet utterly alone. As soon as labour day had ended, the stores had become full of boxes of cheap candy, and as the month of September wore on poorly made costumes that were coming apart at the seams appeared as well. Uncomfortably uniform pumpkins made their way in giant boxes as October first rolled around.
She tried to ignore it, pretend that the silly American holiday about filling children with sugar did not exist. That was, until Alexei came home from work with a single string of orange and purple lights. “People are starting to talk.” He shrugged off her questions, ignoring her persistence at telling her who people were. He had simply motioned towards the neighbourhood to make his point clear, where cartoon-like decorations had started to pop-up overnight.
After that, Melina took the girls to the store. She had always been the best and decided this was no different. Needed to be classier than gaudy. Besides, they were supposed to fit in with the Americans, not stand out like they had no clue what they were doing.
Which to be fair, they did not.
Soon, silly scary faces were drawn onto plastic grocery bags that were filled with tissue and tied closed, hung up with fishing line from the trees. Plastic tombstones with ridiculous names from Walmart popped up all over the lawn. Their own haunted graveyard.
Melina was proud of her arts and crafts handiwork, especially considering she did not have any experience in it. She accepted the excited cheers of the girls with a polite smile, a gloating smile with Alexei. Yelena was particularly enamoured with it all, finding a plastic skeleton at Home Depot and carrying it everywhere with her in the house. She even invited it to tea-parties and threw a tantrum when Alexei and Melina both said she could not bring it to daycare with her.
Natasha was more skeptical of the whole affair than her sister, but equally enthralled. She found it all so strange. She was a young girl coming from a world where the monsters were humans and not cartoons. You could not simply pull a mask off, and it would all go away. Yet, the more crafts they did in class, the more books they read (Go Away Big Green Monster!, The Little Old Lady Who was Not Afraid of Anything) the more comfortable Natasha became in her role.
When her friends ask her what she is going to dress up as, Natasha always answered a ghost, duh. It was obviously the scariest thing, at least in the midwestern United States where little girls were not used as assassins. Besides, just putting a sheet over her head? Natasha knew it was easy, knew she would not need to ask Melina and Alexei to buy anything and face the rejection of being told that dressing up was not needed for the mission.
After ballet lessons one early October weekend, Natasha and Yelena were drinking their hot chocolates with glee, along with devouring their grilled cheese sandwiches. Melina and Alexei watched them, drinking their coffee (gross! Exclaimed Yelena when she smelled it) and sharing a panini (It’s just a fancy grilled cheese, Natasha said, ignoring the fact that it had much more than cheese on it), when one of the other dance moms walked over.
Melina was not a fan of the dance moms. They acted too fake, and as someone who was now faking her entire life, she felt as though she had the authority to say this. She plastered a smile on her face, one that looked real enough to convince them. Rebecca Chance was the least favourite of the mothers, yet she was the one who seemed to want to talk to her the most. Although, it was more bragging than talking. Rebecca was competitive, thinking her children were better than the rest.
“Melody!” Rebecca’s voice was shrill, false enthusiasm coating it. Other patrons’ heads swivelled to look at them, and Melina smiled politely at them as though to say, well isn’t this embarrassing. “I didn’t see y’all today! I thought you might have quit.”
“No, no,” Melina assured her, “we were there.” Her voice was soft to fit the building they were in, to fit the image that Melody had. Melina had been trying to teach the girls (well, Yelena) that when they were inside, they did not shout and yell. Rebecca was not helping her case. Though, Yelena most likely would not have caught on right away anyway.
Rebecca hummed and looked down her nose at the girl’s half eaten food. Yelena was pretending her Po stuffy was eating as well, making obscene “Monch! Monch!” sounds.
“Well, we’re on our way to get fall family photos taken. You know, for Christmas cards.” Rebecca smirked as though Melina was obviously too uncultured to know what that meant. Melina wanted to roll her eyes, say that no, she obviously had no clue what that was because she was raised to be a killer seductress not an annoying helicopter mother. “I’ll have to get your address, Melody. Since we’re friends and all.”
“Yes, of course.” Melina smiled on the outside, but on the inside her mind was reeling. Another stupid, American pastime they had to recreate? Family Photographs? When the others were not looking, she and Alexei shared a look. Obviously, they would be looking into this when they got back to the house. What else was there to do, they wanted needed to be as authentic as possible.
Finding a photographer last minute was easier than she expected. Another family had cancelled, meaning that they were able to take over the appointment quite quickly. She dressed the girls up in their best, most autumn themed clothing. Mostly it was velvet dresses that looked more suited to Church, but it was the best she could do. Natasha was not happy about it, preferring jeans and sneakers to dresses and flats. Yelena was not happy about having her hair up and out of her face, wanting the curls to stay wild.
Alexei made a face at the suit she pulled out of his closet. Muttering monkey suit (a term he must have gotten from some film, because she had never heard it before) and insisting that he discard the jacket and only wear the button up and vest. He did shut up about the annoyance of all the glitz after she walked out of the washroom in a forest green dress that complimented the shades in his tie.
Melina was sure that all of this would be for nothing, that the photographs would be a failure and give them away as non-Americans. Yelena had started to shout and cry halfway through the session, not interested in getting her photo taken at all. Melina had held her in her arms, bouncing, trying to get her to stop crying. Natasha had stood in front of her, watching the adults behind her and the photographer wearily. Alexei stood beside them, the only one smiling, trying to make both girls (and her) laugh. His hands were still tucked awkwardly in his pockets.
After the studio session they went into the grocery store quickly to grab the ingredients for dinner (we want mac and cheese! The girls had chanted the entire way). They were sidelined when Yelena saw the pumpkins.
“Please mommy!” she cried, trying to reach for them from her spot in the cart, almost tipping it over as she went. It was late in the pumpkin season, Melina gathered from the fact that there were only ugly pumpkins with deformities left, rather than the uniform ones she had seen earlier in the month. Reluctantly she consented to the girls each choosing a pumpkin – and they both decided to choose the ugliest of the batch (they need homes too, Natasha told her seriously.)
“Rebecca is going to take this as a win.” Melina complained to Alexei Halloween night after the girls had gone to bed. The photographs they had received that afternoon laid out on the table, waiting for them to pick the best ones. Outside was dark, rain having just started. Natasha had commented as she fell asleep that she was glad the rain had not ruined their first Halloween, and Melina was inclined to agree.
“They’re perfect.” Alexei noted from his spot across from her, pen abruptly stopping on the report he was writing.
“I really don’t think they are.” Melina gave him a look, pointing at the wailing Yelena, the glare Natasha gave the camera. She wondered if he even knew what good photographs looked like, if he thought these were perfect.
“They are.” He insisted, tapping the photo once before going back to his report. “We look like a family. Real.”