“Hi, Olya!”, I yelled into the phone and heard my own echo, “can you imagine Daniel listening to my clumsy English and not even interrupting?”
Do you remember how I lived when we met? I cooked, washed, did the dishes, took out the trash, worked in the garden, went to two parent meetings at the same time. Then I learned to plan everything very much in advance, make lists and analyze. I learned to lie and flatter, and even read minds. When my ex-husband asked “Tell me honestly..?”, I clearly gave him what he wanted to hear.
You were the only one I could talk to about everything. You knew how much I wanted a family and a nice home. You knew I married for love, and then turned into an easy-going, but never perfect wife.
Do you remember when I used to eat soup out of a crystal bowl? The homeopath prescribed me “magic” homeopathic grains, eating from crystal dishes, and refusing to drink coffee for a month. Do you remember how for 15 years in a row my New Year’s wish was divorce? And how we did divination in your kitchen and burned the hanging plant?
You put me on a plane to America. But I feel like I’m back at a time when I didn’t have to pretend and flatter, when I could be myself. Now I can say what I think. I know Daniel can hear me.
At the other end, Olya was silently happy for me.
I’ve only been here a couple of months. I am still in euphoria and disbelief that this is happening to me. But if immigration is my way to myself, then so be it.
