Chapter 13: Memories
Sydney watched her parents with interest as they all sat down and began to eat. They hadn't made any overt romantic gestures in front of their daughters, but they seemed a lot more comfortable together than she had ever seen them since her mother had returned. They were sitting side by side at the table now, their chairs a bit closer than was strictly necessary. Sydney had a sudden suspicion; without warning, she bent to look under the table. As she had suspected, her mother's left hand was entwined in her father's right hand.
"Sydney! What was that for?" Irina said.
"I wanted to see if you were holding hands under the table," Sydney said. "I remember you used to do that when I was little."
Tatiana did the exact same thing Sydney had done to get her own look under the table. Then she came back up and calmly resumed eating as if nothing had happened.
"Aren't you going to comment, Tatiana?" Irina said.
Tatiana shrugged. Sydney looked confused.
"Tatiana? Is that your real name?" Sydney asked.
Tatiana and Irina both nodded. "By the way," Tatiana said, "I've been wondering how Sydney got such an interesting name and I ended up with a perfectly common Russian girl's name."
"Yeah, how did I get my name?" Sydney asked. "I've always kind of wondered. Was I named after the city?"
Irina and Jack both raised their eyebrows and looked at each other. They had a quick "conversation" without speaking before turning back to their daughters. "Well, yes, you were named after the city," Irina said, "but there's rather more to the story than that."
Jack continued, "Your mother was two weeks shy of her due date when the CIA decided that it was absolutely imperative to send me to Australia. Your mother was not happy, to put it mildly."
"As I recall, I threatened to kill you if you weren't back when the baby was born," Irina said with a slight smile.
"And I believed you, too," Jack said. "But I didn't have a choice, so I went. When I got back, there was a message waiting for me at the airport that my wife was in labor. I'm lucky I didn't get into an accident on the way to the hospital. As soon as she saw me in the doorway, your mother started throwing things at me. And she said…"
"'Don't you come near me, Jonathan Donahue Bristow! If your job is so important, why don't you just go back to Sydney and name our daughter CIA?'" Irina said. "And then I temporarily forgave him and let him come in just so I could verbally abuse him while I was in labor…"
"And physically, too," Jack interrupted. "You broke three bones in my hand while you were pushing, remember?"
"Served you right for trying to tell me when to push," Irina said. "Anyway, then you were born, and I forgave him again…"
"And I forgave her the broken hand—not that I was ever really all that upset about it—anyhow, we'd had a boy's name all picked out, Steven Andrew, but we hadn't been able to agree on a girl's name. And I said, 'Maybe you had the right idea earlier.'"
"And I thought he was kidding, and I said, 'Jack, we are not naming our daughter CIA.'"
"I said, 'No, of course not, but what about Sydney?'"
"And we looked at you, and it was perfect."
They all sat there smiling for a moment, until Tatiana said, "Somehow I have a feeling my story's not nearly that exciting."
"Well, it has its good points," Irina said. "You were named after my sister. She died when I was eleven."
"What happened to her?" Tatiana asked.
"I didn't know what it was at the time, but looking back, I think she probably had leukemia," Irina said. "There wasn't much that could be done at the time. But here's the interesting part: the night she died, she told me that I would have two daughters and asked me to name the younger one after her. Ever since you were born I've wondered how she knew."
Tatiana looked confused. "I don't think my grandparents ever mentioned her."
Irina frowned and looked away for a moment. Then she looked back and said, "That's because they weren't your grandparents."
Next: Tatiana's story