Everything is in shambles. I try to fit the rusty old key into the lock, and it sticks when I turn it. I worry the door won’t open. The key slips from my sweaty, shaking hand. Chips of brown paint and dusty strings of spiderweb cling to my blouse. A cold wave of panic sweeps over me, down my arms and up my throat and across my face. In spite of all this, I realize that if by chance I’m unable to unlock the door, I’ll simply drive back home and nothing will have happened. My panic subsides. I draw in a deep breath, dry my hands on my trousers, and brush the paint and spiderwebs from my sleeves. I calmly turn the key and watch the door open.

The scent of my grandparents hits me: lavender, pine, and nettles. Their summerhouse, damp, cool, and dark, is like an abandoned museum. I manage to pry open one of the crooked wooden window shutters despite its rusty hinges, and shafts of light lance the room. Thousands and thousands of dust motes awakened by my entrance dance in the air. Now to find the switch box and the water valve.

“How are you going to manage?” I can hear Gorazd say, with his eyebrow cocked. “You know you can’t,” he would add, or my father would. “You’re such a klutz,” Gorazd would say, as always. “I’d better come along,” my father would say. “You’ll never be able to do this on your own.”

A cold wave sweeps over me again. I can picture my grandmother when she came here alone, or alone with me, because I don’t really count. I can see her big behind sticking out from under the sink and then her ruddy, pleased face when she turns the tap and watches the water run, as if it were a miracle.

I kneel under the sink and gingerly place a clammy hand on the valve, but for the life of me I can’t remember which way to turn it. I close my eyes and picture a hand turning a faucet, then tentatively turn my own to the right and feel the valve give. I rise to my feet and twist the tap, watching it tremble and splutter before gushing out its first jet of water in three years. I sigh with relief as the water flows down the drain, but now I have to find the switch box. I can see my grandmother go to the cupboard by the window and grab a wooden rolling pin, then hobble toward the entrance. I do the same and see the switch box high above the door. Snap-snap-snap. I can feel each switch give as I push the end of the rolling pin against them. My hands are still sweaty as I flick on the living room light: it works. I flick on all the light switches: everything is working; nothing is amiss. But it can’t be, I say to myself. Nothing is ever right. That’s just how it looks.

I pull the sheets off the couches. The dance of the dust motes in the light becomes even livelier as I plop myself down, wondering what I should do next. Everything needs cleaning, and I should go up into the attic to make sure there isn’t something dead up there. I should get rid of all these spiderwebs. I should replace the sheets with the ones I brought from home. God knows, the clothes in the closets must be rotting with mold.

“It’s an absolute mess there.” My mother’s voice flows through me. “It’s unfit to live in,” she says, reluctantly handing me the key to the house. My father is supposed to give it to me, but he’s angry I’m going. He and Mila are reading a picture book in the backyard, his way of showing me that he’s a better parent than I am.

“Everything is falling apart,” my mother adds, even though the key is in my hand. They are well aware that I always change my mind, and that whenever I do make a decision, I am left with painful doubts. And if they don’t like my choice, they make it hurt even more.

I remain silent as a first line of defense, something I’ve been doing ever since I was a little girl.

“You know what your father thinks,” she says. “On top of everything else, there isn’t anyone up there. You’ll be all alone in the mountains. You’ll freeze to death. What will you eat?”

“I’m thirty-three, and I’m a mother,” I remind her. Though I look frail and insecure, whenever I say I’m a mother, people take me more seriously.

My mother sighs. It’s summer, and they’re hoping they can have Mila longer. They want this because they think, among other things, that I’m not a good mother, considering all that’s happened to me.

“As you wish,” she says, while actually meaning the opposite.

“I’m off now,” I say, putting my arms around her. “I don’t want Mila to see me leaving.”

“I worry about you, sweetheart,” my mother says in a weepy voice, as if I were going off to war and not to a summerhouse in the mountains.

“Come on, Mom. I’m just going there to relax — to clear my head.”

“I know, honey. But why can’t you just stay here with us? It’ll be so much better for you. I’ll do all the cooking. And it’s clean here. No one has been up there in years. How in the world are you going to manage?” she asks with a troubled stare. “I feel so sorry for you.” I can feel her getting on my nerves.

“Okay, I’m off,” I say.

“You’re not saying goodbye to Dad?”

“He’s with Mila. Let them be.”

“As you wish,” she says.

I’m barely out the door when I call my friend Ilina. I often wonder how she puts up with me. She knows I rarely call unless I’m feeling insecure about something and want reassurance. Ilina is in a meeting. “I can’t talk right now!” she says in a loud whisper. “You should just go and call me when you get there!” Even this helps a bit. I repeat Ilina’s advice, which always starts, just like my parents, with “You should”: “You should go there on your own.” “You should be alone.” “You should learn to cope with what’s happened.” “You shouldn’t be afraid.” You should, you shouldn’t, you should, you shouldn’t.

I should learn to manage things and not be afraid, I say to myself. Okay, I’m managing. I egg myself on: the water and electricity are working; the windows and shutters are open; the sheets are off the furniture. But my bags are still in the hallway. And I don’t move. I only stare out at the fir trees slowly swaying left and right, like hands playing a waltz on a piano.

I turn my gaze to the framed photo next to the broken-down TV from the ’80s. The photo shows us seated for dinner in the yard outside. The table is a cornucopia of my grandmother’s specialties. My grandfather sits at the head of the table. He is grinning, and his gold incisor glitters in the sunlight. My grandmother stands beside him, proud, a smile on her face, looking grand in her apron. Her hands are resting on her hips, pleased at the thought of feeding the family. My mother has allowed my father to put his arm around her stooped shoulders. In his other hand is a tall, sweating glass of beer. My mother looks like she’s missing her left arm. A fork dangles from her right hand. She’s looking not at the camera but somewhere to the side. My brother is already absorbed in the food on his plate. He seems oblivious that we’re taking a family photo. I’m at the far end of the table. I look as if I’m trying to hide behind my brother, though I’m actually sitting in front of him. The sun in my eyes makes me look worried. My mouth is slightly open. I look frail and thin, as conspicuous as a half-starved street urchin. The fact is, every time I see that photo, I feel a wave of pity for myself.

Since long before Mila was born, I’ve often felt a kind of paralysis, a desire for everything to miraculously pass so that I can finally have a wish and desire of my own. I know I need to make myself do something, but I can’t imagine what. It’s all I can do not to call Ilina, so I repeat what she said: “You should go for a walk. Long walks are good for the mind. It’ll clear your head; it’ll be good for your body. You shouldn’t lock yourself up like this. You should be out in nature more.” You should, you shouldn’t, you should, you shouldn’t.

It’s that hour of the evening when the elderly step out for a stroll. I will watch them totter down the lanes and alleys, leaning on canes they have carved themselves. The children will have been out playing all day long. They’ll be scampering around the old men and women, hiding behind bushes or disappearing in the woods, their cries ringing out, now close, now far.

I step out onto the path in front of the house, peering up and down, but I don’t see a soul. None of the neighboring houses show the least sign of life. All their shutters are closed tight, their facades crumbling, their yards overgrown with weeds. Sani’s house is among the most derelict. The garden beds are a riot of ferns, goldenrods, and wild roses that litter the yard with petals. Tufts of weeds jut from cracks in the walls. Here and there a tiny fir tree has sprung from the earth, and in a corner grows a lush maple sapling. The backyard of the house leads into the forest. Along a steep trail, through tunnels of rustling beech trees, Sani would lead me to a clearing where blackberries grew rampant.

Sani had a younger sister, Andrijana, who was always clinging to us. Before going off to pick blackberries, Sani would chase her sister off, telling her she was too little to be tagging along, whereupon Andrijana would cry, and I would feel all grown up.

Sani always took the lead. She was fearless, fast, and nimble. Both of us were scrawny little things, but while I looked frail, Sani seemed strong and supple as a hazel switch. She moved through the trees like something feral, while I lagged behind, afraid of slipping on the patches of moss. She would leap over anything that came in her way, and if she happened to fall, she would spring up at once, as though she felt no pain. And she would plunge into the blackberry bushes just so. The first time I followed her, I did the same, for it seemed painless. The thorns drew blood, and I began to cry. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t know the way home and was afraid of wandering through the forest alone. As I stood there whimpering, Sani picked mouthfuls of the jet-black fruit, indifferent to the thorns scratching her skin. She finally turned for home, her lips and teeth purpled, her arms bleeding. I trailed behind her, still whimpering, though it wasn’t the thorns that hurt as much as the feeling that I wasn’t there.

The next time we scrambled up the forest trail, I told Sani what my folks had been saying about her family. I wanted to be the first to tell her, feeling this would add to my importance.

“Sani,” I said, “your parents are getting a divorce.” I didn’t even know what that meant.

She didn’t say a thing. She just pressed on into the woods.

“Your dad caught your mom in bed with someone else,” I said, though I didn’t know what that meant either.

“Fine,” she said.

We didn’t utter a word until we got to the blackberries. She plunged into the bushes again. “Want some?” she asked.

“I’m not really hungry,” I lied, pretending I was interested in a cluster of mushrooms whose caps I’d knocked over.

“They’re really good. You gotta come and try some,” she said several times, her mouth blackening. “Mmm,” she moaned, closing her eyes.

I went over and reached for a nearby blackberry and scratched my hand. This time I didn’t cry out, though I became afraid when the thorn wouldn’t give, pulling on my skin as if wanting to take it off. I placed the blackberry on my tongue and bit it. The sweetness hit the back of my ears and glided down my throat, and as it did, my whole body went sweet.

“I don’t know,” I said. “They’re not that great,” I lied, seeing how the other blackberries were deep among the thorns.

“As you wish,” Sani said.

Turning back, Sani said she wanted to go home and clean herself up. Her forearms were bloody with scratches. Her shirt was torn in several places, her lips and teeth dyed dark blue, her tongue black. There was a scratch under her left eye. We headed straight to the bathroom, and she began washing her arms. Whirls of pink water disappeared down the sink. Then her father, Chichko Krsto, barged into the bathroom. It was too small for the three of us. I leaned back toward the tub.

“Picking blackberries again, you little rat?” I’d never heard someone say that to anyone before. I tried to make myself smaller.

“Yes!” she snapped back defiantly.

Chichko Krsto slapped her hard across the face. She had to grab the sink to avoid falling.

“You little shit!” he snarled. “Look what you’ve done to yourself! Why don’t you ever listen? So, was it worth it?”

“Yes!” she shot back. “They’re delicious,” she added and stared him down. He slapped her again, and I fell back into the tub. Which is when Sani’s mother burst in. “What have you done to them!” she screamed, pushing him away and scrambling to help me up out of the tub. “Are you okay, honey? Are you hurt anywhere?” I nodded, trying my best not to cry. “You better go now, honey. Go home now,” Sani’s mother said, edging me toward the front door.

When I got home, I told my parents what had happened.

“Those people are batshit crazy,” my father grumbled.

“Insane,” my mother agreed. “Those poor girls,” she added.

“What do you expect?” my father said under his breath. “A nut and a nympho.”

The things grown-ups say in front of their kids, I think as I follow the old tire tracks оn the dirt path. Before Chichko Krsto hit Sani in the bathroom, he would come over and rail that he was going to kick Diana out. That he’d caught her fucking half the men she worked with. That he should’ve known she was into fucking. That he’d been so fucked over. “She’s a nympho, she’s sick in the head,” he’d bark, emphasizing the word sick. When Chichko Krsto used the word fuck too often, my parents would send me up to my room. But even from there I could hear every word.

The day after Sani got slapped, my grandmother hush-hushed me into the kitchen. “Come here, I have something for you,” she whispered. She showed me a plastic container brimming with blackberries that filled my eyes. “Open wide,” she said and placed a berry on my tongue. I closed my eyes. Nothing. Then a touch of sweet turned sour. I swallowed, but my body felt no sweetness. “Aren’t they good?” she asked. “Yes,” I lied. She beamed with pleasure, continuing to feed me with her glossy, wrinkled hands. I obediently opened my mouth each time. “Aren’t they tasty?” she would say each time she fed me one. “Very,” I lied again, knowing she’d bought them just for me.

Before bed, I asked my brother what a nympho was. He laughed at my not knowing. “A nympho is a whore. A woman who really likes to fuck.”

I can’t remember when Sani left, but after that summer, she never came back. For years I thought I was responsible for her not returning, and for her getting slapped, since I was the one who had told her about her parents getting a divorce. Later I heard from our neighbor Lenka, to whom Chichko Krsto had also raved about Tetka Diana being a nympho, that her parents actually did get a divorce. “A divorced man is a failure,” I overheard my father saying to my mother, “a man who’s failed at life.” “Those poor girls,” my mother kept repeating. “I’ve never met a girl as intelligent as Sani,” she often said. At times she would even call her hyperintelligent. And each time she did, I felt like rolling into a little ball. Which is why, years later, over dinner one night, I told them that Sani had become a travel writer, a lesbian, and an S&M enthusiast. “Well, with parents like hers, how could she have turned out all right?” my mother concluded. “She’s married to an older woman,” I added. “What the hell?” my father muttered.

What I didn’t tell my parents was that Oxford University Press had published two of Sani’s books, one a political travelogue on her adventures in Papua, the other an account of the S&M subculture in New York, which she had researched while working as a domme. I scoured the web for negative reviews and comments, but I couldn’t find a one. But I did find that she’d gotten both a Guggenheim Fellowship and American citizenship. I also found out that her wife was a renowned lesbian poet. They lived in Manhattan, and on a Texas ranch, and on the road.

I follow Sani on all the social media. At least once a month, I browse through her Instagram pictures, her Facebook posts, her political comments, and the countless updates of her glamorous life on Twitter. But of all the things that pain me, the pictures hurt most. In every one, Sani is clearly enjoying herself. And, oh yes, her name isn’t Sani any longer. It’s Alex, Alex Marr — from Markovska. Alex, then, is enjoying herself in all the photographs, in which she’s invariably half dressed. One side of her body is covered with tattoos of cacti and other thorny things. The other is the color of creamy sand. The down on her light brown arms is golden. Her teeth gleam in all the pictures — a double row of perfect tiles. Her hazel eyes match her complexion. I find a crumb of comfort in the fact that she’s not all that pretty, her nose a little flat, her cheeks rather chubby for someone as lean and supple as she is. Her beautiful body is always being touched by someone, passionately touched, with taut fingers sweetly sinking into her smooth skin. She is touched on her hips, her waist, her inner thighs, and the thorns adorning her strong body.

I, too, have photographs in which I am being touched. No one knows about them except Gorazd, but I’m afraid that one day Mila will see them, and that’ll be the end of me. They were made seven years ago, exactly nine months before Mila was born. I’m naked in all of them: pale white, with skin that has always been hidden behind clothing. I’m spongy, like “old mozzarella,” as Gorazd used to say, as if it were an endearment. In the first series he made, the morning-after pill is in the palm of my hand. “Look sassy,” he ordered. This was supposed to be another one of his “art projects,” all of which were utter failures. He called it “Documenting the Death of the Idea of Оur Child.” He also thought of calling it “How I Killed Us.” In the second series of photos he took that day, he made me stick my tongue out, with the pill ladled on the tip. Gorazd ordered me to stand with my legs spread, seductively tilting my hips forward. In the photos, my breasts hang like pears, my nipples so light that they’re barely visible. In the third series, Gorazd told me to sit on the bed. He put the camera on auto, kneeled down on the mattress, and towered over me. He made me open my mouth with the pill still on the tip and spat on it, then commanded me to swallow. He yanked my hair, pulling my head back. With his other hand he squeezed my right breast and pinched the nipple. Breathing heavily, he tilted his head as if to kiss me and then stuck his tongue out. He then forced his hand between my thighs. This is how it always was. At first I would feel a fire there and a sweetness beneath my tongue, behind my ears. The feeling that I was burning, but I never burned up. He grabbed my head again and shoved his penis in my mouth. The camera clicked on for twenty minutes or so, which was the time it usually took him to come. First soft, then hard, soft, then hard again, he bucked relentlessly. I never saw the photographs, but I must have looked an awful mess. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t let me. I could barely breathe. He slapped my hands away, grabbed me by the hair, and stuck his penis in my mouth again. He bucked and panted like a horse being broken while his sweat rained down on me, mingled with my tears, snot, and spittle. It was all I could do not to gag. But when he thrust it deep down my throat, gripping my head with both hands, vomit spewed out my nose and the sides of my mouth. Only then did he let me go. I scurried to the window and threw up again. He laughed all the while, which was better than him getting angry. He told me to come back and wipe myself clean with the sheet. Then he ordered me to lie down and open my mouth. He kneeled over me again and jerked on his penis until he ejaculated in my mouth and told me to swallow it.

I had vomited up the morning-after pill. It crossed my mind even then that this might have happened, but I didn’t have the strength to reenact the “Death of the Idea of Our Child,” because I knew he wanted to get me pregnant. He came inside me intentionally, knowing he shouldn’t have, knowing I didn’t want it. He knew I was applying for a graduate scholarship in the UK. Knew that I might have become something.

I finally come to the forest spring where Sani and I used to fetch water. Sani drank directly from the stream. I was afraid of the water touching my face. This is where my grandparents would collect water for cooking and cleaning. The water was never as cold coming from a plastic jug as it was flowing in the stream. It didn’t taste as good either. Sani would take off her shoes and dunk her feet in. “It’s so cold!” I’d cry out. “It’s cold at first, but then it gets good,” Sani would say. “This water is always flowing. You can put your feet in and still drink it.”

I take off my shoes and dip my feet. I shudder from the cold at first but then feel warm all over.

Alex Marr — I often google the name. I get thousands of results. I then type in mine, Ivana Petrova. There are many Ivana Petrovas. One is a female weightlifter. A journalist or two. There’s Ivana Petrova the lawyer, and a cosmetician who goes by that name too, and yet another who trades women’s wigs. I am none of those Ivanas. I am not on the internet. I am nothing. Maybe I could have been something. Maybe. If I had gotten another pill and taken it. If I had left.

I’m beginning to grow cold again, so I lift my feet out of the stream. I haven’t called Mila. I haven’t called my parents to tell them I’ve arrived, that I’ve “managed.” The very thought of calling them gives me the feeling of having a hair ball in my windpipe. All I want to do is lie down on the moss beside the water and stay there.

I find my way out of the woods and make my way home. Though the sun is sinking below the horizon, I haven’t seen a single person, much less a child, but then two elderly women appear on the path before me. They are dressed like the old ladies of my childhood: long, knitted, sleeveless brown sweaters; tubular skirts; dark knee-length stockings; and leather sandals. One of them has her hands clasped behind her back. The other woman — older, smaller — leans upon a cane in her right hand while bracing her left upon her hip. They are silent as I approach.

“Good evening,” I say.

“Good evening,” they reply, and stop. The older one squints at me. She seems familiar.

“How are you?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.

“We’re fine, managing somehow,” the older one says. “And you — which house are you staying in?”

“That one there,” I say, pointing with my chin.

“Aren’t you Andon’s granddaughter?” she asks. “You don’t remember me?”

Over the years, I’ve learned to stop feeling guilty for not remembering the grown-ups of my childhood. But I do remember this woman. We used to play with two of her grandchildren who were just a bit older than Sani and me.

“Tetka Rada?”

“Yes, yes.” She nods with a contented smile. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you here!”

“Ah,” exclaims the other woman, “Andon and Gorica’s granddaughter! We would come for coffee.”

“Gorica made such delicious pies,” Tetka Rada says.

“Oh, and the sweets she baked,” the other woman adds.

“Those were the days. And now you see us all grown old and ready to leave the world,” Tetka Rada says. Her blue irises sparkle between her wrinkled, nearly lashless eyelids.

“Andon and Gorica left us a long time ago, may God rest their souls,” says the other, crossing herself.

“The future is yours, child. It is now your turn,” Tetka Rada says, straightening herself.

“But look, look around, there’s no one here,” the other woman says. “No one comes anymore. And everything is falling apart. It’s just the two of us old biddies and a few other women who wander through the neighborhood like ghosts.”

“The times have changed,” I say, beginning to sound like them.

“There are no children anymore,” the other lady says, sighing. “We’re going to die out.”

“What are your folks up to?” Tetka Rada asks.

“They’re fine; they’ve just retired.”

“And your brother?”

“He’s in Germany.”

“He’s managed, then,” the other lady says. “It’s better there now than here,” she adds. “So, are you married? Do you have children?” she asks as they glance toward my ringless finger.

“I have a seven-year-old daughter.”

“So why don’t you bring her along? There’s another child further down the road. They could play together, get fresh air.”

“The place used to be full of children…” Tetka Rada says, looking around disappointedly. “You used to run around, making a racket, causing all kinds of trouble. You’d sneak into the house to steal chocolates.”

“I stole your chocolates?” I say, feeling offended.

“Oh yes,” Tetka Rada says with utter certainty. I can see she has no intention of offending me but is just poking fun. “You always figured out where I hid them, and ta-da! You’d slip right in and steal a handful. You’d even steal for your friends. You little fox!”

Her companion laughs.

“Well, I’d better be getting along,” I say. “I’ve got work to do.”

“How long are you staying?” Tetka Rada asks.

“I don’t really know,” I reply. And I really don’t.

“We hope you stay for a while,” the other woman says.

“Yes, stay,” Tetka Rada says, chiming in. “And do come by for coffee.”

I leave with the contented thought that I had once stolen chocolates, though I find it difficult to believe. First of all, I don’t like chocolate. And second, I’ve never stolen a thing in my life. Third, I think I would have remembered something like that — or someone else would have. As I open the gate into my overgrown garden, I realize with great disappointment that maybe it was another girl who stole her chocolates.

Soon the sun will set behind the mountains. I take out one of the folding chairs Andon and Gorica used to relax in while they drank glasses of wine and watched the colors change and disappear with the sun. They’d listen to the sounds of the forest — the chirping of birds and crickets, the rustling of unseen creatures in the foliage, of frogs and hedgehogs in the grass, of the imagined movement of foxes and bears. I find an old wine bottle in the cupboard above the sink. I take one of my grandmother’s ancient, chipped glasses and pour myself a drink, then sink back into the chair as the sun colors me orange. I know I’ll have to call my parents soon and talk to Mila before she goes to bed. I take out my phone and lay it on the low concrete wall beside me. Even now, I can hear the conversation in my head.

“Hey there, how are you guys doing?” I will ask, as if casually.

“We’re fine,” my father will reply. He won’t say, “How is it up there?” Because that would be his way of begrudging my decision.

“How’s Mila?” I will ask. “How’s she doing?”

“Mila? Amazing! What do you expect when she’s here with us?! Pssssss.” He will let out a disparaging whiz from between his teeth, as if to say, “Well, of course. She forgot about you ten minutes after you walked out the door.” I do my best, since I’m the only parent she has left, but she is already forgetting about me now and will no doubt forget all about me in the future.

Being forgotten happens to me all the time. Even Gorazd has forgotten me, for the most part. He hasn’t forgotten about those photographs or, rather, about me in those photographs, photos he would bring up every time I asked him for the child support he never paid. Now he lives with some Gordana. I don’t know her. I only feel a malicious pleasure that I’m not the only one who makes mistakes. He never calls Mila. It’s as if she doesn’t exist. If she asks about him, I tell her that her father is a busy man, always traveling.

I once heard her talking to the neighbors’ daughter, who’s a bit older than Mila.

“You got a dad?” the little girl asked.

“I do,” Mila replied.

“So, where is he?”

“He’s traveling,” Mila said. “He’s a sailor.”

“Which sea?”

“The Atlantic Sea,” my daughter answered.

I wanted to call my parents and ask if they’d ever talked about seas and oceans with Mila, but I knew I’d have to explain why I was asking. I don’t need to add to the guilt I feel whenever I see that she is as scrawny as I used to be — her limbs as frail as а dragonfly’s wings, her eyes slanted and heavy lidded like Gorazd’s. And wearing that look of his that meant reproach and contempt, though I’m not sure yet what it means in Mila.

My phone is still on the concrete banister beside me next to the wine glass. I hear women’s voices — a clatter of cries and chiming laughter. I rise unsteadily to my feet and see that there is a group of women in Sani’s yard. One of them is thrashing the rampant weeds and ferns with a stick, attempting to clear a path. Three other women stand under the balcony, helping Sani climb up. She eases her way over the rail and rattles the shutters to the entryway. “It’s no good. I can’t get in!” Sani cries. The woman fencing with the ferns looks up. “No way, huh?” she asks in English. Sani shakes her head. The women help her climb back down, and they leave together through the newly beaten path. “Watch out for nettles!” one of the women warns. “Too late,” another replies. They straddle the fence and disappear somewhere down the road. I’m still half out of my chair, wondering if I should go after them. While I’m thinking, I hear the babble of women’s voices, and now I see them all standing at my gate. They’re waving. “Hey! Hello!” they call. I wave back, gesturing for them to come in, because my legs are shaking.

As they climb down the stairs leading to the balcony, I rise to my feet, straightening my skirt. I become aware of my greasy hair, my hairy legs. I’m so stunned at their sudden appearance that I blurt out a loud hello. I try to keep my eyes off Sani. The first woman to step onto the balcony is older than the rest.

“Hello,” she says. “Ivana, is that you?” And I recognize Tetka Dijana, Sani’s mother. “Yes, it’s me. Dijana?” She nods. Sani reaches out her hand.

“How are you?” she asks, but I can tell by the look in her eyes that she doesn’t remember who I am. She looks at me the way celebrities do, or people who have been around the world, or teachers who no longer remember their students: an empty, albeit polite stare.

“Hey, Sani, haven’t seen you in ages.” The words tumble out of my mouth.

“Yes, yes,” she replies, still making an effort to place me.

“Here’s Andrijana — you remember her?” Tetka Dijana says, pointing at Sani’s younger sister. I shake hands with a fairylike creature who has long blond hair and a porcelain complexion.

“Wow, Andrijana, I haven’t seen you since you were a little girl,” I blurt stupidly, realizing that Sani was a little girl when I last saw her too.

“And these are our friends from America,” Sani says, then introduces me to the woman who was battling the weeds in the yard, a silver-haired woman in a lumberjack shirt, faded gray jeans, and square sunglasses with metal rims. She stands aside, examining the green buds of a hazelnut tree.

“This is Lenna. Lenna, say hi to Ivana,” Sani says in English. “Hi, Ivana,” says Lenna with a crooked smile. Lenna must be the poet, Sani’s wife. Sani knows my name, I say to myself. Or else she just heard it from her mother.

“And this is Ashley,” Sani says, pointing toward a dark, sinewy, tattooed young woman in a sleeveless white shirt and blue jeans. Ashley extends her hand.

“Sani and Andrijana are visiting, so we’re traveling around a little,” Tetka Diana tells me.

“Is that so?” I say, pretending I don’t know that Sani lives in the States. “Do you live overseas?”

“I live in America; Andrijana lives in France.”

“My brother lives in Germany,” I add, just to say something. The rest of the women smile politely.

“Are your parents well? Oh, I heard your grandmother passed away,” Tetka Dijana says.

“They’re fine,” I reply. “They’re in Skopje. Yes, my grandmother left us a few years ago.”

“Have you seen Krsto?” Sani asks, pointing with her chin toward their house.

“No, but I haven’t been up here for quite some time either.”

“It looks run-down, like he hasn’t been coming around. We tried to get inside. No way,” Sani says.

“You and Sani were such great friends when you were little! You played together all the time,” Tetka Dijana says.

“Yes,” Sani says, as if beginning to recall. “We had great times together. So what brings you up here now?”

“Not much. Just came to unwind.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Attagirl,” she says, as if I have done something extraordinary. “There’s no one around, and it gets kind of eerie at night. But it sure is beautiful up here. Just smell this air. And look at that view.” She turns her head toward the sun as her skin glows golden. Her tawny irises soak up the rays, which illuminate her slinky body through her white linen dress.

“Hey, what’s this?“ Lenna calls out from behind the hazel tree. Ashley joins her, and Andrijana and Dijana follow.

“Remember how we used to go pick blackberries?” I ask Sani, now that we are nearly alone. “Or, rather, you’d pick them, not me.”

“Blackberries?” Sani asks, looking blankly at me. “Oh, right! There were blackberries around here!” Clearly she didn’t remember a thing.

“Come on, I thought she’d actually seen something interesting,” I can hear Andrijana saying from behind the hazel tree. “They’re just a bunch of mushrooms. Hey, Sani, what kind of mushrooms are these?” She throws one at Sani, and it flops at my feet.

“I have no idea.”

“They’re just mushrooms,” someone says in English.

“Are they magic?” Lenna asks, pretending she’s going to put one in her mouth. The others giggle. Again their chime of laughter.

“I remember you and me going down to the forest stream,” Sani says. “So I wanted to take them there, but the path from my house is overgrown. How do we get there? I can’t remember anything. I have the memory of a goldfish.” She laughs.

“Just go down the stairs and take a left on the path.” I look at her tattoos as I speak. All those thorns, all those plants tattooed on her skin, are from some desert overseas. Not a thorn from the forest here.

“Great,” Sani says. “I guess we better get going, dip our feet in the water, and take off. It’s getting dark.” She turns toward the others. “Hey, let’s go,” she says in English. “The sun’s going down.”

“Oh, but I’ve been such a bad host, not offering you something,” I say, trying to keep them from going, though I’m not sure how. “Not that I have anything to offer you, except to share this bottle of wine.”

“We want to leave before nightfall. We left the car down by the main road. But hey, yeah, let’s have a sip,” Sani says, picking up the bottle of wine. “Vino, anyone?”

“Vinooouuu,” Ashley says, eagerly approaching.

“Wait, let me get some glasses,” I say.

“Forget that,” Tetka Dijana says. “Let’s drink straight from the bottle.”

“You go first,” Sani says, handing me the bottle.

“Nazdravje,” I say, smiling. “Nazdravje!” they all cheer, Ashley and Lenna too. I take a couple of swigs and pass the bottle to Sani. We’re all laughing.

“Let’s see if someone spills any wine on themselves,” Andrijana says, since we’re all wiping our lips. We do several rounds, and Tetka Dijana gets the last drop.

“Well, cheers to you, girl!” she says, giving me a firm embrace and then planting a loud smacking kiss on my cheek.

“I’m so glad we saw each other,” I say, hugging everyone in turn.

“It’s so nice to have met you,” Ashley says. Lenna holds my head between her hands and kisses my nose and forehead. Sani is the last to say goodbye.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she says, embracing my waist with one arm, my shoulders with the other. I give her a strong, clumsy hug back. She’s like a warm, smooth stone.

“Me too. And to think I just got here,” I say. “It’s all like a dream.”

“Well, this place is a dream,” she says, her hand lingering in mine as she walks away.

“Goodbye, honey!” Tetka Dijana calls out.

“Goodbye, Ivana!” Lenna calls, taking a mushroom from a pocket and throwing it in the air. Ashley blows me a kiss; Andrijana waves both hands. I wave back, blow kisses, my laughter ringing in the air.

They vanish among the trees. The air and sky grow cold, but I feel warm. I sit and watch the houses and the trees change their complexions as the colors dim and the shadows thicken. A fleck of light flashes down below on the road. And another. And still more. Fireflies fill the little path to my yard. Then I hear the echo of the women’s laughter and the flurry of their footsteps. They run among the fireflies, waving as they pass. I wave back, calling goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.