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“Today you will hear the terrible things I did,” Mom said

“We all do terrible things, Mom,” Meredith said “You don’t have to worry ”

“Do we? Do we all do terrible things?” Moust “This is the talk-show babble of your generation Here is what I want to say now, before we go in I love both of you ” Her voice cracked, turned harsh, but her gaze softened “My Ninotchkamy Merushka ”

Before either could even respond to the sweetness of their Russian nickna home

Nina rushed to keep up with her eighty-one-year-old mother

At the desk, she smiled at the receptionist, a round-faced, black-haired woman in a beaded red sweater

“We are the Whitson family,” Nina said “I wrote ahead to Dr Ada by to see him today ”

The receptionist frowned, flipping through a calendar “Oh Yes His son, Max, is going to be here at noon to meet you Would you like to have some coffee while you wait?”

“Sure,” Nina said

They followed the receptionist’s directions to a waiting rooes of Juneau’s colorful past

Nina took a place by thein a surprisingly coe picturelooked out over a green forest threaded by falling rain

The , others in wheelchairs, their voices floating in and out with their presence

“I wonder what the belye nochi is like here,” Mo out the

“It’s better the farther north you go,” Nina said “According to my research anyway But if you’re lucky, sohts from here ”

“The northern lights,” Moe chair “My papa used to take ht sometimes, when everyone else was asleep He’d whisper, ‘Verushka, my little writer,’ and take o, into the streets of Leningrad, to stand and stare up at the sky It was so beautiful God’s light show,he said was dangerous then We just didn’t know it ” She sighed “I think this is the first ti ordinary ”