[ w/n: this chapter, though may seem like a filler, is important. Laura's past was undefined and plays a very significant part to come. she's reliving it for a reason . . .  ]

LAURA

This was a fantasy. I was sure of it.

The long table that resembled the dining table back in my hometown's Sharipov Manor was brimming with delight. There was a godly glow to the setting, as if the sun was right overhead, bathing us in the warmth. 

I remembered this day as clear as crystal. Because it was the only memory I had of my grandparents. This was the day my mother left the manor to wander off on her own, to an unknown city and bring me up. This was the day she cut off all her ties with her past. 

The magnanimous spread of food and ancient delicacies was starting to fill the chittering atmosphere with a wonderful smell, so my guess was some important event. The distinct feature of this room was the woodwork, given the warm scent - every ridge and cliff was Burmese teak, something my grandparents had treasured ever since they moved into the hour fifty years ago. Classical sculptures and paintings lined the walls in precise lines, for if the picture shifted an inch, it would be ominous.

Around the table was the only family I could remember. My grandparents, whose names I couldn't remember because I'd never met him before but seen their pictures. They were the oddest couple, much like my parents, my grandfather, Deda, too reserved and strict and my grandmother, Baba, looking anything but. At one edge of the table was Catherine Sharipov, in all her beauty and grace, smiling as she handed a plate to one of the help. What stressed me was that I didn't take any of her hallmarks. I wasn't blonde, small and soft like her. I wasn't brash with my decisions and I was definitely not cool-headed. 

Everything was picture perfect. Except, it never was.

Catherine snapped her blue gaze to mine, beckoning me over with her chin. She had a luminous smile as she held her arms wide open for an incoming hug. 

'Come here, Laurie.'

Before I could take a step forward instinctively, a little girl ran past me with her bronze ringlets bouncing with the motion. She was giggling as she sped into her arms, almost knocking Catherine over with the force of her embrace. She laughed, lifting the four-year-old in the air and hitching her up on her hip.

'Can you tell Baba the story you told me earlier?' she urged the little Laureline to say, but she was too busy twisting a strand of Catherine's yellow hair between her fingers, not paying attention. 'Say it to Deda and Baba, my love?'

'Leave the girl alone, Cathy,' the breadwinner of the family spoke up, a sturdiness to his tone. The pure Russian accent bled through his words, the synonymous pressing of his vowels making her pay extra attention to make out the words. 'You've been pressuring like she's on a wild goose chase.'

'Da, come on,' she rolled her eyes at her father, obviously disturbed by the fact that her own father couldn't call her child his grandchild. 'She's five and she can't communicate properly. But reads books as if her life depends on it.'

'It takes time, darling,' Baba said, smiling gently. 'Some are a little shy.'

'Not my, Laureline,' Cathy disapproved, caressing a cheek of her child. 'She's going to be strong and brave. Like her father.'

'For god's sake, Catherine!' Deda boomed with displeasure. 'That bastard left you when you needed him and stole the heirloom right under our noses - '

'That bastard is my baby's father! If I'm gone, you sure as hell won't protect her,' she spat. She released the little girl to the ground, the girl scampering behind her mother for protection. 'Ever since I had Laurie, you've shunned her. Because all you care about is the bloodline. She's a half-Western and that irks you.'

'Of course, it does,' he scoffed. 'If that man wants a part of my asset, he'll be damned for the next three births.'

'Then I don't need any percentage of your precious asset. I don't want anything of your sickening wealth,' Catherine decided brashly, shrugging off her mother's restraining arm. She shot her a dark look.

'I do not know how you put with his bullshit for thirty-five years,' she said and her mother gasped. 'I definitely can not. I can't stay here for another second.'

'Now, Cathy,' her mother reassured before she sharply turned to exit doorway. Baba picked up the little girl in a single motion, patting her gently to reassure the child in a state of chaos. 'Let's all relax for a bit. Your father is just a bit dry from his medicine - '

'No, don't support him,' she furrowed her brow. 'That man is a sickness. He will do anything to keep his money under his nose. You think he cares about us?'

'Catherine,' her mother sternly said, 'that's enough.'

'He doesn't,' Catherine continued, disobeying her mother. 'My husband would've stayed. He would've been here if it weren't for dear old Da threatening to wreck his family.'

'Catherine! I will not tolerate such a - '

'Oh, wake up, mum! Because I have. And, I'm putting an end to this,' she said under her breath, grabbing Laureline from her mother's hands and finally exiting the room. The little girl was silent, pressing her nose into her mother's shoulder and sniffling slightly. She had her eyes on her distraught grandmother and her grandfather who had risen up from his seat.

Catherine's father finally spoke up. 'Where will you go? I can cease your bank account - '

'Please do,' she snapped. 'The only reason you're not letting me leave is that this house is under my name. So is everything inside it.'

Her father drew a deep breath, Catherine hitting him where it hurt the most. A take at his wealth. 'Listen here, Catherine. You and the baby can't survive a day out there. The world is strange and packed with vile people. Either of you could get killed and you wouldn't want that.'

'I'd rather that than stay here,' she spluttered for words, tears making their way down her cheeks. 'I won't.'

'Catherine, please rethink this - '

'No, mum. I've decided what I should've done the minute my baby was born,' she interrupted her mother's squalls, holding little Laureline's head to her shoulder. The girl had trapped Catherine's neck in a tight grip, shaking slightly. 'I'm leaving. He can have his dear assets.' 

My sight was suddenly splurged with black ink drips through a sieve, shifting the frames quickly as if in a movie-screening. The black bled through Deda's furious visage and my mother's tears turning a sooty black as the roll moved. I was transported to another scene, dark and lights from the outside blurring fast across my mother's face.

It seemed that I was trapped inside child Laureline's body, my gaze going upwards and searching for my mother's face. She was crying ugly tears as she frantically reached for an ancient phone and dialed a number. All the while, she had her eyes on the road I could not see, only the blurry trees and lamp posts. My gaze, like a camera lens, zoomed in on the shaky words coming out her pallid lips.

'H - Howard?'

Somehow, in this specific memory, I was able to make out the voice on the other end. All these names sounded so familiar but I couldn't place a finger over it. 

'Settle down, Tony,' someone hushed on the other end, a feminine voice trailing out of the speaker. 'Hello? Who is - '

'Maria! Maria, it's Cate,' she said, trembling. 'I - I - '

'Cate? Cate, for goodness' sake, are you okay? Why do you sound like that?'

My mother sputtered into the line, a hand clamping over her mouth to stop the sobs. 'I left them, Maria. I left them so suddenly and I don't know where to go.'

'Hold on a moment,' she intervened. 'You left? What about Laurie?'

'She's with me,' she added quickly and the woman on the other end sighed. 'I couldn't take it anymore and my baby - Laureline - Laurie - I don't know where to go - '

'Sweetie, relax. You drive straight here,' she said gently. 'You drive to my place and we'll see what happens, okay?'

'Maria, I'm so scared. I left everything, I have nothing on me.'

'I know, hon,' she comforted my mother, 'we're gonna' work this out. You, me and Howard. Be safe, please and be strong. For Laureline.'

'Okay,' she said in a small voice and eyeing me with a tight smile, 'for Laurie.'

Like getting sucked into a vortex, my mind was tossed out of my body and my vision going blank. All these memories were screaming at me, particularly the two I relived as if urging to grapple a hold over them. Faces, masks, and emotions - all of them were thrown at me in a single motion and I couldn't handle the force of so many recollections.

It felt like my body was past all evasiveness, floating vaguely in a dark space. I made out one voice - deep in the treble and resonating from my mind rather from the outside.

You'll be fine, Laura. We both are.

- ♣ -

[ w/n: what the frick frack flickity flack sniggity snag dabbity dabber just happened?!? Howard and Maria are related to her mother? i was initially very pensive on posting this chapter, thinking you guys wouldn't like it but then voted against. there is a deep meaning into this chapter because laura's lineage will play a huge role in . . . forthcoming chapters. let me know your thoughts and theories, love you! ]