Because It Is My Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

insult,” Mickey said. “Those bastards had no cause to throw you out.”
    He was wrong. The administration had had perfect cause: I had brought a gun to school.
    The discussion then turned to Natty’s time at genius camp, a subject I had heard very little about myself. She had spent the summer working on a project to strip water from garbage before it left people’s houses. As she described her work, Natty sounded smart, impressive, genuinely happy, and I knew all at once that I had done the right thing in making sure she had made it to camp. I was proud that this was my sister and even a little proud of myself for having done right by her. My throat closed up. I stood and offered to help clear the table.
    Sophia followed me into their kitchen. She told me where to set the dishes and then she touched my elbow. “You and I have a mutual friend,” she said.
    I looked at her. “We do?”
    “Yuji Ono, of course,” Sophia said. “Perhaps you did not know that he and I went to an international high school together in Belgium. Yuji is my oldest and dearest friend in the world.”
    It made sense. They were both the same age, twenty-four, and in point of fact, they did have a similar manner of speaking. And that was why he had been at her wedding, not merely to keep tabs on my family. I wondered how much she knew about the role her oldest and dearest friend had played in Leo’s escape. The thought of it made me uncomfortable. “It was Yuji,” she continued, “who introduced me to my husband.”
    I hadn’t known that.
    “He told me to give you his regards when I saw you.”
    Hadn’t our meeting at the church been accidental? “But you didn’t know you would see me today?” I said after a pause.
    “I knew I should see you eventually,” she explained without missing a beat. “My husband had visited you at Liberty, had he not?”
    Who was this Sophia Balanchine anyway? I tried to remember her maiden name. Bitter. Sophia Bitter. I wished Nana were still alive so that I could consult with her. She knew everything about everybody.
    Sophia laughed. “Yuji thinks so well of you that, at times, I have been jealous. I have been dying to meet Anya the Great.”
    I reminded her that we had, in fact, met.
    “The wedding? That is not really meeting!” she protested. “I want to know you, Anya.” She stared at me with her dark, dark eyes.
    I asked her what she thought of me so far.
    “The only impression I can have of you is physical, and physically, you are attractive enough but your feet are freakishly large,” Sophia said.
    “And what do physical impressions really matter anyway?”
    “You say that because you are pretty,” she replied. “I assure you that they matter very much.”
    Sophia Balanchine was an odd woman.
    “Were you and Yuji ever boyfriend and girlfriend?” I asked.
    She laughed again. “Are you asking me if I am your rival, Anya? I am a married lady, don’t you know?”
    “No, Yuji and I aren’t that way.” I could feel the blush spread across my face. “I just wondered. I’m sorry if it was rude,” I said.
    She shook her head, but there was a smile on her face. “That is a very American question,” she said. I suspected I was being insulted. “I love Yuji very much. And all that interests him interests me as well. This is to say that I hope you and I will be very great friends.”
    My sister and Sophia’s husband joined us in the kitchen. “My brilliant little cousin says she needs to get home to study,” Mickey informed us. “I wondered, Anya, if you’d like to say hello to Dad before you go.”
    “You’ll come see me next week after you’ve got this school business sorted out,” Mickey said as we walked up the two flights of stairs to where my uncle Yuri was dying. “He had another stroke over the summer so he is difficult to understand,” Mickey continued. “He may not even be awake, and if he is, he may not recognize you. The doctors have him on so much