When Anja was looking in Anastasia's closet for a shirt she knew her mother had borrowed from her, Anja came across something interesting. At the very back of her mother's closet, haphazardly covered by dirty laundry lay a partially closed shoebox. The whole situation looked odd to Anja, as though her mother had left the shoebox and try to hide it from view in a hurry. It was obviously something her mother had not wanted her to see, but Anja had a sudden surge of curiosity and an urge to pry come over her. She looked and listened behind her to see if her mother was within the area. When she heard her mother busy in the kitchen, Anja bent down and lifted the cover of the shoebox. The shoebox was purple and once held one of her mother's pairs of high heels she wore to the theatre. Inside was a whole bunch of photos Anja had never seen before in her life.
Inside the shoebox there were also a floor plan of their apartment, death certificates of what Anja could only assume was her maternal grandparents, a marriage certificate from a man name Vladimir. Anja was completely overwhelmed by the amount of information stashed in the shoebox. She could have sat there for hours sifting through all the photographs. She just came across what looked like some unfinished family tree charts when she heard her mother behind her.
"What are you doing in here Ani? What is that you are looking at? Is that my shoebox?" Anja could hear a note of panic in her mother's voice when she looked up. Anja had a look of guilt all over her face that she so desperately tried to hide. She had no idea why she felt guilty. More than anything Anja was a overwhelmed and hurt that her mother had all this information about her family and had not shared it with her.
"I was looking for my royal blue shirt you borrowed when I came across this under some dirty laundry. What is this Mama? Why haven't I seen any of these photos before? Are these pictures of me? Why have you hid all this from me for all these years?" The more questions Anja asked of her mother the more angrier she became.
"How could you do this Mama! Why did you LIE?" Anja let the box tip all over the floor in her new found rage, scattering the contents all over. Her mother let out an outraged cry and started to carefully gather up the precious contents of her shoebox.
"You had no right to go snooping through my things, Anja! No right!" Anastasia shouted at her daughter.
"I did not lie to you. I was protecting you. Your father never wanted you to see this--" "Don't go blaming my father when you had the contents all along, Mother!" Anja interrupted with even more hurt in her voice and tears started to stream down her cheeks in her anger.
"I never needed protecting, all I needed and ever wanted was the truth. The truth about who I am, who my father was. Who you are!" Anja exclaimed before she collapsed to the floor and outright sobbed.
Anastasia placed all the information back in the shoebox and looked at it. Then she looked at her daughter.
"You are right... I should have shared all this with you years ago." Anastasia stated with tears also streaming down her face. She placed the shoebox on the bed and knelt down next to her daughter, pulling her into a hug.
"I will tell you everything I know... if you still want to hear it...."~*~*~
...Anja Risatina and her mother Anastasia Цветок lay on her bed with a shoebox between them. The contents of the shoebox was scattered in front of the two ladies as was a box of tissues for their tears.
