“You don’t give up, little Tatyana,” he says. He rubs his hands together. “I will tell you one thing, but she won’t like it. She will never forgive me if I break her confidence.”

I wrap both my arms around myself. “It won’t matter if she can’t remember you. You need to tell me so I can help her. Please.”

Yakov opens a drawer and takes out a picture of a young girl scowling at the camera. “This is your babushka. This is how I remember her when I close my eyes and dream of Russia.”

I bring it closer. She looks exactly like me. I meet his eyes and smile.

“Her stories to you are not all true,” he says. “You said she told you about my father. My father died when I was a baby.”

I put the picture down, my heart drumming in my ears. I don’t understand what he’s saying. If Gram wasn’t talking about Yakov’s father in her stories, then who was she talking about? “Why would she lie about your father being a monster?”

“Because the monster wasn’t my father,” he says slowly. “It was hers.”

32. Breaking Our DNA

Our brain cells literally break our DNA to make memories. Creating damage that neurons must repair is important to our memory and learning. Over time, some people’s brains stop the repairs. When that happens, the brain starts to deteriorate along with the memory and ability to learn new things.

It’s weird that what allows us to have memories is the thing that might also take those memories away.

I sit back so hard, my head smacks the wall. I barely hear what else Yakov says. All I can think of is Gram hiding in a closet from her own father.

I think about her visiting her mother in the hospital and then having to go home to the man who put her there. How did she live with the memories? Was this why she was forgetting?

“This is it,” I say, interrupting Yakov midsentence. “This must be why she’s losing her memory. The trauma is too much for her.”

Yakov looks at me with his mouth twisted, like he wants to cry. Doesn’t he understand what I’m saying? I want to scream at him, to make him see I’ve found the answer.

“This is it,” I say again. “I can help her now. I can give her back the right memories and take away the painful ones.”

“Why is she forgetting sixty years after it happened? If it were the trauma, wouldn’t it have happened sooner?” he asks gently. Almost like he’s afraid I’m the one about to cry.

I open my mouth and close it. I don’t have an answer for this.