Fifty heads swivel in my direction. I try to ignore them as I sit in the chair Dad’s saved for me. But all I can think of is how there’s so much I don’t know about Gram. And I thought I knew her better than anyone.

When we get home, Dad delivers on his promise and shows me the pile of boxes. Most seem to be filled with pictures of people I don’t know.

I choose a box and take books and albums out one by one to start from the bottom. After a while my neck gets all stiff like it does when I lift my saddle too high, and my eyes burn from studying every picture looking for a clue. It takes me hours just to get through one box.

I pick the albums up, ready to put them back in the box when I notice two loose pictures wedged along the bottom flap. I scoop them out. One looks like a picture of Moscow, with buildings that are like colorful Hershey’s Kisses. The other is of the same girl in the passport.

First the Russian passport and now a picture of Gram in what has to be Russia. I can’t ignore the evidence piling up. Dad might not know Gram lived in Russia, but I think there’s a lot that she’s kept from him. That she’s kept from me.

What else has she kept from us?

I spend the rest of the night on Google Translate. It’s painfully slow and my brain starts to throb, but I finally manage to piece together the first page of the book.

January 3, 1958. Mama gave me this journal to help make sense of my life. She say write down what make me afraid, to take away the power from it.

Tatyana my name is, and I will to turn thirteen soon. I love books and love my cat, name Tiny Gray. He likes to sleep with me when it is cold. And always it is cold.

I look at the page. The grammar isn’t perfect, but it’s close enough for me to know this book is a journal. Gram’s journal, from when she was my age and living in Russia.

11. The Brain Stem Is a Spy

The stem of a flower isn’t the pretty part, but without it the bud would have no way to get water and food from the soil. Our brain stem is like that. It connects the brain to the spinal cord. It helps control our breathing, digestion, and blood movement. It helps the brain read the body’s messages. It deciphers the complex code like a CIA agent.