Before The Last Grain

Final Chapter

Several weeks of hard work and relentless rehearsals go by in which Natasha pours all of herself. Body, mind, and heart. Especially heart. Music works as a temporary balm on her bleeding heart. The notes burgeon right at the core of the crack, spread up, and land on the sheet in flowing melodies.

The Rogers & Barnes family soon belongs to a not so remote past. Their specter still haunts the Brooklyn streets, Central Park, the lobby of the auditorium and even her favorite coffee shop. New York becomes theirs than it is hers and it is almost a relief when Ruth announces the start of her European tour. She hopes she will find solace across an ocean.

After a meeting with her patron, Tony Stark, to discuss the last details of the tour, she runs into her friend. Maria Hill gives her a hug and tries to conceal the obvious under small talks. What she doesn't tell her is that she's only come across one other person with the same broken expression and it was in this same corridor moments before a legal consultation with her boss.

A week before flying out to Europe, her new score is released on music platforms. A recognition she has always dreamed of but that has a bit of a sour taste.

Nearly 3 months have gone by. She leaves the Big Apple with a long-awaited sense of relief as the plane takes off for a new land of hope that doesn't bear their mark.

The first date is in Rome. The debut of her European is a success. Amid the heartfelt applause, as she waves to the crowd, joy almost graces her with its embrace.

Next, Berlin and Vienna. Her tour and name are gaining momentum. She begins to play the themes of her life like an open diary selflessly put on display.

After nearly a month of touring, the new routine and perhaps the weariness of travel has numbed her heart. Days become a soothing cycle of rehearsals and concertos that take her mind off of her sorrow.

While in Paris, Ruth has the bad idea to set a private greet & meet into some kind of date. A disastrous failure. The next day, she begs her never to do that again.

"I mean, we were in Paris, the city of love! It would have been rude not to try to spark something," Ruth says.

Natasha rolls her eyes internally. The last thing she needs is to strike a match amid the blazing ashes of her heart.

"Please, don't. No more meet and greet with bachelors."

Ruth purses her lips together and complies reluctantly.

After another month, the tour is ending with a concerto in St-Petersburg. She lands on motherland Russia with a nervous thrill. Born in America, she has only seen Russia in her parents' photo album. Her coming here takes an air of a pilgrimage. Her hands get moist at the idea she will perform the day after.

She spends the afternoon strolling along the streets her child self only trod in her imagination. It is an enrapturing walk through Russian history and her own. She finds pieces of her father in the sound of leather shoes and the rough palms of local craftsmen, of her mother in the subtle smell of herbs in restaurants and food stalls and along with the singing of housewives hanging damp clothes at the window.

Her Russian is rusty, and often met with quizzical frowns, but talking with the locals brings her a blissful sense of belonging. She can see now why her parents called it home until their dying breath.

Her quest takes her to quieter streets off the city center. Holding a photograph labeled with some scribbled note on the back, she finds her way down an alley paved with grainy cobblestones.

All alone, her loud heartbeat seems to echo against the forsaken walls. She stops in front of an old door with worn blue paint. She lets a shaky breath out.