The Road w/ Anna Part 1
“What would you do if you could travel the world?” Mrs. Harrison asked Anastasia Rose Carter’s afternoon English class, “What is it that you would do if you had that chance to go anywhere without thought or responsibilities?”
It was senior year of high school and every teacher Ana ever had always asked the same question. Truth was she wanted to see everything and not just one particular place where everyone else had seen before her. Her mother had tried once but died before she was able to. Ana had been two years old when her mother died giving birth to her little brother Jack. All she knew of her mother was that she had been a fiction writer and had a habit of falling in love way too much every time she met a man who caught her eye. Ana’s father had once told her that her mother was on a never-ending search for the right man who understood her need for freedom even if it meant traveling all across the country in search of her dream man.
Around the time Ana had been born her mother had been living in St. Augustine, Florida and adored Anastasia Island so much that she named her first born after it. Jack on the other hand had been born where their mother was raised right in the middle of the dessert of southern Arizona. Named James Dawson St. John after a fictional character from a film that their mother had once hoped to pass on to one of her own children. They had come from two different fathers but Jack had the misfortune of having his father leave before he was able to have his first breath therefore giving Ana’s father the only man worthy of taking up the remaining pieces of their young lives.
Steven Carter was once her mothers’ first love in high school and had asked her to marry him around the time their mother chose to move just so that Ana would have a stable home life but her mother thought it best that she take Ana to a place that would mean something to her one day.
There are days that Ana wished that she had known her mother just to get a better understanding of why she chose to do the things she did. Ana didn’t like to talk about her when her father was around cause she could see the pain her mother had caused to go through on his own without her. Steven had loved her mother enough to raise Ana and Jack all on his own even in his mid twenties when he could have still lived his life. Now almost twenty years later Ana was nearing the age that her mother had been pregnant with her. The one thing that Ana had sworn herself to never fall into and her father made sure to remind her of that the closer her birthday came.
Ana sat in her desk doodling in her notebook as someone next to her nudged her shoulder. She looked over to see Dmitri nodding at her with a smile as he motioned with his hand of boredom. Dmitri and Ana had been friends since she moved back to St. Augustine almost five years ago when she still lived in San Antonio, Texas living in a small apartment that had two bedrooms and one bath. She hadn’t realized how small it had been until they moved to a two-story plantation home on the outskirts of St. Augustine just two hours north from where her great grandparents lived.
Dmitri lived on the neighboring home just a mile from her place and they hit it off when Ana had decided to go to the beach alone. Her father had insisted she make some friends for once instead of playing momma bear to him and Jack. She couldn’t help it if she had to take over mothers’ duties ever since she had turned four.
Dmitri made sense though when it came to having a choice in having good friends. He understood the whole single parent issue since his father left him to care for his mother with the chores. The city life had enticed his father so much that one day Dmitri came home to find his fathers’ things packed near the foyer. His mother would say that it was the Russian in him to go back to Moscow but Dmitri knew the truth just as much as Ana had. An old flame from the old country had threatened to break off their affair if he didn’t leave his American wife for her. That was when Dmitri decided to disown his father from ever having the right to speak to him as a man would to a son.
Dmitri and Ana were both the outsiders of their high school for Dmitri was still considered a foreigner due to having been raised in Moscow until he was eight and finally making his way to the states to learn a better way of life. Once in a while Ana could hear a hint of his Russian accent when he’s out on the soccer field cursing their opponents. To her that’s what made him unique for he had seen the world and knew what he wanted to do with it to make it a much better place for those like her who doubted everything about it.
Jack had just turned eighteen and was ready to head off to college before Ana could made a decision if she was going to attend Flagler or not. She loved St. Augustine as much as her mother had but she wasn’t sure if she was willing to make that final decision just yet.
She still had her father to think of even though he pushed her to stay close by but she had gotten an offer to go to Oia, Greece that paid for most of the expenses she would need. All she had to do was pay for the plane ticket and that would involve using most of her savings as well as her monthly social security check she received every month since her mother died. The toughest part was having the courage to tell not just Dmitri but her father and brother as well. She loved her English teacher for she had been the one who helped her receive such a chance in the first place. Now all she had to do was make a decision that would change everything she knew for the better.
