47Mom wouldn’t show us where she’d kept the recording hidden. She made Baba and I sit on the plaid sofa in the cramped living room of her apartment with the TV on, volume up high, while she retrieved it. We couldn’t see where she’d gone, and we couldn’t hear a thing over the sound from the TV.
Then, she strolled back in carrying a manila envelope. Printed in big black strokes on the front were the initials “LK/EK.”
Lou Kachowski and Eddie Kubiak.
Mom grabbed the remote control from the dark brown wooden coffee table and switched off the TV. “Ta da!” With a flourish, she held up the envelope for us to see before undoing the clasp and opening the flap. “Drum roll please.”
“Now who’s the showman?” Baba Tereska gave me a sly wink.
A strand of brown hair had worked its way free of M
