Chapter 25
CARA
“Goodnight, honey,” I tell Nina, as I stoop down to kiss her on the cheek. She reaches up to hook her little arms around me, pulling me in closer.
“Goodnight, Mommy.”
I smile as I squeeze her tight. For a moment, I don’t want to let her go; I know once the baby comes along, she will not be my youngest anymore, and I’ll need to face up to the fact that I’ve another little one who needs my attention.
But, for now, she’s my perfect little girl, and I would do anything to prove it to her.
But, as she snuggles down in bed and closes her eyes, my heart twists deeply in my chest. I can’t stop thinking about the conversation I had with Alexei a couple of days ago. I can’t stand the thought of the prison I’m raising my children in.
I straighten up to flick out the light, making my way through to the kitchen to make some toast before I go to bed. Could just be the stress, but my appetite has gone through the roof, and now I’m eating for two, I guess the best thing I can do is indulge it.
And, if there was any doubt in that matter, then it would have been dispelled by the doctor’s visit earlier today.
He ran a test on me and confirmed that I’m well and truly pregnant, about six weeks in—not much, but enough that they have just started to take shape inside of me.
Already, I feel a deep protectiveness at the thought of them, even if it is a very different kind of protection than Alexei wants to enact on them.
I could try to talk to him about it again, of course, but the way he responded, I feel it’s almost impossible that I’ll actually be able to get through to him.
I get the feeling that there is something he is holding back, something he doesn’t want me to lay eyes on, but I can’t quite snake out what it might be.
There has to be some logic behind it, doesn’t there?
Something I can use to make sense of why he is the way he is, what happened to him to craft him into such a shape.
He has never mentioned his parents to me, and I can only assume that they are a part of this.
Did his father hand down this business to him, and now, he wants to defend his legacy with his life?
I don’t know, and I’m not sure that it’s my business to go asking, either.
But, as I step into the kitchen, I’m surprised to find myself met with the sight of him right there in front of me. My feet falter beneath me, and I stare at him for a second, nonplussed.
“Alexei? What are you doing?”
“How did the appointment go?” he asks, hands splayed on the counter as he looks at me. It takes me a second to respond to him, but I nod.
“Yeah, fine,” I reply. “He confirmed the pregnancy, not that I really needed it, given that I already took a couple of tests.”
A grin spreads over his face, catching me off-guard. “Good.”
I shift where I stand, not sure what to say or how to react. Is he really happy, or is that just a front he is putting on for the sake of making me feel better? I have no idea.
“Have you... have you thought at all about what I said the other day?” I ask him delicately.
God, I hate bringing this up to him, stalking over the same ground we have already passed, but I need to know what is happening inside his head, as hard as it might be, as removed as it is from everything I’m hoping for.
“Yes.”
“And have you...?”
“I know what’s best for my children, Cara,” he replies. “I know how I want to protect them.”
My heart softens when I hear those words come out of his mouth, but it doesn’t change it.”I know you do,” I reply gently. “And I want to protect them too, Alexei. I really do.”
His gaze flicks up to mine as his hand tightens on my grip. “From me?”
My brows knit together sadly when I hear him talk about himself like that. I guess that’s how he must have taken it, given the way I’ve bucked back against all the rules he has tried to place on us for so long, but that’s not how it is at all, not with him.
“No, not from you,” I assure him. “I understand what you’re trying to do, Alexei, I really do. I just... I want you to understand where I’m coming from too.”
He cocks his head at me, indicating for me to keep going. “So tell me.”
His bluntness throws me off for a second.
It’s not like I’m exactly used to talking about everything that happened while I was growing up, those suffocating walls that have closed around me for so long.
I do my best to leave it in the past wherever I can, but, all at once, the silt is stirred in my memory, and I know I’ve to be honest with him.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Uh, so, when I was growing up,” I begin, haltingly, tripping over my words here and there as I attempt to figure out how to put it.
“My father... He came from a very religious background. You know, the kind where he would expect women to perform certain roles. The husband as the provider and the head of the household, the woman as the nurturer, the one who kept the kids and the house. And I know it doesn’t sound too bad on the surface, but my sister and I. ..”
I shake my head.
“We realized that’s all he expected from us, too.
And every time we showed even the slightest bit of interest in anything outside of that, he would come down on us hard.
And our mother, too. Act like it was her doing that we were starting to look elsewhere for happiness, like she hadn’t done a good enough job convincing us that this was the life we should have wanted for ourselves. ”
I twist my mouth to the side, trying to hold back a wave of emotion as I recall him yelling at her from the next room, screaming at her in the bedroom where Sophie and I could hear him, telling her that she must have been in our ears telling us that this wasn’t good for her, Insulting her, calling her a feminist bitch, all kinds of shit that had burned itself into my brain like a brand in the decades that had passed since.
“If you haven’t grown up like that, it’s hard to explain what it does to you,” I go on.
“But I... Sophie, my sister, she helped me get out. And then, I got pregnant with Nina, and I felt like it was a chance to give her the life that I never had, you know? To give her the freedom I dreamed of when I was growing up. I had always looked at other girls my age and been so damn envious of them, while they were choosing which college to go to and I was just trying to figure out if I was going to make it to twenty without my parents finding me someone to marry...”
I let out a slight laugh, though there isn’t much humor in it.
“You cut them off?” he asks, and I nod.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I admit. “They either said I could live the way they wanted me to, or they didn’t want anything to do with Sophie or me.
We always swore we would look out for each other, and we have, but my mother.
.. She’s still in the middle of it. Probably getting it even worse now that my father has lost his hold on both of us. I bet he blames her...”
I push that aside, the guilt almost overwhelming.
Sophie and I’ve talked about it at length, the possibility of trying to pull my mother out of that nightmare, but I doubt that she would even want to if we tried.
She’s too far gone, too deeply-rooted now to try and find her way out, and any effort to do the same would fall on deaf ears.
If she was to admit she made a mistake with the way she lived her life now, she would have to come to terms with the fact that she had inflicted the same thing on her daughters, and that’s the only thing I can think of.
“That’s why I don’t want Nina to live like this,” I continue.
“Or the new baby. Or Max, for that matter. These kids, they need to get out there and experience the world, it’s the only way they’re going to be able to learn how to live their lives in any way that matters.
You can’t put these guardrails on them forever, especially not ones as strict as you’ve had on every part of their lives.
I know that you just want to protect them, but.
.. you’re only protecting them from everything that they really need.
From figuring out life for themselves. Trust me, I know. ”
He falls silent for a long moment, considering what I have to say. I chew my lip as I look at him, waiting for an answer, though I’m not sure one is coming.
“Do you hate them now?”
“Who?”
“Your parents.”
I pause. “It’s not something I give a lot of thought to,” I reply.
“I... I know I hold a lot of resentment towards my father, for the way he treated us, the way he expected the women in his life to just fall in line like that’s where we belonged.
And there are times when I’m frustrated with my mother, thinking about all the stuff she must have let slide when she married him. ”
“Do you think they’ll feel that way about me, too?” he asks. I can hear genuine concern in his voice, which surprises me. I don’t know why, but I thought he had already considered those possibilities.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “They might. But... but if they do, that’s not the kind of thing you can just patch up, no matter how much you want to.
Trust me, I know. When you’ve been controlled in that way, it stays with you.
Every bit of guilt you feel for breaking those rules, it sticks with you for the rest of your life.
Shit, there’s still times now when I can practically hear my mom’s voice in my head, telling me that I’m not acting like a lady should. ”
I smile slightly. Acting like a lady—the last thing he has ever asked from me, given everything we have shared. But still.
“That’s how they’ll feel about me one day if I keep doing this,” he murmurs, shaking his head, and something is clicking for him, I can see it.
I know it must not be easy, to be honest about the fact of the matter, but it’s the truth—no matter how much he wants to keep them under wraps and keep them safe, they are human beings, and their curiosity about the world will morph into resentment for him if he is not careful.
“I can’t say that for sure,” I admit. “But... it’s a risk I’m not willing to take. That’s why I’ve been fighting so hard for this, because I know what it does to you to be trapped.”
He lowers his head, and, for the first time, I see something else in his gaze—something soft, something vulnerable.
“You’re right,” he concedes, and I let out a breath.
A weight heaves itself from my shoulders, and it hits me just how heavily this has been weighing on me for so long.
It doesn’t matter what I try to do, how I try to manage this, I’m always coming up against that same feeling, that same certainty, that if I just stand by and let this happen, it is all going to be the same, the pain of everything I’ve endured just as potent and powerful as it ever was.
“I know it’s not easy for you to let go,” I murmur to him, as I tangle my fingers with his. “But.. but trust me when I say that it’s the right choice. For you, and for the children.”
He looks up at me. “And for you.”
I smile slightly, and before I can say anything, he kisses me softly.
I kiss him back. And, as he wraps his arms around me and hugs me to his chest, I slip my arms around his back, feeling his strength, his solidness.
And I know, then and there, that I can get through this. Because the man at my side, for all his faults and complications, is willing to listen to me.
And that’s all I can ask for.