53. Laila
53
LAILA
“We should go back inside.” I grab a second blanket and force it around Mom’s shoulders. “It’s getting chilly, and you haven’t completely recovered from your cold yet.”
“No, it’s not. I’m fine.” Almost as soon as she says it, the wind whistles past us and she suppresses a shudder.
“See? You are cold.”
“Honey,” Mom sighs, “for the first time in days, I’m comfortable. Let me sit here and enjoy the fresh air. Please?”
I frown. Her eyes are red and her lips are pale. If it was up to me, she’d be in bed with a cup of soup and a heating pad on her feet—whatever it takes to kick this cold.
But it wasn’t up to me. Arsen sweet-talked Mom and Evelyn into thinking some fresh air would do us all good.
She shivers again, and I hope he’s right.
Every day, I wait for her old strength to return.
Every day, I’m disappointed.
“Let me get you some hot chocolate then.”
“If that’ll make you feel better, it sounds perfect to me.” Mom turns towards Nina on the blanket beside us, grinning as my daughter sucks on her thumb and blows raspberries at the sky.
I leave them on the lawn and head into the kitchen. Polina is just setting up a tray with steaming mugs of hot chocolate. “You read my mind, Pol.”
“Telepathy is a key part of the job.” She slides the tray and a manila envelope across the counter to me. “Zak also sent his pictures over. I thought you and Marie might like to look through them together.”
“That’s a great idea. Thanks, Polina.”
I walk the tray out and Mom’s eyes light up the moment she sees the envelope. “Is that what I think it is?”
I hand it to her with a sly smile. “Why don’t you open it and see?”
We’ve both been chomping at the bit to get our hands on these pictures. Formal family portraits were always outside the budget. These are the first ones we’ve ever had.
Mom tears into the envelope like it’s Christmas morning, and within a millisecond, there are tears in her eyes. “They’re wonderful,” she sniffles. “Look how perfect Nina is.”
She passes me the first picture. Mom’s holding Nina on her lap, and she’s right about one thing: Nina looks perfect.
But Mom… Mom looks sick.
Tears fill my eyes, but I’m crying for a very different reason.
I see her every day, so the changes in her are so slow and incremental that I hardly notice. But now, seeing her in this photo, it’s painfully obvious. Her skin is sallow, making her scar even more red and angry. Her cheeks are sunken-in. Her clothes hang off her body like she’s nothing but bones underneath.
“You okay, sweetheart?” She squeezes my shoulder, her fingers cold even through my shirt.
I blink back my tears before she can see them and put the pictures away. “I’m fine. Just thinking…”
“About what?”
There are a million questions swirling around in my head. Why did this have to happen to you? How can I make it stop? What am I going to do when you’re gone?
I feel the clock ticking, the time I have with my mom running out faster and faster. If I have questions, I better ask them now.
“Why did you never remarry?” I ask. “I don’t remember you ever going out on a date. Did you keep it secret from me or?—”
Mom’s nose wrinkles. “I wasn’t interested in dating after the divorce.”
“But didn’t you get lonely?”
“Of course not.” She pinches my cheek. “I had you.”
“It’s not the same, Mom.”
I should know. In the days after Nina was born, I knew I loved her wholly. But it didn’t stop me wanting Arsen, too.
She sighs and her hands fold in her lap. “I know it’s not. But I experienced love once. That was enough for me.”
My heart splinters for her. “Don’t tell me Charles was your one love.”
“The Charles you knew and the Charles I did were similar. They overlapped. But they weren’t always the same. Does that make sense?” She purses her lips thoughtfully. “He was different when he was young. I guess I was, too. Young and na?ve. But whatever he may or may not have felt for me, I genuinely loved him.”
“Even when he left us?”
“I never felt like that was really him. For years after he left, I kept waiting for the man I knew to return. Charles may not have been perfect, but I was happy with him for a while. He made me feel safe.”
“But when we really needed him, he left,” I remind her. “It was an illusion.”
“It’s all an illusion, honey. No one can keep us safe all the time. It’s not possible. But having someone to share your life with makes everything easier. Look at you and Arsen.”
All at once, the image shifts. I’ve been looking at my parents’ relationship from the outside in for years—but when she says it like that, suddenly, I can put myself in my mom’s shoes.
The things I feel for Arsen are bigger than I ever imagined possible. I know he’s not perfect, and yet the thought of being with another man one day, whatever the circumstances, just does not compute.
I blow out a harsh breath. “I’ve been a judgmental bitch.”
She pats my knees. “I know, but I love you all the same.”
“Hey!”
Mom laughs and wraps a frail arm around me. “None of us are perfect, Laila. The trick is to find the person who sees all your flaws and loves you anyway. That’s when I knew that it would never work between me and your father. He saw my flaws—my scars—and he bolted.”
“He never deserved you, Mom.”
She winks at me. “He didn’t deserve you, either.”
The moment Nina is asleep, the emotions I managed to hold back all day come rushing out of me. I flip through the pictures again and again until I’m crying so hard I can barely see. I don’t even hear Arsen come in until he’s kneeling in front of me.
I jolt in surprise, but his hands steady me in long, soothing strokes up my thighs. “What happened?”
I manage to tilt one of the pictures towards him before a fresh wave of tears surges through me, and I’m sobbing too hard to speak.
“ Roza .” He pulls me into his lap, cradling me against his chest.
“It’s coming too soon,” I hiccup.
“When it’s someone you love, it’s always too soon.”
I whimper, trying to get myself under control. “I love the pictures, but I opened the envelope and saw— Has she always looked this sick? How did I not notice?”
“Because we see the best in the people we love.” He kisses my forehead. “Because you’re a good daughter who loves her mother.”
My chin wobbles, and I bury the next words against his neck. “She’s never going to get better.”
I hold my breath for empty platitudes and hollow words of comfort, but Arsen just holds me tighter. “It’s not fair. You don’t deserve this. Neither does Marie. But death doesn’t discriminate. It comes for us all.”
I blink and his face comes into sharp focus. “How did you survive it?”
Arsen loved his parents, and he lost them both just a few weeks apart. I don’t think I’d survive something like that.
“Denial,” he answers. “Bitterness. A fuckton of anger.”
I squeeze him back, hoping he feels even an ounce of the comfort I feel. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not lying to me.”
“It’s going to hurt when she’s gone,” he warns, cupping my face and tilting my eyes to his. “But you’ll have me to help you through it.”
Taking a deep breath, I rest my head against his chest, sadness rolling off me in waves. His presence doesn’t make everything better.
But it helps.
And that’s enough.