Chapter 31 - Mina
MINA
A low rumbling sound startles me. I blink in the early morning light and try to find the source of it. Almost no cars come this way, and certainly not this early. It’s to the left of me, though, and that’s where the window sits—
That’s Roman’s side of the bed.
Oh my god, he’s snoring. Since when does he snore?
He’s on his back, mouth half-open, forearm over his forehead. His body is the most relaxed I think I have ever seen him. The muscles in his face are totally slack, and when I pick up his other arm to test it, it drops straight down.
The man is completely unconscious to the world.
His nightmare son is dead. A month of reassurances from me might have finally cracked into his thick skull. And last night’s sex was…it shifted something inside of me. Maybe it did that for him too.
I slide on a robe and pad downstairs. It’s very early to be up, but I like stealing the small hours of the morning for myself.
Water pulls through the coffee grounds and fills the kitchen with a smell that means a new day is on its way. I lean on the counter and watch the stream turn from thin to dark. The machine makes a choking sound as it finishes. Mug. Spoon. Sugar, I keep swearing off. Cream, I never will.
A month ago, I flinched at every noise—the clack of the machine, the refrigerator’s cough, a car outside, a distant dog’s bark. Today, I set the mug down and nothing jumps inside me. The absence of panic is its own sound.
I sip. Heat sits on my tongue. I’m not primed for the next startle. My lungs fully inflate when I breathe.
It feels odd to be this relaxed.
Accepting what happened has been strange.
For more than a year, Vitaly haunted my corners.
He left me alone through most of the pregnancy, but that didn’t stop his ghost from haunting me for those months.
Abuse worms its way into your brain and nibbles at the parts you thought were yours, even after it’s over. It has echoes.
And when he started his bullshit in full again, he threatened my mother. Our sons. He tried to kill Roman. And me. Did unspeakable things to other people. It didn’t last long, but a short reign of terror is still a reign of terror.
And now, it’s over.
Since I began dating him, my nervous system was primed for conflict and problems centered around Vitaly. I spent so much energy dealing with him. Now, all that energy has to go somewhere else. Or, so I thought.
But the truth is, I live in a world without him, and all that energy is just…
gone. The stressed-out part of my brain is like a partially deflated balloon.
I thought for sure I’d redirect that frenetic energy to my boys or myself or my marriage, but I don’t have it anymore.
It’s something I needed to protect myself, and now that I don’t have to do that, it left me.
I am so fucking happy about that, and that in and of itself feels wrong. A man is dead. There should be mourning or something, shouldn’t there? He was a human being.
Mostly.
Roman is calm about it. That calm unsettled me at first. I worried calm meant cold. It doesn’t. He was ready to let the law take Vitaly, ready to make the system hold him. But after Vitaly threatened me and our boys to Roman’s face, there was nothing left to debate.
Roman acted. He says it felt like justice.
I agree completely.
Never thought I’d be the type. I’ve always said people deserve second chances, and maybe that’s why I found bad boys so appealing. I thought I could be their second chance at a good life, while they kept their edge. Maybe that’s what Roman is for me now.
He would do it again to keep us safe. A year ago that thought might have frightened me.
Now it steadies me, because I know that if he hadn’t finished Vitaly that night, I would have done it.
I would have either killed Roman or Vitaly, there is no debate about that in my mind.
Roman says that makes me the perfect wife for a pakhan.
I can’t say he’s right, since I’m not a pakhan, but I hope to be the perfect wife for him.
Often I find him in the nursery at two or three in the morning, in the low chair between the cribs. I’ve caught him there many times. Most of the time, I let him have his private time with our sons. But when he looks particularly forlorn, I try to shake him out of it.
The spoon clinks as I rinse it. The window over the sink frames the yard and the pond. Early light lies flat on the grass. A thin mist lifts from the water. If it were warmer I’d step out barefoot. It’s cold, so my toes curl on the marble floors.
I haven’t been in this house for very long in the grand scheme of things, but it’s already become a place I know by heart.
I grew up in a house that was ours, or so I thought.
But then my father died, and I learned how fast a bank comes calling when you can’t make payments.
Then, it was rental after rental. Moving in with a boyfriend I thought would be permanent, and finding out how wrong I was.
One place after another that belonged to someone else when the chips were down.
Two months isn’t enough to erase the memory of feeling constantly, unpredictably adrift.
A quiet question keeps me company in the early morning light. Who am I now that the worst has happened, and I’m still standing?
I’m not the woman who thought she could fix a man. I know better now. I’m not the woman with fatherless behavior. I’m a mother and a wife. I’m not employed, but I’m also financially settled.
So much has changed in the past few months that it’s hard to catch up to reality.
Sometimes I touch the scar on my jaw and try to unravel all the complicated feelings attached to it.
Closure is an odd concept. People say you have to forgive your enemies to move on, but I don’t think that’s true at all.
I don’t forgive Vitaly for what he did to me.
I never will. Forgiveness isn’t for him. It’s for me.
I forgive the girl who stayed too long with the wrong men.
I make small vows as I rinse the mug. Fear is not my identity. Love will not make me blind. I ask for help when I need it. I won’t shrink myself for Roman, our sons, or anyone else. That part of my life is over, just like all the energy I had created to deal with Vitaly.
That’s closure.
Some mornings I worry that loving a man like Roman will make me hard where I want to be soft. Then he tips my chin and asks if I want tea or coffee, and the worry feels silly. He makes me softer, not weaker. He makes me braver, not louder. He says I do the same for him.
I carry my mug to the door and nudge it open with my hip. Cold air nips my face. The deck boards are damp, but I walk them barefoot anyway. My breath shows and vanishes. I step out and pull my robe tight. The pond smells like clean water and weather.
The boys sleep late in the mornings, a grace I do not question. They wake up when the day is already running. For now, I have my quiet time. A month ago, I used it to check locks I had just checked. Today I watch the stripe of light on the water and let my mind think without bracing.
It’s the lack of bracing that feels misplaced or like it doesn’t belong to me.
Bracing is an old habit that I tried to make useful.
How do you prepare for the future without dreading what’s to come?
How do you handle what might happen, if you haven’t already imagined a thousand terrible possibilities?
But still, my head is quiet. My body is loose.
Mom says I sound lighter when I speak now. I hear it too. Peace has a tone if you know what to listen for.
The door opens behind me. For a breath, the old current in my neck rises and fades like a memory I don’t appreciate my brain holding on to. I don’t turn. I already know who’s there. It’s not an attack, and it never will be again.
Roman’s arms come around me from behind, warm and careful because he is always careful with me. I lean back. The space between my shoulders and his chest fits the way it should.
“You’re up early,” he says into my hair.
“So are you.”
“Habit.”
“You seemed like you were sleeping well when I got up.”
He chuffs a laugh. “You know what? I was.”
“Did I wake you?”
“I’m not sure. But last night was the best night of sleep I think I have ever had.”
I cover his hands with mine. His fingers are nicked and strong. I like their record. He stands so close his breath moves my hair. We watch the pond go from pewter to silver where the light finds it. A pair of ducks drop and change course at the last second.
“What are you thinking?” he asks me.
The old me would have smiled before speaking because I know how it changes the tone of my voice into something more attractive or suitable to a man’s ears.
The smile is how I faked being the perfect girlfriend to rough men.
It was a mild manipulation that kept them happy and kept me safe from their tempers.
The new me smiles because my husband asks only the questions he wants honest answers to. “I’m thinking how strange it is to accept that something is over. All that fear ended in one night. The next morning the house felt different. I’m still adjusting.”
“You’re allowed to feel strange.”
“I know.” I’m still unsure how Roman has processed shooting his own son dead. It’s hard on him, I know that much. I understand he felt justified, and he was, but Vitaly was still his son. So I add, “And so are you, by the way. Allow to feel strange, I mean.”
His tone dips. “Working on accepting that.”
“I’m also thinking about the man in my kitchen who likes coffee he pretends not to like.”
“Lies. I love coffee. I don’t love that you win arguments by handing me a mug.”
“If you could hold on to an argument longer than it takes to drink a cup of coffee, you might win one someday.”
He laughs into my neck. It’s warm. It travels down my back like an answer. “You’re very convincing when I’m caffeinated.”
“Logic is funny that way.”
We stand there while the mist thins. His warmth seeps into me, and it’s times like this that I wish we could stay this way forever.
But he clears his throat the way he does when he wants to ask something, but he’s not sure if he wants the answer. But he’s always brave enough to ask. “Do you want to go back to the firm?”
“I’m not sure. I liked the rhythm of the place. I liked feeling useful. But I like being home with our boys and making a life here too. That feels more useful right now, especially after everything.”
“Whatever you want is good by me, Mina. You make the choice. I will support whatever verdict you render.”
“Thanks for that.” Choices are something I’ve rarely had, and now, I have a life ahead of me that feels full of them. It’s a little overwhelming, but the good kind of overwhelming.
“More coffee?”
“Yes, please.” I pass him my mug, and he leaves for the kitchen.
I never knew there could be a good kind of overwhelming before Roman came along and told me we were getting married. Life was always overwhelming me before him. Either with bills, or a bad man making worse decisions, or working too much.
When I was living through all of that, I could have never imagined my life would go this way.
Soon the twins will wake. One will frown.
One will smile. Both will demand the day start when they say so.
Being their helpless servant, I’ll kiss two bellies and a forehead that smells like sleep.
Roman will pretend to argue with a baby with smiles and a mocking pointed finger, and he will lose that argument as he changes their diapers.
The door opens again. I still don’t jump. Large hands slide around my waist. His mouth finds the spot behind my ear that always makes me lean. I fit my shoulder against his chest.
“Coffee number two,” he says, pressing a fresh mug into my hands.
“Thank you.”
“You ready?”
I’m not sure what he means, but I’m ready for anything.
Because I’m finally home.