Chapter 26
NORA
By the time I leave the clinic, I've cleaned seven sets of teeth and remembered who I was before armed men began checking every door ahead of me.
The work hasn't changed, with suction still gurgling at inconvenient moments. Mint polish dries against my gloves, patients tell stories around instruments they have been asked not to talk around, and Tess objects to the two guards in our break room because one of them reorganized the tea.
My body has changed anyway.
Fatigue settles into my legs by midafternoon, heavier than the usual ache of standing beside a dental chair.
I eat crackers between patients. At lunch, Amina places both hands on my shoulders instead of hugging me, demonstrating restraint with the tragic expression of a woman denied her natural language.
The normal hours feel wonderful.
When my last patient leaves, I change into flat boots and a camel-colored coat that closes without pressing my tender breasts.
A guard waits beyond the staff entrance while another checks the alley.
Their radios remain low under dark collars, though everyone at the clinic knows the two strangers are watching the windows.
My return route includes the neighborhood market six blocks from my old apartment. I asked for the stop because I want apples I choose myself, toothpaste from a shelf instead of a household requisition, and ten minutes inside a place where nobody knows the wholesale origin of the floor tile.
The market occupies the bottom of a narrow brick building between a laundromat and a shop that repairs old lamps.
Heat fogs the front windows. Inside, produce crates crowd the entrance beneath handwritten signs, and the bakery case breathes warm sugar into air touched by orange peel and damp wool.
Grocery carts knock against narrow aisles.
Somewhere near the dairy case, an old radio plays a love song through static.
Ahead of me, one guard enters while the other remains near the door, both keeping their distance as agreed.
Under my contract, personal purchases remain private unless an item creates a security risk.
Although the team records where I stop, when I enter, and which exit I use, they don't receive a list of groceries or the name on a delivery order.
That privacy used to feel like a small victory. Today it gives me ten minutes to take care of Grandma without placing her house on a family movement sheet.
I fill one basket for the residence, beginning with the apples.
Konstantin's kitchen has better produce delivered daily, but none of it requires me to reject soft pieces before choosing firm ones.
I add the toothpaste I've used for years, then a box of mass-market crackers without a nutrition consultant attached.
For Grandma, I choose the brown bread she slices too thick and the lemon tea she claims tastes better from her chipped cup. A jar of seedless raspberry jam goes into the basket last.
I haven't visited since the restaurant shooting.
Nearly every day, we speak. She knows about the marriage, the threats, and the baby but believes her neighborhood remains under review because I've let that vague sentence do too much work.
To Konstantin, a grandmother exists at the edge of my life, someone I rarely call.
His security team therefore has no reason to guard her house.
I am the only person maintaining that false distance, and my secrecy no longer seems capable of protecting anyone.
Because a visit would reveal everything at once, I choose a grocery delivery that appears harmless.
Each afternoon, the market sends orders across the neighborhood, and hers will be one paper bag among dozens.
Nobody from Konstantin's family needs the address, while nobody outside the store needs to know the order came from me.
I take both baskets to the small service counter near the bakery.
In a green apron over a gray shirt, the delivery clerk scans Grandma's groceries separately. After asking for the address, he enters it into a tablet with a cracked corner. For the arrival call, I give him her phone number and request delivery before five.
"Would you like a note in the bag?" he asks.
"Tell her the jam is an apology for not coming myself."
He smiles. "That sounds expensive."
"It was six dollars."
"Then you may owe her a visit too."
I use my personal account, refusing a receipt because the store sends one by email. The clerk prints an address label, folds it over the top of the delivery form, and places both bags behind the counter.
Before I reached the counter, my guard confirmed that the clerk belongs to the market's approved delivery service.
Without asking who will receive the bags, he watches them disappear behind the counter because our rules keep a private purchase from becoming his business.
Grateful for that boundary, I mistake privacy for safety because I need them to mean the same thing.
At the main register, I discover that the same guard has added a package of iced oatmeal cookies to my basket. He's a broad man whose conversations with me usually involve doors.
"Security risk?" I ask.
The guard raises the cookies. "Night shift."
"Then you should have two."
He returns for a second package while the clerk runs my card, leaving me to carry the lighter bag of apples.
On the way to the car, he takes it from me after one glance at the way I flex my tired fingers.
I nearly object out of habit, then let him carry the groceries while I keep the toothpaste.
The division seems fair to both protection and dignity.
By afternoon, I regret the privacy I defended.
At the residence, the women's gathering has occupied a long room beside the winter garden.
Galina calls it the sewing room, though nobody has sewn there in decades.
Tall cabinets hold folded fabric behind glass.
A cutting table runs under the windows, its wood worn pale along one edge by women who used it before this house belonged to Konstantin.
Dasha has brought three strollers for inspection.
One folds into a compact black frame. Another contains more polished leather than the interior of my first car. The third rolls on wheels suited to a military road.
"I asked for help choosing one," Dasha says as I remove my coat. "My mother sent all three and announced that rejecting any of them would insult different relatives."
Her daughter sleeps in a carrier against her chest. Galina sits near the cutting table with a cup of tea, while Larissa tests the leather handle with both hands.
"This one expects the baby to have a driver," Larissa says. "Keep it."
"I'd like to push my own child."
Larissa glances at Dasha's shoes. "Then wear better ones."
Irina has spread safety instructions across the table. She looks up when I enter, her attention pausing on my face before she asks how work went.
"Nobody bit me. I consider that a success."
Dasha brightens. "You understand practical equipment. Please tell them the black one is sensible."
I ask where she intends to use it. Dasha wants to walk to a bakery near her house, fit the stroller into her own trunk, and open it while holding her daughter. Nobody had asked before sending her vehicles suited to ceremonial appearances or rough terrain.
Together, we examine the latches, brake, and width of each frame. With one hand, the smallest stroller closes and passes through a standard doorway without disturbing a sleeping infant when Dasha lifts it. Twice, she tries the mechanism before deciding.
Galina accepts the choice after securing the right to keep the leather carriage at her house for formal walks. Nobody can explain what makes a walk formal. Larissa suggests invitations.
"Thank you for helping me choose what I'll actually use," Dasha tells me. "Everyone loves the baby so much that they occasionally forget I have to live with the equipment."
"Keep the large wheels too. They look useful if you need to escape a coup."
Larissa points toward Galina. "Then those stay here."
Galina ignores her with such dignity that Dasha begins laughing. Her daughter wakes against her chest, blinks at the room, then settles when Dasha places one hand over the small knit cap.
The room carries the gentle disorder I've begun to associate with these women.
Fabric lies across one chair. Baby blankets soften the cutting table, and afternoon light reaches through the winter garden into glass-fronted cabinets full of color.
For half an hour, I let their voices cover the tension that has followed me since the train.
My phone vibrates inside my handbag.
Grandma has sent a message.
The bribe arrived. The bread is still warm. Call me when your wealthy committee releases you.
Relief releases the tension below my skull. The delivery worked. She received what she needed without a convoy stopping outside her house.
I type that I'll call tonight and then return the phone to my bag.
It vibrates again before I close the clasp.
This message comes through my phone's text screen from a number I don't know.
The photograph loads first, making the familiar room feel unsafe before I have read a word.
Onscreen, Grandma accepts the same brown-paper bags I left behind the bakery counter. Cropped close, the image holds her face, one hand, and the market label. She wears the blue cardigan I bought last winter and turns toward someone beyond the frame without knowing a camera is there.
The bread was still warm when she texted. The photograph is current.
My mouth dries so quickly my tongue catches against my teeth.
A second message appears.
You kept her outside his gates.
Behind the pounding in my ears, Larissa's laughter recedes. Somewhere nearby, a teacup touches its saucer while Dasha's baby makes a sleepy sound against her chest. I stop hearing the other voices in the room.
The next message takes longer.
Tell your husband, and armed men come to her door. People bleed when he arrives.