Chapter 5 #5
Not with Ksenia. With Yelena, in Chicago, in the weeks after she escaped Lev’s arrangement with Gianni.
Sal had described it to me in the careful, limited language of a man who understood that what he was telling me was not his to tell fully.
The coloring books. The blanket nests. The particular softness that entered Yelena’s voice when the armor came off and the woman who ran cold-storage empires became someone who needed to be told it was time to eat.
I recognized the lavender pajamas. The striped socks. The rabbit held against the chest. The cartoon playing at low volume. The project that required nothing from anyone except the person doing it.
I recognized Little space.
I stayed where I was.
“Ksenia.”
She looked at me. The blanket was pulled up to her chin now, hiding the rabbit, hiding the pajamas, hiding everything she could hide. Her hazel-green eyes were wide and bright and terrified.
“Are you Little right now?”
She went still.
Complete stillness. Not the composure she wore in public—the managed, polished stillness of a woman who chose what to show. This was the stillness of an animal caught in open ground. Every muscle locked. Every breath held.
I spoke immediately.
“You don’t have to answer. I will not touch you. And no one will ever hear about this from me. Not Anton. Not Yelena. Not anyone.”
She stared at me.
I did not move closer. I kept my hands visible at my sides. I kept my voice low and even, the same register I used with Kiryl when he was frightened and trying not to show it, though the circumstances were entirely different.
My gaze moved to the dinner tray.
“You haven’t eaten.”
“Not hungry.”
“But you need to eat something.”
She pressed her lips together. The blanket shifted. Beneath it, I could see the shape of the rabbit still clutched against her.
“I’m going to make you a choice,” I said. “Grilled cheese or macaroni.”
A pause.
“Macaroni,” she said. Very quietly.
“Tea or hot chocolate.”
Another pause. Longer.
“Chocolate.”
I nodded.
“I’ll be back.”
I went to the kitchen. I turned on the light over the stove.
I found a box of macaroni and cheese in the cabinet—the kind with powdered cheese, which I had bought for Kiryl’s visits and which Kiryl had never eaten because he preferred takeout.
I boiled water. I cooked the pasta. I mixed in the powder and the milk and the butter and stirred it until it was the right consistency.
I heated milk for the hot chocolate. I found the cocoa powder and the sugar and mixed them in a saucepan. I poured it into a mug.
I carried both back to the sitting room on a tray.
Ksenia was still on the floor. The blanket was still around her. The rabbit was still hidden. She had not moved.
I set the tray on the coffee table beside the greenhouse pieces. I moved the armchair so that it faced her from across the room — not beside her, not close enough to crowd. Far enough that the space between us was clear and deliberate.
I sat.
She looked at the macaroni. She looked at the hot chocolate. She looked at me.
“Eat,” I said.
She reached for the bowl. Her fingers emerged from the blanket — the striped socks visible now, the lavender sleeve riding up her wrist. She held the bowl in her lap and ate with the spoon I had brought, slowly at first, then with less hesitation.
The hot chocolate steamed beside her.
We did not speak while she ate. The cartoon played. The girl was trying to fly again. The cat was making observations about her technique.
When the bowl was empty, she set it down. She picked up the mug of hot chocolate and held it in both hands. The warmth seemed to settle something in her.
She looked at me across the room.
“Do you think I’m ridiculous?”
“No.”
Her eyes searched my face.
“I think everybody has needed something from you all week,” I said. “Your brother. Your father’s organization. The alliance. The drivers. The clients. Every room you walked into, someone needed you to be competent and composed and useful.”
She did not speak.
“This is the first thing you have allowed yourself to need.”
Her grip tightened on the mug. She looked down into the hot chocolate. Steam rose and touched her face.
“What do you expect from me now?” she asked.
Her voice was still quiet. Still simpler than her public register. The armor had not come back. She was asking from inside the vulnerability, not from behind it.
“Nothing.”
She looked at me.
I held her gaze. I did not push. I did not soften. I gave her the same thing I had given her at the altar — presence, without demand. My hand closed around hers when it trembled. My silence when she needed quiet. My distance when she needed space.
“Nothing,” I repeated.
She pulled the blanket tighter around herself. The rabbit’s ear emerged briefly above the wool, grey and threadbare, before she tucked it back.
She took a sip of hot chocolate.
Ksenia watched the screen. I watched the door. The house was quiet around us, and the ocean moved two blocks away, and somewhere in the space between the armchair and the floor, something shifted.
I stayed in the armchair until the movie ended. She did not ask me to leave. I did not offer to stay.
When the credits rolled, she was asleep. The mug was empty in her hands. The rabbit was visible now, no longer hidden, tucked beneath her chin.
I turned off the television. I turned off the lamp.
I left the door open a crack and went to my own room, and for the first time in a week, I slept.