Chapter Forty-One #2
The ring came later. Two weeks afterward, she chose it herself—a thin band of rose gold with a single blue sapphire.
She put it on her own finger, at her own pace, in her own time.
Yanis watched her do it without speaking, without rushing, without reaching for her hand to do it for her.
When she held it up for us to see, he kissed the ring and then her palm and then her wrist, and I totally choked up.
Now they stand together near the bar, receiving congratulations from guests who’ve just watched Arkady and me get married and are still riding the emotional high.
I get a lump in my throat when I see how my sister has gradually allowed this man to get close.
His hand is on the small of her back now, physical contact that she would have struggled with before.
Dad sees it too. And he’s smiling. He looks good.
Not the way he looked before the cancer—that version of Dad, robust and invincible, is gone, replaced by something leaner and more weathered.
But his color is back. His appetite is back.
The hollows beneath his cheekbones have softened with the weight he’s been steadily regaining since Debra walked into his hospital room.
He was discharged a month later. Not because the cancer disappeared—though it retreated, stubbornly, grudgingly, as if even the disease recognized that Peter McLeod had unfinished business.
But because his vitals stabilized. His white cell count climbed.
His appetite returned with a vengeance that had the hospital kitchen sending up double portions and the oncologist making cautiously optimistic noises for the first time in a year.
Joy, it turns out, is miraculous medicine.
Now he sits in his chair with a glass of sparkling water and a plate of canapés, and watches his family with the contentment of a man who’s decided that the universe owes him this, and he intends to collect.
Aleks crawls past him.
This is becoming a recurring feature of the afternoon—Aleks exploring the garden party on all fours. He’s ten months old, sturdy as a small boulder, with Arkady’s ice-pale eyes and a mop of dark hair.
Right now, he’s making his way across the freshly cut grass toward the dessert table.
“Your son,” Arkady murmurs against my ear, appearing beside me with two glasses of champagne, one of which he hands to me, “is attempting to take the cake.”
“Your son,” I correct, taking the glass, “has inherited your gift for strategic planning.”
“He’s heading for the profiteroles.”
“Like I said. Strategic genius.”
Arkady watches him for a moment, that absorbed, watchful attention he gives the children. It’s hard to believe he once swore he’d never have them.
I can’t help staring at him. He’s always gorgeous, but when he’s like this, in full “Dad” mode, he’s totally irresistible.
He catches my look. “What?”
“Nothing.” I sip my champagne. “Just admiring the view.”
“Mm.” His arm tightens around me, pulling me flush against his side.
His mouth grazes the spot below my ear, and I shiver.
“Careful,” he says, and his voice is low enough to be just for me, rough enough to carry a promise that has nothing to do with this garden party and everything to do with later. “People will think you like me.”
“Can’t have that. It would ruin my reputation as the woman who married the most impossible man in New York.”
“I’m not impossible.”
“You reorganized the hotel minibar by expiration date last night.”
“It was chaotic.”
“It was a minibar.”
“Chaos is chaos, zaychik. Scale is irrelevant.”
I laugh, and the sound carries across the garden.
Sara is asleep. This is her primary contribution to the wedding—sleeping through it. She’s in her carrier on the table beside Dad. Her fists are curled above her head, her mouth working in tiny, invisible circuits.
She has my coloring—the warm skin, the dark eyes—but there’s something in the set of her mouth, something stubborn that is entirely her father.
Arkady won’t admit it. He insists she looks like me.
But I’ve watched him study her face when he thinks no one’s looking, and I’ve seen what moves through him—the startled, stripped-back discovery of himself in miniature.
“Speech time.” Stefan appears at Arkady’s elbow. He’s holding a microphone. Where he got a microphone is anyone’s guess, but Stefan has a talent for producing necessary objects from thin air.
Arkady takes the mic. Glances at it. Glances at me.
“No threat matrices,” I say.
“You take all the fun out of public speaking.”
He turns to face the garden. The conversations soften. Glasses lower. Even Aleks pauses his assault on the dessert table, distracted by the sound of his father’s voice.
“Thank you all for being here,” Arkady begins. His voice carries easily—it always does. “Most of you know that I’m not particularly good at gatherings. Or speeches. Or…” he glances at me, “expressing emotions.”
“True,” Yanis calls from the bar.
“Spasibo, bratok. Always helpful.” Arkady pauses.
Recalibrates. “Six months ago, my family was at war. Not the metaphorical kind—the real kind. The kind that marks you forever.” A beat.
Sixty people go still. “Today, we’re at peace.
Not because we forgot what happened—you don’t forget.
You learn to carry it differently. You learn that it doesn’t have to crush you if you’ve got the right people standing next to you. ”
He looks at me. Then, at Aleks, who has resumed crawling. Then at Sara, asleep and oblivious. Then at Yanis and Debra.
“Mirabel gave me a family,” he says. “Not just children—though they’re excellent, even the one who’s trying to eat grass right now—but a reason to build something worth protecting.
She also gave me daily lectures on emotional availability, and an understanding that locked doors are not, apparently, a personality trait. ”
Laughter. Mine included.
“To my wife.” He raises his glass. “Who walked into my life looking for answers and refused to leave when the answers were ugly. I don’t deserve you, but I intend to spend the rest of my life making the argument that I do.”
Glasses rise across the garden. The clink of crystal. The murmur of voices.
Arkady hands the mic to Yanis, who takes it, straightens, and looks at Debra.
She nods. Gives a small smile.