Chapter 20 #2
My throat feels tight and my eyes burn at the thought of answering this question. “Probably a lot like before she arrived.”
“I don’t want to go back to our life without her in it.” Stella’s normally confident voice is small and pinched, and her eyes look a little lost as she gazes past me at the trees.
Neither do I. The words almost slip off my tongue, but I bite them back just in time.
I need to appear unified with Petra on this front or it will be confusing and even more painful for Stella when Petra leaves.
“We’ll be okay,” I tell her instead. “And you’re going to love Raina. She’s like Natasha, but even nicer.”
“But do you think she’ll love me like Petra does?”
The question slices through the last of my willpower. “I don’t know.” My voice cracks with emotion. “You and Petra have a special bond. But that doesn’t mean you and Raina won’t have a different, special bond too.”
“But Raina will only be my nanny. I wanted Petra to stay and be my mom.”
I look at her in alarm, but her face is hard and certain.
My throat is so tight I feel like I can’t speak, which is just as well because I don’t want to give her false hope, and I also don’t want to crush her dreams. Will Petra and I pursue the path of her being the one to adopt Stella?
Will we stay married to make this all possible?
Or will she leave for good, and I’ll pursue citizenship instead so I can adopt Stella without her help?
I don’t know yet, and since Stella doesn’t even know that Petra and I are married, I can’t even begin to explain this possibility to her.
“I know,” I tell her and reach my arm around her shoulders to hug her to my side.
“Do you think that will ever happen?”
“A lot would have to change for that to happen,” I say tentatively. “I’d have to be your dad and—”
“But you already are my dad, aren’t you? I mean, now that Mama and Papa are dead and I live with you?”
Goose bumps rise on the back of my neck.
I’m not sure how I thought this conversation was going to go, but this isn’t it.
“I mean, yeah.” I shrug because I don’t want to make a big deal out of her questions and give her any reason to think maybe that isn’t what I want.
It’s exactly what I’m trying to make happen.
“Can I call you Dada then, instead of Dyadya?”
“Sure.” Why does my voice sound like it’s being pushed out the spout of a steaming teakettle? “But even so, that doesn’t mean Petra would be your mom.” My chest feels so tight it’s painful.
“But she would be if you marry her,” Stella says, like it’s the most obvious and simple thing in the world.
The urge to confide in my six-year-old niece is astounding. I want to tell her that I don’t know how to be enough to make Petra want to stay, and the not knowing and the not being enough makes me feel so small and insignificant when Petra is such a huge part of my life already.
“That’s not really how marriage works,” I tell her. “You have to love the person, be in love with them. And you both have to feel the same way about each other.”
“But don’t you guys love each other?” she asks before shoving an enormous spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.
“We’ve been friends for a long time, and we do love each other. But that’s different than being in love.”
“What’s the difference?” she asks, her mouth full of ice cream.
“You can love someone like they’re family, you know, like I love you. But being in love with someone is . . . more.”
“How?”
I don’t know how to explain this. I’ve loved Petra since she was thirteen and been in love with her since she was fourteen—and I’m not sure I even know what the difference is anymore?
I only know that I’ve never felt this way about anyone else and that my feelings and attraction to her are even stronger now than when we were teenagers.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I tell Stella, hoping that answer will suffice. How do I explain love and sexual attraction, and the difference between the two?
Stella looks up at me. “So, are you not in love with Petra, then?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. It’s a really complicated situation.”
“No, it’s not,” she insists. “We love Petra, and we want her to be part of our family.”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“It is, you just have to ask her to stay.”
I love her confidence, her reckless belief that life is asking for what you want and then getting it.
“There are a lot of reasons she can’t stay,” I remind Stella. We literally just had this conversation in the apartment, I’m not sure why she wants to rehash it out here.
“But have you asked her to stay?” she asks, her voice more insistent.
“No, because she can’t, and I don’t want her to feel bad about that.”
“That’s silly. Maybe she’s just leaving because she doesn’t know you want her to stay.”
Could that be right? Could it really be that simple?
“I don’t think so, honey.” I pat her head affectionately.
“Well, you won’t know unless you ask her,” Stella says.
But I do know. I know what Petra’s goals are, and I know she has to be in LA next week. There’s no way she can stay, which we’ve explained to Stella over and over. But just like me, she’s having a hard time wrapping her head around the reality of life without Petra in it.
I wrap my arm around her shoulders and give her a little squeeze. I hate knowing how much she’s going to hurt when Petra goes, and I hate that in order to support her through it, I’m going to have to pretend that I’m not hurting just as much.
When we return from ice cream, Petra is waiting for us in the living room with a bright smile on her face. She’s changed into the sleep shorts and tank top she’s worn most nights, and she’d look so perfectly at home here in my living room if that smile on her face wasn’t so fake.
Stella’s so thrilled to see Petra waiting to watch a show with us that she doesn’t even notice how all-wrong this is—her lips stretched too tight across her teeth, the way her cheeks shake with the effort of holding the smile, her glassy eyes.
How does Stella not see that Petra seems like a facsimile of herself?
In the middle of the couch, Stella curls up into Petra’s side and I take a seat on the opposite end of the couch, so Stella’s between us.
Stella chooses a show and gets it started, and over her head I keep glancing at Petra.
Memorizing the milky skin of her neck, the graceful slope of her shoulder, the way her dark hair curls into perfect ringlets that spring over her shoulder even as she tosses them behind her, the way her eyelashes swoop and curve, the small scar she has where her ear meets her jaw.
Every time I look at her, I notice something I hadn’t seen before.
She’s like a 1,000-piece puzzle where you spend ages looking for a tiny piece and immediately when you find it, you’re already searching for the next one.
I stretch my arm out along the back of the couch and drag my fingers along Petra’s bare shoulder.
I feel her stiffen, and I’m about to pull my fingers away when she glances over at me—her eyes are filled with tears and her body relaxes.
I stroke the soft skin along the column of her neck with the backs of my fingers, then cup her jaw in my palm.
The pads of my fingertips play with the hair behind her ear, and she rests her head in my hand.
With my thumb I trace the curve of her ear and the strong line of her cheekbone, trying to memorize it all—the way she looks, the way her skin feels under my fingers, the way she’s welcomed Stella into her life, and how this domestic scene feels like everything I never thought I’d have.
When the show is over, Stella asks if Petra can put her to bed tonight, and Petra agrees even though she wears all her reservations on her face.
I want to gather her up in my arms and take away all her fears, and dammit, I don’t want her to walk out that door tomorrow.
Yet I want her to achieve all her dreams, and I hate that the two things are at odds.
When she comes out of Stella’s room, I hear her quietly padding down the hallway toward the living room, and I’m up off the couch before she reaches the wide entrance to the space.
I’ve been waiting to wrap her in my arms for hours.
I want to kiss away those tears that have been threatening to fall since dinner.
I want to spend our last night together wrapped in each other’s arms, because even though I dread the dawn, I’m planning on making the most of this darkness.
“Well,” she says when she comes into view. “I think I’ll head to bed.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’ve got an early morning.”
“Come here, Petra.” I keep my feet firmly planted on the floor, because even though I know I could go to her, I need to know she’s willing to come to me.
“Aleksandr,” she whispers.
“Don’t do that,” I say, keeping my voice low since we’re still within earshot of Stella’s bedroom door.
“Don’t do what?”
“Push me away like that.”
“How am I pushing you away?”
“You only call me Aleksandr when you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad . . .” She trails off, either unwilling or unable to finish that sentence. But she does take a few steps into the room so we’re standing face-to-face.
“It doesn’t make it easier on the person you’re leaving if you start pulling away before you’re gone,” I tell her as I put my hands on her hips.
She looks away, her gaze focusing on the windows on the far side of the room.
“I just don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. And being with you now feels like a promise for the future.”
“I’m not expecting that.” Just hoping for it.
“Yes, you are,” she says, looking back at me. Her eyes are full of sadness, not the steely reserve I normally see there.