Chapter 19
Yelena
SIX MONTHS LATER
I woke because sunlight reached my face, not because somebody had fired a gun, broken a door, or said my brother’s name in the wrong tone.
For several seconds, I lay still beneath the warm sheet.
Water moved beyond the windows. Not ocean this time. The lake was flatter, darker, cut by the pale wake of an early boat. Farther south, the city rose behind a thin morning haze. Near enough to reach. Far enough not to press its hand against the glass.
Our house sat between both things.
Water and work.
Quiet and life.
I had described it to Sal over grilled fish beneath a faded blue awning. At the time, I had believed I was inventing something impossible to see whether he would lie and promise it anyway.
He had not promised.
He had listened.
Then, after the war ended and the lawyers stopped speaking about my competence as if it were a weather condition, he had shown me six houses. I rejected five.
The sixth had tall windows facing the lake. A city view from the upper floor. A kitchen large enough for Tonio to create regional shortages in olive oil. A bright room beside Sal’s study with deep shelves, a long table, and a door I could close when I wanted privacy.
My coloring books sat openly on those shelves now.
So did my pencils.
The stuffed wolf occupied the window seat with a knitted firebird Kiryl had bought me from a market and denied choosing himself. Corporate reports shared space with fairy-tale books. Nobody moved any of it when guests came.
Nobody asked me to hide.
I rolled over.
Sal’s side of the bed was empty, but the pillow remained warm.
Suspicious. Very suspicious.
His watch was gone from the bedside table. His phone was gone. His clothes from the previous night had been folded over the chair with the precision of a man who believed disorder was the first stage of national collapse.
Even more suspicious.
I found the firebird notebook on my nightstand.
It had become thicker in six months. Not because I had suddenly turned into a woman overflowing with innocent hopes. I still wrote practical things by accident.
Replace warehouse manager at northern facility.
Review pension exposure.
Find out whether Donatella actually has human emotions.
Sal had drawn a line through the first two and added a question mark beside the third.
The pages about wants looked different. I’d stuck paper in, added extra envelopes and pouches. A long list of things, started so long ago.
I want another date.
Crossed out.
I want a home with you.
Crossed out.
I want Kiryl to choose what he studies.
Crossed out after he enrolled in a business program, dropped one accounting course after two weeks, and announced that economics was invented to punish decent people.
I want my mother’s companies back.
Crossed out.
I want to stop waking afraid.
Not crossed out.
Not completely.
But underneath it I had written:
Most mornings are good.
That counted for something.
The bedroom door opened, and Sal came in carrying a breakfast tray.
He wore dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. No jacket. No tie. His hair was still damp. A few silver threads at his temples caught the sun.
The tray held coffee, toast, strawberries, eggs, and enough food for a woman preparing to cross Siberia on foot.
I looked from the tray to him.
“What did you do?”
“Good morning to you too.”
“You’re bringing breakfast upstairs. You’re feeling guilty.”
“I have done that before.”
“Twice. Once when I had the flu and once after I threatened to murder a director before nine in the morning.”
“Well, he deserved it.”
“What was his crime again? Oh yes, he moved a meeting without asking.”
“Exactly.”
Sal placed the tray across my lap and kissed my forehead.
“Eat.”
I looked at the eggs, yhen at him.
His face had settled into careful neutrality. That alone confirmed a crime was underway. I narrowed my eyes.
“What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
“That sounded almost convincing.”
“You wound me, Lena.”
His mouth shifted.
He sat on the edge of the bed and handed me the coffee first. Correctly. I drank, watching him over the rim.
He watched me take a bite of toast. Also suspicious.
“Happy?” I asked.
“Very. Thanks for asking.”
“No. I meant now that you have verified I can chew.”
“You know, I always had confidence in you. I knew you could do it.”
I batted his arm. “You were staring.”
“I enjoy looking at you.”
“That is an evasive answer.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
I ate half the toast. Sal gave a small nod, as if a negotiation had concluded to his satisfaction.
We were due at Mezza Notte that evening for the reopening. It had taken months to restore the restaurant after Gianni’s attack. Longer to persuade Tonio that structural engineers were more qualified than he was to decide whether a fire-damaged wall could remain standing.
The opening should have consumed the day. Instead, my schedule was empty. So was Sal’s.
I had checked three times.
“You canceled my call with the employee council,” I said.
“Rescheduled.”
“You moved the fleet review.”
“Yes.”
“And your meeting with Sicily.”
“Also yes.”
I set down my coffee.
“Daddy.”
His eyes darkened slightly at the title. Not with lust. With attention.
“Yes, little one?”
“Are you planning something?”
“Daddy is always planning something. I’m a planner. A man with a plan.”
“So, you admit it.”
“No. I admit nothing.”
“What is happening today?”
“Breakfast.”
“After breakfast?”
“A shower, I hope.” He gave me a wicked look.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Is that criticism?”
“An observation.”
“I showered last night.”
“You also slept.”
“Very perceptive.”
“Thank you.”
He picked up a strawberry and held it to my mouth.
I did not take it.
He waited.
I waited longer.
His eyebrow lifted.
I bit the strawberry from his fingers.
“Bribery,” I said around it.
“It’s called nutrition.”
“You are behaving very strangely.”
“I am behaving exactly as I always do. My goodness—six months and she doesn’t know me yet.”
“That is the strangest thing you’ve said yet.”
A door slammed downstairs.
Footsteps crossed the hall. Quick. Familiar. Completely disrespectful of the fact that the house had a doorbell.
Kiryl appeared in the bedroom doorway carrying the painted wooden bird I bought him in The Bahamas under one arm and his coat under the other.
He looked healthy.
It was still the first thing I noticed, though not with the old desperation.
His face had filled out. His shoulders no longer curved inward as if he expected criticism to fall from the ceiling. His pale eyes remained softer than mine, but they met people directly now.
He wore jeans, battered sneakers, and a sweater with one sleeve pushed to his elbow. Ordinary clothes. Ordinary hurry. Ordinary irritation.
“Katerina expects me at Filoxenia in twenty minutes,” he said. “Apparently being late to help move cake stands is a moral failure.”
“It is,” Sal said.
“You’re Sicilian. Stay out of Greek law.”
Kiryl crossed the room and took the untouched toast from Sal’s plate.
Sal looked at his empty hand.
“Did you ask?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Internally.”
“That does not count.”
“It counts in Russia.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said.
Kiryl took a large bite.
The painted bird was tucked carefully against his ribs. Red wings. Gold body. He carried it between his apartment, his classes, and anywhere he expected to sleep.
“You’re bringing the bird to the bakery?” I asked.
“I stayed at the townhouse last night. I’m taking it home later.”
“You know, most adults can move through a city without carrying a wooden toy.”
He looked at the wolf on my window seat.
I followed his gaze.
“That is different.”
“Obviously.”
Sal took a second piece of toast from the tray and offered it to Kiryl.
Kiryl accepted.
“You just criticized him for stealing,” I said.
“Right, so I’m helping him be more moral by offering.”
Kiryl smiled.
No careful glance at the doorway. No tension when Sal stood. No pause before he crossed the room and leaned down to kiss my cheek.
“Are you coming?” he asked.
“To Filoxenia?”
“Yes. Katerina said she needs help. She said having Tonio around again is incredibly distracting. They have that stupid hatch between their respective businesses and he keeps poking his head through.”
“Tonio doesn’t respect walls,” Sal said.
Kiryl stole a strawberry.
“She needs you. Be downstairs in ten minutes,” he said. “Or I’m leaving without you.”
He left with the toast in his mouth and the bird beneath his arm.
I watched the doorway after he disappeared.
Sal’s hand settled over mine.
“What is it?” he asked.
I tried to explain.
For years, when Kiryl entered a room, I had checked.
His face first. Then his hands. His wrists. The set of his shoulders. Whether he moved carefully. Whether somebody had taken his phone. Whether he was trying not to limp.
I had done it so automatically I believed it was love.
That morning, he had walked into my bedroom, stolen breakfast, insulted my partner, complained about work, and walked out again.
I had not checked his wrists.
Not once.
“I think we’re safe,” I said.
The words felt dangerous.
Sal did not correct me. He did not promise permanence. He only brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles.
“Most mornings,” he said.
I looked at him.
Then I looked at the notebook beside me.
Most mornings are good.
“Yes,” I said. “Most mornings.”
Filoxenia was busy this morning.
The original bakery remained warm and worn. Chipped tile. Marble scrubbed pale. Katerina’s father’s photograph beside the coffee machine. The expanded room had pale stone counters, tall windows, and flowers in painted pots. A wide opening connected both spaces.
Beyond it, a courtyard ran between Filoxenia and the refurbished restaurant.
Warm lights had been strung overhead. Small iron tables waited beneath bare climbing vines. The old brick walls had been cleaned but not polished into respectability.
It felt joined.
Not merged. Not swallowed.
Joined.
Katerina stood behind the main counter with flour on her cheek and murder in her eyes.
“Put it down.”
Tonio froze with a pastry halfway to his mouth.
“I was checking quality.”