Epilogue 1
Andrei
T he radio drones quietly in the background while I drive, allowing the sun to warm my face. It’s unseasonably warm today, so I’m far from surprised when I pull into the driveway and see Niko running around the front yard, laughing as he kicks a ball and chases after it.
What I am surprised to see is Blair standing in the open doorway wearing one of my old sweatshirts over a pair of leggings, paintbrush in hand.
I lock the car as she smiles at me, and only then do I see a bucket of paint and a tray at her feet. She cracks open the lid and takes her time stirring the contents before she pours it out, revealing bright yellow paint that makes me pause in my steps.
When she said she was going to look at paint colors for the front door, I figured she’d take her time before she settled on one.
And I thought she’d settle on something more muted. A nice blue. A soft green. Or maybe a bold red, even. Not the obnoxious ray of sunshine that she’s currently loading her brush with.
Forcing my feet back into motion, I stop at the bottom of the stairs, while she beams at me. “Do you like it?”
A hundred answers fly through my head, and none of them are flattering.
“It’s very… cheerful,” I settle on, shoving away all my protests and disparaging thoughts. “It looks like springtime.”
And I’m pretty sure The Beatles had a submarine in that exact color.
“I helped pick it!” Niko calls across the yard, oblivious to my many plans to strip the paint and beg her to pick another color. He sounds proud, like he can’t believe that he got to make such a big decision. One he gets to look at every day.
He runs over, throwing his arms around my legs, his smile matching his mother’s and erasing my remaining reservations.
I guess we’ll have a yellow door.
So what?
It’s different from every other house on the street, and if Niko ever complains about it when he’s a teenager, we’ll get to remind him that he’s the one responsible for it.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t fucking wait.
“You did a good job, kiddo. It’s a great color.”
Blair’s eyes sparkle with poorly concealed laughter, and I only feel a little bad for how obvious my feelings apparently are. I ruffle Niko’s hair as he watches her carefully painting around the edges of the door.
“Can I help?” he asks, twisting away from me as he starts reaching for a spare paintbrush.
“I can do the top!” He reaches above his head to prove his point, knees knocking against the wet paint as he reaches a few inches above the doorknob.
He teeters on his feet, and Blair and I both scramble to keep him upright so that he doesn’t fall into the paint tray.
“How about this? We’ll go inside and change into clothes that we don’t mind messing up, and I’ll hold you so you can reach the top. That way we won’t step on your mama while we help.” He nods and takes off like a shot, sprinting up the stairs while Blair laughs.
“He’s going to get paint everywhere, isn’t he?” I chuckle.
“He’s three. Of course he is.”
“You say that like the moment he turns four, he’ll instantly be coordinated.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “And I suspect that won’t be the case.”
“Probably not,” she concedes. “But let’s withhold judgment. He might prove us wrong.”
I shake my head as I shuffle past her, quickly heading upstairs and changing into a pair of sweats and one of my old T-shirts that I dig out of Blair’s drawers. Niko beats me back downstairs, waiting impatiently as Blair shows him how to move the paintbrush so he doesn’t leave streaks everywhere.
I can almost see every word she says going in one ear and right out the other when he spots me, jumping to his feet and raising his arms until I pick him up. He squeals when I twist him around so that he’s sitting tall on my shoulders.
Blair hands him a loaded paintbrush while he lurches forward in his eagerness to get to the door, nearly tumbling over my head .
They both quickly lose themselves in their painting, Blair working efficiently while Niko and I end up covered in streaks of yellow while most of the top of the door is still white, with only a few messy globs of paint covering the primer.
When Blair stands, her hair is splattered the same color, globs of yellow soaking the strands and dripping down her face.
She glares at Niko’s loaded brush while he laughs, hiding his face behind messy hands.
“Alright, let’s get you cleaned up before you end up stuck this color,” I suggest when he gets bored, slapping the brush against the door more than he is actually painting it.
“But I like being a sunshine!” he pouts, crossing his arms over my head and letting the wet paintbrush smack me in the face. I try to flinch away, but the damage is done.
Blair starts laughing, falling out of the squat she was in and landing right on her ass, sending Niko into a matching fit of hysterics. He wiggles as I lift him off my shoulders, slipping the brush out of his hand as I put him on his feet.
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up now,” I mutter. “I’ll get even later.”
My warning does nothing to deter them. If anything, they just laugh harder, falling into each other for support while I scrape my hand over my face, trying to remove as much of the paint as I can.
It comes away soaked in the awful color, and my attempts to wipe it off on the drop cloth under the door only smear it around more.
Great .
“Now we both need to get cleaned up before we’re stuck this way. ”
Blair wipes a tear from the corner of her eye, face flushed while she catches her breath.
“You two go clean up.” She grins, patting Niko’s shoulder. “I’ll finish up here. Then we can order a pizza for dinner. That sound like a plan?”
Like she said a magic word, Niko turns and heads upstairs without a word of protest, leaving a trail of yellow footprints behind him.
I sigh and follow, doing my best to limit the damage.
He stands on a step stool, scrubbing his hands diligently while I use a washcloth to scrub at the paint that’s drying on my face. He leans forward, trying to scrub at the paint that’s all the way up to his elbows, humming to himself while he nearly faceplants into the sink.
“Careful, little man,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder and pulling him back to his feet. “We don’t want your mama to think I tried to drown you.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” he giggles. He points at my reflection in the mirror. “You have more paint there.”
“Where? Here?” I ask, swiping the wet cloth against his cheek, smearing more paint. “Or here?” I rub it over his chin. He squeals, pushing my hand way.
“Not me! You!”
“Are you sure? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve got it worse.”
He narrows his eyes and, faster than I can anticipate, turns and rubs his face on my shirt like a cat, turning it into a collage of dirty water and saffron yellow.
Then he takes off, giggling as he runs down the hallway while I turn off the sink and rush to clean off as much of my hands as possible.
“I’ll get you for that!” I shout after him, smiling.
What a little jerk.
I chase after him, knowing that he’s probably making a mess on every corner and wall as he goes. His giggles stop when he ducks behind the door to my office, trying to be sneaky, like he hasn’t just left a trail leading straight to him.
I slow down, deliberately keeping my steps quiet as I approach. If he wants to escape me, he’s going to have to do better than that.
I pull the door open in a rush, picking him up when he falls backward without it to support his weight, tickling him while he screams, and does his best to wiggle free as I cage him against me.
He squirms the whole time I carry him back to the bathroom, only settling when I set him on the counter, determined to get us clean.
As clean as we can get, anyway. He doesn’t fight, resigned to his fate.
It takes ages, constantly having to stop and rinse off the cloth between attempts, wringing it out before I try again.
Despite my best efforts, we’re both soaked by the time we’re clean.
He’s smiling when I help him down, tossing the washcloth into the sink to deal with later.
His tiny arms wrap around me, keeping me from pulling away.
“I love you, Andrei.”
Everything in me stills, unsure how to process that. I’ve been content knowing that he likes having me around, that he sees me as a friend. I figured I’d be able to milk that until he got old enough to start lashing out at me, and I was willing to cross the bridge when we got there.
Him telling me he loves me? I kind of want to cry.
“I love you too, Niko.” My voice is thick, but he doesn’t notice and just slips past me, like nothing out of the ordinary happened. I look at my reflection, startled when I see Blair standing behind me, a gentle smile on her face while she ruffles Niko’s hair as he passes by.
“Hey.”
“Hi. You mind telling me why the hallway is yellow?”
I shrug. “Niko and I liked the color so much, we thought we should spread it out. Doesn’t it make everything look so cheery?”
I put a hand on her hip, urging her closer to me so that I can hold her, breathing in the floral smell of her shampoo while I try to find more stable ground.
“Take your time,” she murmurs against my chest. “But just so you know, I love you just as much as he does.”
“I love you too, zolotse .”
I kiss her, pouring every ounce of my gratitude into it, hoping that it’ll convey exactly how much she means to me. I will her to understand as my tongue moves against her, only stopping when Niko calls down the hall asking when dinner will get here.
Then we sit on the porch, her hand in mine while we wait next to the open door so that the delivery man doesn’t smear the still-wet paint.