Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Alexei
The sight of my strong, tough-as-nails Lauren breaking down crushed me. I hated to think I might bear some responsibility for the pressure she was under, so I resolved to do everything I could to give her comfort.
Leaving my car, I grabbed her bag and we approached my house. As I placed my key in the door, she gripped my arm. “Will my being here upset your dad?”
“I don’t know. To be honest, he probably won’t remember you.”
Sadness mixed with empathy fluttered across her brow. “I’m so sorry, Alexei.”
I inhaled deeply. “We are quite the pair, yes? With the weight of the world on our shoulders.”
“At least, we’re here for each other. That’s what friends do.”
I nodded, the emotion of the moment preventing speech. Anyway, what would I say? Thank you for being my friend, but I want more. I always had, despite the lies I’d told, old and new.
I pushed open the door. “Papa? Maya? I am back.”
Maya called out. “We’re in the dining room!”
I placed Lauren’s bag down in the hallway and headed in. My father sat at the large mahogany table with Maya in front of a large jigsaw puzzle. The corner edges were taking shape into an image that looked floral and green.
“A puzzle? How are we doing?”
My father looked up, his face blanker than ever on seeing me. Every time, a little part of the man I knew melted into a cobwebbed corner of his mind.
“We’re doing great,” Maya said. “Sasha and I had macaroni and cheese for dinner.”
“And pills,” he added, sounding annoyed and more like himself.
“Pills for dessert,” Maya said. “With jello. Lime flavor, your favorite, Sasha.”
She smiled at a point over my shoulder. “Hello, I think we met.”
Lauren smiled back. “Yep. My post-sex exit, a classic.”
That made Maya laugh, and my father joined in, though he probably didn’t know why.
“Well, Sasha, I’m heading out. Your son is here now, and I’m sure he’d love to help with the puzzle.”
“Definitely. Papa, do you remember Lauren?”
My father looked at my wife. “Of course I do. She plays hockey.”
Lauren looked surprised. “Yes, I do. Well, I did.”
“My son says you are his favorite player, girl or boy.” My father peered up at me, the sudden clarity in his expression almost undoing me. Did he remember Lauren from all those years ago? I had talked about her enough. “He followed you all over.”
Yes, I did. And here I am, still chasing you, Silver Eyes.
Lauren shared a mischievous look with me, then turned back to my father. “He’s always been obsessed with me.”
My father chuckled. “Love and hockey, good obsessions to have.”
Sometimes, he sounded just like the Sasha of old. “Maya, can you wait a second while I show Lauren the bathroom? A pipe burst in her house so her shower is not working.”
My father’s nurse raised an eyebrow.
Lauren laughed again. The husky sound refilled my well, which had been running low of late. “I arrived home to find my bathroom had flooded and this guy painting my living room.”
“Quite the move,” Maya said with a wink.
I shook my head at her teasing, then led Lauren upstairs, though of course she could have figured out where the bathroom was. She had been here before.
When I turned at the top of the stairs, she was grinning.
“What is so funny?”
“How obsessed you are with me. Following me around the country. My number one fan.”
I grabbed a couple of towels from the cupboard. “Here you are. Enjoy your shower.”
She laughed again. “Obsessed.”
When she came down again, she was wearing sweats and had dried her hair with the hairdryer I left on the bed. She looked fresh and rested.
“Feel better?”
“Much. Thank you.” Her gaze landed on the kitchen table where I had set two places and a bottle of Cabernet. “What’s going on here?”
“Would you like to have dinner with me?”
“What about your dad?”
“He is playing his puzzle. It is best that he does not sit with us as he would expect a second dinner.” He sometimes forgot that he had already eaten.
“I don’t want to interrupt any of your routines, Alexei.”
“He isn’t far, and I will hear him if he gets agitated.” I pointed at the baby monitor.
“That thing? Works for good and evil, you know.”
“Yes, the authorities—meaning Franky St. James—may be listening.”
She laughed, a sound that warmed through me. “I’d love some of this famous mac n’ cheese, if there’s any going.”
“Good. If you would like wine, go ahead.”
“Perfect with the Kraft macaroni.” She set to work opening it while I carved out servings of the not-Kraft macaroni onto a plate and heated it in the microwave. In a pan, I fried some Panko crumbs to top it off, then set two bowls on the table. I poked my head around the door to the dining room.
“Okay, Papa?”
“I am fine,” he said definitively, one of his coping strategies. If he was unsure or confused, he often asserted with confidence that everything was as it should be.
“How about you? Are you okay?” Lauren asked when I sat at the table.
My instinct was to say yes, but putting on a front was so exhausting. “Not really, but I’m glad to be spending time with him.”
She raised her glass. “To the moments you can’t get back.”
“And the moments you can.”
Her brow wrinkled, but she didn’t say anything. After a sip of her wine, she picked up her fork.
“Better be good, Nazarov.” It was, if her satisfied moan was anything to go by. I had no problem imagining that moan in other contexts: my hands cupping her tits, my tongue between her thighs, my cock driving deep … “How did you get it so creamy?”
I blinked away the multitude of X-rated images the word “creamy” conjured. I was that twenty-one-year-old kid all over again. “Gruyere. It is the best cheese for this.”
“This is not good for me, is it?”
She could just as easily have been speaking of our situation. “It is good for me. That is all that matters.”
Her smile lit up all the dark places inside me. “You don’t need any ego-stroking, Alexei. That, I can guarantee.”
“It’s good to see you smile.”
“Thanks for today. For being there when I need it. So how did Gunnar persuade you to help?”
“I did not need much persuading. I have time and when Maya is with my father, I would rather spend it helping you.”
There went that brow wrinkle again. “I shouldn’t be one of your priorities, Alexei.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have responsibilities. Real ones. Not fake ones with your fake wife.”
“There is nothing fake about what is happening here.”
Rather than answer, or maybe that was her answer, she took another mouthful. It felt good to be here with her, minus the usual friction. This was how it was supposed to be before I screwed up.
Better enjoy it because you will be screwing up again very soon.
“The season starts soon,” she said. “What are you going to do about your dad?”
“I could hire a new nurse for overnight stays, but I’m not sure that another stranger is truly best for him. When he was more lucid, he told me not to put him in a home. That he would rather die.”
Her eyes turned shiny. She reached for my hand. “You’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so. I hope, when the time comes, I will know what to do.”
After dinner, Lauren sat at the puzzle table with my father while I did the dishes. When I had finished, I hung back at the entrance, listening in.
“Ooh, this looks like a piece of this red rose, Mr. Nazarov. Look—that goes here, I think.”
My father remained silent, just continued placing puzzle pieces. They were bigger than puzzles I was used to. Perhaps that was specific to Alzheimer’s or dementia patients. I would have to ask Maya.
I took a seat. “How is everything here?”
“This is Lauren,” he said, introducing us. “Your wife.”
I shot a quick look at Lauren and saw her bafflement matched my own.
“I didn’t say anything,” she whispered.
“Neither did I.”
Yet he knew. One day, several years ago, he had seen me checking out a news article about her retirement from professional hockey. It wasn’t the first time he had witnessed my obsession, but it was the first time he told me “Ktoh ni riskuyet, tot ni pyot shampanskava.”
He who doesn’t take risks doesn’t drink champagne.
I had sent her a text of congratulations on a great career through her Instagram. She never responded.
Sasha picked up one of the pieces and tried to attach it to another in a way that clearly didn’t fit. I went to remove it, but Lauren shook her head.
“How about this piece, Mr. Nazarov?” She held up another.
“You will call me Sasha. You are family.”
“Sure thing, Sasha.” She shot a quick smile my way.
My father took the piece from her and looked at it. Then he studied the piece that was attached incorrectly. “Aloysha, you have put this in the wrong place.” He removed it and set it aside, then added the piece Lauren had given him.
“Aloysha?” she said.
“It’s Papa’s nickname for me.’”
I didn’t mind that he blamed me for the error. I liked the way Lauren handled it, the agency it gave him in a world where his decisions were so limited.
I caught her eye and found her smiling. Like the puzzle pieces, something clicked. My world might be falling apart, but Lauren would help me keep it and the threads of my sanity together.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be long before I was drinking champagne.