“Gospodi, prosti nas, greshnykh,”he mutters, throwing a sign of the cross just to drive the point home.
Lucky pauses beside Kostya, watching the dirt fly.
“What are you fucking mumbling over there?”
“What do you think? I’m asking God to forgive us sinners.”
“Okay. I guess that’s as good a plan as any. Let me try,” he says and then, with exaggerated reverence, Lucky folds his hands and begins praying in Italian, “Madonna Santa, perdona noi peccatori, anche se siamo solo un branco di idioti.”
Kostya shoots him a murderous look. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing, asshole,” Lucky says solemnly, tossing another shovelful of dirt aside. “I’m hedging my bets.”
I keep digging without a word, needing this to be over and done with. The scrape of metal against wood comes too soon, causing us all to freeze in place.
Kostya crosses himself again. “Fuck.I can’t fucking believe we’re really doing this.”
Lucky clears his throat. “Technically, we haven’t crossed into soul-condemning territory yet. We could still turn back.”
“Grab the sides,” I order, ending their hesitation.
Together, we pry the coffin free inch by inch, the wet suck of the earth fighting us like it doesn’t want to let her go.
Kostya whispers another prayer.
Lucky repeats his again in Italian.
And somehow, their ridiculous prayers are the only thing holding us together as we lift Elena back into the world of the living.
Four hours later, when we return with the coffin, we find a manic Misha in the garden, digging a grave beside the flower beds Elena once tended for hours on end.
Frankie is nowhere in sight. She’s probably locked in her room, spared from witnessing this nightmare. But true to her word, Stella stands nearby, watching over Misha as he keeps digging like a man possessed.
When he realizes we’re back, he throws the shovel aside. Dirt clings to his hair, his face, his hands as he hauls himself out of the pit he carved through the earth with grief and desperation.
Together, we lower the coffin into its final resting place.
Misha refuses all help with covering it. He shovels the dirt back alone, methodical, trembling, relentless. When he’s finished, he simply stands there, staring down at the mound of fresh earth.
Then he pulls a photograph from his back pocket.
He presses a soft kiss to it… and lays it gently atop the grave.
Stella’s tears finally spill when we all recognize the image.
Misha and Elena on their wedding day—bright smiles on their faces as they exit the very church that held her funeral earlier that morning.
And then, as if God himself finally takes mercy on my brother, the rain begins to fall.
At first softly.
Then harder.
Until we are soaked to the bone.
Misha drops to his knees in the mud, whispering the same broken sentence over and over in Russian—his voice cracked, wrecked, unrecognizable.
“You’re home, my love. You’re home. Where you belong.”
