“I want it all. Put your hands on everything and make it yours.”
“Even when you can’t find your desk for three days?”
“I can write at the kitchen table. Or on the stairs. I have done worse with less.”
She laughs and tucks two chips back into the stack. “You are patient with me.”
“I’d give you the world if I could. This is just a house.”
She kisses my cheek, and that’s enough for me to put up with living in a construction zone for at least another four months.
The boys pull free at the door and make it three steps before they fall into each other and argue in a language only they understand. I separate knees from noses and set them on their feet. Teresa takes their hands and starts the tour toward the garden. They look back to make sure we are watching. We are.
If someone had told me I would love this part of my life the most, I would have laughed. I spent years building rooms where other people could forget the world. I did not believe I would ever get a room like that for myself. Now the whole house is a room like that, even with banging and dust and a sofa going through a door sideways.
The rest of the world has faded into background noise and little else. It is more than I thought I could ask for.
In the afternoon, Leon arrives. I haven’t heard from him in a long while, and when he brought up the meeting, I was happy to take it, but he didn’t provide details as to why he wanted a meeting, which is odd for him.
He steps into the entry and stops. He looks at the plastic on the floor and the scaffolding that kisses the ceiling and the toy truck lodged under a chair. He looks at me and smiles the way an older brother smiles when he catches a younger one happy. “You look like a man who went to a market and bought everything.”
“And then some.”
“Good.” He takes my hand in both of his and squeezes. “You deserve this.”
“I did not think I would hear that from you.”
“I did not think I would say it.”
We walk to the library because the crew has not touched it yet. It still smells like paper and lemon oil. We sit. I pour whiskey. He drinks and smiles as he studies my face. “It has been some time, and I hope time heals wounds enough for me to ask this. What happened with Vitaly?”
Bold of him to ask, but then again, we are bold men. “Is that what you came to discuss?”
“One of two things I came to discuss. I know he is dead. I suspect you had a hand in it. But there is only so much that rumor allows me to piece together.”
Of all the men breathing, Leon Valivov is one of the few I respect. So, I tell him the truth. He knows enough about Vitaly to know I’d be lying if I prettied up the tale, so I give it to him plain.
Leon does not interrupt. When I finish, he nods once. “You were right,” he says. “Olga could not have seen that and remained in love with you. She would have broken that night. She would not have stood there with a knife, ready to finish things had you not done the job.”
“Olga, for all her kindness…” I’m not sure how to end that sentence. “I agree. It would have broken her. She was too gentle for this world.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “She used to tell me you were two men. The one who smiled at her and the one the world needed. She believed the second killed the first when you married Bridgette, but she was wrong about that. I see now that the first survived and built a house where he can live.”
“He had help.”
“Oh?”
“Mina is?—”
“The right woman for you.”
I chuckle. “Picked up on that, eh?”
He laughs, full-throated and open. “The construction vehicles dotting your lawn gave that away before I even walked inside and saw the messes. Roman Ekimov does not upend his family home for just anyone.”
“This place might have been the Ekimov family home before, but now, it’s starting to feel like a home for my family.”
“I am glad for you, truly.” Noise from the rest of the house reaches us, distracting us both briefly. His smile fades, and the air shifts. “Now, for the other reason. I came because I need help.”
