“Oh, did you now?”
“His name is Gerald,” she informs me, “and he lives in my pocket.”
Eliana turns from the stove, one eyebrow raised in that way she has. “We are not keeping a frog, sweetness.”
“But Mom?—!”
“No, ma’am. frogs. No salamanders. No ‘beautiful beetles’ that turn out to be cockroaches. I will not be fooled twice, young lady.”
Our child’s lower lip trembles, melodramatic and brimming over with emotion like only bright-eyed little girls can be. I crouch down to her level. My knees ache in the pleasant way of a body that’s been used properly—for yard work and piggyback rides and dancing in the kitchen.
Not for violence. Never violence, not anymore.
“How about we let Gerald go back to his family?” I suggest. “He probably misses them.”
My daughter’s lip wobble intensifies. “ButI’mhis family now.”
“Tell you what: We’ll build him a pond in the backyard. You can visit him whenever you want.”
The inherited stubbornness of both her parents works overtime behind my child’s blue eyes. “With a bridge?” she asks carefully after a moment’s thought.
“The fanciest, most beautiful bridge you’ve ever seen.”
“Deal!”
Tiny arms wrap around my neck. I breathe in the smell of grass and childhood and impossible, improbable hope.
Then another crack echoes through the basement, and the kitchen dissolves like smoke in the rain.
And I can’t help but wonder…
And wonder…
And wonder…
… if I’ll ever see a place so beautiful again.
57
ELIANA
bone-in /bon in/: adjective
1: meat prepared with the skeleton intact for flavor and structure.
2: what you become when there’s nothing left but teeth and glass and the howling will to survive.
The door closes.
Aleksei is gone.
Brandon remains.
I can hear him breathing, wet and eager, but he stays planted where he is. The fear in the room marinates and condenses. He’s savoring this, the sick fuck. Our whimpers and terrors… it’s all foreplay to him.
“You know how long I’ve waited for this?” he says. “Months.Monthsof planning while I sat in that fucking jail cell. I might’ve gonecrazyin there with the planning if Aleksei hadn’t come along and gotten me out.” His boots squeak on the floor as hestarts to saunter, following the same circuit Aleksei did. “You ruined my life, you fucking sluts.”
“Weruinedyourlife?” Yasmin is crackling with fury even through her tears. “Youbeatme. Youstalkedme. You?—”
