"It doesn’t matter if you know how to cook or not.” I tell her. “Nala, you can read people. See what they’re hiding. Cooking doesn’t mean shit. You can do what almost no one else can.”
She's quiet for a bit. “I didn’t choose this thing. I just have it and most of the time, I don’t even want it.”
"Well, there’s a lot of things people don’t get to choose in life.”
“I know.” She looks down at her hands then back up. “Like how you didn’t get to choose your father. I mean, no one does. But yours is… really bad.”
When she lays it out like that, it’s hard to disagree. “That’s one way to put it.”
She goes quiet after that. A minute passes before I hear.
“Roman?”
“What?”
“Will you tell me about your mother? What she was like.”
“Why?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Because I know how Grigori is. I want to understand what your mother liked about him.”
“You’re the psychic. When you figure that out you can tell me.”
She frowns, not happy with my answer. I don’t know what her angle is, why she’s asking all these questions. Pity, curiosity… maybe she wants to hear about romance or something. I have no idea.
I tell her point blank, “I don’t know. Maybe she liked his money. The lifestyle. Who knows. She went and fucked it up when she had me. He cut her off then. I don’t care. She wasdecent. That’s it, not the best mother. She would’ve been better off if she’d never met him.”
“But then you wouldn't have been born.”
I shrug, covering the pot. "That wouldn't have been a bad thing."
"You shouldn’t say that.”
My shoulders tense. I shouldn’t be talking like this with her. That’s what shouldn’t be happening. Yet… I keep talking.
“Why not? It's true."
"It's not.” She lifts her chin. “Roman, you’re the only reason I'm not in that basement anymore, terrified of the next time I have to see your father. So, no. It wouldn't have been better if you weren’t born."
"You think I took you out of that basement because I cared?” I ask, looking at her as if she’s stupid. “Because I’m a good person? I took you out for one reason only. To work for me. Don’t mistake that for anything else.”
She meets my gaze, lifting her chin higher. "I don’t care why you did it. Your reason doesn’t change what happened or what I said.”
I turn back to the stove, shutting this down. She’s wrong but somehow, I have the feeling there’s nothing I can say to convince her otherwise.
We sit at the table, neither of us saying a word, when I feel it again—her eyes on me. I draw in a breath, looking over at her. She has that look on her face, the one where her eyes go wide and her lips part but not enough to become a smile. She’s dying to say something.
“Ask.”
“Your favorite food. What is it?”
"Beef Stroganoff."
She wrinkles her nose. "What's that?"
"Beef cooked in sour cream."
"Is it sour?”
