But as much as she wanted to claim Oleg publicly, she owed the Poshani everything.
In another clan, Tatyana would be a nobody. She didn’t have any outward markers of power. There was nothing particularly desirable about her connections or her elemental skills.
Daughter of no one.
Not a warrior. Not a sage.
But the Poshani had seen something in Tatyana that had made her popular, and it probably helped that she’d stolen a large amount of money that she could invest in their struggling businesses.
And the fact that she had no clan? That was a plus, not a minus, for them.
For her new family, loyalty to the clan came before anything else, and Tatyana was still proving hers on a night-by-night basis.
But mouths were being fed, and bills were easier to pay. The schools were better funded for the human families in the clan, and even the most troublesome cousin could find work.
Tatyana had lived in a place where work was scarce. She understood how the slow erosion of dignity could degrade thespirit, and that was what kept her from running after Oleg like a schoolgirl.
She had a purpose and a family now. She had to think of them before herself.
The rotary phone in the library rang, and Tatyana stood from her sad nest on the sofa to answer it. It was probably Rumi, checking to see if the house was still standing.
“Hello?”
“Tanya?” It was her mother. “Is he still there?”
Her mother knew that Oleg and Tatyana were married, and it was hard not to think that Anna preferred her new son-in-law to her daughter. “No, he just left. I’ll tell him to call you tomorrow night though.”
“That’s too bad.” Anna sighed. “But I’m glad you had a little time together. This isn’t healthy.”
“We’ve talked about this.”
“I really don’t think anyone would mind that much. Even those strange people?—”
“Mama, absolutely not.” Her mother still had a hard time with the different cultural dynamics in the Poshani clan, but at least she’d finally been persuaded to move to the country house in Poland and away from their family farm in the Crimea.
Tatyana had traded another large and ostentatious mansion that Vano had built outside the city for a smaller country house in the spa town of Wilga forty minutes from Warsaw.
Oleg had discreetly transported Anna’s dog and her birds to Romania, and Radu had taken care of the animals’ move to Poland.
Now Anna tended a wood-shingled farmhouse with a large barn tucked away in a forest, along with a middle-aged Ukrainian couple who had also been displaced by the war, and Tatyana was able to visit most weekends.
Her mother had a large garden, coops for her chickens, a large dovecote for her beloved pigeons, and a few goats who seemed to wreak a different kind of havoc every time Tatyana called.
There was also a small, private airport in the town nearby, and Oleg could sometimes sneak away to visit them.
“It snowed last night,” Anna said. “The forest looks so beautiful.”
“Send pictures.” Tatyana closed her eyes and pictured her mother in her mind.
Anna was getting older. She had more lines around her eyes. The move was necessary, but it had been hard on her. Anna grieved the farm and the country that had been. She mourned her parents and the life she thought her daughter was going to have.
Tatyana could not give her grandchildren in her old age. She could not give her generations.
But she could give her safety.
“I’ll be back in Warsaw tomorrow night,” Tatyana said. “I’ll see you soon, Mama.”
Chapter 3
