Three years of being married to his daughter and the man still treats me like I'm a stray dog Iris dragged home. He smiles at me with all his teeth and none of his eyes. He asks about my business in a tone that suggests he already knows the answer and finds it beneath him. He sits at the head of his table in his pristine dining room and watches me with the patience of a man waiting for a problem to solve itself.
But the worst part is what he does with Anya. My daughter. My blood. My little blonde headed angel. The only pure, untainted thing I have ever created. He buys her love right out from under me.
Three years of marriage, a grandchild, another baby on the way, and he still acts like I'm temporary. Every gift I give Anya, he tops. Every moment I have with her, he steals. I bought her a playhouse.
He bought her a custom dollhouse with working lights. I got her a puppy. He got her a kitten, a rabbit, and a bird because why have one pet when you can have a zoo. I took her to the circus. He rented an entire amusement park.
Last week I bought her a pony. She was so happy she cried. I was her hero. The best papa in the whole world. Then Sunday arrived. Dinner at Dedushka's house. And there, displayed in the living room like a monument to everything he has, is a custom-built dollhouse the size of a car. Anya screamed so loud I thought she was hurt. Then she ran to him. Hugged him. Kissed him. Told him he was the best dedushka in the universe. She didn't look at me once for the next two hours.
Iris tried to make me feel better. "She's three. She doesn't know what she's doing."
"She knows exactly what she's doing. She's her mother's daughter." Iris smacked my arm. But she was smiling. Because she knows I'm right. They're both mercenaries. Beautiful and ruthless, going where the spoils are, leaving the rest of us to fight over scraps of their attention.
I love them anyway, even though they're emotionally bankrupting me. My fist clenches and my sleeve rides up, exposing my wrist. The platinum wedding band catches the lightfirst. Then the bracelet just above it. Pink and purple plastic beads on fraying elastic with a tiny silver A dangling from it.
Anya made it for me Monday morning.
She crawled into our bed, wedged herself between Iris and me, shoved the bracelet in my face until I opened my eyes, and announced very seriously, "I made this for you, Papa. Because you were grumpy at Dedushka's house and Mama said I have to be nicer to you."
"You don't have to be nicer to me."
"I know." She shrugged. "But I want to. Because I love you." Then her face went serious. "I love Dedushka too. But I love you different. You're my papa." I put the bracelet on that morning. Haven't taken it off since.
Right now, someone is staring at it. I don't bother checking who. I fix my sleeve, meet the therapist's eyes. "It was a quiet week."
The therapist writes something on her clipboard. "Alright. Perhaps next time." She moves on to the final part of the session, breathing exercises, instructing everyone to close their eyes and breathe in for four counts, hold for four counts, breathe out for four counts.
My eyes stay open. I don't breathe with them. But Ruslan is doing the exercise like his life depends on it, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in perfect sync with the therapist's count. Semyon too. I'm giving them both hell for this later.
After a few minutes, the therapist calls time. "Very good, everyone. Now, before we close, let's do our final affirmation together. Repeat after me: I can choose peace over violence." The room echoes with the words. "I can choose peace over violence."
The therapist is watching me, waiting to see if I'll participate.
I think about the promise I made three years ago when they placed Anya in my arms for the first time. I think about her small hands always reaching for mine.
Her green eyes looking up at me like I'm the safest place in the world.
I open my mouth and say the words. "I can choose peace over violence." They taste wrong. Foreign. Like I'm speaking a language I'll never truly understand. But I say them anyway.
The therapist smiles. "Excellent. That's all for today. Same time Thursday." People start collecting their things, chairs scraping the floor, quiet conversations starting up as everyone disperses.
I stand and button my coat. Ruslan and Semyon fall into step beside me as I walk toward the door.
"Boss," Ruslan says quietly. "You actually think this is helping?"
"No," I say. "But I keep coming anyway."
"Why?"
Instead of answering, I push through the door. The afternoon hits me, bright and cold. The limousine is waiting at the curb. The driver sees me coming and straightens. But my eyes find the two figures standing on the sidewalk just in front of the car. Iris. Five months pregnant with our second, one hand resting on her rounded belly, the other holding the small hand of our daughter.
Anya. Three years old. She has my hair, blonde and wild, but those green eyes are all her mother. Looking at her is likelooking at Iris in miniature, soft and untouched by anything ugly, anything violent, anything like me.
Today it's a pink dress with white flowers and those little white shoes she loves because they light up when she walks. Her blonde hair is pulled into pigtails with pink ribbons.
She sees me and her face transforms. "Papa!" She tears her hand out of Iris's grip and runs toward me, her little legs pumping as fast as they can carry her, towards my arms stretched wide. I crouch down and catch her as she throws herself into my arms, wrapping around my neck and pressing her face into my shoulder. "Papa, Papa, Papa," she says, over and over, holding on tight.
My eyes close. I hold her with one hand on the back of her head, the other around her small body. This. This right here. This is why I sit in that room. Why I repeat words I don't mean and listen to strangers talk about problems that mean nothing to me.
