Her expression changes.
Not dramatically. Just enough.
“Oh,” she says softly. “Sweetheart… what happened?”
The room gets quiet. Roman doesn’t speak. He doesn’t jump in to fix it or redirect. He just looks at me. Waiting.
He’s giving me the choice. I set my mug down carefully so my hands don’t shake against it. “I met Roman about a week ago,” I begin, and my voice sounds steadier than I feel. “I wasn’t exactly… I was in a bad situation,” I continue. I don’t give details. I don’t describe chains or concrete floors or the smell of rust. “He found me and pulled me out of it.” I glance at Roman for half a second. He’s watching me, but there’s no pity in his face. Just quiet focus. “He saved me,” I finish.
The words feel heavy and small at the same time.
Roman’s mother looks at him, and something fierce and proud flashes across her face. “You did?” she asks, like she already knows the answer.
He shrugs, but it’s the kind of shrug that doesn’t dismiss anything. “Anyone would have.”
She makes a soft sound that says she does not agree.
Then she looks back at me, and there is no suspicion in her eyes. No calculation. Just concern. “And you are safe here?”
“Yes,” I say immediately.
She reaches across the table and lays her hand over mine. It’s warm and steady and unapologetically maternal. I don’t realize how much I miss that kind of touch until it’s there. “I’m glad he found you,” she says.
I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “So am I.”
Roman’s mother doesn’t let the quiet sit too long after I answer her. She squeezes my hand once and then leans back in her chair, eyeing her son with open suspicion.
“So,” she says, switching back to Russian, “you meet a girl in trouble and you do not think to tell your mother?”
Roman exhales through his nose. “Dobroye utro to you too, Mama.”
“Isaidgood morning,” she shoots back. “You conveniently ignored the rest.”
I glance between them, trying not to smile.
“It wasn’t exactly planned,” Roman says. “It just… happened.”
She snorts softly. “Nothing just happens with you, Misha. You plan everything.”
“That’s not true.”
“You reorganized my pantry when you were twelve,” she reminds him.
He points his fork at her. “It was inefficient.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “You see?” Then she looks at me. “He has always been like this. Serious. Watching everything. Even as a little boy.”
Roman shifts in his chair. “Mama.”
“No, let me speak,” she says, waving him off. “It has only been the two of us for a long time.” Her tone changes slightly when she says it. “My husband died when Roman was young,” she explains, her English careful but steady. “Too young. He barely remembers him.”
Roman’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, but he doesn’t look away.
“He decided very early that he was the man of the house,” she continues. “I did not ask him to. He just… did it. If something broke, he fixed it. If someone looked at me wrong, he noticed.” She smiles faintly. “He has always looked out for his mama.”
Roman huffs quietly. “She makes it sound dramatic.”
“Itwasdramatic,” she counters. “You were ten and yelling at a grown man in the grocery store because he cut in line.”
