Dima nods once. “She was stubborn. Like you.”
My chest does something weird. “Me?”
“Da. She—” He pauses, searching for words. “She saw good in people. Even when she shouldn’t. Even when it was dangerous.” His eyes meet mine. Dark. Heavy. “She tried to fix broken things.”
The weight of his gaze pins me to the chair.
“What happened to her?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
Boris shifts uncomfortably. Lev’s gone completely silent, fork abandoned.
Dima exhales slowly. “Leukemia. Acute myeloid. She was fourteen when they found it.” His voice stays level, but I can hear the cracks underneath. “Fourteen. And I—” His jaw works. “I could kill a man twenty different ways. I could take apart a rifle blindfolded. But I couldn’t save her.”
Oh.
Oh,fuck.
“Three months,” he says. “Diagnosis to—” He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to. “She was scared. At the end. She asked me to stay with her. To not leave.”
“And you didn’t,” I say. It’s not a question.
“Nyet. I didn’t leave.”
The table has gone completely still. Even Lev looks rattled, like he’s hearing this for the first time. Or maybe just never heard Dima say it out loud.
“She made me promise something.” Dima’s eyes are back on his plate, but I don’t think he’s seeing it. “That I wouldn’t let the world make me cold. That I would—” His voice roughens. “That I would protect the ones who still had warmth.”
The words settle over me like a blanket. Heavy. Warm. Suffocating.
“You, Mary.” He looks up. Meets my eyes dead-on. “You remind me of her. The way you are. Stubborn. Kind, even when people don’t deserve it. Always trying to—” He gestures vaguely at the kitchen, the pancakes,us. “To make something good out of broken pieces.”
My throat closes up.
Lev is staring at Dima like he’s grown a second head.
“Dima, I’ve known you for decades. You’ve never—”
“I know.” Dima picks up his fork again and cuts another precise square. “But she did. Remind me. And I made a promise.”
He doesn’t say anything else. Just eats his pancake like he didn’t just crack himself open at this table.
I swallow hard, blinking back the heat behind my eyes.
“I’m not your sister, Dima.”
“No.” He looks at me again, and this time there’s something fierce in his expression. Protective. “But you have her heart. And I won’t fail again.”
The air is too thick. Too close. I need to move, to do something, before I start crying into my pancakes like a complete disaster.
I stand abruptly, grabbing plates that don’t need clearing yet.
“I- uh. I should—”
My eyes flick to the door. Again. For maybe the tenth time since we sat down.
Lev catches it. Of course he does. His grin returns, slower this time.
“He’s not coming, sunshine.”
