Afraid.
We try to keep working.
Vitaly pulls fresh dough from the cooler and turns it out onto the floured counter, but his rhythm’s wrong. His hands don’t follow the patterns he just taught me. He moves like someone trying to mimic memory, not muscle.
After the third time he presses too hard and ruins the fold, I gently take the dough from him.
“Sit down. Just for a minute. I’ll clean this up.”
He doesn’t argue.
I bring him a Medovik from the display case and a mug of something warm. I think it’s his tea blend. Earthy and bitter, like he roasts the leaves himself just to spite commercial brands.
He holds the mug with both hands. Doesn’t drink.
“I didn’t have a sponsor,” he says quietly.
No preamble. No lead-in. Just truth.
“I wanted to bake. Open a place. Make something with my hands that wasn’t…”
He trails off. Swallows.
“I had no one left. Home or here. So I paid her. Lied on forms. Said we were engaged. She vouched for me. And then…”
He shrugs. Doesn’t look at me.
Looks at his hands.
Those massive, scarred hands that fold dough toward the heart.
“She wants more. Money. Access. A clean place to run dirty bills.”
His voice cracks.
Just slightly.
“If I say no, she reports me. I lose the bakery. Maybe get deported. Maybe worse.”
I don’t say anything.
Because I don’t know what to say.
He finally looks at me, something raw flickering in his expression.
“I just wanted a quiet life. A warm kitchen. A place that smelled like sugar instead of blood.”
When he gets up, I pretend not to watch him wipe his eyes on the towel.
He goes back to measuring butter like nothing happened.
Like it didn’t cost him something to tell me that.
I clean the counter. Fold the towels.
Finish shaping the last tray of bread while he moves stiffly through the rest of the prep.
But inside?
