Misha noticed.
He was right there, doing a puzzle on the table in front of the couch. But he didn’t seem bothered. He wasn’t confused or alarmed.
Not a lick of surprise showed on his face.
But he noticed.
“I miss Lev,” he said.
It came out of the blue.
“I miss Andre and seeing everyone at Luka’s house. I miss my bed at home, Daddy.”
He wasn’t complaining. He was merely stating his feelings, and I would always welcome them.
“I miss them all too,” I said quietly.
“Do you think that we will go home soon?”
That was an awfully loaded question, and one I didn’t know how to answer.
He didn’t push me for an immediate answer on it. He followed up too quickly with another question, something I was at even more of a loss on how to answer.
“Will Kalina come home with us? Can she stay as part of our family?
“I don’t know,” I replied, giving him the best answer that I could.
Deep in my heart, I wished that she could. That she would.
After I left her in her bed, waiting until she’d fallen asleep after I’d made her come three times, I walked past Misha’s bedroom to see how he was sleeping before going to my own room.
There he was, sleeping away without a care in the world. But he did have concerns. About her. About wanting her to stay with us.
Knowing that he was opening his heart to her, I had to double down and make sure that I didn’t screw this up.
He needed a mother. I wanted so badly for him to have a solid and steady female role model in his world who would alwaysbe in his life. Not my cousin’s wives or anyone else in the large organization we were a part of, but a mother. Someone who could behis.
But can that be Kalina?
She was so against the idea of getting pregnant. I respected her wishes, but I was saddened each time she mentioned how strongly she did not want a child with me. When she worded it as a wish not to be bred, I didn’t need any further clues to understand that was the garbage that Erik and Yusef fed her, that she would be used like that.
But that doesn’t have to mean she doesn’t want children at all. It can’t mean that she never wants her own child. Right?
There was no doubt that she cared about Misha. Just yesterday, she kissed the top of his head and gave him an affectionate look. They’d been teasing each other lightheartedly after a loss at a board game.
She cared.
But I would be a fool to assume too much of her or how she felt about children or a family.
I—
Narrowing my eyes, I noticed a flicker of light.
I had just turned away from Misha’s doorway and happened to glance out the window.
Darkness blanketed the landscape, only mutely brighter with the snow. Without any buildings or roads around us, there was no reason for headlights to be flashing in the distance.
Or growing closer.
