But none of those words come out. Instead, I just tell her. “It was… a lot.”
Lydia’s eyes narrow, but before she can push, Anthony is tugging me toward the refrigerator where his card is displayed in a place of honor. “Look, look! See it? I even used your favorite color!”
And he did. The winter gray of Slava’s eyes is all over the card, and sprinkled on top is a riot of glitter and the specific kind of artistic chaos of a six-year-old.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell him, and mean it. “We can keep it on the fridge forever.”
He beams like I’ve handed him the sun.
We spend the next hour in the simple rituals of a homecoming he doesn’t know was anything other than ordinary. I hear about what he and Lydia had been up to since I was away—everything from playground drama involving disputed swing ownership to the newest dinosaur book he’s reading, and even the massive pillow fort Lydia helped him build in the living room.
It feels so fucking normal and familiar. It should feel like comfort. But it doesn’t.
Because I’ve changed, I realize.
Every time I look at Anthony’s smile, I see Luca’s face, and I’m filled with the same implacable rage that Slava had for him.
She was his wife, Luca! How could you?
Every time I think that, I can feel the glue thumbprint in Slava’s safe, and remember that I’m no better.
“Aunt Bella?” Anthony’s voice cuts through the spiral. “Are you okay? You look sad.”
I blink. Force my face into something that approximates normal. “I’m just tired, peanut. It’s been a long trip.”
“Do you want to nap?” he asks me. “I always feel better after a nap.”
“Maybe later.” I kiss the top of his head. “Speaking of naps, isn’t it past your bedtime?”
The resulting protest is loud, theatrical, and ultimately unsuccessful. Twenty minutes later, Anthony is tucked into his bed and I’m standing in the doorway watching his eyes flutter closed.
“I missed you,” he mumbles, already half-asleep.
“Me too, peanut.” My voice is barely a whisper.
When I return to the living room, Lydia is waiting on the couch with an expression that says she’s done accepting surface-level answers.
“Okay.” She points to the space beside her. “Tell me everything. And I fucking mean everything, Bella.”
I sit but I don’t talk. Lydia gives me approximately thirty seconds of silence before she breaks it. “Why don’t we start with the night you didn’t come home but told me you went to France with Slava fuck-mothering Romanov?”
“That’s exactly what it sounds like.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Bella. I came into this house and saw that tiny bikini on the ground like somebody stripped it off you. You don’t come home. And then the only thing that I hear is a text from you that you’re going to France with Slava?”
“Before I tell you anything,” I say. “Tell me something. While I was away—were you followed?”
“Was I followed?” Lydia’s eyebrows rise. “No more than the usual in New York.”
“I mean it, Lydia.”
“Okay, okay,” she sighs and thinks. “Well, there was this one guy. Started noticing him about a day after you left. First it was when I was at Whole Foods with Anthony. Then it was when I stopped by work to grab a few things.”
“What did he look like?”
A faint flush creeps up her cheeks, and her mouth twists into a reluctant half-smile before she can stop it.
“Tall,” she starts. “Dark hair, angled jaw, and amber eyes. Kind of…”
