“No. I want our real home. With Papa and Maxim and my purple trains.”
Anna pulls Mila closer. “I know, sweetheart. But we’re staying here for a while.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to figure some things out.”
Alexei has been quiet this whole time. Now he looks at me. “Did you do something bad, Papa?”
The question cuts through everything.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I did something bad a long time ago. I’m trying to fix it now.”
“Will you fix it?”
“I’m trying.”
“Is Mama still mad?”
“Yes.”
“Will she stop being mad?”
“I don’t know.”
He considers this. Then he says, “Mama is really mad when she’s quiet mad. You should apologize.”
“I’m trying to.”
“You should try harder.”
Out of the mouths of children.
The doorbell rings. Viktor goes to answer it. Returns with Pavel carrying the leather portfolio. Pavel hands it to me. I open it and pull out the restructuring agreement. All sixty pages.
“This is what I’ve been working on,” I tell Anna. “Read it. All of it. Ask your father to read it. Get your own attorney to review it if you want. But see what I’m actually doing instead of assuming the worst.”
I hand her the documents. She takes them but doesn’t look at them.
“Even if this is real,” she says quietly. “Even if you’re restructuring everything. That doesn’t change what you did. It doesn’t erase three years of manipulation.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“It doesn’t make me trust you again.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t fix what’s broken.”
“I know that too. But it’s a start. It’s proof that I’m trying.”
She sets the documents on the couch beside her. “I need time. I need space to think.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know. Days. Weeks. However long it takes.”
“And the twins?”
