The man had been through four pregnancies.
Somewhere between awe and disgust, I poured him a large drink.
The trauma he had survived required at least an entire bottle.
The more he drank the more he talked—and the more he talked the further the internet’s clean clinical summaries retreated into irrelevance. This man had lived through four of these. Four. He had field intelligence that no website had thought to include.
I took mental notes.
All of them.
??????
I stepped out of the car a new man—armed with knowledge, four pregnancies' worth of field intelligence, and the quiet confidence of someone who had done their research.
Tau opened the door as I approached.
“Congratulations,” he murmured, stepping aside.“You might want to check in on her.”
By the time I glanced back he had vanished. I heard him speaking to Bogdan somewhere down the hall.
My confidence adjusted slightly when I found Radovan stationed outside the living room with the expression of a man who had been through something he lacked the vocabulary to describe. He wouldn’t meet my eye.
I handed him my bag and peered into the room from the doorway.
She was curled on the couch, a light grey blanket pulled up to her chin, eyes red, nose running. I leaned in to see what she was watching.
A herd of reindeer. A newborn, legs folding and recovering, trying to find its footing in the snow. The mother circling, nudging, waiting.
“Come on,” Iskra whispered from behind the blanket, and began to sniffle.
Yeah. Fuck this.
I began to back away.
The scene cut to a pack of wolves running hard through the snow.
“Nyet. Poshël ty,” she screamed at the television.
I stopped moving.
I wasn’t equipped for this.
“Oh, you’re here,” she said, turning to look at me with red eyes.“That’s you. Those damn wolves.”
I looked at the screen. The reindeer were running. The herd was intact.
“In my defence,” I said,“I’ve never harmed an animal.”
The reindeer got away. Iskra blew her nose. I left—at pace—and took the stairs without looking back.
I closed my bedroom door behind me.
She was more volatile than me.
Radovan was bound to get the brunt of it.
With a chuckle, I went off to shower, thinking back to the baker’s advice.
