Aunt Irina looks back and forth from me and my phone. “Hmmm, a good age. You say you danced with him at the wedding? How lovely.”
I can feel Dad looking at me, but I don’t look back, remaining calm.
“He was just being nice. He probably felt bad for me because I was sitting alone the whole night.” I swallow and take my phone back.
“You were not alone,” Uncle disagrees. “We were with you.”
I ignore him. He knew what I meant.
“He brought the kids over to meet me,” I tell my aunt, smiling at the memory. “They’re very small.”
“One year old, if I remember correctly,” she agrees, folding her hands with her elbows on the table to rest her chin. “An adorable age for children. I miss when Nadya was that small.Do they speak yet?”
“Cesar more than Isobella,” I tell her, thinking back to that night. “I think she knows a lot of words but doesn’t always say them. She’s a bit shy and he’s…wild.”
“They call him a menace already,” Dad adds, unable to hide how happy that makes him. “He will be a good Pakhan with the right training.”
My aunt scoffs good-naturedly. “He’s too young to be thinking about training. He should be thinking of toys and fun, not future responsibilities.”
“Never too young,” Uncle Lev disagrees.
She waves him off. “Oh shush, you.”
There’s a small gap of silence, and for some reason, I decide to fill it.
“Matteo says that he thinks Jade and Dmitri will have many children.”
“Oh, did he?”
I nod, meeting my aunt’s gaze. She seems so interested that it files away at some of my nerves. I missed talking to her. Even when my mom was around, I always felt closer to my aunt. She’s soft and caring but also exciting and girly. But Dad only recently started letting her come around the house to see me again, now that I’ve been getting better.
I never asked him to change his mind, though. I wasn’t ready yet.
“He says they flirt a lot and it disgusts him to see his sister that way. But he likes being an uncle very much so he can’t be too upset.”
My aunt giggles. “Ahh, to be young and in love. Dmitri’s wife seems very nice from what dear Anton has told me. And gorgeous from the photos I’ve seen. Such a pretty face. Did you speak with her at the wedding?”
Shame burns at my cheeks and I shake my head sadly. “We waved at each other.” She is, though. Gorgeous, that is. I have no idea if she’s nice or not. I’d assume so, given how she didn’t mind the boundaries my father set for me to attend her wedding. When no one replies immediately, I pick up my fork and poke at my food some more.
“Well, that’s all right,” Aunt Irina says lightly. “I’m glad you’ve made a friend either way. And besides, you’ll have plenty of time getting to know her when Dmitri and Ivan finally come home.”
“Right,” I agree, hoping my silent panic doesn’t show through my expression. I know I have a few years, but I still don’t know how to handle being with my brothers again. Seeing them at a distance at the wedding was hard enough. Every time I think about talking to them, I think about how they saw me naked, dying, and wholly broken.
Shaking off the horrible thought, I go back to my food. Thankfully, the rest of lunch goes by with much less conversation. I’m able to finish my routine chicken salad and enjoy it like I normally would.
It’s actually one of my favorite simple lunches. I have a strict diet that I follow to help manage some of my daily anxiety and other symptoms. Tuesdays are always chicken salad for lunch,for a snack I can have Greek yogurt and a banana, and then for dinner, steak with garlic vegetables.
When I was first building my weekly food schedule, Dad was concerned that my PTSD was manifesting into an eating disorder. But my doctors all assured him that routine would help me feel more stable. It took away a daily choice that could cause unnecessary stress. I could eat as much of the food as I needed, but this way, I had a healthy rotation of meals I enjoyed and never had to think about what to feed myself.
Every day except for Sunday, I eat one of the same breakfasts too. A protein shake that helps me feel ready for the day each morning, or toast if I wake up feeling a bit nauseous from my medicine. On Sundays, I always have a full breakfast instead. Special protein pancakes with strawberries and bananas, plus two bacon slices.
Dad eats it with me every time. Sundays are our days, and they have been since before I started regularly communicating with him.
A routine is very helpful for managing anxiety, as well as OCD. And while PTSD didn’t give me an eating disorder, it did give me obsessive compulsive disorder. And asthma.
Yeah,asthma.
That one was a curveball we found out about the hard way. We all assumed I was having a standard panic attack until I started to struggle to breath. My throat was closing up, and if our family doctor hadn’t been on standby, it could have been a lot worse.
