“I see,” he said. “Where did you find those?”
“Does it matter?”
“Suppose not.”
“Who was Vera, Vitali?” I asked.
He took a few steps toward me and leaned on the table with straight-stiffened arms. “What do you mean?”
“Who was Vera?” I repeated, a bit taken aback at the audacity, and then thought in horror that this might not be Vera after all… it might just beaVera.
“Who told you that name?”
I wasn’t going to snitch on Misha again, but also had nothing prepared for this scenario, so I remained silent. He didn’t like that.
“Who told you the name ‘Vera?’” he repeated, firmer this time. “Don’t lie to me, Katya.”
“You ask me not to lie to you and then won’t answer any ofmyquestions!” I hissed because it was naive of me to think he would grovel. “Why should I?”
“I can guess. Only a matter of time. Like Goddamned everything.” He left me at the table and grabbed the electric kettle, creating the physical space between us that I’d already built. “She was my first try after… I came back.”
“Were you… together?”
“No.”
Tick-tock-tick-tockwent the clock. Like a cartoon.
“Who was she? What happened to her?”
“She disappeared,” he said, rubbing his temples. “But it wasn’t my doing, because I know you’re thinking that—whoever told you does too, I am sure. We were never… together. I just didn’t know how to approach things. That’s what the photographs are. I’mbroken, Katya. She saw that. And ran.”
It wasn’t a pained statement. Worse, he’d said it as a fact. ‘The snow is melting. The neighbors are getting ready for work. I’m broken.’
I shifted to stand, but he raised a hand. “Stay there. You asked, so you listen.” He deeply exhaled, his fingers tapping against the counter. “She saw the ugly first—the same ugly from the other night. But worse. Shortly after, she was on a dating site advertising Russian women to foreign men. I guess she thought there was no other way out. I was angry. At her, at myself, at theworld. She met someone, and he took her out of the country—to Warsaw. Changed her name, that’s why she disappeared. That’s all.”
“What do you mean by ‘no other way out?’” I whispered. His finger stopped tapping. He hadn’t caught the words before I pointed them out. “What was she scared of, Vitali?” My chest cramped.
“Me,” he said quietly, thoughtfully. “She was scared of me.”
I shouldn’t have felt bad for him. I shouldn’t have felt jealous. But the human mind is both wonderful and flawed, and apparently mine more flawed than most.
“For how long did you know her?” I asked.
“A year.”
“And how long did she know you?”
The change in his expression was instant, and it gave me more answers than he ever could. Panic, fury, and defeat all flashed across his face at once and died out like a smothered candle into the guarded, unreadable nothing that did not meet my eyes. God forgive me, but I wanted to take him in my arms. But,two years,Misha said. Two years he’d known me, and I couldn’t ignore that.
“What happened on the bus?” I asked. “What happened to the man on the bus when we first saw each other, Vitali?”
I expected denial, anger, even silence. But instead he said, “He touched what’s mine.”
“Yours. You supposedly didn’t know me,” I seethed.
“Supposedly,” he repeated, and rubbed his chin. “Interesting choice of words, Katya. You so badly want to get a reaction, what reaction do you want?”
“I want to know how long you’veknownme!”
