“Alright…” My brother scrunched his nose and looked down the hallway where pots and pans clattered in the sink. “But I don’t have a fishing rod.”
“I’ll get you one. We’ll take the Jeep. Maybe I’ll let you drive.”
Maxim’s face lit up with a grin, but he nervously glanced at me, waiting to be told he couldn’t drive at the ripe age of nine. I pretended I didn’t hear the exchange, but made a mental note to ask Vitali if he was serious, because that wasn’t guaranteed to be a joke.
Mama and I did not part on a good note, but she didn’t kick us out either. The best I could hope for after the day we had.
The drive back was a melancholy one. Vitali’s gaze never left the road, and now and then he’d bite his nails—a habit I had never seen before.
“You know how to fish?” I asked when the silence grew to be too much.
“No. But I’ll learn.”
I nodded absently.
“You know it’s not a guarantee that they’ll have to go,” he said. “I can make sure. That nothing happens to make them go.”
“Vitali…”
“I can put another man on the apartment.”
“Vitali.”
He gave me an irritated glance before returning to the road.
I lowered my eyes. “Something is going to happen. Things never stop happening. Reacting to it isn’t enough; it has to be prevented. I don’t know how else to do that.”
“What do you want me to do, Katya?” he muttered.
“I want you to understand I can’t live like this and do nothing. I don’t want things to keep happeningtome.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“You don’t get it.” I sighed. It wasn’t his fault. The thoughts had been bouncing around in my head ever since… ever since everything. It had to start with Mama and Maxim, but it couldn’t end there. “How much money do you have access to?”
“Enough. How much do you need?”
No‘what for?’Just like that.
“Enough to offset where it’s coming from. I want to do something for boys like Maxim. Give them something to do so they don’t end up…”
“Like me.”
“…Mixed up with the wrong company. I’m sorry.”
His finger tapped on the steering wheel, and he rubbed his chin, but said nothing.
“They have sports, but the programs are underfunded and the spots limited. He was lucky to get on a swim team last year, and no one was taking new students when he transferred.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have gotten him in.”
“That’s not the point. Every kid can’t get ‘in’ because their—” I choked, because I almost said brother-in-law.
“Family has connections,” he finished for me.
“Right.”
“This is Russia. It’s just the way it is, Kotik.”
