He nods, or at least, tries to nod. "Mikhail." He closes his eyes again. His hand is still in mine. "Mikhail owes me his whole life. He should stitch you for free."
"He did. And he sends his respects.”
My father laughs. It's a small sound that becomes a cough, and Lucia appears to read the monitors that surround my father.
Viktor is still in the room.
"Uncle," I say, once Lucia has finished making notes and adjusting my father’s bed so he is sitting a little more upright.
"Yes."
"I would like a moment with my father." The dismissal is clear in my tone.
"Of course." He doesn’t move. "Of course, Kolya. Family time. I will be in the library. Stepan." He looks at the bed. "Brother. I'm glad I saw your boy. I'm glad he came. I will be here as long as you need me."
"Viktor," my father says. His voice is thin, and yet still holding authority. "Nikolai hasn’t been a boy for more than twenty-five years."
Viktor comes around the bed slowly. He puts his hand on my father's shoulder for a long moment, and then he takes his hand off and walks past me on his way to the door. As he passes me, he pauses.
He bends. His mouth is at my ear.
"We will need to talk soon, Kolya," he says in Russian, very quietly, so my father cannot hear. "About how things will be arranged. My brother has not been clear-headed for weeks. There are men asking questions. Men who need answers. Family cannot have gaps in it. You understand."
He straightens and smiles at me, then leaves.
The door closes behind him.
I sit with my father's hand in mine and I don’t move until I hear Viktor's shoes on the stairs. My father’s fingers twitch in my hand, drawing my attention back to him. His eyes are open again, and they are clear in a way they haven’t been clear in two weeks.
"Kolya."
"Papa."
“He is a snake. Always was.” He coughs, but waves away the cup of water when I lift it towards him. “I hoped he would change.”
My father's hand tightens on mine. There is almost no strength in it, but there is some, and I feel it the way I felt Sadie's hand on my wrist when she wrote my vitals on it.
"The chair is mine, Papa. I have not forgotten." I say it to reassure him. That I know the way this is meant to be.
"He will come for you."
"Let him."
"Kolya. Listen to me. I have very little voice. Listen. He will not come at you. He is not that kind of snake. He will come at the thing you love. He will find the thing and he will go there first, and he will do it smiling, and you will not see it coming because he will make you think he is doing you a kindness. Do you hear me."
My heart is in my throat.
"I hear you, Papa."
"Is there a thing?"
I don’t answer, because my first thought wasno, then Sadie’s face popped into my mind and I didn’t have time to question it, banish it, before he saw.
"Kolya,” he says with regret.
"It’s new,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
He closes his eyes. He is quiet for long enough that I think he has gone back to sleep, and then he speaks without opening them.
