His hand goes still in mine.
The pause between breaths stretches, and I hold my own breath with him, as if I can keep him here by the force of not letting go.
I'm thinking about her while he dies and I hate myself for it.
I'm thinking about her face on the pillow and the way she laughed when I rolled her on top of me, the first real laugh I'd ever heard from her. I'm thinking of Viktor and how far he'd really go to get his hands on my father's empire.
Somewhere fourteen miles from here, a woman who doesn't know my last name well enough to spell it is lying in the dark with no idea that the second my father's hand goes cold in mine, the clock starts on everything.
His chest pulls.
Shallow. Shallower.
I put my forehead against the back of his hand.
"Spasibo, Papa," I whisper.Thank you."Za vsyo."For all of it.
His chest pulls again. Let’s go. Doesn't pull back.
I wait. Lucia is in the doorway; I feel her there without looking.
I close my eyes.
I sit with him like that for a minute. Maybe longer. I don't count. I listen to the oxygen machine hiss into a nose that isn't breathing anymore, and I feel the weight of his hand in mine go from still to heavy.
I lift his hand and press my mouth to the back of it.
Then I lay it down on the blanket and fold his fingers the way I've seen Lucia fold them at night, and I stand.
Viktor clears his throat behind me.
"Kolya."
I turn.
His face has arranged itself into practiced sorrow. His eyes are a little wet and his mouth is set in the soft regretful line of a man who has just lost a brother.
"Kolya," he says again. He crosses to me. He takes my shoulders in both hands. "Plemyannik. My boy."
I let him.
"Listen to me." His voice drops. A man handling a grieving nephew. "You've had a hard night. Losing your father. Go home. Sleep. Let me take care of the house tonight. I'll sit with him. I'll handle the arrangements, the calls, the men. You don't need to carry it tonight. Family carries family."
His hands tighten a fraction.
"Tomorrow, we sit down," he says. "You and me. I'll walk you through what needs to happen in the next week. There is a way these things are done, Kolya. Traditionally. It's important. The men need to see the family speak with one voice."
One voice.
His voice, he means.
I look at him. I look at the hands on my shoulders, the wet eyes and the softness around his mouth, and I think about my father lying behind me with his fingers folded. I think about the way he squeezed my hand a few days ago when he saidhide her or bury her.
I think about Sadie. Her birthmark. Her laugh.
Something in me that has been wound tight for six months goes very still.
I lift Viktor's hands off my shoulders.
