“Real,” I say. “It became real.”
My father is quiet for a moment. “He cleared the debt before the ink was dry on the paperwork.”
“Yes.”
“He put eight men on this street the day after the wedding.” He glances toward the road. “There are two out there now.”
I look at him. “You knew.”
“I am old, myshka. I am not blind.” He looks at his hands. “I know what kind of man puts eight men on a street. I know what kind of world that comes from.” He looks at me. “I also know that you are sitting here with color in your face and your shoulders down for the first time in two years. So I have made my peace with the rest of it.”
My throat tightens. “I am safe,” I say. “And certain. Both.”
He nods once, the nod of a man who has received the answer he needed, and puts his hand back on top of my head.
We sit in the winter garden until the cold makes it unreasonable.
Carla is in the hallway when I come back inside to say goodbye, and she has the look she always has, the dish towel, the foldedarms, the expression of a woman who has been composing a sentence since she heard the gate.
“Aleksei called again,” she says.
I stop.
I look at her standing in the hallway of my father’s house in her apron with her folded arms, and I think about eleven mornings of chamomile. A room in New Jersey. Roman’s voice sayingI am in love with you. Two heartbeats on a screen. Everything I have walked through to be standing in this hallway right now, and I think about how many times I have stood here and managed my response to this woman, trimmed myself down to fit the conversation, and left before I said something I could not take back.
I’m done trimming.
“Carla,” I say. “I’m going to say this once, and I need you to hear all of it.” I hold her gaze. “I am married. My husband has cleared every debt this family had. My father is sitting outside in the sun for the first time in months because he is no longer carrying the weight of those bills. My children are going to grow up with everything they need.” I take one step toward her. “Aleksei Morozov is not going to be mentioned in this house again. Not to me, not to my father, not in a phone call I’m not supposed to hear. If his name comes out of your mouth one more time, I will stop coming here, and you will explain to my father why his daughter stopped visiting.” I hold her gaze for one more second. “Do we understand each other?”
Carla looks at me.
She looks at me for a long time with her arms folded and her dish towel in her hand, and something moves across her face that I have not seen there before.
She unfolds her arms.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” she says, and goes back to the kitchen.
I stand in the hallway for a moment.
Then I pick up my bag, and I say goodbye to my father through the window, and I walk out the front door.
Aleksei’s car is across the street.
I see it before I see him, the black car, the engine running, and then I see the two men from Roman’s detail on the pavement, not moving, not speaking, just standing with their hands loose at their sides, looking directly at the car.
Aleksei is behind the wheel.
He sees me come out of the gate. His eyes move to the two men on the pavement, then back to me. I don’t stop walking. I don’t change my pace. I don’t give him anything to work with.
He puts the car in drive.
He pulls away from the curb without a word and turns at the end of the street and disappears. I get into Viktor’s car, and the door closes. I sit back against the seat and breathe out slowly.
Viktor pulls away from the curb.
I look out the window at the Queens street moving past, and I think about Carla putting the kettle on and my father’s face turned up toward the winter sun and two men standing on thepavement, and I feel, in a way I have not felt in longer than I can remember, completely unburdened.
My phone buzzes.
