I’d slipped under his arm and stood with him.
He’d pressed his mouth to my hair and said, “Our child will know this house before it knows fear.”
I’d cried then.
I hadn’t cried much, but it was enough for him to turn me in his arms and hold me until my breath steadied against his shirt.
Galina’s hand covered mine on the sofa.
“He would have approved of today,” she said quietly.
I looked at the photograph again. “The shower?”
“The heir.”
My throat tightened.
Galina squeezed my hand once, then released it before the moment could become too soft for her liking. “He would also have complained about the flowers.”
“Too many?”
“Too pale.”
“Of course.”
“He had strong feelings about yellow.”
“That seems like a difficult thing to have strong feelings about.”
“My husband was a difficult man.”
I smiled. “I’ve heard that runs in the family too.”
Galina’s eyes warmed. “Yes. But my son chose better than his father did in one respect.”
“What respect?”
“He chose a wife who argues with him before the third decade of marriage.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Tamar looked over from the dessert table. “Did Galina just make a joke? Should I sit down too?”
Galina didn’t look away from me. “Tamar, if you sit, who will protect us from crooked bows?”
“I’m being used for my labor.”
“You’re being included.”
Tamar went quiet for half a second.
She lowered her hand from the cake stand and smoothed one finger over the pearl at her ear. Her eyes dropped to the long table, the flowers, the place cards, then to me on the sofa with Galina’s throw over my lap.
She swallowed once.
I held out my hand.
Tamar crossed the room and sat on my other side, careful not to crush her rose skirt.
