“I’m not planning to leave,” I say. “I like it here. I like you.” I pause. “You’re the best student I’ve ever had. And I’ve had a lot of students.”
She considers this. “How many?”
“Twenty-two in my first class. Twenty-four in my second. Twenty-three in my third.”
She counts on her little fingers for a few seconds. “That’s sixty-nine.”
I laugh. “It is. You were super fast!”
She looks mildly shocked that this is surprising. “Yes.”
I make a mental note to completely restructure our mathematics curriculum.
She is being profoundly underserved by the materials I’ve been using.
“Sixty-nine students,” I say. “And you’re my favorite.”
“You’re not supposed to have favorites.”
“That’s a rule for classrooms — well, and for parents with their children. Private tutors are allowed favorites.” I pull the blanket up slightly. “I’m also not going anywhere. Okay?”
She looks at me, weighing my words.
“Okay,” she says.
“I was thinking,” I continue, “that maybe it’s time to do a makeover with your room.”
Her drowsiness shifts. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—” I look around at the white walls, the white furniture, the space that is beautiful and completely impersonal, the room of a child who was never asked what she wanted. “You’re six now. You’re basically ancient. You should have a room that looks likeyou.”
Anya glances around her room, considering the space.
“What would that look like?”
“That’s what we’d find out. We’d go pick things. Colors. Maybe decorations for the walls. New bedding, if you want it.” I pause. “What’s your favorite color?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Blue.”
“Then we start with blue.”
“Okay,” she says finally.
I kiss her forehead, turn off her lamp, and leave the door a little open on my way out, just the way she likes it.
I stand in the hall for a moment.
My room is to the left.
I turn right.
I knock before entering, which is — honestly, a somewhat absurd gesture given the events of the last several hours, but I do it anyway, only this time I don’t wait for an answer.
He’s in bed. But the version of Rolan Belov I was prepared to encounter and the version I find are not the same person.
He’s in gray sweatpants, sitting against the headboard with a yellow folder open across his lap, and the lamplight falls across the tattoos on his chest and shoulder and the cut of his collarbone.
I stand in the doorway for a second longer than is dignified.
