As if on cue, Wolf lets out a satisfied whimper from his post at the foot of the bed, sprawled across the only viable standing room like a furry area rug.
Afon looks at the dog, then at the bed, then at me.
"I don't bite," I add. "Unlike some people's Rottweilers."
He wavers for another second, and then—miraculously, improbably—he sits.
I hold my breath as he lowers himself onto the very edge of the mattress, back straight, feet flat on the floor, hands on his knees. It's like he's ready to bolt at the first sign of emotional vulnerability.
The bed dips under his weight. We sit there in the semi-dark, breathing in sync as we recalibrate back to this plane of existence.
"My mom used to have nightmares," I say after a moment. "After my dad started working late all the time—which I now understand was not actually 'work' in the traditional sense—she'd wake up screaming. Not every night, but enough that I learned to sleep through it. Isn't that horrible? I was, like, fourteen, and I'd hear her crying through the wall and I'd just roll over. Put my pillow over my head. Teenagers are the worst."
I feel a choking sob climb up my throat. I press my lips together and will it back down into the pit of my chest.
"She always pretended it didn't happen in the morning," I continue. "She'd make these elaborate breakfasts—crepes, frittatas, the full Julia Child experience—and she'd be so bright and chipper that it felt rude to mention I'd heard her sobbing all night long. So I never did. And then she was dead, and I couldn't mention it even if I wanted to."
Afon is very still beside me.
"I think about that a lot," I admit, mostly to the ceiling. "All the things I didn't say when I had the chance. All the mornings I satthere eating crepes and pretending everything was fine because it was easier than asking what was wrong."
Silence.
"Anyway," I say, brushing a rogue tear off my cheek, "that's my tragic backstory. Or part of it. The rest involves cryptic letters and a man who won't tell me about my own father."
He lets out a breath. Not a sigh, exactly. More like the sound of pressure being released from a valve.
"Your mother," he says slowly, "was afraid for your father."
I turn my head to look at him. His profile is granite in the low light. "You knew her well?"
"Well enough."
"Well enough to know what she was afraid of?"
He rubs the band on his ring finger. That unconscious tic—thumb circling bronze—over and over, like a rosary in the hands of a man who no longer believes in God but can't quite kick the habit.
"Your mother was smarter than your father in some ways," he says. "She saw things coming before he did. She understood the cost of the choices he made, even if she couldn't stop him from making them."
My throat tightens. "What choices?"
He shakes his head. "Not tonight."
Every cell in my body wants to push. But there's something in his voice that makes me pull back. Uncharacteristic from me, I know.
The wind picks up outside, rattling the window in its frame, and Wolf twitches through another dream. I listen to Afon breathe. His breathing has slowed since he sat down. The tremor in his hands has stopped, or at least I can't feel it through the mattress anymore.
"Afon?"
"Mm."
"What were you dreaming about?"
He doesn't answer for so long that I think he's fallen asleep sitting up, which would honestly be impressive and also deeply on-brand for him.
"Was it Yelena?" I venture.
I know the instant I say it that I was wrong to go there. He lurches to his feet, and Wolf wakes with a confused whine.
