“I will, I promise.I'm sorry.”
She hesitates. “I need to go, to try and sleep. I have surgeries tomorrow.”
“Kas—”
But the line clicks dead before I can finish. I drop the phone on the bed and press the heels of my hands into my eyes until all I can see is red. Paris is busy outside and all I can think about is the sound of her voice, hurt, disappointed,already slipping away.
Chapter 64
Metallic
The week blurs past, the kind that leaves no room for thought. I'm caught between work and calls with Rafe, calls where he keeps asking when I’ll come to L.A. now that he’s back. Which consists of me telling him I can’t, not yet. Not after what happened with Emily. I’m still angry, still broken open in ways I don’t have the language for. He doesn’t want to accept it, not for a second, but he does because he's learned what that tone in my voice means. Don't push it or I'll just dig my heels in harder.
He’s buried in the studio anyway and I’m buried in everything else. The noise online won’t stop bleeding into my real life, I keep checking websites reporting hisnew lover, looking at the photo from all angles. Trying to decide what the truth is, what it means, what I really believe. The days slide past before I can get a grip on them. By the time family dinner comes around, I’m almost grateful for it, for something solid. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell to do next, where to go from here, and how to forgive someone I want to believe but haven’t stopped hurting over.
Mama’s humming in the kitchen, moving between pots like a conductor at her orchestra. Tata’s at the table, laying out plates and refolding napkins that don’t need refolding. Piotr’s pacing with Kacper until he finally settles, before he hands him to Aga and kisses her hair.She smiles from the armchair, one hand resting over the gentle swell of her belly.
Since the day Piotr called to say Lena was joining us for dinner, that Dominik was trying with herone last timefor Zosia's sake, she’s slotted herself into the family with the confidence of someone who mistook proximity for belonging. She's always wrapped seductively in animal print and loud opinions that arrive uninvited. Dinners have turned performative, careful smiles, Natalia overcompensating with hostess energy, Mama tracking the table like a referee.
Lena needles, implies, tests boundaries,especially mine. She fishes about Rafe, about my faith in God, about babies, about my time running out. I learn to stay still for Zosia’s sake, to answer neatly when provoked, to win without raising my voice. Dominik watches it all with that regretful look of a man glimpsing the life he fumbled held firmly in someone else’s hands. Whenever she leaves, the house always exhales. Piotr barely contains his laughter, and Aga silently inventories hypothetical burial sites with saintly patience. I never start anything, but I finish what's aimed at me.
I catch Babciu’s eyes in her portrait and whisper the old prayer without thinking, the one that always came before heartbreak or reckoning.Aniele Boze, strózu mój, Ty zawsze przy mnie stój, (Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here.)as I pass her.
Lena’s perched on the sofa beside Natalia, showing off a new dress she ordered online. Natalia is critiquing it mercilessly, “the cut’s wrong for your shoulders, you’ll have to return it”, and Lena keeps insisting she can make it work. It’s almost funny, the rhythm of them.
Outside, I can hear Zosia’s laughter, the bright, unrestrained kind that only children have. Dominik’s chasing her around the yard with a bubble wand, his mock growls sending her shrieking into the grass, legs kicking, curls bouncing. Her joy is so unfiltered it reaches rightthrough me. It feels light,easy.Then comes the knock. Three polite taps. For some reason, it makes every hair on my arms rise. Piotr goes to answer it, dish towel slung over his shoulder from helping Mama with something.
“Yes?” There’s confusion in his tone, that slight tilt of surprise. Then I hear, “Kasia? Someone’s here for you.”
“For me?”
When I reach the door, she’s standing there, my patient, Ms. Filmer. Pressed shirt, perfect posture, a handbag looped over her elbow like she’s just come from some polite errand. Her lipstick’s too precise. Her smile, too still. I step onto the porch and pull the door ajar behind me.
“Ms. Filmer,” I manage, slipping into my professional voice without meaning to. “Hello. How are you?”
It takes me a second too long to process that she shouldn’t be here. She’s not supposed to know wherehereis.
Her smile widens, just a fraction. “I had a question for you,” she says. “About what I’m seeing.”
My pulse kicks up. “Okay,” I say slowly. “What kind of question?”
She tilts her head, a small tremor in her voice. “The veils. They used to let me see them. Beforeyou.”
I stare at her, the words not quite making sense until they do, and then I feel it, that cold wave of dread rising from my spine.
“Ms. Filmer, I—”
I hear Dominik’s voice shift when he glances toward me. It’s subtle, but Iknowit, softer, cautious. The tone he uses when he’s assessing something.
“Zosia, go play on the swing, kochanie. I’ll be right there.”
Her giggle drifts from the front yard as she travels to the back. I catch sight of him over her shoulder, turning, scanning, reading the airlike a soldier remembering old instincts. He starts toward the porch cautiously, like a hunter trying not to spook his prey. Ms. Filmer’s hand slips into her purse. The air around us stills, stops.
“Hey,” Dominik calls, his voice even but alert, hands raised like he’s stepping into a negotiation. “Do I know you? Didn't you work for Mr. Comina on that one site?”
She glances at him briefly, dismissively, then back to me, her expression flickering with something almost… jealous. “You’re so plain. How could someonelike youchange him?”
“Change who?” I whisper, but she doesn’t hear me.
