Page 221 of Sexting His Assistant

“She suspected before I said anything.”

Nina opens her eyes again. “That’s not better.”

I say, “With my mother, it’s unavoidable.”

Nina presses her fingertips lightly to her temple. “I have a concussion, my brother is missing, my apartment has been destroyed, and now I have to face your mother knowing I’m sleeping with you.”

“You don’t have to face anything today.”

Nina gives me a look. “Will she be at the house?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have to face her.”

I reach for the paper bag and set it beside her so she does not have to keep holding it. “She will not make it difficult.”

Nina narrows her eye at me. “You say that because you are her son.”

“I say that because she likes you.”

Nina looks doubtful. “She barely knows me.”

I think about my mother’s face when I told her Nina was being discharged to the house. I think about the way she went silent for one second, not because she disapproved, but because she understood exactly what I was not saying.

My mother has known me all my life. She knows when a woman is a passing dinner, a distraction, a lie I tell the world because the truth is inconvenient.

She knew Nina was none of those things before I did.

I say, “She knows enough.”

Nina says, “That is a dangerous sentence in your family.”

I almost smile. “Probably.”

Mirov returns before she can argue further, which is useful because Nina is tired enough to be stubborn without having the energy to win. He reviews the discharge instructions again, mostly for my benefit, and Nina sits there with growing irritation while he tells me that she needs rest, low light, no stress, no screens for long periods, and absolutely no “strenuous activity,” a phrase he delivers while looking at me with open accusation.

I help her dress after Mirov leaves, not because she asks, because she does not ask for help with anything, but because the moment she stands, her balance shifts and the room tilts for her in a way she tries to hide.

She is wearing soft black trousers, a loose sweater my mother sent, and flat shoes that are practical enough to make Nina suspicious.

“Your mother chose these?”

“Yes.”

Nina looks down at herself. “They fit.”

I say, “She has an eye.”

Nina laughs. “That is terrifying.”

“Yes.”

She looks at me then, and there’s something in her face I’m not prepared for, a kind of tired gratitude she does not want to name. I don’t comment on it, because I’m learning, slowly, that some things survive better when I don’t put my hand around them immediately.

The drive to my house is quiet.

Nina sits beside me with her head against the seat, eyes closed, one hand resting near her phone. She has called Misha twice more since leaving the hospital. He has not answered. Every unanswered ring tightened something in her face until she finally stopped trying, not because she had given up, but because the effort hurt too much.