Page 58 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

He stops beside the bed, tall enough to make the slanted ceiling look rude.

“Don’t. I was shorter, not kinder.”

“Good. He was worse.” I walk to the shelf and slide the book back into place.

Breakfast waits downstairs on a small kitchen table. Irina has left blini under a towel, boiled eggs, tvorog with berries, sliced cucumbers, black bread, and coffee strong enough to make my hands useful again.

“She left?” I ask.

“Her house is down the lane. Second gate, green roof.”

“This isn’t her house?”

Maksim pulls out my chair and waits until I sit before he serves blini onto my plate. “It was her mother’s. Irina brought me here when my father’s house got loud.”

I look around the kitchen, at the worn table, the old stove, the clean towels folded by the sink. “And now?”

“Now it’s mine on paper and hers in practice.”

“That sounds convenient for you.”

“It keeps her from charging rent.”

His mouth moves once when he says it, and I almost smile. I eat slowly.

After, he takes me to a sitting room with a fireplace, a long couch, and two armchairs pulled close to the heat. An old television sits on a low cabinet, and when he turns it on, the screen fills with a woman in a spotless kitchen spooning sour cream into a pan.

Beef stroganoff. The real kind, with browned beef, mushrooms, onions, mustard, dill, and buckwheat steaming in a separate pot.

For a few minutes, I forget to be afraid. I sit tucked into the corner of the couch with a throw around my shoulders and watch the chef fold the sauce through the beef. My heart warms, and before I can stop myself, I smile.

“That looks good,” I say.

Maksim looks at the screen, then at me. “You like that?”

“I used to watch cooking shows when I couldn’t sleep,” I say. “My mother said it was pointless to watch food instead of making it.”

“Was she right?”

“Usually.”

He doesn’t answer. The chef adds dill, and my face must change because Maksim’s eyes narrow slightly.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

That means he noticed.

The show cuts to a neat plated dish, and the softness in me starts to make room for fear again. Maksim stands near the fireplace, one hand braced on the mantel, eyes on me.

“The doctor comes this evening,” he says.

My smile disappears. “I don’t need one,” I say, sitting up.

His gaze moves over my face, my shoulder, and the way I’m holding my ribs. He thinks he’s seeing pain from the kidnapping. To me, it’s the doctor’s hands, the questions, and whatever my body might give away.

“You do,” he says.