Page 67 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

“No vodka?” he asks.

“I don’t want it tonight.”

His eyes stay on my face for one beat too long. “Water, then.”

He pours without comment, but I feel his attention as he sets the glass near my plate. I pick up my fork before he can ask anything else.

The food settles warmly in my stomach. The sauce is rich, the buckwheat is buttery, and the dill cuts through the beef in a way that makes me take another bite. For the first time in days, eating doesn’t feel like a task.

Maksim eats slowly, watching me finish half the plate before he reaches for his vodka.

After dinner, I open my purse and take out the small bottle of musk perfume I bought for Maksim.

He looks at it, then at me. His thumb brushes sauce from my lower lip.

“Thank you,” he mouths, then leans in and kisses me.

Later, in my room, I don’t clear anything. I leave the bag on the small table beside the rolls and medicine, climb into bed with warmth still in my stomach and his scent still on my skin, and sleep comes fast.

The next morning, after a shower, I sit on the edge of the bed and start sorting through the things I left on the table last night. Cookies. Warm rolls gone cold. Tea. Apples. The small box of folic acid I kept tucked under folded napkins. I line everything up with careful hands, then open my bag and reach for the inner pocket where I keep the clinic printout.

My fingers touch lining. Nothing else. I check again, slower this time.

The printout is gone.

My hands start shaking before I let myself understand it.

20

ELENA

Isit on the edge of the bed with the bag dumped open beside me, and for one stupid second, I keep staring at the lining as if the paper may crawl back from wherever it went. Lipstick. Receipt. Keys. Tissue. No tiny perfume bottle, because I already gave it to Maksim and he took it with that look on his face. The printout is gone.

I pick up the bag and shake it once. Nothing falls except a wrapped mint and a coin that rolls under the bed. I drop to my knees fast, and pain tugs through my ribs, but I reach under the bed anyway. My fingers close around dust, the coin, and the parquet floor. No paper.

“Damn it,” I whisper, and my voice comes out thin enough to make me angry.

I check the bag again, slower this time. I run my fingers along the seams and press the lining flat. I unzip the inside pocket and turn it inside out. I pull apart every receipt, open every folded tissue, and shake the bakery napkins over the blanket.

I rack my brain and try to see the evening as it was when I walked in. The kitchen smelled of butter, onions, and fresh bread, Mrs. Wentworth asked about tea, and Maksim was by the counter, slicing mushrooms while wearing that look he saves for me when I come back late.

I had the printout then. I’m almost sure I did. My stomach tightens.

I cross to the wardrobe and pull open the drawer under the sweaters, pushing through the neat stacks, then move to the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I open the cabinet, then the drawer under the basin, checking places I know make no sense because my hands won’t stop. Nothing. My breath slips, and I grip the edge of the sink. Think. The word lands in Maksim’s voice, and I hate him for it, and myself for hearing it.

The printout is just paper, one thin clinic sheet with the scan image at the top and the prescription beneath it. Folic acid every day. No alcohol. No raw fish. No heavy lifting. Call a doctor for bleeding, severe pain, fever, fainting, or anything that feels wrong.

Then the tiny measurement under the scan. And my note.

Seven weeks. Sweet pea.

I folded it small, tucked it into the lining of my bag, and brought it back with my pulse beating too fast. I could have thrown it away after memorizing the medical parts.

I kept it anyway.

The scan looked clinical. The report could expose me. But that one stupid sheet gave the baby a size I could understand, small enough to picture in my hand.

My hand moves to my stomach. There’s nothing there yet. No proof under my palm. Nothing Maksim can see unless I give myself away. He sat across from me last night, poured vodka for himself, and noticed when I covered my glass. He asked no second question, but he noticed. He always notices.