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My wipers are working less now—the snow is slowing down. Turning into a development with lots of unfinished houses, I start to ride my brake. I’m close ... Where is it ... The pavement is slippery from the storm. I take each turn with the utmost caution. I’m moving at barely a mile per hour, my headlights glistening wetly on the ground, when I see the house.
It’s as quiet as the rest of them. Not a single light is on. There’s one working streetlamp, and it casts a pale-yellow glow on the snow-coated sidewalks, flickering like it’s ready to die. To my right sit a number of large pieces of construction equipment, their surfaces heavy with chunks of ice.
Parking Audrey’s car, I remain where I am, trying to decide what to do next. There’s no sign of Arsen, but that doesn’t mean anything, because I don’t see Yevgeniy either. Is this the right place?
The tap on my window makes me scream.
Yevgeniy smiles at me through the glass, waving his black-gloved hand.
“Welcome home,” he says, muffled by the window.
I reach for the keys, wondering, not for the first time, if this was the right move. I’m here. There’s no point in running now. Before I cut the engine, I crack the window. “Where’s my mom?”
He gestures at the house behind him. “Inside. Come and join us.”
My hand clenches the keys. Tension thrums in my whole forearm. What choice do you have? Bracing myself, I turn the car off.
He gives me enough room so I can step out and shut the door. We’re in near total darkness, the streetlamp glinting on Yevgeniy’s right side, making his jaw sharper, his eyes darker. “It’s been a while, my dear daughter.”
Filling my chest with dignified air, I stick out my chin. “Stepan is my father, not you.”
“Hardly,” he snorts. “And why would you even want that?”
“Because I’m proud of him. Proud of who he raised me to be. I’ll always be his daughter,” I say fiercely.
Reeling back, Yevgeniy eyes me like I said the funniest joke ever. He barely controls a full-throated laugh. “Stepan did nothing but watch me fuck his wife. He was weak.”
Heat spreads up my neck until my whole face burns red. “He wasn’t. He was using you as much as you thought you were using him.”
“Is that right?” he says crossly.
“My father was smart enough to resist the urge to enter a fight he’d lose.”
He can’t contain the laughter anymore. The sound echoes through the development, bouncing off the snow until the awful noise becomes endless. “Oh, stupid girl, he was anything but smart. Otherwise, he’d have noticed he was being poisoned.”
My heart gives a quick double thump. “What are you talking about?”
“Stepan not realizing what was happening is one thing, but it’s amazing no one else did.” He shrugs dismissively. We could be discussing the damn weather. “But that’s the beauty of a good poisoning.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I whisper, my voice rising at the end.
“Did you really think his cancer was natural?” He laughs, shaking his head in a slow swing. “That man’s illness was deliberate. All it took was a tiny piece of Cesium-137 taken from a medical imaging device and soldered to the bottom of his favorite mug. So small that you would never even know it was there. And it was only a matter of time. Months, years, it didn’t matter. He was always going to die.”
His favorite mug? I remember the white and gray mug he would always drink out of. And when I told him about my pregnancy with Simon … I remember holding the mug in my hands, cradling it over my belly as I told Dad excitedly about what my future held.
A new chill snakes its way into my heart and something heavy shifts inside of me—it’s like the baby is moving, but this feeling is slimy and prickly and ghastly.
No …
NO!
YOU BASTARD! YOU MURDERER!
My mouth tingles, and I feel like I’m on the verge of vomiting. “You’re evil,” I hush.
All this time, I thought my miscarriage was a tragic accident.
But it wasn’t.
