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She’s closed her eyes.
She’s resting.
But all I can see …
is her corpse.
And Kristina’s ghost whispers in my ear, warning me that the past might return again.
32
GALINA
“Thank you for having lunch with me,” I say. My mother and I are sitting in a small nook split off from the main floor. I had two of the staff set up a small table with finger sandwiches, glossy eclairs, and my mother’s favorite, pirozhkis stuffed with potatoes and onions.
Mom, who has taken to dressing like the house is as cold as a cellar, is wearing a fluffy blue sweater over a pair of sleek white pants. I’ve chosen something loose—a bishop’s sleeve dress the same color as the chocolate on the eclairs.
“You say that like I wouldn’t agree,” she chides. “What mother doesn’t make time for her daughter?”
One who knows her daughter is trying to pry info from her … Putting on a big grin, I pick up a cucumber sandwich, taking a nibble. My stomach isn’t loving any kind of food with intense flavors just yet.
My mother plucks up a pirozhki. “Hm,” she muses, judging it critically. “Who made these?”
“Chef Danil did.”
“Chef?” she mocks. “Arsen has a private chef? Well of course he does.”
Scrunching her nose like she expects the food to be awful, she nibbles the edge. I watch closely as her expression transforms from disgust to surprise. Her next bite erases half the pirozhki. A few onions drop to her plate. Chewing, she dabs at her lips with a dark blue napkin.
I crane forward curiously. “How is it?”
“Fine,” she reluctantly admits. The way she inhales the rest, then a second, signals to me that they’re more than fine. “Your grandmother made the best ones. But I suppose I can settle for these.”
I scrub my clammy palms on my lap. Even with that, the knife I lift to cut an eclair in two slips from my fingers. Mom squints at me. I lift the dessert with my bare hand and take a bite.
She reaches for the large pitcher of sangria in the center of the table. Condensation beads along the outside as the red liquid splashes into her glass.
“Here, wash it down with some of this.”
She goes to fill my cup, but I move it out of her reach. “No thanks.” I use a different crystal pitcher nearby to add water instead, drinking it greedily. “This is fine.”
“Water?” she huffs, eyeing me in displeasure. “No get together of importance has ever been done with water.”
“This one is going to have to be.”
Her eyes narrow before she sets the jug down heavily. “If your plan is to butter me up with food and drink only to try and get me to tell you about things you know I won’t, you’re wasting your time.”
She pushes her chair back. I swipe outward, catching her by her wrist. “Mom, wait! It’s not that!”
“Then what?” she demands, pulling from my grip.
Opening my mouth, I start to talk, then stop myself.
“It’s …” I try again, but nothing comes out. My tongue is too heavy to move. I wasn’t cold before, and now, I’m sweltering. Gripping my dress hem, I flap it a few times over my knees. How do I tell her?
“Galina,” she warns.
“I’m pregnant!” I blurt it out unceremoniously. The instant it’s in the open, my heart begins to flutter. I expected I’d freak out, but … I’m grinning ear to ear. “Mom, can you believe it? Isn’t this amazing news?”
