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When Aleksandar lifted the lid, he found a single envelope addressed to himself in his uncle’s meticulous script. He pocketed the letter without reading it.
Beneath the letter were stacks of bearer bonds, thousands of dollars that required no identification to redeem. There was a small jar of loose precious stones—emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. Under the surname Vasquez, were fake birth certificates and passports for Aleksandar and his mother. His uncle had left them with a new identity and enough untraceable cash to finance their escape. He could onlyassume that he and his mother were meant to leave together, to join his uncle.
Was that why his uncle had left? Was he setting things in motion, laying the framework of their escape? Was that why he came back? Was he coming for Aleksandar? His mother was abroad during that time. Was Aleksandar supposed to have joined her? Had she left him behind?
Knowing that his uncle had planned for exactly what Aleksandar wanted to do was as good as getting his blessing. He felt less like a coward eschewing his familial duties and more like a son living the life hisfatherwanted him to have.
He emptied the safe and returned it to the hole under the nurse tree. He did not read his uncle’s letter. He didn’t know if he’d ever be brave enough to read it, but along with the jewels and bonds and forged identities, he took the letter with him to America just in case.
37
ALEK
Escaping would have been easier if Ian had slept on the couch instead of plastering himself to Alek’s backside with their legs tangled together like he thought maybe Alek wouldn’t leave if he didn’t let go. Waiting for Ian’s breathing to slow was torture. The solid warmth of Ian’s body surrounding him, Ian’s breath against the back of his head where he must have nuzzled his face into his hair. It was all a grim reminder of what Alek would forfeit in death.
After an hour, when Alek was very sure that Ian was asleep, he disentangled himself from Ian’s limbs and he didn’t look back, because if he did he wouldn’t be able to leave, and he had to leave. So without a kiss goodbye, he left, and he already felt like his heart had ripped in half, like he’d left it back in bed with Ian, like he was halfway dead, and it hurt so bad that Alek could hardly breathe, but he had to keep going.
This would all be over soon.
In his own room, he packed a single bag with his wallet and cell, and the black shirt of Ian’s he’d pilfered from the laundry. He crawled under his bed and removed the piano key, andthough the single key was hollow in his hands, guilt made it weigh as much as if he was carrying an entire grand piano.
Sweat tickled the back of his neck as he tiptoed through the oppressive heat of the upstairs hallway. He sneaked his way down the stairs, out of the house, and into the garage, then crossed to the fire-proof, humidity-controlled, double-doored safe.
Early on in their relationship, Alek had explained the safe was used to store his client’s priceless artifacts while he was restoring them. He’d been secretive about its contents and Ian had respected that. If the roles were reversed, Alek would have cracked the safe the first chance he had. Which was why Alek had selected a safe with biometric and two-factor authentication to ensure that no one laid eyes on what was inside without him to chaperone.
He pressed his thumbprint to the scanner, approved the request on his cell, and used a key to open the door. He shoved aside the piles of historical love letters and photos that Ian had guilt-tripped him into preserving. Bending down, he used another key to unlock a drawer that contained the olive branch crown and the letter his uncle had written—the letter that he was still too afraid to read. He put his uncle’s letter into his backpack then pulled an overstuffed envelope of his own from his pocket.
Inside the envelope was a letter that told Ian every last secret that he didn’t know, Alek’s entire life story as he remembered it. One hundred apologies that would never be enough. Words of adulation and love and undying devotion that Alek would hold until his last breath and even after that. And Alek’s wedding ring. The one Ian had given him. Alek had been torn on the decision. He didn’t want to part with the ring; he wanted his body to be marked as Ian’s even in death, but what if it was lost to the ocean? It was Ian’s as much as Alek’s heart was.
He placed the letter front and center in the space he’d cleared and perched the olive wreath crown on top, because it said sorry and that’s what he was.
Sorry.
Beside the crown, he dropped a handful of glittering stones, all that remained of his inheritance.
After leaving the door to the safe open for Ian to find, Alek left the garage and headed for his car. When he put the key in the ignition, the lights didn’t turn on and the car wouldn’t start. Alek popped the hood, the sound echoing unnervingly through the too-quiet woods. The battery wasn’t dead. It was missing. That prick.
Ian’s keys were in the pocket of the jeans he’d pulled off before climbing into bed earlier. Alek remembered the distinct metallic jingle. There wasn’t a spare set, because Alek had misplaced them—well, misplaced them by melting them with a blowtorch he used to flambé crème brûlée when Ian had threatened to leave during one of their pre-fall spats.
Returning to their bedroom to fish the keys from Ian’s pants wasn’t the kind of calculated risk Alek got off on taking, and surely Ian would have removed the truck’s battery anyway. There were dozens of rooms he could have hidden the batteries in, and dozens more wardrobes and built-ins and drop cloths over furniture to conceal them further.
Even if Ian had left the battery intact, the truck had a loud diesel rumble sure to wake Ian, who would no doubt alert the authorities if only to get Alek back. Alek didn’t much care to delay his suicide whilst locked inside a cell that reeked of urine on the charge of grand theft auto.
No matter. Alek would walk down the double yellow line of the deserted mountain road while he waited for an Uber to meet him. He set off on foot, and he didn’t look back at the Victorian either, because if he did, he’d see that first day he found it, whenthe wisteria climbed to the sky, when Alek and Ian’s happily ever after had just unfurled before them, back when he could play the piano, and he didn’t feel anything except that he loved Ian.
He didn’t make it very far down the driveway before he saw her at the base of the tree on the edge of the woods. Bright orange and white, nearly fluorescent in the darkness. There was the fox, curled up on her side, her nose tucked under her tail.
He rushed over to her with unbridled relief. He’d all but accepted that he was going the rest of the way alone, the fact of which made him feel more lonely than he’d ever felt in his entire life—even more lonely than when his uncle had died and he had cried under the painting that leaned against the wall of his uncle’s workshop.
Alek wasn’t entirely sure how the physics of an imaginary fox were supposed to work, but he hoped now that he’d found her, she could stay by his side to see him through to the end, and maybe once he was gone, she would be free, unburdened and healthy once more.
But hoping was foolish. Something was wrong. She didn’t hear him coming. Her eyes didn’t open. He dropped to his knees and touched a light hand to her silky fur, but she did not stir. She was cold amidst the stuffy summer air. Stiff. Unbreathing.
That couldn’t be right. He shook her, gently and then roughly. Her bones were sharp. She’d grown so thin, the haunches of her hips protruding through her velvet coat. When she didn’t wake, he lifted her into his arms.
How could she die? How could she leave? She was his fox. She was his hallucination. And now she was dead and why couldn't she have waited a little bit longer so he could go first? Why did she have to leave him alone?
He had to bury her. He knew that. The dead were meant to be buried. Not burned to ash or made to disappear or, worse yet, left to be found.
