“For your safety.”
“For his too?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
That surprises me. It probably shows.
Yaromir looks mildly offended. “I told you his debt was cleared.”
“That doesn’t mean you like him.”
“No.”
“Or forgive him.”
“No.”
“But you’re keeping him alive.”
“I said I would.”
The simplicity of it makes my throat tight.
Yaromir gives promises like other men give threats. Sparingly, directly, and with the expectation that the world will rearrange itself around them.
I look down at my plate. “I don’t want to call him.”
“Then don’t.”
I glance at him.
He picks up his knife again. “If he needs something real, I will hear about it.”
“And if he only wants money?”
“Then he can want.”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. It feels strange, laughing about my father’s desperation, but not cruel. More like relief.
I push the phone farther away. Then I ask the question that has been sitting in the back of my mind all week.
“Have you heard from Larisa?”
Yaromir stills for a fraction of a second. “No.”
“Nothing?”
“No.”
“Is that normal?”
“With Larisa, silence is usually either judgment or planning.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
