19
KATERINA
The lunch gets worsefor me after that, which is saying something.
Not because of Vika. She’s predictable. Vika has only ever had three modes where men are concerned: bored, hunting, and pretending not to hunt. Not because of Arkady either. Arkady is the kind of man who thinks children should like him because he has expensive cufflinks.
No, it gets worse because Roman is good with my children.
Not performatively good. Not in the way some men are, smiling too much, lowering their voices, acting charmed by things they actually find inconvenient. He does not do any of that. He simply starts speaking to them as if they are people, and both of them respond to it immediately.
Sofia decides, after about ten minutes, that he belongs to her.
That’s the only way to describe it.
She makes him judge the quality of her fries, which he does with inappropriate seriousness. She tells him one of the gulls near therailing has ‘criminal energy,’ and he agrees without hesitation. At one point she climbs half into his lap to show him a tiny sticker she stole from somewhere in her school bag, and instead of looking startled or annoyed, he studies it like it’s a document of state importance.
“It’s a moon princess,” she tells him.
“I can see that.”
“She has powers.”
“What kind?”
“She can make boys cry.”
Roman glances at me over her head.
I hate how much that look unsettles me.
“She’ll go far,” he says.
Sofia beams.
Nikolai is more cautious, but not for long. He doesn’t climb, doesn’t chatter, doesn’t perform. He watches. He listens. Then he starts asking questions in that quiet, measured way of his, the kind that would sound shy on another child but on him sounds almost like an interview.
“Do you own boats?” he asks.
Roman says, “Some.”
“What kind?”
“The useful kind.”
“What makes a boat useful?”
Roman wipes his mouth with his napkin and answers him as if this is an entirely normal lunch conversation. “If it makes money, carries weight, or gets you somewhere fast, it’s useful.”
Nikolai thinks about that. Then he says, “A ferry is useful.”
“Yes.”
“A pirate ship is useful too.”
Roman nods once. “Depending on the century.”
I should stop it. I know I should.
