Sofia looks up at once. “Outside?”
“Yes,” Vika says.
“I want to eat outside.”
Vika smiles at Roman, not at Sofia. “No, darling. This lunch is for grown-ups.”
Sofia’s face falls.
And before I can step in, Roman does.
“She’s coming,” he says.
Vika turns, still smiling because she hasn’t yet understood that he’s serious. “No, I don’t think?—”
“She’s coming,” he repeats, calm as ever. “And Nikolai too.”
The room goes quiet.
Sofia looks delighted. Nikolai looks wary. I look at Roman and try not to show how much that small, simple thing affects me.
Vika lets out a light laugh, but there’s strain under it now. “Roman, really, it’s not that kind of lunch.”
He doesn’t even look at her. He looks at Sofia. “You wanted to eat outside?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re eating outside.”
That’s the end of it.
Vika knows it, too. I can see the moment she understands that pushing will only make her look foolish. Her mouth tightens, and then she turns to me with that bright, false smile.
“Well, then I suppose you’d better come too.”
Of course.
As if I would let my children sit out there with Vika and Roman and whatever game she still thinks she’s playing.
So, I follow them outside.
Lunch is set on the back lawn beneath the pale afternoon sun, all white cloth and silver dishes and flowers that look absurdly delicate for a family meal. The grass runs down toward the water, and the breeze off it is cold enough that the napkins keep trying to lift.
Vika has clearly arranged all of this in a hurry and spent too much time making it look effortless.
The table is beautiful in that exhausting way rich people mistake for comfort. Soup first, creamy tomato with little grilled cheese triangles on the side. Then platters of fish, roasted potatoes, warm bread, vegetables glazed with butter, and a salad Sofia immediately distrusts.
“It looks healthy,” she says suspiciously.
Roman sits down beside her. “It probably is.”
“I don’t think I like that.”
“I can see that.”
She beams at him.
I sit across from them because there is nowhere else for me to go that doesn’t look obvious. Nikolai ends up on Roman’s other side, quieter as usual, but listening to everything.
