He left that life behind as much as a man like him can.
Not entirely. Never entirely. I’m old enough now to know there are some worlds you do not walk out of untouched. But he came back to us each time. That’s what matters. He put his hands to building instead of only destroying. He chose this house, this table, these children, this life with me, again and again, until even I could no longer doubt it.
I see it clearly now, two men seeking the same revenge, but the twist of fate brought them retribution instead.
In the present, he laughs under his breath and comes up behind me, reaching around for the knife. His chest presses lightly against my back, one arm braced on either side of me, and the simple domestic intimacy of it almost gets me more than anything else could. The first year we were here, moments like this used to catch me off guard so badly I barely knew how to breathe through them. Now they settle into me in a different way. Deeper. More dangerous because they feel natural.
“Move,” he says quietly.
“Rude.”
“You’re destroying the fruit.”
I hand the knife over, but I don’t move far. I lean against the counter and watch him take over, his hands sure and efficient, sleeves rolled to the elbows, shirt open at the throat.
He catches me staring and lifts one brow.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
I smile. “You’re very comfortable lately.”
He finishes the last slice, sets the knife down, and turns to face me. “That bothers you?”
“No.”
It doesn’t. That’s the problem.
He studies me for a second too long, then reaches past me for the plate. His hand brushes my waist on the way back, casual, familiar, and my whole body reacts to it in that embarrassing instant way it always has with him.
He notices, of course.
“Still this easy?” he murmurs.
“You’re insufferable.”
“Yes,” he says. “And yet.”
And yet.
That’s us in two words. All the reasons we shouldn’t have worked, all the blood and fear and history, and yet here we are,in Russia, in his kitchen, with our children asleep upstairs and the old life so far behind us it almost feels fictional some nights.
He carries the plate to the table. I bring the wine. We don’t really sit. We hover, talking in that loose, unimportant way people do when they know they are putting off bed because they like the shape of the evening too much to end it.
Sofia danced with him twice before bed tonight. Three times if the clumsy spinning in the hallway counts.
“She’s getting better,” I say.
“At dancing?”
“At ordering people around.”
“She was born good at that.”
I laugh and take a sip of wine. “You encourage her.”
