Page 12 of Marrying the Pakhan

“I understand.”

“Good. And Harper, one more thing.” She pauses long enough that I brace for something worse. “Congratulations, I think. Strange circumstances, but for what it’s worth, this was smart.”

I promise her I’ll figure out the rest, and we hang up. I stand in my kitchen holding a phone that suddenly feels heavier than it did five minutes ago.

Ginger’s not up yet. I’ve got maybe twenty minutes before I need to wake her for school, and I spend most of them staring at my coffee going cold, trying to figure out how you’re supposed to explain any of this to a six-year-old without using the word husband and watching her flinch.

I don’t manage it that morning. I decide it’s better to tell her after school, when there’s no rush, when I can actually sit with her instead of half listening while I hunt for her shoes.

That evening, after dinner, I sit her down on the couch with the lamp on instead of the overhead light, because somehow rooms feel less like bad news under a lamp.

“I want to tell you something,” I say. “About the court thing, with Grandma and Grandpa Ivanov.”

Ginger goes still in the specific way she goes still now whenever a sentence starts with, I want to tell you something. She’s gotten too good at bracing for bad news for a kid her age.

“Is it bad?”

“No. It’s actually good, I think. I’m getting married.”

She blinks at me. “Like a wedding?”

“Kind of. Not the big kind with a dress and cake. A small one, at the courthouse, soon, so the judge sees that you and I have someone else in our corner too.”

“Who?”

“His name’s Viktor. You haven’t met him yet, but you will soon.”

Ginger picks at a thread on the couch cushion, quiet in the way that used to mean nothing and now means everything. “Is he going to live with us?”

“Eventually, yeah.”

“Is he going to be like Dad?”

The question lands somewhere under my ribs, sharp enough that I have to sit with it a second before I answer, because I don’t actually know how to answer it honestly and gently at the same time.

“No, baby. Nobody’s trying to replace your dad or your mom. Viktor’s just someone who’s going to help me keep you here with me, where you belong.”

She nods slowly, still picking at the thread, and doesn’t ask anything else, which somehow worries me more than if she’d cried or argued or asked a dozen more questions I don’t have good answers for.

“You can still ask me stuff,” I tell her. “Any time. I won’t be upset.”

“Okay,” she says, and leans into my side instead, and I hold her there until the thread finally comes loose in her fingers and she seems to forget about it entirely, distracted by whatever’s on the television now. I let myself feel relieved and don’t examine it too closely.

My phone buzzes again once she’s in bed.

Viktor: Dinner tomorrow. Somewhere with cameras and other people who’ll remember seeing us. Your lawyer’s right, we need to look real.

Me: How do you know what my lawyer said?

Viktor: I don’t. Educated guess. Also, I’m apparently your future husband, I’m allowed instincts about your legal strategy.

I laugh out loud, alone in my kitchen, which is becoming a habit with this man.

Me: Fine. Dinner. Nothing weird.

Him: Define weird.

Me: You know exactly what I mean, Viktor.