Page 25 of The Lies Between Lovers

Vaslav scoffed. “Difficult is one way to put it.”

It was what had started his blinding rage. Every event that unfolded after was the result of how he had found Irina on the steps of his home. What remained of her face and brain had already begun to congeal on the driveway where it pooled at the bottom. There would be no open casket, no final, private moments with her closest family and friends, and no future for them.

Vera didn’t even flinch at his caustic change in attitude.

“Anyway,” he muttered, pulling the pot a bit closer to the edge of the table. The damn thing was quite heavy now with all the extra soil added in. “I wasn’t putting Irina in some urn to collect dust on a shelf.”

She would have haunted him for that.

Frankly, she did anyway.

“So, I started adding a handful of her ashes to every clone I was able to successfully transplant off the lilacs at the end of the driveway. Now, she can be with them when they grow, she gets to be beautiful again every spring, and I can see them bloom and remember the evening we planted the one I brought home.” And how happy she was, he didn’t say out loud. “It helps me to keep the memory,” Vaslav muttered. One of the few he had left; trauma took the others away without impunity or care. Then, he nodded at the pot in front of him. “This was the last of it.”

The last of her.

“Vas.”

He didn’t bother to reply, and in fact, couldn’t meet her gaze any longer because he could see the line of water starting to form on her lower lashes and that killed him. Like a knife in his chest someone was twisting, he didn’t want her to cry for his pain when she didn’t truly know just how violent his grief had become.

Instead, he reached for the watering can to add a bit more dampness to the soil. Vera’s hand found his wrist just as he grabbed hold of the handle. They both stilled.

“You didn’t have to bring her ashes for mine. You could have kept them for another shrub next year that you cut for your own—"

He lifted one shoulder, saying only, “No, I started something ... I intended to finish it.”

Regardless of where he planted each shrub.

“I am sorry,” she said softly.

With his chin still tipped down, jaw clenched tight, he nodded. “Spasibo.”

He never thanked someone for their condolences before because those platitudes never felt true from the mouths of others. There wasn’t a soul on the earth who knew the hell that his wife had pulled him from; nor how quickly he had spiraled right back into the depths the moment he knew Irina’s heart had stopped beating.

Yet, he thanked Vera.

He knew she meant it.

“Please don’t cry,” he murmured, refusing to look away from the eight-inch-high juvenile lilac in the terracotta pot.

Vera released his wrist to wipe away the proof of her tears. “I didn’t mean to, I just ...”

“It’s only ashes. She’s been dead longer than we were married.”

“It’s not only ashes, Vas.”

Well ...

That’s what he told himself.

He needed to.

“Let me get some water in it. Is there anywhere you’d like to put the pot? I think the windowsills in here are too small now for the size of this one I brought along.”

Vera laughed, and while the sound was weak, it was also still true. And beautiful. A sound he wouldn’t mind hearing even when he was in the grips of a migraine where every little noise sent him running for quiet relief. He wondered if she thought his only reason for coming there was to transplant what remained of his dead wife’s ashes into her shrub, but that really wasn’t the case.

“If I asked, would you tell me more about her—and you?” Vera asked while he tipped the can’s spout in along the rim of the pot, and the water spilled out. “I would have liked to know her, if she was the type to accept an apology through the gift of a shrub.”

Vaslav set the can back down, and glanced Vera’s way to find she was smiling in that sweet, perfect way. A way that curved her small pout just enough to brighten her whole face and every feature. “Vera, you did know her. She trained every ballerina that walked through the doors of The Swan House for ten years.”