Page 36 of The Breath Before Forever

Sometimes, he used it as a journal, too.

Her suggestion.

Everyone needed a place to get out their thoughts, after all.

“Marrow, stop!” Mira yelled into the hallway as Vera had just started to flip through the next pages of the album. Finally, she had a picture—several, actually—to put a face and more details on the life and story of a stranger Vera wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to know.

Even if she had asked Vaslav not to have the visit with his mother; at the time, proclaiming it to be for her own cowardice because of what she’d done. Maybe she was just immature enough for Vaslav to believe it, but had she said it was to benefit the woman’s mental health, she didn’t think he would have cared.

In fact, she knew he wouldn’t.

The woman was dying, anyway.

Slowly.

The cirrhosis would do it eventually as her son had no intention of paying for a liver transplant in another country for a long-term alcoholic that had abused and tortured him for years while piddling away his wealth. It wouldn’t matter, as that probably wouldn’t help or succeed in the end. It was what it was—Vaslav’s exact words to Vera on the day they stepped out of the Roseville facility.

So be it.

His mother’s sordid history didn’t need to be entirely dug up by Vera simply because she had nothing else better to do with her time, apparently.

“Vera, are you having a guest?” Mira asked.

The question had her slamming the album shut and leaving it behind at the table as she heard Mira encouraging Marrow to enter back into the den where she could shut him behind the safety of a door. Despite knowing what the dog had done to Igor’s hand, and anyone else who took his wrath, Mira wasn’t scared of Marrow.

“No,” Vera said, heading for the front door at the sound of wheels crunching over icy gravel. Anyone in the upstairs master suites would have a good view of the vehicle and occupants parked at the front of the house. “But only five of us have keys to the gate, so.”

Vaslav, Vera, Mira, Igor, and ...

“What is Hannah doing here?” Vaslav asked, his voice a booming echo from the upstairs where he had spent the better part of his day. Shades drawn, no fire to keep the rooms chilled, and entirely alone. It made Vera lonelier than ever, but when he wanted her, she always went. As little time as that usually was—she took it, and only helped him.

“Tell her if she’s using cabs again, she walks from the gate, Vera,” Vaslav shouted down the massive stairwell.

“Stop it, she’s not walking from the gate in January, Vaslav,” Vera called back. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

A door slammed in response.

Frankly, he shouldn’t have allowed Vera the choice in her extra gate key.

“Could you put that album away for me to look through later?” Vera asked Mira once the woman was satisfied with Marrow’s confinement and had crossed the foyer.

“Of course. Ask Hannah if she’s staying for dinner, yes?”

“Sure.”

While Vera couldn’t see her friend through the frosty glass of the windows next to the door, she still opened it with a smile, expecting Hannah to be close enough to hug. Almost. The cab was just pulling away while Hannah climbed the bottom steps.

“I’m not walking from there in this cold,” she said, already referring to the gate.

Vera didn’t mind the chill. “I’ll take a walk and lock it later.”

Slung over her shoulder, Hannah carried a weekender bag. In her hand, she held tight to a plain, white plastic grocery bag that Vera couldn’t quite see through to make out the box-shaped impressions bulging out the sides.

“Are you staying the night?” Vera asked.

“I bribed a certain someone to come get me tomorrow, so if you don’t mind, yeah, I’m gonna stay.”

Assuming her friend meant Igor, Vera only shrugged. She didn’t mind at all.