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I shake my head even though Dad can’t see me. “I’m safe.” It sounds like a lie. Honestly, though, it’s true.
“Thank God in heaven. Oh God, you shouldn’t be there. I wish you didn’t make such an offer, Ava.”
“Dad, don’t. Please don’t say that. Please, let’s just talk. We have five minutes. Tell me what’s happening.” I try to hold the tears in.
“I’m at the clinic. I’ve just been under a lot of medication for the last few days while I detoxed and did a few other things,” he explains.
“How are you feeling now?”
“Like hell. It’s worse than last time, I guess because I’ve been taking stronger… things. I want this time to be different, Ava…” His voice trails off, and I hear him sniffle like he’s crying. “Ava, I fell off the rails when I lost Sasha. I blame myself that I didn’t see he needed my help, my attention. We came to this country, and I thought we’d be free of the monsters. The darkness. But we weren’t.”
I cover my mouth to keep from crying out as guilt sweeps through me. We came to this country because of me. Only because of me. No other reason.
He only got in trouble because of me, lost everything and had to start anew.
“It’s my fault.”
“Don’t you dare… don’t. I didn’t go through all that hell for you to blame yourself. I failed you and her, your mother. And I have to be realistic. Your father would kill me just for the danger I’ve put you in now.”
My breath hitches, and I shake another memory away that I don’t want to remember.
“You are my father, and you’ve done everything for me,” I remind him. The same blood might not flow through our veins, but that doesn’t matter.
“No, Ava, what happened should never have. I lost my way, and I can’t even remember half of the stuff I did. You shouldn’t be paying the price for my sins. Sins I can’t fix. Not you.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I do, dorgoy” he replies, and I get that ominous feeling I’ve had looming over me again.
We don’t talk about the past, and we never speak in Russian.
“Ava, I’m going to do better. For you and her. She would want me to, so I will. I pray your father isn’t turning in his grave at what I’ve done. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Tears stream down my cheeks as memories fill my mind of the past and those who died. I see their faces, and I can’t shake them out of my mind.
My mother and my father—my real father. Dead. I know it wasn’t my fault they were killed, but I still blame myself.
I always wonder what would have happened if things turned out differently. That last performance was the last time we were together and happy. They wouldn’t have been where they were it not for me, and what happened to me next wouldn’t have happened.
I’m crying so much that when the door opens and Vincent comes in, I barely register it.
My hands are shaking, and I hate that I’m still crying.
He takes the phone from me and ends the call.
I turn away and face the window so I can have the privacy to cry. He stays. I wish he would go. Just leave me. It’s been years since I broke down like this, and I can’t have anyone around me right now when tears of pain flow down my cheeks.
Pain from death, horrible deaths, all of them, especially my mother. Both my parents were killed right in front of me.
I’m stunned, shocked even, when I feel warm hands on my shoulders. I’m crying so much, though, I can’t move.
Vincent smooths his hand down my back and slips it around the midsection of my waist, pulling me to him. I rest against his chest and look up just to check if this is real. It’s that moment when I feel the answer I searched for that night.
It comes as a feeling as he holds me and I allow him to.
Something bad happened to him. Something bad happened to me too.
