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They don’t go far. Just far enough that Eli turns, confused to find me instead. His eyes cautiously meet mine, but he doesn’t say a word. He merely continues to play, chasing specters in between the rose bushes. Cackling, he decapitates a bloom at random, scattering the petals at his feet like so many droplets of blood.
There is something so beautiful in his innocence.
So painful.
Tendrils of hope and fear encircle my heart, piercing and encasing it. Like vines studded in thorns.
My mother said that hell was like a rose—but that was the nicest way of phrasing it.
War, violence, and death can cause untold pain, but one emotion above all delivers the truest form of agony.
It slices you into pieces, but you can’t help but relish every gaping, bleeding wound.
I once told Mischa I’d never felt love.
But that was a lie.
I’ve never stopped feeling it.
And now?
All I can do is watch its original source, oblivious to the passage of time.
* * *
Sergei must be brooding in his defeat, because dinner is a quiet affair held in a plain dining room and Vanya is the one who comes to the gardens to summon us.
Eli skips to Anna, who bundles him in her arms, while Mischa lurks at the outskirts of our ensemble, watching me.
He doesn’t stay long. After downing a glass of wine and a few bites of food, he stands and declares, “I’m going to train.” On his way through the doorway, he points to Mouse and then Eli. “You two. Come and learn.”
Both children scramble toward him in a stampede.
Anna starts to stand as well. “I don’t think that’s a good—”
“Eat,” Mischa says. He grabs Eli and throws the boy onto his back while Mouse slinks past him, darting into the hall. “We won’t be long.”
Vanya stands as well. “I’ll make sure no one loses an eye,” he mumbles on his way out.
Finally, Anna sighs and meets my gaze. “I don’t want you to think that I’m some evil, selfish woman—”
“I don’t.”
She inhales sharply and stares down at her hands. “He… He’s all I have. I’ve spent four years devoting every waking moment to him. And now…” Her eyes meet mine accusingly. “You’re a stranger. How can I just abandon him? I’m the only mother he’s ever known.”
I say nothing.
“I knew you weren’t dead,” she says after a moment. “Even though Robert insisted. I knew. I just thought you were some rich, careless woman who didn’t want him. Maybe thinking as much made it easier to hate you. I couldn’t feel sympathy for that woman. Itdidmake it easier. I could give him everything if his mother never wanted him in the first place.”
“I don’t expect you to stop loving him,” I rasp, my throat tight. “I don’t—”
“You just want to know him,” she says. “Deep down, I know that. But I can’t help feeling like…” She chokes a sob back and tears at her hair. “Like I’ve woken from a nightmare, but everything I’ve ever had now belongs to someone else. Honestly, I’m not sure if I prefer the nightmare.”
She’s referring to more than just Eli. Vanya? And Mischa.
“I don’t think I can ever stop seeing him as my son.”
“You don’t have to,” I say in a rush. “But I want… I want to learn to see him in that way too.”
