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4
CATERINA
On the way back towards the stairs, I almost run directly into Max. He stops short, his handsome face flushing a little. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Andreyva,” he says. “I was just going to check on Anika. I know that your husband is not of the same faith as you are, but I think a little prayer could help anyone, especially that poor child.” He glances past me in the direction that Sasha left. “Was that Sasha?”
I blink at him. “Yes? She was helping me with Yelena. Did you need her for something?”
He flushes deeper at that, and my eyes widen slightly. “No,” he says quickly. “I just–I had spoken with her the other day, told her that if she was ever in need of someone to talk to about her–trials–that I would be there to listen. If she needed spiritual guidance, or–”
I press my lips together, trying hard not to laugh. From the brief time I’d spent with Max, I’d gotten the impression that he was earnest in his beliefs, even if he, for whatever reason, was no longer a priest. My suspicions, from what Viktor had briefly told me about him, were that he still stuck to the rules ofbeinga priest, even if he’d been defrocked. Which means that if he was, for instance, nursing a crush on Sasha, it would be very distressing for him.
That’s all we need,I think wryly.A former priest fighting his vows over one of Viktor’s girls.Looking at his reddened face, I think it’s fairly clear that he wouldn’t go through with it. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him to give Sasha a wide berth, but then I stop myself.Could it really hurt if a handsome former priest had a crush on her? It might make her feel good, and it’s harmless. He’s not going toacton it.
Besides, I have two children already. I can’t worry too much about Sasha, who is a grown woman, if very young.
“I’m going upstairs to check on my husband,” I tell him. “But if there’s any change with Anika, please come get us. We’ll be down to look in on her before too much longer.”
He clears his throat, obviously grateful for the change in subject. “Of course, Mrs. Andreyva.”
When I make it back upstairs to our room, Viktor is just starting to wake up, sitting up in bed. He looks over at me as I walk in, and the smile on his face almost undoes me. He looks kinder, softer, handsome in a different way than I’m used to. Nothing like the husband that I’ve grown accustomed to.
“Where did you go off to so early?” he asks almost teasingly, and I blink at him. It’s been a long time, if ever, since I’ve heard him talk to me that way, and it’s startling. It’s also not entirely unpleasant, and that makes me flinch back because I know thatmoreaffection between us is only going to make it that much harder to keep my walls up. And they have to stay up if there’s never going to be any changes, if I’m going to stay for Yelena and Anika.They’re what really matters,I remind myself. Nothing else–not Viktor, or my own happiness, or any future that I could have foreseen matters as much as making sure that those girls don’t lose someone else that they love. And I hope, with everything in me, that Yelena isn’t about to lose a sister.
“I went downstairs,” I tell him, walking towards the dresser to get a fresh change of clothes. My top is a mess after Yelena cried on me for so long. “Yelena was having a panic attack and asked for me. She’s worried about Anika.”
“We all are.” Viktor runs a hand through his hair. “We should go check on her.”
“Max is with her right now. Let me change, and we’ll go.”
Viktor frowns. “That’s kind of him. Max has never been all that fond of children.”
“Well, maybe he makes an exception for Anika.” I shrug. “A child on the verge of dying is probably a different story.” My chest tightens just saying it out loud, and I grab the dress I’d planned to change into, walking towards the bathroom. I suddenly feel as if I can’t wait another minute to go and check on my other stepdaughter, my worries for her overtaking everything else.
Everything except what Sasha had said to me, which is still in the back of my head, echoing.Maybe you can be an influence on him.
If that’s true, then I could change things. But I don’t believe that, not really.
The door opens, and Viktor joins me, his own clothes in hand. “You could have knocked,” I say crossly, and he looks at me, amused.
“I’ve been inside of every part of your body, wife,” he says wryly. “I’ve done things to you that I know no other man has. And you think I’m concerned that I might walk in on you–what? Peeing?”
I flush. “I just might have liked a little privacy, that’s all.”
“Perhaps I was hoping I’d catch you half-dressed, so I could kiss you again while feeling your body under my hands.” He reaches for me, his hands cupping my breasts through my thin top.
“Viktor, that shirt is a mess–”
“I don’t care. I’ve never cared. Children are messy. Vera worried about the same things, but something so trivial won’t stop me from wanting my wife–”
The mention of Vera stops me short. “Viktor–” I step away, pulling off my top and turning my back to him so that the sight of my breasts in only my bra won’t encourage him more–although I’m well aware by now that what my husband wants, he gets. Turning my back won’t stop him if he’s insistent on taking me again.
“We need to talk more about what you told me in the garden,” I tell him insistently, stepping out of my leggings and reaching for the dress. “About Vera and what happened to her. About–”About the baby that she would have had,I want to say, but it’s too hard to say the words out loud. I’m still astonished by that part of the story, that Vera killed herself knowing she was pregnant. She must have been so horrified by her husband that she couldn’t bear the thought of bringing another child into his world.
Haven’t I felt the same way?I think back to our wedding night, standing on the balcony and considering the drop down from the penthouse suite to the sidewalk below, calculating the urge to continue living versus the life I’d have to live. Vera may have simply felt that there was no way she could go on, baby or not.
“What else is there to talk about?” Viktor asks, and I can hear the edge returning to his voice. “I had another wife. She gave me two daughters that she didn’t want, and then when there was another possibility of a son, she killed herself. What else is there to the story?”
“You didn’t think that she was at that point?”
