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“Is that what this whole visit is about?” she scoffed. “I think it’s safe to assume that ship has sailed.”
“What, did you just sleep with the first asshole who came along after I left?” I asked, pissed. “Get knocked up to keep yourself company?”
Sadie was in my face immediately, standing up on her tiptoes and brandishing her pointer finger like a shiv. “You don’t talk to me like that,” she said, quiet but ferocious, poking me in the chest. “Not here at my home. Not anywhere. And not anytime. You’re nothing like the Misha I knew. In fact, I’m going to just pretend that you’re a perfect stranger so you don’t ruin my memories of him.”
I didn’t know what to say to that except to apologize, and I wasn’t ready for that yet. Instead, I turned with her to watch the children at play, oblivious to the drama unfolding just a short distance away.
The triplets looked like her. Especially the girl. It hurt to do so, but I started making a mental list of the features they didn’t share. The looks and mannerisms that came from their father.
The blue eyes were one. Sadie had hazel, of course, and Jonathan had brown. There was no way those eyes came from her side of the family. And I doubted the brown hair sticking out like straw from beneath the boys’ hats came from the Wares, who were all blond.
I wanted to know who the father was. Mainly so I could make him disappear.
But it seemed circumstances had already done that for me. There was no reason for Sadie and her brood to be living with Mamachka still if there was a man in the picture.
Some small part of me that wasn’t angry and hurt and surprised was a little bit hopeful.
If I could find the father, I’d wring him for every penny he had for abandoning these kids, foisting them full-time on Sadie.
Having a plan felt better than stumbling in here blind and being surprised by all of this.
I took a deep breath, and decided to try again.
“So it looks like you’ve been busy these past few years,” I spat out, knowing I had to say something at the risk of things becoming more awkward than they already were.
“You could’ve checked in on me a couple of times between then and now if you’d really been that interested in knowing what I was up to,” Sadie said. “It’s not like I wore a chastity belt. Wow — if I had, I really would’ve been screwed. Especially if you just went and disappeared with the key for four years.”
“Ebat — if I hear the words ‘four years’ one more goddamn time, I am going to lose it,” I growled.
“You promised to call when you landed in Moscow,” she said, refusing to look at me. “I thought you were dead. Or worse. Or that you’d finally escaped Smythe and wanted to wash your hands of us poor people you’d been forced to befriend.”
“Nobody forced me to become friends with you and your brother,” I said, scratching at my beard irritably. “And I’m obviously alive.” Barely. Just by luck, really. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“I’m not sure I want to know, honestly,” she said. “I think there’s too much water under the bridge.”
“What does that mean?”
Sadie looked at me a little wistfully, her eyebrows arched. “You’re still missing some idioms from your lexicon?”
I got out my phone. “There’s so goddamn many of them I feel like I add a new one to the list every week.” I hesitated. “The new list, anyway.”
“Oh? What happened to the old one? There were a lot of gems on there.”
“Plenty,” I agreed, opening my notes file. “But I lost it when I accidentally left my cellphone at the house that night in my rush to get to the airport.”
That made Sadie stop. “You left it there?”
“Made shit pretty disorienting, landing in a country I hadn’t visited for years without a lifeline to the people I knew and loved in the place I called home.” I tapped on my phone screen. “You were about to tell me about too much water under the bridge, right?”
“Too many things that have happened for anything to get resolved,” she said faintly. “Your phone has been out there this whole time?”
“Want to go and look for it?” I jerked my thumb at the Tesla as I slipped my phone back in my pocket. “You can’t drive, though. Your brother scared the hell out of me, and that thing’s brand new.”
“I can’t just pick up and leave every time I want to go somewhere,” she said. “It’s called motherhood.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’m sorry, Sadie. I wanted to call you. It drove me crazy when I realized I couldn’t. And when I finally had a moment to breathe after planning my parents’ funeral, it was time to prepare for board meetings. Shareholder meetings. Potential client meetings. I had to show face to everyone who wanted a piece of the business — and every business we had a piece of.”
“So you were too busy all this time to call me? Even my mother and brother were worried sick.”
