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“Happy birthday!” Caterina cheered as I walked in, Anika and Yelena singing off-key next to her, while Viktor smiled paternally from his end of the table, one of the babies on his knee as Caterina cradled the other. “Sit down, Sasha. You’re not doing any work today.”
I start to open my mouth to protest and insist that my normal day-to-day isn’t really work to me, but Caterina gives me a look that tells me it’s going to be a waste of my breath. Caterina was raised to throw parties, and there are few things she likes better.
“I love Sasha’s birthday,” Anika announces, reaching for the biggest, most frosting-covered cinnamon roll in the pile as Caterina pierces her with another of those glares.
“Let her blow out her candle first,” Caterina chides. “And she should get the first one.”
“It’s fine.” I laugh, sitting next to Anika as I close my eyes and prepare to blow out my birthday candle.
“Make a wish!” she crows next to me, and my heart stutters a little in my chest, remembering last night.
What would I wish for? Max’s face instantly swims into my head, and I tell myself not to be ridiculous. A wish on a candle isn’t going to be the thing to make him want me if he doesn’t already. But the thought lingers as I blow out the candle and open my eyes to the giggling faces of Anika and Yelena, eagerly awaiting their cinnamon rolls as Caterina sits down across from me next to Yelena and starts to dish them out.
“We’re having a party tonight,” Caterina says firmly. “I know you said you didn’t want one, but your birthday should be celebrated. Rachel is going to come and watch the girls so you can enjoy your day, Sasha.”
Rachel is the daughter of one of the other staff members, the Andreyev’s cook, Hannah. She watches the children when I’m not able to—if I have a day off or if Caterina and I are in Boston for Saoirse’s foundation. Her aunt Patrice is the housekeeper, brought on after the former housekeeper, Olga, was killed in Russia. Anika and Yelena were close with Olga, like a grandmother or an older aunt. Caterina and Viktor tried hard to promote staff members that the girls already knew, instead of bringing strangers into the home.
Both girls have proven to be surprisingly resilient after those terrifying events, but that doesn’t change the fact that Caterina and Viktor have both been doing all they can to return some kind of normalcy to their lives. That and the child psychologist they both see twice a week at school have gone a long way toward making sure they don’t have lasting trauma from what happened—not that it can be erased entirely. Yelena recovered better, despite her naturally nervous nature, since she was too young to understand very much of what was happening.
Anika, on the other hand, sustained a gunshot wound that’s still healing—and she understood some of what Alexei had planned for us all, beyond just the fear of being kidnapped and seeing her father and mother hurt. She’s happiest when she’s with Caterina or me, and it’s part of why I’m always so hesitant to leave her or her sister in anyone else’s hands.
But I know I have to take a day off every so often. And I suppose my birthday is as good a reason as any.
After breakfast, Caterina shoos me out of the kitchen and living room. I hear her downstairs greeting Rachel as I go up to my room, a little unsure of what I want to do with my free day. I have a second cup of coffee that I brought up with me, and I end up in the armchair by the window, reading a book that I got the last time I was in the city. It’s a mystery about a family in an old coastal home gathered to read the will of their deceased matriarch, and I lose myself in it for a while.
Just before lunchtime, I set it aside, feeling a pit of anxiety in my stomach about the party tonight. I can guess who will be there—all friends that I know by association with Caterina. It’s not her fault, though—it’s the best she can do when I don’t really have any friends of my own. It’s part of why I didn’t want a birthday party to begin with. It just reminds me that unlike most girls turning twenty, I don’t have a crew of friends to go out on the city with, barhopping with fake IDs or going to the trendiest new restaurant, or out dancing. My life isn’t normal, and it doesn’t feel like it ever was going to be—or ever will be.
You need to get out into the world more. Take more days off. Date, make friends, travel. I’m sure your employers would let you.
I don’t really feel like Caterina and Viktor are my employers. They’re my—
They’re not your family, Sasha. They take care of you, but it’s for a purpose—to make up for what happened to you, and because it helps them, too. You need a life outside of them.
As always, I hear my therapist’s voice rattling around in my head like the angel on my shoulder. It’s frustrating because as much as I want to get more out of the weekly sessions, I feel like I’m being pushed toward something I’m not sure I want.
I can accept that my life isn’t normal—that it’s not even what someone my age would usually find desirable—but I truly don’t know how I would function in a more “normal” context. How would I, someone who grew up in foster home after foster home, without friends then either, who at barely nineteen was kidnapped, trafficked, and raped, who in the last year suffered another traumatic event while trying to recover from the first, relate to any “normal” friend group in my age range? How would I carry on a conversation about boys when I don’t know what it’s like to date outside of an obsessive crush on a man almost a decade older than me, talk about social media or makeup or fashion or college? I’ve never lived on my own, dated, or gone out beyond a few excursions in Boston with Caterina and her friends. The idea of trying to find common ground with other girls my age is as terrifying as the idea of dating.
I make my way downstairs for lunch. Hannah has a charcuterie spread and my favorite chicken salad sandwiches—her secret recipe—waiting. Caterina refuses to give me any details about what the party tonight might entail, except to tell me that she has a dress being sent to the house from her personal shopper that will be ready for me at seven. She shoos me away from the table after lunch, Rachel corralling the girls into the living room, and I’m once again left to my own devices.
It’s warm out, so I end up changing into my bikini and going to lay out by the pool. A small part of me hopes that Max might wander by and see me rubbing suntan lotion into my skin or stretched out on the lounge chair as I read more of my book, but I don’t see even a hint of him. The property is quiet, and it feels like a ridiculous luxury to be out here in the middle of the day while everyone is working, tanning and reading. But it is relaxing, and I grudgingly admit that maybe Caterina was right—maybe I needed this.
I wander back up to the house around six, intent on showering off the suntan lotion, sweat, and chlorine. Sure enough, by the time I get out of the shower, there’s a garment bag and a few small boxes waiting on my bed for me.
I eye the boxes, curious as to what they might be, as I slip into a smooth pair of nude panties, not bothering with a bra until I know what kind of dress Caterina had picked out for me. I have to admit, as I stand in the bathroom, blow-drying my long hair and curling it slightly at the ends, that I feel more relaxed than I have in a while. It feels like some of the tension has worked its way out of my muscles, and I let out a small sigh as I walk into the bedroom to unzip the garment bag. Maybe today wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
There’s a silky, strawberry pink slip dress inside, with thin straps and a slightly dipped neckline. It looks short, but my heart flips a little at the idea of wearing this tonight, and Max seeing me. Will he be there? I pick up the dress, imagining what he might think.
It fits perfectly, as I’d expected, and the color is perfect against my creamy, rose-tinted complexion and strawberry-blonde hair. Thankfully, the tags are removed—I don’t know if I could have stood knowing how much this dress probably cost, even if I’m well aware that it’s nothing to Caterina and Viktor. But when I open one of the boxes and see the shoes inside, my jaw drops a little.
They can afford it, Sasha. You deserve to be treated well after what happened to you. To be spoiled a little.
My therapist’s voice echoes in my head as I stare down at the gold raffia Valentino sandals with the signature studs. I’d seen these in a shop in Boston and noticed them—and the ridiculous price tag. I can’t believe Caterina remembered that I liked them—or that she’d bought them for me, along with this dress, as a birthday present. There’s a smaller box above the one with the shoes, and I wince, torn between excitement over the gifts and a nagging sense of guilt.
Inside is a small Cartier box, and when I open it, I see a pair of rose gold hoops with thin bars through them all along the loops. The entire outfit is expensive and just edgy enough to suit someone my age without looking too girlish. I can easily imagine Caterina picking out something similar for one of her daughters when they’re older—or for a sister or close friend.
That’s what she thinks of you as, I tell myself, even as the guilt wells up. It’s not because she feels like she has to.
I swallow hard, slipping the hoops into my ears. My ears hadn’t been pierced before I’d been kidnapped, and early last year, before the events in Russia, Caterina had offered to have mine done when Anika had begged her mother to let her get hers pierced. We’d all gone together, and I’d held Anika’s hand while she got hers done, and I’d faked being nervous so she could do the same for me.
