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DOMINIK
I’m beginning to really worry about Mika’s health at this point. I can tell that she’s suffering quite a bit, and her eyes have started to appear sallow and dim. She hasn’t been friendly with me enough to let me see more of her, but I’d bet that she’s starting to lose some serious weight.
Once I found the pregnancy test buried at the bottom of her bathroom trash can, I knew for a fact that it was time for us to stop fucking around and get serious about this. If she’s carrying my baby, she needs to get her shit together and stop starving herself.
The only issue is that her hunger strike is directly in relation to me and my position in her life. Now that I understand the greater subtext of the letter she wrote before she ran away, I can empathize with her fears far more easily.
Unfortunately for her, I’d never abandon the mother of my baby, so any chance she thought she had of driving me away has been destroyed. She can kick and scream, starve herself, set her curtains on fire, and I’ll still be here to take care of her.
Mika had said that she wanted to see her mother, but I feel compelled to meet with her myself before I give Mika the chance to sit with her and formulate a plan of some kind. I’ve only heard stories and second-hand encounters of her mother, and I’m still not certain of what degree of insane she is.
I’ve met enough mentally ill people to know that there’s a spectrum, and your ability to function in society depends heavily on where you land on that spectrum. Is Vivka the kind of crazy that attempts suicide with prescription pills? Is she the type that believes that the FBI is out to get her? Has she ever smeared her shit on the walls?
All of these questions are essential for me to find the answers to if I’m going to allow a hormonal, pregnant Mika to meet with her. It feels cruel for me to be keeping her from her mother at all, but I was put into this position to protect her, and that’s what I need to do, even if it hurts her.
I call the facility where Vivka has been staying for the better part of seven years, and they run me through a battery of questions before they’ll even tell me the visiting hours. After being extremely patient with the chatty geriatric receptionist, I’ve got a time scheduled to meet with Vivka.
Because of her insistence on refusing food, Mika’s growing much weaker by the day and requires more sleep than average. I use this to my advantage, suggesting that she sleep at the time I’m slotted to leave to see her mother.
She doesn’t protest, which shocks me, given her otherwise catty and sarcastic attitude. All she does is wander back up the stairs to her bed, closing the door without slamming it. I doubt she even has the strength for that.
I arrive at the facility, feeling more out of place than I did at the bougie café uptown with Mika. The nurses, cleaning staff, and receptionists all look so normal. I can picture every last one of them just coming to work, doing their job, and returning home to catch up on their favorite show with their families. I gave up that kind of simplicity long ago, and sometimes I feel like I made the wrong choice.
After signing in, I’m escorted to through a long hallway with a set of double-doors at the end. She scans her badge, and I’m met with what I can only describe as jail for rich people.
Clearly, Vivka is still being well kept after, but I could never survive in a place like this. The atmosphere is heavy with despair and defeat, and I can hear one of the patients screaming for his life in one of the rooms as we pass.
Is this really better than being married to Remi?
“Vivka, your visitor is here. Should we take him out to the courtyard?” asks the nurse as she knocks lightly on a door reading153.
At first there’s no answer, and my stomach sinks. What if she’s catatonic or something and can’t meet with me? How would I be able to look Mika in the eye and tell her that?
I run through a series of explanations and apologies in my head right as the door cracks open. Out walks a tall, lithe woman with raven-black hair and striking blue eyes, just like Mika’s. She’s wearing a blue kimono with pink flowers all over it, and her energy is lively and rich. The resemblance to Mika is uncanny, and seeing someone who looks so much like her makes me crave her before I’m able to compose myself.
“Oh, right, you didn’t give me a lot of details about him. I don’t believe we’ve met, have we?” she asks, standing in the doorway and leaning casually against the frame.
“No, I don’t believe we have. My name is Dominik Pasternak. I work for your husband as your daughter’s protector,” I reply, standing up straighter.
She raises an eyebrow, also standing up straight as she detects the nature of my visit. “Alright, I have a feeling we’ll need to sit down for this. We’ll go out to the courtyard. I need a cigarette anyway.”
The nurse brings us outside, and fortunately, most of the other patients and staff are far away on the outskirts of the grass. The nurse lights a cigarette for Vivka, who nods and waves her off.
Once the nurse is gone, she turns her head to look at me with those piercing blue eyes of hers. I fear that if I looked into them for too long, she’d be able to steal my soul to keep her young forever. Based on how youthful she looks despite her age, history of addiction, and marriage to Remi, I could believe it.
“So you work for Remi, but you are choosing to speak with me about Mika instead of him. I’ve never encountered someone who was willing to betray Remi like that,” she says in a worryingly neutral voice, taking a long drag of her cigarette and blowing it into the air with effortless elegance.
“Well, I don’t want to admit to a full betrayal, no. But what I need to do is speak to someone who really wants what’s best for her. Remi being her father isn’t enough. I don’t trust him,” I say, leaning in to keep my voice as low as possible.
“Okay, you’ve got my attention. What’s the issue?” she asks.
I steel myself to say it out loud, to put it into the air once again.
“Mika is pregnant, and she’s being forced to marry the Albanian boss’s son, Izet. He isn’t the father of the child, and Mika doesn’t know how to survive in a marriage with someone she doesn’t know or love. I need to do something, but I fear that trying to get her out will only do more harm if it doesn’t work.”
Her mouth drops open, and she stares to the side of me for a moment as she processes what I’ve just said to her. I can’t imagine the range of emotions she’s feeling, and I know as well as she does that this would be a very different situation if Mika wasn’t under the Bratva’s power. Maybe Vivka would be overjoyed. I might never know.
“Pregnant. Wow, she turned eighteen and it was really off to the races with that girl,” she laughs, an overtone of sorrow between the layers of joy and affection.
