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“I’ll go and get him for you,” she says, reaching out and squeezing my hand.
When Nikolai comes up to my room, I see that same regret written on his face. “Oh god, Marika,” he murmurs, walking in and sitting at the edge of my bed. “If I could do it over—”
“I know,” I say quietly. “But you can’t, and neither can I, or Theo—and Adrik definitely can’t.” I take a deep breath, thinking of him—his dead body on the floor, staring at me. “What did you do with him?”
“I think you’d rather not know,” Nikolai tells me. “But I’ll give you the details, if you want.”
I shake my head, swallowing hard. “You really screwed up,” I say softly. “I did, too—not telling you the truth about Adrik. Maybe you and Theo could have worked something else out, if I had. Maybe he really would have married me anyway. Maybe all of this would have been different, if I’d just told the truth.”
“Maybe.” Nikolai looks pensive. “Or maybe it would have been just as bad, in a different way. If I hadn’t given so much credence to what our father said, if I’d been more skeptical, looked into it more—” he takes a deep breath. “I came so close to making the same mistakes our father did,dorogaya sestra.” He reaches for my hand, wrapping his broader one around it. “I nearly became him. If not for you shouting sense into me—”
He shakes his head slowly, and I can see he’s having a hard time meeting my eyes. “Our father’s shoes have been harder than I thought to step into,” he says quietly. “But that’s no excuse. My first time making the kind of moves apakhanshould, and I nearly caused catastrophe for our family—foryou. You can’t take that burden on yourself over a choice that you should have had the right to make. It’s made me think of things differently,” he adds. “It will be different, if I have a daughter. And if I have a son, I will teach him to think of those things differently. Our world needs to change, in whatever ways I can manage. It will be slow—but it can’t stay the way our fathers made it forever.”
“No, it can’t.” I tighten my hand around his. “I forgive you, Nikolai. It will take time before things can be exactly the way they were before—but they will go back to that. I’m not angry with you. I’m—sad. That’s all, really. Sad that it all turned out this way, especially—”
I break off, and Nikolai looks at me curiously. “Especially what,dorogaya?” he asks, and I give him a small, sorrowful smile.
“Theo and I were happy, for a little while,” I whisper. “He wasn’t lying about that. He made me happy for a brief time. And I think I did the same for him. If things had been different—”
Nikolai gets that quiet, pensive look on his face again. “I don’t think I have the right to tell you what I’m thinking,sestra,” he says in a muted voice. “But if you are thinking of—”
“Lilliana talked to me.” I swallow hard. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. But—I have things to think about. And if divorce papers come—”
Nikolai raises an eyebrow, and I feel a plan starting to take shape in my mind, slowly.
“If they come,” I say, with more firmness than before, “put them somewhere safe. But I won’t be signing them. Not yet.”
And maybe,I thought as I glanced back at the tea set, thinking of the manor in Ireland,maybe not at all.
Theo
Once I knew Marika was safe, once Nikolai told me that the doctor had proclaimed her exhausted but otherwise mostly well, I fled back to Dublin.
It was a form of penance, more than anything else, I think. A way of flagellating myself, going back to the manor where Marika and I had shared some of our happiest moments. As soon as I stepped onto the private jet, I was flooded with memories of her—of what I’d done to the interior of it for our honeymoon, of the taste of champagne on my lips and hers, of her astride me in the seat as I slipped into her warmth and took her for my own, heedless of who else might see.
And I remember that whodidsee was what started the beginning of the end.
The moment I get out of the car in front of the manor, I’m assaulted by the memories. Marika standing here with me, seeing the home I’d built as a testament to my family’s struggle and success, the soft wonder on her face as she’d taken it all in. The way that, in that moment, I’d immediately been able to see the future I wanted with her—here, and not in Chicago.
The manor is full of memories, both sweet and pleasurable. Marika’s lips and hands and body, tangled with mine—just inside the door, in the living room, in the bed that was ours. I force myself to sleep in it, to lie there looking up at the ceiling and recounting every moment—both the good ones, and the ones where I made her hate me. The ones where I lost control of myself and ruined everything. I punish myself the only way I know how, with memories and regret, walking the house like a ghost, remembering the things I told her when I showed her every inch of it, the conversations we had in the kitchen, the way I imagined our children running through it in every season. Holidays, summers, sunshine, and snow, I had pictured it all.
Now, I repay all the torment I gave her back to myself, forcing myself to relive all of it again and again.
I remember once I’m there that I didn’t take the ring back.It’s better that way,I tell myself—I can’t imagine it on any other woman’s finger. I wonder what she’s done with it—thrown it away, I expect, a decades-old family heirloom lost, and I blame myself for that, too. I think of the woman I’ll have to marry sooner rather than later, if I want to keep my seat, an unknown woman that will almost certainly be chosen for me by the Dublin table this time, and I feel a different sort of guilt, because whoever she is, she’ll always be compared to what I’ve lost.
Marika was the closest I’ve ever come to what I’ve longed for, the only taste of love I’ve had. I won’t be able to give it to anyone else, or feel it. I’ll keep myself shuttered closed, distant, if only to not make the same mistakes again.
Whatever marriage I enter into next, it will be the most traditional sort. And that, too, is the punishment I’ve set for myself.
I had the divorce papers sent before I left, with instructions given to my attorney to call me as soon as they were signed. It was perhaps the hardest thing I’d ever had to do—but I made Marika a promise. I kept it to the letter, setting up an account that would transfer to her as soon as the papers were signed, with a considerable sum in it.
There will be no reason for her to speak to me ever again. I will likely never see her again. And every time I remember that, my heart shatters anew.
I told Finn that I didn’t know when I would come back to Chicago. I left things in his hands for now—capable hands, although the rest of the table was less inclined to be pleased with my decision. I told them I was going to Dublin to consult with the table there about a new wife, and they believed me. I’ll have to return home with some prospects, if I don’t want to be deemed a liar—but that’s a problem for later.
For now, I’ve hidden myself away. It’s been days, though I haven’t counted them. They’re too long, without her, and the nights are sleepless.
All my life, I never believed someone could make me feel this way. I never considered the possibility. And I wonder how much of that is why, in the end, I lost it.
