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I sniff, gazing down at our entwined fingers. “Dammit, Tata, why do you have to pull a deathbed promise like this? It’s sly of you, really it is.”
He cracks a wide smile and chuckles. “How else do you think I’d get what I want?”
My eyes dart up to him. “What if I can’t do it?”
He pats my hand. “If anyone can, it’s you. You can do anything you put your mind to. If you can try to kill your biological father, then I’m sure you can manage to forgive your mother.”
“Iwantedthe first one,” I grumble under my breath. “Are you sure you don’t want to fight? We can look into a transplant.”
He waves his hand down his body and chuckles dryly. “Does this body look like it’s going to make it through a transplant?”
I take a long look at him, at his bony, ravaged body, and yet… I can’t let him go. “There’s dialysis.”
“Dialysis or no dialysis, my liver’s going to give out. For the ITP, they want to take my spleen, which will expose me to more infections.” He shakes his head. His voice is firm when he says, “It takes courage to die, Crina, just like it takes courage to live. I don’t want to live at any cost. We come from a different culture, a culture where there’s honor in death. Even in one like mine. I’m finally ready to take up that mantle. Once I knew you’d be taken care of, I gave myself the grace to choose what I want to do. My decision is made.”
“I’m surprised Mama hasn’t come up with a scheme to blackmail you like she did in the past.”
“I’m sure she’s spent time conjuring up a number of schemes, but in the end, she comes from the same place as me. We understand each other, and she respects my decision. She may not like it, but she respects it.”
He takes my hand in both of his and kisses it. “You must focus on the future, not on an old, broken man like me.”
“Hey—”
“Your future includes Marku and your mother. You’ll have to make peace with her eventually.”
“Will I?” I gripe. “I was planning on escaping and spend as little time with her as possible.” I shrug my shoulder, my head cast down. “But I suppose I can’t abandon her now.”
“And you won’t be alone. You have Marku. One day, you’ll have children.” His eyes grow misty. “I can see it right in front of my eyes. That’s a plus to being close to death. You can see the future.”
“Really?”
“No,” he chuckles. “But I don’t need to see the future to know that yours will be beautiful.”
I grasp his hand tightly. “But it won’t be soon, will it? We still have time…”
He smiles tiredly. The strain around his eyes and his slumped shoulders are tells that his energy is flagging. “Yes, there will be more time, I promise.”
CHAPTER 25
CRINA
That was the one promise he didn’t keep.
Tata died that night from a heart attack. The staff used a defibrillator to restart his heart, but it couldn’t bring him back to us. He’d warned us that he was ready to go, and looking back, he must have known it was coming.
In any case, the wrong father is dead. The father who should’ve died is alive and kicking. A shudder runs down my spine at the memory of the cold metal of his gun on my forehead. His harsh voice in my ear, promising me, “I may not have gotten you, may not have touched you, but I’m not done with you yet.”
Goose bumps prickle the hairs of my forearms and I turn over in bed and fling out my arm. It’s draped in a sheer black shirt that I’d worn under my black skirt suit, the one I wore at the funeral. Again, a funeral for the wrong man. I would’ve danced on Alexei’s grave at his burial.
One day, I swear, I will.
Tears leak from my red-rimmed eyes. Another wave of sorrow engulfs me and I let out a long, drawn-out wail.He’s gone, gone, gone…I want to rage, but rage at what? At Tata? No, I couldn’t dishonor him and his wishes like that. But I’m so angry. It’s not right, it’s not fair, and yet, it’s my new normal.
I weep until I have nothing left but sniffles and snot running from my nose, which I carelessly wipe with my sleeve. I should be grateful for my last conversation with him, even if he threw in that underhanded last dying wish thing. I bark out an exhausted laugh. Only Tata would do that, worry about me and Mama till his last breath.
Damn, I miss him. And I think,how am I going to do life without him? Hell, how am I going to make it through the day without him?
The whole community came out for the funeral and burial. There was a long retinue of slow-moving cars with blinkers, weaving through the streets and up Queens Boulevard toward the same church where I was baptized and married. After the burial, I stood for over an hour receiving condolences at the reception.
