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I glare at the quivering man in my office. He looks like he might piss himself. Even after all these years, I’m proud to say I’ve still got it. “Give me the keys,” I grumble. “Someone else’s kneecaps need breaking.”
* * *
When I get home, I find my wife with her ear pressed against our daughter’s bedroom door. “Honey, please talk to me. I just want to know what happened.”
“Leave me alone, Mom!”
Ah, teenagers.
I approach and place a hand on the small of Nikita’s back. “What’s going on?”
She kisses me in greeting, a quick peck on the cheek. “I thought you said you had a meeting.”
“I wrapped it up early.”
Nikita gives me a dry smile. “Let me guess, you threatened to break someone’s kneecaps?”
I shrug. “If it works, it works. Now, tell me what happened.”
My wife runs her fingers through her hair, exasperated. “I honestly don’t know. She was so excited about going on this date, but then she showed up not even thirty minutes after she texted me that she’d arrived at the movie theater.”
“Do you think they broke up?”
“Sounds like it, but—”
On the other side of the door comes the sounds of sobbing, muffled by what I can only assume is a pillow. It hurts my heart to hear Anya cry. I have to get to the bottom of this. If that little shit hurt her…
Therewillbe hell to pay.
I knock on her door. “Anya, it’s Dad.”
“Go away!”
Nikita places her hand on my forearm and shakes her head. “You know what? Let’s give her some space.”
“But—”
“We need to respect her boundaries. If she isn’t ready to talk, forcing her won’t solve anything.” My wife takes my hand and gives my fingers a squeeze. “Let’s go have dinner. When she’s ready, or if she’s feeling hungry, I’m sure she’ll come down.”
I grind my teeth. I don’t particularly like the thought of leaving my little girl alone and distressed, but Nikita makes a good point. Sometimes a good cry can be a cathartic experience. “Okay, duckling, your mom and I are right downstairs if you want to tell us what happened, okay?”
We don’t get a response, only more sobbing.
Nikita and I descend the stairs together, hand in hand. The first part of dinner is a quiet affair. I help set the table while Nikita throws various ingredients into a big pot. We’re having goulash tonight, a recipe she’s developed over the years and mastered to perfection. She pours us each a large bowl, hot and steaming, and even sets out a third in front of the empty chair across from us.
“Do you think she’ll come down?” I murmur.
“She will,” Nikita says. I have learned to never doubt a mother’s intuition.
It only takes a few minutes for the delicious scent of the fragrant, spicy sauce to reach upstairs, and a few minutes more to lure Anya out of her room. She descends the stairs slowly, each footstep a heavy stomp. My daughter does, eventually, join us at the table.
Her eyes are red-rimmed and her nose is all stuffy. She picks up her spoon and takes a slow, angry bite.
“He was cheating on me,” she mutters bitterly.
My fingers twitch. I ought to beat him into next Sunday. I’d probably do it, too, if it weren’t for the fact that Nikita now has a hand on my knee beneath the table. A soothing gesture that silently tells me tocalm down. My wife knows me too well.
“How did you find out?” Nikita asks.
