Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 86242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
It’s a good chair. Sturdy. Broken in just enough to feel like mine. I’ve moved it from place to place every time we packed up and started over.
I used to sit here with my laptop, doing work while Mariah lingered nearby.
We had a running joke about my chair. She knew damn well it was my space, which is why she’d plant herself in it—cross-legged, staring at me with that mock-defiant glint in her eyes if I worked too late and she missed me.
A challenge. A dare.
This is the chair where I’d nurse my drinks after the latest news from Rafail and where I rocked my newborn son to sleep so Mariah could get some rest when I could cajole her into giving him up for a little while.
I have a lot of memories in this chair.
But tonight, I can barely remember one.
I stare at the empty glass I left last night on the little table between my chair and the couch. It’s almost cliché. Wife dies. Drown grief and sorrow in liquor. Become dead to the world.
I’m a fucking cliché.
But there’s a reason. It does feel better when everything’s numb for a little while. It helps me ignore every single fucking reminder of my wife.
Some nights, I swear I can still hear her putzing around the kitchen, banging pots and pans and singing off-key.
But we’re alone here, Luka and me.
It’s why I hired a damn nanny. I had to do something.
My failures tighten around my chest.
I’m failing as a father.
Failing as a man.
Failing as the backbone of the family.
I failed my wife.
I had just closed my eyes when the doorbell rings. I glance at the time on my phone. The nanny isn’t due for another hour. I like punctual, and a little bit early is okay, but this feels borderline intrusive. Unwelcome.
I push myself to my feet and try to school the inevitable scowl on my face. I can’t have the new hire running this early. If my reputation precedes me, I’ll have to at least pretend to be friendly.
But the second I crack open the door, I realize I’ve made a mistake. It’s not the new nanny. It’s Ruthie.
And she looks pissed.
She doesn’t even wait to be invited inside, just shoves past me, a firestorm in human form.
Goddamn it. Her eyes look like Mariah’s when they’re flashing at me like that—the same wide, almost innocent look flecked with danger.
I want to grab her by her sturdy shoulders and throw her the fuck out.
“Hey. What the hell are you doing here?” I snap. This is my house. “Didn’t you work last night?”
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. I can subsist on very little sleep. And anyway, I couldn’t sleep because of what I heard was going on with Luka.”
I blink in surprise. What the fuck is she talking about? “Something going on with Luka that I need to know about?”
She crosses her arms. “You really don’t know? God, Vadka, my sister would’ve lost her mind.”
When Mariah was here, I rarely saw it—hardly ever thought that Ruthie and Mariah looked alike. Mariah was taller and thinner, put together, and organized. Ruthie is smaller but curvier, chaotic, and impulsive. But now that she’s standing in front of me spouting off about god-knows-what, I can see it—the same flash in her eyes, the same little upturned nose, the same defiant chin. She even has a little cowlick where Mariah did, right above her right eye.
I look away. I can’t fucking think like this.
“What did you hear?” I snap, my voice sharp but low and even. That’s how you keep control. Stay calm. Stay cold. Stay detached.
“You have no idea? How can you not know?” She takes a step toward me. My eyes zone in on her lips, full and glossy and nothing like Mariah’s. Thank fuck. I look away again.
There’s something in her tone—tight, brittle—that makes me straighten. My first instinct is to snap back, but I don’t.
She exhales sharply, pacing a few feet into the living room before turning on me again. “That some stupid fuck tried to follow Luka’s nanny home from the park last night. She panicked and quit.”
I stare at her.
“What? What the fuck? She quit and didn’t tell me?”
“No one told me,” she repeats, her throat catching.
“Tell you what?” I shake my head. “Obviously, you knew since you just—”
“That you hired a nanny, a stranger, to watch my sister’s kid! Zoya knew about the nanny. Apparently, she ran to the Kopolovs. Rafail didn’t tell you?”
I run a hand through my hair and shake my head.
Ruthie plants her hands on her hips. “Where’s your phone, Vadka?”
I check my pockets. Not there. Run a hand through my hair again and look around the living room. Jesus, it looks like shit in here. I walk over to the couch and move a basket of laundry, tripping over a pair of Luka’s shoes.