I stared out the window for a beat, waiting as the silence hung heavy.
Then I said, dry as ash, “And you ever thought about opening a graveyard, Yuri?”
He might have as well choked on his own saliva. “What?”
“Because if you don’t get me fucking green results by Friday, I’ll send you your first customer. Or who knows? You might do the groundbreaking honors by testing a casket first.”
There was a pregnant pause over the line before he nervously chuckled.
I drained the last of my drink and set the glass down. My fingers drummed against the windowsill. Down in the driveway, my wife’s car was just pulling in. Even from here, I could tell she was irritated, with the way she shut her door, and with that perfect little slam that said she was fed up with the day.
“Look,” Yuri mumbled, “I’ll call Mikhail, see if we can get those girls back. And I’ll check on the liquor distributor issue.”
“You’ll do more than fucking check,” I said. “You’ll fix it. Or I swear to God, I’ll have your mother working the bar by Sunday night. She can pour vodka with one hand and slap sense into you with the other.”
Another heavy silence. Then, “Understood.”
I hung up before he could say anything else. Zoella was already walking up the steps. And I, apparently, was not in the mood to pick more fights tonight.
These past few weeks, since Mira’s birth, there had been a quiet kind of tension hanging over everyone’s head, like a tight rope waiting to snap.
It lived in the silence, in the soft sighs, in the way my hand would hover a second too long near hers when I passed her the bottle. I could feel it every time she walked into a room. Like gravity shifted. Like I couldn’t breathe until she was out again.
Zoella wore more frowns than smiles. Appointment after appointment, she looked wearier than the last.
She moved through the days like a ghost of herself, silent on most days, with her eyes always somewhere far away.
Her hair stayed in a tangled knot, and she’d discarded her dresses in the closets, choosing oversized shirts instead to hang off her frame.
What pissed me off more was how she barely looked at me or anything else that wasn’t Mira. She held our daughter even more fiercely than a mother hen protecting her chicks.
She fed her, rocked her, whispered to her when she thought I wasn’t listening. She didn’t sleep unless Mira did. Didn’t eat unless I placed the food in her hands.
And still….
The stubborn woman didn’t ask for help.
But I gave it anyway. I took the night shifts. I cleaned. I held Mira when she let me. I rubbed her back when she cried into the baby monitor static. I tried, more than I ever thought myself capable of.
Tonight was the worst.
I found her in the nursery, the lights off, sitting in the rocker with Mira pressed to her chest. She was crying silently, like when you’re trying not to wake anyone.
“Zoella,” I said softly, stepping inside, and she flinched like I’d slapped her.
“I’m fine,” she rasped, and that lie scraped against my skin like a fork dragged across steel.
“No, you’re not.” I crouched in front of her. “You haven’t been fine since she was—”
“Don’t.” Her voice broke. She looked at me then, with her eyes wild and swollen. “I’m trying, Matvey. I’m doing everything I can, and I still feel like I’m failing her.”
She clutched Mira tighter, and our baby stirred, fussing softly.
“You’re not failing,” I said, hands reaching to touch hers. “You’re doing the best you can. We both are, and that’s enough.You’reenough.”
Her lips trembled, but she didn’t look convinced.
“I don’t know how to be a mother,” she whispered. “I’m scared all the time.”
