Page 175 of Cruel Demands

EPILOGUE

TAYLOR

Two years later, my daughter speaks better Russian than I do.

This is humiliating for several reasons. The first is that she is two. The second is that she appears to know it.

“Nyet,” Nadia says firmly.

She stands in the middle of the breakfast room wearing one sock, Mikhail’s watch around her wrist, and nothing else below the waist because she has recently decided pants are a form of political oppression.

“Yes,” I tell her.

“Nyet.”

“You need pants.”

She turns toward Mikhail. “Papa.”

It is not a request. It is an appeal to a higher court.

Mikhail lowers his newspaper. He’s already dressed for work in a dark suit, though his tie is still draped over the back of his chair. His reading glasses sit low on his nose.

That still does things to me.

Marriage has apparently not cured stupidity.

“Nadia,” he says in Russian, “listen to your mother.”

Our daughter studies him. Then she walks over and holds up both arms. Mikhail folds immediately. He lifts her into his lap.

“You are undermining me,” I say.

“I told her to listen.”

“You did it while rewarding her.”

“She required comfort.”

“She requires pants.”

Nadia lays her head against his chest and looks at me with open triumph.

Mikhail strokes her hair. “She has had a difficult morning.”

“She stole your watch and peed behind a chair.”

“She was expressing herself.”

I stare at him.

There was a time when Mikhail Korolev terrified ministers, criminals, government officers, and most of Moscow. Now a half-dressed toddler manipulates him before breakfast.

Nikita enters carrying the missing pants. “She left these in the library.”

“Why was she in the library without pants?”

Nikita shrugs. “She is her father’s daughter.”