Page 67 of The Breath Before Forever

“I could make that happen,” Vera offered.

The excited anticipation that had her brother leaping forward in his chair made her laugh. And smile, too. Both things that she hadn’t been doing very much of lately.

“Tell me how,” Roman demanded.

Vera nodded to the side, directing Roman’s attention to the row of ten two-gallon pots of Hydrangeas that Claire had brought home from a nearby nursery. A variety of blooms, her mother’s backyard would have a rainbow of colorful flowers from June through September.

“Those,” she said.

“What about them? Ma said she got those for you.”

Claire had.

A tactic to draw Vera out of her room, really. It worked but only because Claire was not the gardening type. She enjoyed gardens that were well-maintained and ready to pick or prune. Less when it came to the grunt work of actually putting things in the ground.

That was work Vera liked.

“I need some holes dug,” she told her brother.

“Today?”

“It’s better to plant them at night.”

Roman sucked air through his teeth. “Are the brownies already cooked?”

“Nope, but I bet I could get Ma started in less than ten minutes.”

He rubbed his hands together, pleased. “And they’ll be done by the time I finish the holes.”

“Exactly.”

“Deal,” Roman muttered. “Where’s Dad’s shovel?”

Vera laughed again as she pushed up from the chair, heading for the sliding glass doors leading into the rear of the house. “I’m sure you’ll find it. Don’t start before I’ve marked the holes, Roman.”

He waved two fingers dismissively over his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m serious.” Vera stopped at the doors, pausing before pulling them open so she could privately tell her brother, “And thanks. For listening, you know?”

Roman glanced back at her from over his shoulder. “No problem. I still think it might help to share that secret with somebody else, though. You’ve got a lot to deal with. It’s okay to just say so.”

Was it?

Was the hurricane that had become her life as a newlywed just a lot to deal with? Did phrasing it exactly like that encompass the overwhelming anxiety that crippled her some days? Vera didn’t think so, and she couldn’t say she knew how to start to fix it, either. Or if she even wanted to.

Well.

Actually, she did.

“I’d really just like to go home,” she told Roman. “I’m happy when I’m there; I can deal with everything—anything—there. Instead, I’m stuck here.”

Without Vas, she opted not to add out loud.

Roman nodded, but his silence at the mention of her returning to Russia said more than he would to her face with literal words. Like her father, her brother believed that her marriage to Vaslav meant they were no longer allowed to make certain calls with Vera. Even if it was something like talking about her husband’s current situation in his motherland.

If Vaslav had nothing to say, then neither did they.

The not knowing didn’t make things better. Not when she woke up every morning feeling like she had already lost something precious and was on the verge of losing someone else. If anything, being kept in the dark was killing her.