Page 258 of Sweet Ruin

He doesn’t argue. I would rather he did, but he doesn’t.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I ask.

“Yes. I do.”

“Alright. Then I’m done talking now, and I want you to leave, please.”

He looks at me. He doesn’t ask for a phone number he already has, or for later, or spring, or one more holiday.

“Happy Easter, Lilah” is all he says.

I nod formally. “Happy Easter, Kane.”

I stand behind the counter until his car pulls away.

There’s nothing stopping me from calling him back. That is the terrible thing about getting what I asked for. I could prevent it all, if I chose. I can open the door. I can tell him that I am frightened of my own empty house, and I want him to come make it feel less lonely.

He would stay.

I know that.

Just as surely as I know that him staying would not be enough to fix me.

So I square the papers against the counter, take them into the back, and store them in the safe.

Then I go back out front and sit on the stool behind the counter.

For months, I have pictured this morning. Easter Sunday. My bakery safe. I thought I would make something with lemons, open the good prosecco, maybe. Celebrate. Feel free.

Instead, I gaze at the patch of floor where he stood.

For once, nobody has taken the thing I love.

So why does it hurt so bad?

48

DELILAH

I sit on the stool until the light through the front glass turns from gray to a weak kind of white.

Then I get up, go into the back, and open the safe again. The documents are in there, squared off and boxed, and underneath them is Osip Vetrov’s envelope, where I put it the night he handed it to me.

I take the envelope to the front and set it on the café table by the window. The same table. There’s still a faint ring of soot on the laminate where the sheet pan sat.

I open it.

Inside is a piece of paper that contains a typed summary of Vetrov’s deal, exactly as he presented it to me. His phone number is written at the bottom in neat blue ink.

It’d be so easy to take this deal. I could say to hell with all this nonsense, screw you to Kane, and sayonara to everyone I’ve ever known and loved. I could waltz off into the sunset with my pockets full and my conscience clear.

The more I think about it, the more tempted I am. Don’t I deserve a fresh start? Haven’t I been through enough? Again and again, I’ve been knocked down. At a certain point, a girl just gets tired.

And I’m so, so tired. Tired in a way I don’t think a thousand years of sleep will ever touch. I could replace that cot in the back room with the finest bed known to man, and it still wouldn’t make a difference in how heavy my heart is.

I look at those blue numbers. The lifeline I’ve been dying for is right there. One phone call and I’ll have my one-way ticket out of this nightmare.

Can I trust him? I’m not sure. I’ll say this: Osip Vetrov never lied to me. He broke my curb and he told me he did. He fed my sister a folder full of documents and owned up to it before I even accused him of the crime. He wants my building and said so in the first five minutes, which is more honesty than anybody else in my life has managed in one go.