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“Did the door have a name?”
My eyes dart to his, probably giving myself away. “Yes,” I whisper, because I know instinctively that he’ll see through the lie. “It was just an accident.”
“He—”
“He’s dead,” I cut in abruptly. The emotion I’ve been looking for all afternoon rises up in my throat out of nowhere, hot and thick, choking me. I swallow it down by force. “He’s dead and it was an accident. Let’s leave it there, okay?”
“Okay.”
I take a deep breath. “Were you and Adrian close?”
“To an extent,” he answers vaguely. “We grew apart as we got older.”
“Oh. That’s a shame.” I look around the lawn, then back at Kolya. His eyes have stayed locked on me from the moment we met. It ought to be unsettling, but for some reason, it’s the exact opposite. “Can you tell me something about him?” I ask hopefully. “A story from his childhood, a little anecdote. Anything.”
Kolya contemplates that for a moment, idly stroking his chin. “He liked to climb. Trees, buildings, rock faces. I used to tell him that one day, he’d go too high and he’d fall. He had a scar on his left knee—”
“Oh my God, yes!” I gasp, grabbing his arm without thinking about it. The material of his suit is soft as butter. I let go almost immediately. “He told me he slipped while playing around.”
“He slipped alright,” Kolya chuckles. “From the third floor of The Meriden Motel. Busted right through a lattice and tore his knee to ribbons. He couldn’t run for a while. That’s when he took up the piano.”
My heart twinges. I didn’t realize how much I needed this—to know that Adrian was a boy once. A reckless boy, by the sound of it, but a boy nonetheless. Not a drunk or an abuser or a failure. Just a boy.
“I can’t believe he never told me about that,” I murmur. “There are so many things about him I never got to ask.”
Kolya makes a strange sound deep in his chest. Not quite a grunt of disapproval, but something sort of like that. Then he stands and straightens his cuffs. I catch sight of a black tattoo on the back of one wrist before it disappears.
“You’re leaving.” I’m oddly disappointed.
“I have a meeting to attend. I’m already late.” He sighs and looks down at me from his full height. The sun is at his back and filtered through the willow branches, so his face is dappled in shadow. But those blue eyes shine out like beacons from the depths of it. “Goodbye, June.”
The way he says it feels so final. I suppose, in the context of today, it’s appropriate. “Goodbye, Kolya. Thanks for saving me.”
He still doesn’t smile—at this point, I’m doubting he’s even capable of it—but his features do soften a little. Then he inclines his head ever-so-slightly in a quasi-bow, turns, and walks away.
He leaves me there with a hand resting on my belly and the smell of vanilla in my nose.
It strikes me suddenly that I’m sitting here by myself, but I’m not alone. The whole point of motherhood is that I’ll never be alone again, right? I try to find some sort of bittersweet comfort in that, but when I can’t, I close my eyes instead.
I dream about being on the stage of a dark auditorium. There’s a single light aimed at the stage. Light music plays in the background, violins and the tinkling of a sorrowful piano.
And I’m dancing.
5
JUNE
THREE MONTHS LATER
“Any pain?”
“Does the one in my heart count?”
The doctor looks at me like I just told him I’m going to give birth to a three-headed dragon. My comedic timing has never been great. Of course, Adrian used to say that it had nothing to do with my timing; it was the jokes themselves.
Jokes have to be funny, Junepenny.
“Sorry. That was a joke,” I mumble. “A bad one.”
